The energy bill debate exposes the sham of the ‘greenest government ever’

The Tories’ true colours have emerged with their turnaround on green jobs – but why are the Lib Dems following suit?

Contrary to common perception, salinity is hardly uniform in the world’s oceans. “It’s apparent when you look at a surface salinity map of the Indian Ocean,” said Subrahmanyam Bulusu, the director of the Satellite Oceanography Laboratory in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of South Carolina. “In the northern part of the Arabian Sea, the salinity is considerably higher than in the northern part of the Bay of Bengal.”

The surface salinity differences are driven by a combination of ocean currents, precipitation, evaporation and river runoff. The water cycle is central to global climate models, and salt strongly affects the ocean currents because the saltier water is, the denser — and thus more slow-moving — it is.

“Salinity is often neglected in climate studies, yet it plays a critical role,” said Bulusu, USC’s campus director of the NASA/South Carolina Space Grant Consortium.

Climate scientists recognize that the atmosphere is greatly influenced by the flow of heat energy carried by ocean currents. But precisely quantifying the mixing between the ocean and the atmosphere is hampered by a lack of detail in models of the ocean and of the water cycle.

And in both models, the salt content of the water is essential.

“Most of the global ocean and coupled ocean-climate models use salinity from climatological data,” said Bulusu. “But the observed data over the past 50 years are very sparse, because they’re only from shipping lanes or moored buoys in one location.”

That’s now changing with the arrival of the European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission and NASA’s Aquarius mission, launched in November 2009 and June 2011, respectively. Each is equipped to measure sea surface salinity over the entire globe.

The level of detail provided by the satellites is far beyond anything collected from the ocean’s surface. “A major goal of these satellite missions is to better define the water cycle,” said Bulusu. “The spatial and temporal coverage will be much better, which will definitely help global ocean and climate models. With recent research findings suggesting that salty regions are getting saltier and fresh regions are getting fresher, these satellites couldn’t have arrived at a better time.”

In January, Bulusu’s laboratory reported the first SMOS measurements taken over the Indian Ocean. Published in IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, the study is helping to bridge the gap between data derived from ocean-based floats (such as the Argo network of some 3,500 robotic probes deployed worldwide, of which about 800 are in the Indian Ocean) and measurements from the orbiting satellite. But with a goal of measuring differences of just 0.1 practical salinity units (psu), Bulusu’s team found some challenges in validating the SMOS satellite data.

Radio frequency interference, for example, hampered measurements in the northern Indian Ocean. The satellite’s onboard radiometer measures frequencies in a microwave range (1400-1427 MHz) that by international agreement is reserved for scientific studies. Nonetheless, interference near coastlines proved to be a significant problem.

Moreover, salinity data within 150 km of the coast remain problematic with both instruments. SMOS is designed to collect data over land (soil moisture) and sea (ocean salinity), but the instrument is unable to switch immediately between the two surfaces. “We also need to develop better algorithms for Aquarius near coastal areas,” Bulusu said. “That’s something we’re actively working on right now.”

Bulusu’s team at USC also just published the first long-term study of salt movement in the Indian Ocean, covering 1960 through 2008, in Remote Sensing of the Environment (link here). Using a Simple Ocean Data Assimilation (SODA) reanalysis, they were able to compare the output with the sparse data available over the nearly 50-year period and with Aquarius salinity data.

What they’ve found is that the area is a perfect site for validating the new satellites.

“The Indian Ocean has strong winds and currents, and they’re also highly variable. On the other hand, the Bay of Bengal has low-saline waters and the Arabian Sea is saltier, even though both are at same latitude” Bulusu said. “That makes it ideal for calibrating both the SMOS and the Aquarius satellite data.”

Given the limitations with the ESA’s SMOS mission measurements and the preliminary work that they’ve completed with NASA’s Aquarius satellite mission, Bulusu and his team are enthusiastic about the latter’s arrival onto the scene.

“The Aquarius satellite has some real advantages, particularly in accuracy and sampling,” Bulusu said. “With this long-term study, we now have a solid framework for developing a very detailed map of salt movement in the Indian Ocean. We can use that to prepare a global map that should be very useful in improving climate and forecasting models.”

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Malcolm Turnbull, who for years after the 1999 referendum defeat was reluctant to talk about a republic, has now set out a detailed blueprint for achieving the goal, including suggesting an online plebiscite for the model.

In an unusual joint appearance, Turnbull and Treasurer Wayne Swan will come together in Canberra today to back the cause, launching a collection of essays, Project Republic: Plans and Arguments for a New Australia, for which Turnbull has written a foreword.

It’s a case of bipartisanship at an individual rather than party level. Tony Abbott (who’s seen Turnbull’s contribution) has been a leader of the anti-republicans.

The reigniting of the republic debate would not be helpful for Abbott because Liberals are split on the issue.

Division in Coalition ranks, including over the model, helped John Howard sink the 1999 push.

Swan does not want the switch to have to wait for the end of the Queen’s reign, but Turnbull believes that it will have to.

While still personally committed to a model with a president selected by parliament Turnbull accepts that an elected president, the option favoured by the public in polls, could work with proper safeguards and good behaviour by early incumbents.

In a speech for today’s function, Swan avoids the debate over the method of selection.

But he is much stronger in his pitch for a republic than Julia Gillard has been since becoming prime minister or her predecessor Kevin Rudd was when he was PM.

Turnbull writes that the first step in a new attempt to get a republic should be a plebiscite which doesn’t just put the in-principle question but also asks whether voters believe the president should have the same powers as the governor-general, and whether he or she should be appointed by parliament in a bipartisan manner or directly elected.

“The plebiscite should ideally be more than just a set of questions with boxes for yes and no, but briefly and impartially explain the core issues”.

Turnbull suggests the plebiscite be online with voting available via computers at public libraries and other places for those without internet access.

Voting should be compulsory, and some (unspecified) incentives could be offered to stimulate participation. Internet voting would allow explanatory material to be presented before the vote (making for a more decision) and would cost a fraction of a conventional ballot, Turnbull argues.

He says that initially a broad commitment needs to be secured to a process of consulting and engaging Australians.

“And then we need to ensure that all republicans agree to respect the decision, whether it is for direct or parliamentary appointment, and then to make it work so that the consequent constitutional referendum can be passed”.

Swan, who will pay tribute to Turnbull for being in the “future business” says in his speech that Labor’s process is consistent with that of the Australian Republican Movement, which Turnbull headed.

There should be a “two stage process”, with the best model – including the method of choosing the head of state and the powers he or she would be given – determined by plebiscite, followed by a referendum.

“Personally, I strongly believe we should kick-start that formal process sooner rather than later”, he says.

“In the meantime, it is the task of all of us who believe in the idea of an Australian republic to reinvigorate the national dialogue on the issue. … After a long decade or more of inertia, I believe we’re ready as a nation to take this on”.

Swan will tell the function: “Just as there are people who will say that the time is never right to tackle climate change, there’ll always be those who will say the time is not right for an Australian head of state”.

The road to an Australian republic has been a long one, without a timetable and it is long overdue for a “respectful national conversation to be renewed”.

His personal answer to the question “why now” is “because as we enter the Asian Century, the right time is now”.

“With the economic and political balance now shifting to our part of the world, the idea of an Australian head of state who resides in Windsor Castle outside London seems very far fetched”, Swan says.

“Bringing our head of state home is an obvious and appropriate way to focus our minds on the fact that we are now an independent nation that can only succeed fully by taking full advantage of the success of our region”, he says.

“This is the right time to make a big statement on the global stage also because our nation has never been more successful or envied by the other nations of the world.

“As Australia rightly and proudly takes its spot next year at the head of the table of the G20, it defies logic that we don’t have an Australian at the head of our own table”, Swan says.

But Turnbull writes: “This issue of timing is absolutely fundamental to the republic cause and it seems to me that the next best opportunity to create that sense of timeliness is after the end of the Queen’s reign. I may be wrong about this – I hope I am and that we could become a republic earlier – but every instinct and experience of referendums tells me that the best next chance is the post-Elizabethan era”.