President’s Report for September Newsletter

 

This time last year I wrote to say that this would be my last President’s Report before my arm was twisted to stand again…I suspect that this time it really will be my last report!

 

The 2007 Annual Conference will be held jointly with AMOS (the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society) and the Australasian Wind Engineering Society (AWES) in Geelong on January 29^th to February 1^st.  Please check out the AMOS website for details.  I hope you will be able to join us for this event.

 

The late annual conference requires us to hold our AGM at a separate function in 2007.  Along with the AGM, we have decided to hold a combined MetSoc event in Wellington on November 28^th where will we celebrate the International Polar Year by holding a half-day workshop with this theme, the AGM, followed by the awarding of our third Kidson Medal.  The agenda for the AGM is included in this newsletter.  The Meteorological Society is always looking for new faces to join the team so if you would like to become more involved in the running of the society, please consider putting yourself forward for a committee position.  The election of officers is carried out during the AGM.  We would love to hear from you! 

 

This year we have seen the publishing of the 2007 Edition of Weather a Climate thanks to the efforts of Brian Giles, and Society newsletters, thanks to Bob.  Please keep your submissions rolling in!  Due to the success of our last photo competition, we have decided to run it again this year so please check out the web sites for details.  The Summer School organised by the Hydrological Society will also be running again at the end of the year with Katrina Richards ‘holding the baton’ on behalf of our Society.  This year has seen a significant increase in regional activity from the main branches, thanks to the efforts of the Vice-Presidents.  Hopefully we will be able to keep the momentum going in 2008.

 

 

All the best for the rest of the year.

Kim Dirks

President

 

 

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Regional Reports:

Auckland Branch Report – Sally Garrett

On August the 7^th, a small bunch of Aucklander’s (the few not suffering from the flu) enjoyed Howard Diamond speak on the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS), the climate component of the international Global Earth Observations System of Systems (GEOSS) effort.

 

The seminar provided information on GEOSS and GCOS, with a focus on climate observing in the Pacific. In addition there was a discussion of some climate data management efforts and research effort dealing with a climatological study of tropical cyclones in the Southwest Pacific basin

 

- Wellington (Jim Salinger)

Howard Diamond from NOAA gave a talk at NIWA Wellington on 3 August and this was advertised to Met Soc membership.

 

Howard spoke on Global Earth Observations for Climate: "Taking the Earth’s Pulse for the New Century.”

 

- Christchurch (Mikhail)

There have been two 'open door' events of the HeatLab (UoC) open to Met Soc members.  The first was early in September, and the second was on  Friday (21^st September

This laboratory develops 3-D and 4-D visualisation of terrestrial – meteorological (and all other) data and participants have been very keen to use WRF output data to do 3-D visualisation and animation. They have also developed teleconferences.  Information about HeatLab can be found on the UoC website.

 

 

-  Dunedin (Helen Power)

Met Soc members were invited to two seminars held in the Geography Dept at the University of Otago.

 

 On August 7, Patricia Langhorne, from the Otago Physics Dept, gave a seminar on "Where land and sea ice meet". Dr Langhorne described the processes of sea ice formation, in particular the role that frazil ice plays. Frazil ice forms in the water column and Dr Langhorne's research aims to measure rates of frazil ice formation and whether it is responsible for the formation of ice on the underside of ice shelves.

 

 Dr Martyn Clark, from NIWA Christchurch, gave a seminar on September 11 on "Snow research at NIWA". Dr Clark highlighted the need for better information on snow in NZ and explained that this requires a combination of monitoring, modelling, and process studies. He described a research project which aims to improve understanding of snow processes by studying controls on the spatial variability of snow accumulation. As part of this project, Dr Nicolas Cullen and eight postgraduate students from the Geography Department at Otago will join Dr Clark and other colleagues on a field trip this week to document spatial variability in snow accumulation using multiscale stratified sampling of snow water equivalent in a single test catchment, namely, the Jollie River Basin in the Mt Cook region.

 

WEATHER AND CLIMATE

 

Nothing new on Vol 28 – still only two papers have arrived.  When ready it will be published at A4 size as agreed at the last committee meeting. 

Call for Papers.  Members are reminded that Weather and Climate is the Journal of the Meteorological Society of New Zealand and is a conduit for papers on the atmosphere, the weather and the climate, particularly in the New Zealand and South Pacific regions.  All papers are peer reviewed.  Information for contributors is included in the inside back cover of the journal or can be obtained from the editor,

 Dr Brian Giles at gilesnz@...

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2. Agenda

28^th Annual General Meeting of the

Meteorological Society of New Zealand (Inc.)

On Wednesday 28^th November 2007

At NIWA main conference room , Greta Point, Kilbirnie, Wellington

Starting 4pm

 

Attendance and Apologies

 

1.      Confirmation of Minutes of Previous Annual General Meeting

 

2.      Matters Arising from the Minutes

                  - Future Conferences, attendance fees

                  -Carbon Neutral Society Conferences

 

4.  Annual Report from the President

 

5.  Annual Report from the Treasurer

 

6.      Subscription Rate

 

7.      Appointment of Auditor

 

8.      Election of Officers

 

9.      Other Matters

S. Kjellberg

Secretary

 

3. Annual Accounts

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

METEOROLOGICAL SOCIETY OF NEW ZEALAND INC.

 

NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL ACCOUNTS

FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 JULY 2007

 

1. STATEMENT OF ACCOUNTING POLICIES

Accrual accounting is used to match expenses and revenue to the year as appropriate.

There has been no change in accounting policies.

 

2. SUBSCRIPTIONS

Includes some payments of arrears.  Subscriptions in arrears for 2006/07 have not been taken into account.  The amount owing is approximately $890.

 

3. INTEREST

Interest on SCF and cheque acounts combined under Interest.

 

4.WEATHER AND CLIMATE

Vols 26 and 27 of Weather and Climate published. The backlog of publications has now been cleared.

 

5.NEWSLETTER

Five issues paid for this year.  All up to date.

 

6. STUDENT GRANTS

To be reimbursed from Student Conference Fund.

 

7. TERM INVESTMENTS

Term deposit 03 matured 5/10/06.  $1,000 was transferred to the current account. The balance including interest was reinvested as Term deposit 04.  $8,000 from the conference profit and the cash float $2000, repaid, was invested as Term deposit 05. Deposit 02 matures 24/12/07, deposit 04 on 29/9/07 and deposit 05 on 7/9/07.  Present instructions are that these be reinvested.

 

8.STUDENT CONFERENCE FUND

$4000 on loan to current account to be returned to the SCF.  Part profit from conference to be transferred to the SCF.

 

9. CONTINGENT LIABILITIES

There are no contingent liabilities.

  

 

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Note that Alaric Tomlinson (a retired meteorologist) has been our auditor for the past seven years and will finally be taking a rest from this next year.  Our thanks go to Alaric for his help and guiding assistance.  If any member is willing or knows someone who may be willing to help us out and accept an invitation to audit our accounts please let us know at bobmcd@... or s.kjellberg@.... 

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PHOTO COMPETITION

Come on folks--- I haven’t received any entries yet, and yet we have had lots of weather.  Please remember to put that digital camera in your bag ready for that rare cloud.  Or even to send us your cellphone camera snaps. 

 

Conditions Of Entry:

SNAP WHAT YOU SEE.  Entry is open to all individuals resident in NZ (but not the photo judging committee or their immediate family). Note date and place of the image.  Email it to bobmcd@... or post to "Met Soc competition, unit 5, 53 Hamilton Road, Herne Bay Auckland".

The deadline for entries is 30 June 2008.  There is no entry fee.  No more than ten entries accepted per entrant.  In return for entering your image for consideration, Met Society reserves the right to put your image (adequately acknowledged) on the http://metsoc.rsnz.org web site.  This means that we ask that you do not transfer publication rights for your entry to any third party until after the competition is finished.  All other rights remain with the contributor.

Have fun and keep checking our web site to see the new entries as they arrive during the four seasons!

Image Content:  

Photos/images are to be taken in NZ between now and June 2008.  Image must be a true reproduction of what the viewer could see in a single frame and not blended, modified or enhanced in any way.  Cropping is allowed.  If any identifiable people appear in the photos their written permission to submit must be included. Nothing illegal. There are no categories and no theme, but if it isn't related to the weather it will not go far with our judges.

Judging And Prizes

No more than one prize per entrant. First prize is three years free subscription to Met. Society (value $75).  Second prize is two years subscription (value $50) and third prize one year subscription (value $25). Images will be voted on by a panel of judges consisting of our photo subcommittee plus an independent expert with a professional eye.  Winners are to be announced on the Met Society web site on 1 August 2008, the start of the financial/subscription year for the Society.

COMING EVENTS    COMING EVENTS    COMING EVENTS     COMING EVENTS

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our 2007 Conference is being held jointly with AMOS at GEELONG, Victoria, Australia from Jan 29 to Feb 1, 2008.  The theme is Atmospheric and Oceanic EXTREMES.  For more information see http://www.amos.org.au/conf2008/AMOSconf2008.htm

 

Summer School

 

Response of AMOS to the “The Great Global Warming Swindle Documentary”

Christchurch Met Soc viewed the Great Global Warming Swindle (GGWS) movie back in March 2007  as a bit of a wag to start the year (well, it was put out by Wag TV)  In our write-up in the March Newsletter we provided a link to its web site : http://www.channel4.com/science/microsites/G/great_global_warming_swindle/index.html  and we also provided a link to a scientifically based rebuttal blog at http://www.celsias.com/2007/03/11/the-great-global-warming-swindle/  ---this site used to have a link to a YouTube showing the whole 1 hr +movie, but this has been removed now.

 

 Put "great global warming swindle" in the search option on YouTube and you'll get to the ABC TV debate on the topic (in 9 parts) triggered by the showing of the
movie (-looks like some of those aussies didn't realise the GGWS was from Wag TV-editor).

 

This ABC documentary produced plenty of debate earlier this year in Australia, and AMOS (our Australian equivalent) have produced a response documenting the shortcuts taken in the GGWC movie on their own web site at http://www.amos.org.au/BAMOS_GGWS_SUBMISSION_final.htm

 

Letter to the newsletter editor:

Hi Bob,

I read the latest news letter with great interest; this e-mail version is so much superior in so many ways.

 The item advising of the upgrading next year of the North Island weather radar coverage bought to mind the recent upgrade to the presentation of the Australian weather Radar system on the Internet at http://mirror.bom.gov.au/weather/radar.

Of interest is the fact that not only is this new presentation so good but it updates the images every few minutes making it a most useful service, what a great pity that ours is updated so infrequently as to make its use almost laughable several frontal systems can pass across our islands between published scans. In Auckland the local website scans are frequently missing for days at a time, with these breaks becoming more frequent of late.

If you take a look at the Aust. Site for Adelaide you will see that city (about the same size of Auckland) has not one but two radars for the area one being a shorter range but higher definition unit.

It is a pity that our society does not seek to put pressure on the Government by frequently publishing the total lack of an efficient and frequent service in this area.

Keep up the good work,

Regards,

 Robert (Auckland)

 

 

Dear Editor

 

Although, I’m a scientist at NIWA with little direct involvement in climate change research, I do feel the recent insults directed at some of my NIWA colleagues by the “climate coalition” warrant a response.  The insults, I’m referring to are quotes like “NIWA are the poster boys for climate change” and “Dr **** is stupid” that received much press coverage earlier this year. This letter is not intended to present a scientific rebuttal to their claims; that has been done more than adequately in other forums, but rather it is an attempt to examine the possible motives and belief systems behind the climate coalition and similar groups that would prompt such invective against respected, honest, and hard working scientists.

 

            The first group of sceptics I would classify as the “purists”, by this I mean people, who demand complete and incontrovertible scientific rigour to the level of mathematical proof before accepting that yes…… their dinner has indeed gone cold. If in 300 years sea levels have risen 6 m, the earth has warmed 4 degrees and consequent massive ecological changes have occurred – they (well their intellectual descendants anyway) would still be dithering and quibbling over the uncertainty in model projections, measurements of the initial state, and trying to blame sunspots.  Owen McShane, a climate coalition member would, I think, classify himself in this category as he prides himself on being a “straight thinker”.  The truth is he is a self appointed expert with little actual knowledge of the climate system, I recall his postings to the bulletin board soc.culture.newzealand (an early version of todays chatrooms) in the early 1990’s criticising the global temperature time-series records derived at the time.  He blamed the observed rise in temperatures on the urban heat island effect, although that effect had been well known for years by climate scientists and which had been accounted for in their calculations.   In my opinion, this purist mindset did immense damage to “no regrets” policy options proposed at that time to curb greenhouse gas emissions.  An example of a no regrets option would be an initiative to increase the fuel efficiency of cars.

 

            The next group are “specialists”, I would classify Bill Gray (US Hurricane expert) and Augie Auer (RIP) (Thunderstorms) in this group.  To some extent I have sympathy with these people, as they are respected professionals who know much about their specialist topics. I imagine they resent it very much when a “talking head who wouldn’t know an eye wall from a squall line” comments on matters such as the long term trends in Atlantic hurricane activity. Sometimes, non-experts do overextend the current science in naïve ways, and most scientists cringe when this occurs.  But, I would say look at the big picture, look at all the evidence, ask yourself why is the extent of arctic sea ice declining?, why have 7 of the warmest years on record been since 1998?, why are most glaciers around the world retreating?, why are the summer grazing grounds getting higher in Switzerland? etc, etc..  The specialists have to realize that there are groups and industries, who have no regard for scientific integrity, but who would use the reasonable, but narrow, scientific concerns of the specialists to advance their own selfish interests. The specialists are being used.

 

            The next group I would label as “business class”, stock analysts, financial advisors, accountants, and executives.  They only ever read the business section of the paper, but often feel compelled to offer negative opinion on climate science.  They like to think of themselves as living in the real world, fighting for a crust, and scientists as woolly woofters living in insulated ivory towers.  To them I say stick to your knitting, comment on business policy if you must, and read some actual science literature, the NBR is not the Monthly Weather Review.

 

            The next group I would classify as “religious conservative”. They view environmentalism and global change as underpinning a humanist conspiracy promoting population control policies like abortion, euthanasia, and eugenics.  Personally, I sympathise a lot with this group, human life is far too cheap, and the current and the past couple of generations have been consuming resources like there is no tomorrow, and who will we get to pay? the unborn, the elderly, and the retarded.  I think this lobby’s rejection of the climate science hurts their efforts to work against policies that target the weak.

 

            Finally, there are the “Lomborgites”, those who subscribe to the view that our best chance is to push for continued and accelerated economic growth resulting in the development of a technical solution to global warming and other environmental problems.  This I would describe as the “Thelma and Louise” option, where I imagine an hitherto unseen passenger in the convertible frantically trying to stitch together a parachute as the car accelerates towards the edge of the Grand Canyon. Although, I would concede that at some point, your chances (slim as they are) will improve as accelerating should buy you more hang time.

 

            As for academics who hijack book reviews in Weather and Climate to push their agenda, well I won’t even go there.

 

Sincerely

Richard Turner