Comments on: Satellite Imagery Shows Arctic Ice Still Unmelted

By: robsterillo

robsterillo — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 14:02:23 +0000

Clark said on 13/7/08

“Climate audit had a fascinating post last week pointing out that the key melts in past years normally occur right now in the cycle. If there’s not a ton of melting now, no way we match last year.”

Turns out now (4/09/08) we are virtually level pegging for a repeat record melt on last year. Looks like Clark’s assertion (based on Climate Audit) that “if there’s not a ton of melting now, no way we match last year” was hollow. Well I hope that maybe Clark would like to take Neilo’s advice from 13/07/08:

“Why is it, then, that a person can yell “The ice caps are melting” or “temperatures are rising” or “sea levels are rising”, and when it doesn’t happen there is a collective shrug and no one is charges with (at least) causing a public mischief?”

Presumably Neilo thinks that the converse should also be true. So, Clark, you are in grave danger of having comitted a public mischief and Neillo is not going to be happy with you or Climate Audit.

Climate change is to allegory as statues are to birdshit :-)

Come on guys and gals, get your heads out of the sand. Let the people who actually know something about ice do their job without defamation of character.

Robsterillo

By: Aaron

Aaron — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 01:01:43 +0000

There’s been an acceleration in melting in the last 2 weeks.
We are now back to very near the same total arctic sea ice area as this date last year.
Still more fractured, spread out, thinner and less mass of ice than last year this date.

By: Midority

Midority — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 08:30:26 +0000

This image is clearly useless.

The source link doesnt work.

See http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25917328/ for details of ongoing breakups in Arctic ice.

By: Aaron

Aaron — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 13:25:03 +0000

We are in uncharted territory with the way this is unfolding. There is currently 0.25 million km more area of sea ice in the arctic than this date last year. More fractured and thinner than then. Certainly less multiyear ice, and the opening of clear water around the top of Greenland and the nth Canadian islands is significant.
The most significant factor on how this season will unfold is probably the effect on the gulf streams drawing of warmer water to the arctic thru the nth sea that the current scenario will have. Either:
-The current will slow or stall, subduction blocked by a surface pool of fresher, lighter water from the ice melt. A cooler euro-summer and possible temporary reversal in the arctic melting trend resulting.
-Or the Meltwater may become insignificant on the thermo-haline density gradient if the ice has dropped below the volume where the extensive wind/wave mixing now happening all over the polar basin eliminates haline density differences. The gulfstream could then accelerate, driven by the anticlockwise polar wind circulation. If this happens then we might see an arctic whirlpool, with the currents subducting “plughole style” at the nth pole. This happened for around 24hrs a month ago. If that became established there would be a dramatic polar, nthern warming from the increased heat transfer nth on the currents and a big risk that the buffering of sea level that the deep ocean side of the circulation system(water around 4C, warming causes contraction, offseting the expansion of warming surface waters) provides. If deep ocean water starts getting over 5C then rapid and unstable sealevel change as has been standard in some past epochs is probable.

By: Polar Ice Check - Still a lot of ice up there « Itsnewlive’s Weblog

Polar Ice Check - Still a lot of ice up there « Itsnewlive’s Weblog — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 18:28:08 +0000

[...] | Tags: Polar Ice Check – Still a lot of ice up there | During our last check in, we had a look at northern Canada from the Arctic Circle to the North pole, and found we had quite a ways to go before we see an “ice free arctic” this year as some have [...]

By: Climatic Earth - The Truth » Blog Archive » Arctic Far from Ice Free

Climatic Earth - The Truth » Blog Archive » Arctic Far from Ice Free — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 23:08:07 +0000

[...] Written by Watts up with that Blog; During our last check in, we had a look at northern Canada from the Arctic Circle to the North pole, and found we had quite a ways to go before we see an “ice free arctic” this year as some have [...]

By: Polar Ice Check - Still a lot of ice up there « Watts Up With That?

Polar Ice Check - Still a lot of ice up there « Watts Up With That? — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 21:37:58 +0000

[...] Ice Check – Still a lot of ice up there 30 07 2008 During our last check in, we had a look at northern Canada from the Arctic Circle to the North pole, and found we had quite a ways to go before we see an “ice free arctic” this year as [...]

By: Aaron

Aaron — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 21:05:54 +0000

There are “ocean deserts” in the sth/nth pacific/atlantic, and sth indian ocean.
the centres of these oceanic “gyres”- whirlpools with very low nutrient levels -have biological production as low as the desert regions on land.
The main reason for this is lack of the trace nutrient Iron. Required for phytoplankton.
Many trials have been done showing that 1 ton of finely ground iron powder will produce a plankton bloom of up to 1000 sq km, lasting several mths. Around 500 000 to 5 million ton of carbon sinks to the ocean floor as dead Plankton. “sequestered”.
The carbon credit payout for doing this is very lucrative.
The rest of the bloom is a huge boon for the marine foodchain.
If we also netted up the blooms with converted trawlers, the plankton would be an easy substitute for fossil oil for diesel, ethanol, plastic/chemical production.
And 1 ton of iron powder could produce 10’s of millions of tons of fuel.
Not a happy thought for big energy moguls tho- they could not monopolise and control the supply of fuel and feedstocks like they are used to doing with oil because Oil has enourmous costs to get into. Algaefuel doesn’t.
They’d much rather bring us planet destroying breeder nukes with millions of times worse than chernobyls millions dead result inevitable, and high tech/cost hydrogen. -Monopolisable energy economy.

By: Aaron

Aaron — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 23:20:05 +0000

The ice does melt “bottom up” when it gets less than 4-6feet thick. Algae grow in it in the saewater/ice interface region. The absorb the sunlight and melt the ice.
Its been seen melting to open water in -15C ambient air temp because of this.
This is the biggest reason the arctic-melt modeling predictions have been so inadequate.
The Climate has changed rapidly b4 of course. Theres 3 rapid “meltwater pulses” of rapid warming and sealevel rise in the last 20000years alone. Ice cores have given us a very accurate season resolution record of temp and atmos composition going back 100’s of thousands of years. The correlations between CO2 and temp are tight.
The scary bit is that compared to ALL the previous climate shifts, eg the 10.5Ka pulse (10500yrs ago), where sealevels rose at up to 1 foot per year for 500years…..
THE RATE OF UPWARD CHANGE IN TEMP AND CO2 IN THE LAST 3 DECADES IS ABOUT 2000 TIMES FASTER!
Anyway the solution is very simple and easy and profitable. About $1 million per year will fund the halt of GW and profits of over 10000% can be made. Biggest prob is the climate scientists are so addicted to being listened to for the first time in their lives right now that they don’t want it done.
Anyone know what I’m talking about?

By: Peacenic

Peacenic — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 12:16:32 +0000

All y’alls comments are encouraging.
Sadly, “news” stopped being news. Now opinion is “news”.
More sad is how readily culture accepts opinion as news.
Reason and critical thought have been demonized.
Another step on road to tyrany. Beware.
Peaceful journeys.

By: Before Gore, Kneel

Before Gore, Kneel — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 01:31:58 +0000

oops, insert ‘old’ where applicable.

By: Before Gore, Kneel

Before Gore, Kneel — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 01:29:52 +0000

2~~0000~~/450000~~0000~~, factor by 2:
=1/225,000
ratio: how long ago NYC was covered by a mile high pile of snow divided by guess at how the earth is.

So in the geologic instant of 20,000 years, 1/225,000th of age of earth ago, we had snow from NYCity to Portland, under which nothing grew or lived or saw the sun. Then some blowhard ancester of Al Gore began boring the cave dwellers and the ice has been retreated ever since. In those days, he was griping about flint I think, and the dangers of fireplaces.

By: Evan Jones

Evan Jones — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 18:56:43 +0000

Aluminum hats, anyone?

Personal Power Solar Panel hats, maybe?

By: Evan Jones

Evan Jones — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 18:53:48 +0000

Jerry:

Of course it couldn’t possibly be a new idea. Far and away too obvious.

L1 is probably too far out and would requite far more mass. I am thinking more about something in low solarsynchronous orbit. If this were feasible it would be much smaller and would save a heck of a lot on the tinfoil (or whatever material). You’d have to keep the orbit adjusted and be able to patch the holes, of course.

As for India and China, we don’t do anything in the meantime. We simply endure about three decades of soot, and after that we never have to worry about it again. (For that matter, there’s nothing we CAN do about it anyway.)

but your info is noted while I hole up and reconsider.

Can’t ask for fairer than that.

Note that the corner on birthrates turned in most countries starting around 1990. (But it’s nice to have the rates back to 1975 by way of comparison.)

By: retired engineer

retired engineer — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 16:29:53 +0000

A ’shade’ isn’t going to do it. If it doesn’t reflect, at 1365 w/m^2, it will get really hot. Mylar can reflect quite well, at the right angle. The problem is where to put it and how to keep it there. Orbital mechanics do what they will do regardless of anything we might want. Solar wind pushes big, lightweight things around rather well. I think NASA did a comet rendezvous with a solar sail a while back.

India and China may cut back on soot, eventually. Just as their population growth will slow (and the rest of the third world), eventually. Problem is what to do in the meantime.

Aluminum hats, anyone?

By: Global warming may increase kidney stones - DebateAnything.com

Global warming may increase kidney stones - DebateAnything.com — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 16:21:08 +0000

[...] Still there! I’ll attempt to hotlink the pic, and I’ll include the site link, just in case. Satellite Imagery Shows Arctic Ice Still Unmelted � Watts Up With That? [...]

By: Richard Elliott

Richard Elliott — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 14:34:44 +0000

Welshman to kayak to the North Pole

In Uk, we get a constant diet of drivel from the BBC like this, always without any checking or criticism, just taken as facts. The BBC will not of course follow up this story, they only need to look at the sattelite photo which clearly shows that he’s going to have a hard time. Be patient and go through to the end of the item, says it all!!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/7507619.stm

By: Jerry

Jerry — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 08:42:47 +0000

Evan,
The orbiting sunshade idea is not new. A few calculations. Put a sunshade (either in one piece or many little ones) at L5 (Is that the libration point between Earth and Sol?) That’s a long way away, and Sol is much bigger than Earth so you will need a sunshade of the order of the Earth’s diameter to give an annular eclipse effect. That’s 8000 miles. Take aluminium about 50 microns thick. (Let’s work in SI – easier to make orders-of-magnitude errors but easier for rough computations) So, 7000*7000*PI*0.0000000005=about 7.7 cubic kilometres, or 7,696,902,000 cubic metres of aluminium. At a density of 2600kg/cu.m that’s 20,011,945,203.367 tons (OK, technically tonnes if you want to use FFMs (Funny Foreign Measurements)) of aluminium to be chucked up to a distance that I think is one-third the way to the sun.
Are you sure this is easy?

By: Lucy Skywalker

Lucy Skywalker — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 07:22:11 +0000

Thanks Evan, info appreciated, also advice earlier re apostates! I’m not going to do a sudden U-turn on “population issues” at this point, but your info is noted while I hole up and reconsider.

Great to see that Jonix (above) was put on track straight away by Bruce Cobb. I’d love to see such links as Bruce gave, loud and clear at the top of blogs like this and Climate Audit, where you can direct AGW’s and then say “come back for intelligent discussion when you’ve read these”. I’ve also done one: http://www.greenworldtrust.org.uk/TransPlanet/Curious.htm and I’m sure there are others. Now perhaps the biggest block to people reconsidering is this: AGW “experts” say that top experts Lindzen, etc are not believable because they are oil-funded and there’s the proof of their funding… and there are the rebuttals of the skeptics’ arguments anyway… AGW believers (like me at that time) won’t even start to look at Lindzen’s science.

I would love to see a website with “de-de-bunk” answers to all the classic “debunks” like one sees on the websites like http://www.skepticalscience.com. Including “why skeptics’ supposed oil funding is an untrustworthy indicator” – the significance of government funding, Al Gore’s own oil funding, etc. – “why more CO2 would help, not hinder, the planet” – in line with real permaculture, after all – and “disinformation at Wikipedia” – http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/07/08/opinion/main4241293.shtml .

By: Evan Jones

Evan Jones — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 06:38:26 +0000

For next, you can stop worrying about running out of natural resources (in case you haven’t yet).

The trouble with grade school these days is it generally takes around 12 years to unlearn all the nonsense they pack one full of. (If we had more reasonable teachers like Pamela, we wouldn’t have this problem.)