Monday, November 2, 2015

Study: Are we shifting to fewer, weaker Atlantic hurricanes?

After Hurricane Wilma  the scientists predicted the next decade would be the worst on record for Florida hurricanes and it was not! So, how can we be certain of man's effect on the climate? Remember, I always advocates that we should be good stewards of the planet. Aivars Lode

By Seth Borenstein, AP Science Writer 

WASHINGTON — A new but controversial study asks if an end is coming to the busy Atlantic hurricane seasons of recent decades.
The Atlantic looks like it is entering in to a new quieter cycle of storm activity, like in the 1970s and 1980s, two prominent hurricane researchers wrote Monday in the journal Nature Geoscience.
Scientists at Colorado State University, including the professor who pioneered hurricane seasonal prognostication, say they are seeing a localized cooling and salinity level drop in the North Atlantic near Greenland. Those conditions, they theorize, change local weather and ocean patterns and form an on-again, off-again cycle in hurricane activity that they trace back to the late 1800s.
Warmer saltier produces periods of more and stronger storms followed by cooler less salty water triggering a similar period of fewer and weaker hurricanes, the scientists say. The periods last about 25 years, sometimes more, sometimes less. The busy cycle that just ended was one of the shorter ones, perhaps because it was so strong that it ran out of energy, said study lead author Phil Klotzbach.
Klotzbach said since about 2012 there's been more localized cooling in the key area and less salt, suggesting a new, quieter period. But Klotzbach said it is too soon to be certain that one has begun.
"We're just asking the question," he said.
But he said he thinks the answer is yes. He says the busy cycle started around 1995 and probably ended in 2012; in 2005 alone, Katrina, Rita and Wilma killed more than 1,500 people and caused billions of dollars of damage. The quiet cycle before that went from about 1970 to 1994 and before that it was busy from 1926 until 1969, he said.
Klotzbach doesn't take into account where a storm hits, but how strong storms are and how long they last regardless of whether they make landfall. So even though no major hurricane hit the United States in 2010, its overall activity was more than 60 percent higher than normal. And just because it's a quiet season doesn't mean a city can't be devastated, Klotzbach said. Hurricane Andrew hit South Florida in an otherwise quiet 1992 season as a top-of-the-scale storm.
Other scientists either reject the study outright or call it premature.
"I think they're pretty much wrong about this," said MIT meteorology professor Kerry Emanuel, who also specializes in hurricane research. "That paper is not backed by a lot of evidence."
Emanuel doesn't believe in the cycle cited by the researchers or the connection to ocean temperature and salinity. He thinks the quiet period of hurricanes of the 1970s and 1980s is connected to sulfur pollution and the busy period that followed is a result of the cleaning of the air. And Jim Kossin of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said cooler water temperatures earlier this year might be due to Atlantic dust, and August temperatures there have risen.
Another NOAA scientist, Gabriel Vecchi, said while there seems to be signs of a change in the circulation of the Atlantic, it's far too early to say that the shift has happened.
"So what happens in the next few years is going to be very exciting to watch as it may help settle or at least refine some intense scientific debates," Vecchi said in an email.

Sunday, November 1, 2015

$2b fee sticking point as Apple wrangles with Australia's big four banks


Many times I have identified that there are certain trends that are advanced in Australia in comparison to the USA. The Coffee industry is one; when Starbucks tried to establish a presence in Australia it did not recognize that and consequently did not make it in Australia. In this article about Apple negotiating the payment share with Aussie banks, Apple is using the US business model when the banking system is well and truly more advanced than the USA. Aivars Lode
By James Eyers
Australia's largest banks are fending off the world's largest technology company, Apple, as it tries to muscle in on the hotly contested payments market. 
Fairfax Media understands fees are a big sticking point in the negotiations, with big banks not willing to give Apple a slice of the $2 billion a year they earn in interchange fees, which are paid by merchants for use of payments infrastructure. 
In the United States, Apple is believed to earn about 15¢ on every $100 of transactions. It is understood Apple has been asking for the same amount of interchange fee in Australia.
But Australia's big banks will not agree to this level given that interchange fees in Australia are about half the US level – equivalent to an average of 50¢  $100 of transaction compared with about $1 for $100 of transaction fees in the US.
Commonwealth Bank of Australia chief executive Ian Narev would not comment on the progress of negotiations with Apple, but said Apple's attempts to offer Apple Pay in Australia won't be as easy as it was in the US given Australian banks' record of innovation. 
"By most global standards, the capability that the Australian banking sector has generally, and Commonwealth Bank has specifically, to provide for customers is ahead of a lot of the other markets around the world where Apple has done well," Mr Narev said last week after delivering the bank's full-year cash profit of $9.14 billion. 
"There is functionality associated with Apple Pay that we have had in the market for 18 months to two years." 

NAB CLOSEST TO APPLE DEAL?



Apple Pay launched in October 2014 in the US and in Britain last month. It allows users of an iPhone 6 or Apple Watch to use a tap-and-go terminal to pay for items by holding their fingerprint on the phone or double-tapping the face of the smartwatch. But to be switched on in a market, Apple needs to strike a deal with banks to use the payments system.
Mr Narev said CBA had already offered the same functionality as Apple Pay through its app – for users of Android phones – for two years, so it was difficult for Apple to argue it is providing much value. In the US, Apple Pay was innovative because tap-and-go was not a feature of that market. 
Westpac also allows customers with Android phones to use them to pay via tap-and-go through the bank app. Take-up, however, has so far been low, with most customers preferring to pay with their cards. 
National Australia Bank was rumoured to be closest to securing a commercial arrangement with Apple over its payments product but Fairfax Media has been told it is more likely a small bank will be the first to strike a deal with Apple and use it as a tactic to target iPhone users for transaction-account market share. 
In Britain, the banks were successful in negotiating Apple down to a much lower fee. Apple is receiving only a few pence a £100 transaction, the Financial Times reported last month. 

CUSTOMER CONCERNS

The Reserve Bank of Australia is trying to push interchange fees down even further, to an average of 30¢ per $100 of transactions. This increases the stakes in the negotiations between the banks and Apple in how to share the interchange-fee pie. 
The big banks are also reluctant to open their payments infrastructure to Apple for two other reasons. First, because they are being forced by the RBA to tip hundreds of millions of dollars into building the New Payments Platform, new infrastructure that will have real-time capability, there are concerns about Apple seeking to free ride on this investment. 
Second, the negotiations are also challenged because banks are concerned about the prospect of Apple getting in between them and their customer at the point of sale, as banks recognise that future revenue growth will come from being the "interface" when customers pay for goods and services, which will allow them to cross-sell products. 
Apple is also negotiating from a position of weakness given that the take-up of Apple Pay in the US appears to be sagging. It is also facing competition from Samsung, which announced last week it would launch Samsung Pay in the US on September 28.

'THE DISRUPTION IS STRUCTURAL' 

Despite the reluctance to cut a deal with Apple, Mr Narev said CBA was closely watching the movement of big tech players into financial services, as the global banking landscape is reshaped by ubiquitous mobile phones. 
"If it not Apple, it might be Google; if it is not Google, it might be Samsung; if it is not Samsung, it might be Amazon; if is it not Amazon, it is going to be someone else," he said. 
"Are we going to be able to sit here today and pick the major winners? No. But the disruption is structural. It is only going one way. And I don't think there will ever be a point where me or my successor, or his or her successor, is ever going to sit here and say their war is done and we won. This level of innovation is here to stay. 
"But we have got customers, we have got distribution, we have got brand, we have got product. So as long as we are adding to that investment and have the right execution focus, we should be able to be really competitive."