Gore says 5 years, now NOAA says 30 instead of 100 years. Place your bets.
Ice-Free Arctic Summers Likely Sooner Than Expected
NOAA News April 2, 2009
Mean sea ice thickness in meters for March (left) and September (right) based on six models. Top panels: September ice extent reached the current level by these models. Bottom panels: Arctic reached nearly “ice-free summer” conditions.
High resolution (Credit: University of Washington / NOAA)
Summers in the Arctic may be ice-free in as few as 30 years, not at the end of the century as previously expected. The updated forecast is the result of a new analysis of computer models coupled with the most recent summer ice measurements.
“The Arctic is changing faster than anticipated,” said James Overland, an oceanographer at NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory and co-author of the study, which will appear April 3 in Geophysical Research Letters. “It’s a combination of natural variability, along with warmer air and sea conditions caused by increased greenhouse gases.”
Overland and his co-author, Muyin Wang, a University of Washington research scientist with the Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean in Seattle, analyzed projections from six computer models, including three with sophisticated sea ice physics capabilities. That data was then combined with observations of summer sea ice loss in 2007 and 2008.
The area covered by summer sea ice is expected to decline from its current 4.6 million square kilometers (about 2.8 million square miles) to about 1 million square kilometers (about 620,000 square miles) – a loss approximately four-fifths the size of the continental U.S. Much of the sea ice would remain in the area north of Canada and Greenland and decrease between Alaska and Russia in the Pacific Arctic.
“The Arctic is often called the ‘Earth’s refrigerator’ because the sea ice helps cool the planet by reflecting the sun’s radiation back into space,” said Wang. “With less ice, the sun’s warmth is instead absorbed by the open water, contributing to warmer temperatures in the water and the air.”
NOAA understands and predicts changes in the Earth’s environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and conserves and manages our coastal and marine resources.
h/t David Walton
sigh! *bangs head on wall* Even if it melts off in the summer, wouldnt it return every winter? So unless someone has plans to cure that nasty winter thing… then my guess is that we will have ice at the poles until the earth no longer exists.
Lets match my crystal ball to their model. Betcha we will see average ice up to and over the 1979 – to whatever date mean for about… the next 10 years. Since our science is not based on observation, I guess popular guess wins eh?
Well if Al Gore takes a herd of those flame throwing cows up there he might get the job done, otherwise I would say nothing much more than the normal ebb and flow, though with the deep minimum likely working tward larger extent.
When you model with linear best fit to 1979 to 2007 you probably get this kind of result.
I wonder though whether the folks at NOAA have considered the likelihood of ice in the arctic not in fact having a linear relationship to time (or whatever they are modeling).
If they have, I wonder whether they would publish the results.
So what are they saying, that within 100 years, its gonna be above freezing temperatures in the arctic? Thats what this sounds like, and i HARDLY believe it. How in the blue hell will there be a SEVERE increase of temperature in the arctic like that? In order for all the ice to melt away like that, it would need to be ABOVE +32 Degrees farenheit! These so called “scientists” are mad! I cannot see that happening within 50 or 100 years.
The summer Arctic sea ice minimum occurs near the autumn equinox, when the sun is disappearing below the horizon. So it has very little effect on the earth’s radiation balance.
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/AMSRE_Sea_Ice_Extent.png
Ah, the great computer modeling-without real observation.Observation is needed.There may be something else going on. I put down my Quatloos on No melt in 30 years-if ever…
So, what is it that NOAA is telling us their model is predicting?
That the Japan Current will go through the Bering Sea and melt everthing North of Greenland and the Baffin Islands?
I hope they didn’t base thier model on the false readings coming out of Siberia.
The ones that showed massive heating in one of the coldest pieces of real estate trodden by man. Anthony already fried that chicken with the sensors located next to heating pipes.
And in fifty years there will be new, more robust computer models. Then, when they come out with a new forecast of near complete summer ice melt a few decades hence, you can really, really, truly believe them then because they’ll be so much better.
Right.
Now, what was that story about a boy crying wolf?
Oh all right, I bet 55 years:
30 years: time for the current cold PDO phase,
25 years: time into the next warm phase before the pole melts.
Also, I hereby define “polar summer” as “August”.
I’m assuming that Little Ice Age recovery warming provides most of the warmth for the ice-free pole.
I will let others,wiser that I,rip into the science. I just find the last paragraph breathtakingly arrogant.
“NOAA understands and predicts changes in the Earth’s environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and conserves and manages our coastal and marine resources.”
When I look at the Arctic Regional Annual Mean Temperature Anomalies from 1880 to 2005, from about 1918 to 1938 there was a 2.5 C increase in temperature. Then it declined until about about 1970 and started increasing again. The period between about 1940 and 1977 was a cool phase PDO. From 1977 to about 2000 was warm phase PDO. Now that we have entered a cool phase PDO, it would seem to me that arctic temperatures should decline. My bet is that over the next 30 years, the sea ice increases, not decreases as projected by the the MODEL. I would like to know about the range of temperature data used by the MODEL. I wonder it is like so many other studies that only used warming phase PDO cycle data. Any ideas?
“NOAA understands and predicts changes in the Earth’s environment”
I can sleep well knowing my government has got it all figured out.
I remember as a kid, during summer, my Icy Pole would melt….. Then you would have sticky orange flavoured syrup all down yer chin, on and on yer shirt. All over the place.
It really is a terribly thing when yer Icy pole melts 😉
Now that I’ve all growed up, I ‘ve found that it’s CO2 that’s done responsible fer it.
…. Is there no end to the evil?
(I’m being sarcastically obtuse for those unfamiliar to wit)
The Gorical says 5 years eh!!! 2014…Remember that folks and confront him with it… or will he say that cooling IS consistent with the warming???
Here we go again!!!
Elsewhere, “sun angle” has been presented as being important in the amount of radiant energy absorbed by water. Overhead sun (vertical rays) are claimed to reach into water (up to 100 m) – especially in the visible wave lengths where about 50% of the energy is. A viewer with the sun behind and an ocean below will notice the water appears nearly black – most all visible light absorbed. In contrast, sun striking water at an acute angle seems to reflect. If you are on the west side of a lake and the sun is to the east and low – the reflected glare can be nearly blinding. Little energy enters the water.
Because the Arctic is at 70 degrees N, or more, the Sun is never high and thus energy ought not to be greatly absorbed there when the area is ice free. (Rough water compicates this assessment, I realize.)
Further, when the Arctic has a cover of water, rather then ice, the water more easily loses heat to the atmosphere. Already cold, does the water not tend to cool more unless the air surface temperature is higher than its own temperature. What is the summer surface air temperature there? Isn’t it about 0 degrees C, on average? A colder ocean doesn’t make for a warmer planet, I don’t think.
Also, I found an interesting quote on the John Daly site. It is about the possibility of a less ice covered Arctic – some years ago:
http://www.john-daly.com/polar/arctic.htm
So, the proper response to this report would seem to be “So what?”
So what is NOAAs prediction for this NH Summer melt – more, or less than last year?
Who writes this tripe? I agree with Keith. “NOAA understands and predicts changes in the Earth’s environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and conserves and manages our coastal and marine resources.” This is hugely arrogant and reeks of elitism. Is this a science organization or a PR firm?
Wow. More predictions based on models. They even refer to the model output as ‘data’. Wow.
This gives me confidence in predicting summer ice will be approximately the same as now in 100 years. You can seldom go wrong betting against the models given their track record 😉
I wonder how many of us will still be here in 30 years to see if they are correct this time round?
If they are wrong does anybody know who to take legal action against for recompense on all the unneccessary spending that has been forced upon us?
Addition to my comment above.
Like. Can we sue dear old Al Gore’s estate?
There’s something inconsistent about the two statements “The Arctic is changing faster than anticipated” and “NOAA understands and predicts changes in the Earth’s environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun”. Which statement should we believe? Or is the answer ‘neither’.
It’s amazing to me that any scientist would think anything about this planet would remain static. Do they really expect that sea ice, sea levels, CO2 levels, etc ad nauseum would remain the same if humans hadn’t achieved an industrial society? If they really think this, I’d like to know what they’re smoking.
I think I posed the question 4 years ago to the editor of the Independent newspaper, a particularly vociferous ‘global warming doomsday prophet’, the following question to consider when proposing what this article is seeking to shoot down:
‘It is well known that the sexual drives of women increase in their thirties. Does this mean that they will become so obsessed with sexual intensity in their fifties and sixties that the mere sight of a vaguely presentable young man will send them into such a torrent of sexual fervour that bacchanalian orgies in the streets are an inevitable result?’
I believe I answered my own question with the words: ‘I do not think so….’
You know what would be fascinating? If they took book against climate models at Vegas. Say five year payouts.
I mean there’s supposed to be this big consensus supporting model predictions. What would happen if the supporters of climate models were actually asked to put their money where there mouths are. There’s some big money, and deep pockets on the alarmist side. If they actually believed in the models, and genuinely thought there was easy money to be made investing on the models you’d think they’d say, hey why play the stock market. This is easy money. Bet they wouldn’t though. It would shock if you get shorter odds than 10 to 1 betting on the models. You could get a 100 to 1 on Hansen’s models, I bet.
I’d be selling the farm to bet against them if you could even get even money. Just think how rich you could be just betting against annual “weather” forecasts from the “experts”.
Sea ice extent would be a fun bet too. Vegas should consider that one.
Steven Goddard (20:20:52) :
“The summer Arctic sea ice minimum occurs near the autumn equinox, when the sun is disappearing below the horizon. So it has very little effect on the earth’s radiation balance.”
what about the radiation increase from the warm uncovered water back to space. did anyone estimate this effect on the radiation balance ?
Rhys Jaggar (22:12:20) : ‘It is well known that the sexual drives of women increase in their thirties. Does this mean that they will become so obsessed with sexual intensity in their fifties and sixties…etc?
hahaha, I shall remember that one! Climate models eh?
The Great Illusion is that Science happens out there, under a great poobah, that “experts know all about” polar conditions. It happens here, and now, under our own noses, when we say “that doesn’t look/feel/sound right” and start investigating… for ourselves. It can be messy even if the results are sparkling clean. But we can all do it.
It’s the cold end of the spectrum that fluctuates most. Polar temperatures fluctuate hugely, seasonally, decadally, century-wise; polar winters fluctuate more than their summers;our own winters fluctuate far more than our summers.
oh and could we have a nice push-button poll too, including “no change” and “getting colder again” and “getting a lot colder”
I’m betting that NASA computer models making predictions for arctic ice melt over the next 30 years aren’t any more accurate than their computer model predictions for Solar Cycle 24. It’s nice to have a short enough time frame that you can disprove the models!
For your amusement Mr Watts, a thread at this morning’s Independent, based on an article by a fairly staunch supporter of ‘runaway climate change’ Mr Johann Hari (qualifications in climatology: zero; qualifications in belligerent journalism: the Nobel Prize; qualifications in politics: Scots’ style left-wing demagoguery)
——————————-
Why do you believe the ‘climatologists’?
rhysjaggar wrote:
Friday, 3 April 2009 at 07:17 am (UTC)
1. If the oilmen want to make more profits they have a big ‘marketing campaign’.
2. If European Govts want us to break from Saudi oil dependency, we have a ‘climate change campaign’.
What’s the difference?
I am minded, when reading your climatological sermons, of the infamous Don Whillans, who I will paraphrase: ”E knows he’s a world class climatologist, you seem to think so to, I’m not so sure, but has anyone bothered to ask the atmosphere?’
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Link | Reply | Thread
Re: Why do you believe the ‘climatologists’?
cronyblatcher wrote:
Friday, 3 April 2009 at 07:35 am (UTC)
Who do you believe? Hairdressers? Bus drivers?
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Link | Reply | Parent | Thread
Re: Why do you believe the ‘climatologists’?
rhysjaggar wrote:
Friday, 3 April 2009 at 07:49 am (UTC)
1. How about Dick Lindzen, Professor at MIT?
2. How about Dr Roy Spencer, world authority on the analysis of global temperatures based on the satellite record since 1979?
3. How about Lord Lawson and Sir Christopher Monckton?
4. How about the Swiss weather station network, which has recorded the coldest and snowiest winter in that country for over 20 years?
Not sure any of those would appreciate being called hairdressers and bus drivers you know, but I’d love to be present when you politely inform them of course…….
————————————————————-
Keith Minto, Joe Miner, Howarteh, Phillip Bratby:-)
Jolly good point I thought, think of the billions of taxpayers dollars, rubels, pounds, euros, yen etc tha can now ber saved, NOAA no it all so sack the rest I say!
Now I know all you scientists out there don’t always understand plain English, & that you all talk to each other in formulaic terms such as “H2SO4 professor & the reciprocal of Pi to your good wife” etc, but could someone expalin to me if, (& here I get nervous), these models of icemelt prediction, which always seem to be way off ending in “it’s happening faster than we previously thought”, allow for regelation to play its part in the ice melt (the real one I mean), & do computer models properly allow for this seeing that the ice never really gets any direct heat from the sun except at very low angles? I remember from my school days watching the experiment where the 5lb weights each end of a cheese wire slice thro’ a chunk of ice a foot cubed after several minutes & the ice remained frozen. I would have thought that regelation would play its part somewhere?
Mikey,
The experts have put there money on the line:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/05/the-global-cooling-bet-part-2/
But the global warming [snip] are afraid to take the bet.
FYI. That “NOAA understands…..” is a boilerplate paragraph that NOAA seems to adds to every possible communication.
The first time you read it nausea may be induced. Or your coffee may be unpleasantly ejected through your nostrils.
It is beyond me why any agency would choose to display such vanity.
My own theory: NOAA is the victim; the paragraph is being added to all files by a computer virus the agency has been unable to remove.
Sorry guys, that should have read’ that’ & ‘be saved’ & ‘NOAA know it all’.
I should remember more often my late father’s motto, “engage brain before operating mouth” ditto for typing I guess:-)
Computer models again!! Why not measure the sea ice thickness for a hundred years and then maybe we will be able to make short term estimates.
“TWO pieces of evidence were recently presented to substantiate the views held by most geologists that some day there will be no frozen North and that vessels will sail in Arctic seas now imperilled by ice floes.”
From the New York Times, January 28, 1934.
So there has been a consensus for some 75 years.
Ooh, anyone here gonna grab some popcorn during this 30 year anticipation? I cant WAIT for it to melt! Kinda like watching an Edge of your Seat movie!
Hang on! I thought that is what Pen Hadow is doing, measureing ice thickness?
The arctic ice will all be gone in 24 hours. I know this because someone told me.
If we are to place our bets we need some odds. Pehaps Betfair could start a market on this?
I might be around after 5 years but I sure ain’t going to be around after 30 so if I have a bet my grandchildren are going to have to hold the ticket.
My odds would be 5 yrs – 1000-1against.
30 yrs – 2-1 against.
100 years – even money.
Lots of opportunity for betting in between those parameters.
But my bet would be over 100 years – I have a lot of faith in those sunspots. What odds Betfair, even if I have to pass the ticket on to my great grandchildren?
Remember…it’s all revenue. Funding for scientists, budget for government agencies, and about 40% of the U.S. budget. No logic, no reason, no common sense, no science will over come those “requirements”.
For this to go away, it will take either A) a funding source other than taxation, or B) approx. 40% reduction (U.S.) in spending.
Real science will make it slightly more difficult for various people/agencies to justify this, but only in a mosquito-like fashion.
Remember how many people were against the bail-outs last fall? I think it was around 80%? That had zero impact on stopping that train…in fact, didn’t even slow the train down.
I will make one prediction, having nothing to do with ice cover…that being that this president’s time will be limited to 4yrs.
JimB
I like short term predictions, thus they can be proven wrong in less time. While if the Arctic Summer sea ice melted it would not cause the sea level to rise (though most probably would think it would), they are using the Arctic as a climate poster boy to show that global warming is indeed happening and the results will be catastrophic to the entire earth.
Warm water melts ice a lot more quickly than warm air. It is warmer ocean currents that have melted the Arctic (more than the 30 year average). Since the oceans are cooling, there should be significantly less ice melt in coming years. Russian ice breakers have found the ice to be much thicker this year.
So we will have two years in a row with less ice melt, the trend has reversed. When we get four, five, six years in a row with growing ice, this will doom the theory, but we have to get through the next three years. This Summers ice extent is critical, it looks like it will be larger than last years by a good margin and hopefully will.
“Sooner Than Expected”
Every year I hear the same – everything is worse than expected.
I’m pretty sure that it will be 20 instead of 30 years next year. They need to keep it fresh.
Lets ask the members of the Catlin Expedition. They are right on top of the problem currently and would have the best view of this warming and melting right now.
Smell Test: The glaring error in this study is they matched only two years worth of history with several sophisticated computer models. Combining errors of each mathematically increases the total errors. Who paid these guys and who commissioned the study? These are the questions we should asking namely working the problem backwards from the answer to the question.
” Steven (00:29:07) :
Mikey,
The experts have put there money on the line:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/05/the-global-cooling-bet-part-2/
But the global warming [snip] are afraid to take the bet.”
No, no Steven. You completely misunderstand. I don’t want to bet on somebody else’s forecast. I want to bet against the forecasts the heroes at Real Climate support.
I’m talking about stuff like this…
http://climate-skeptic.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/09/25/hansen_forecast_1988.jpg
or this…
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/03/20/dr-syun-akasofu-on-ipccs-forecast-accuracy/#more-6368
or even this…
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/01/10/mid-winter-report-card/#more-4934
In fact I’d express the same sentiment the Real Climate people expressed, right back at them. It went like this…
“If the authors of the paper really believe that their forecast has a greater than 50% chance of being correct, then they should accept our offer of a bet; it should be easy money for them. If they do not accept our bet, then we must question how much faith they really have in their own forecast.”
I’ll also take a wager against that 5 years to no ice prediction by Gore mentioned above if they want to back that one up.
But basically my point was, if there was a place to bet on that sort of stuff, I’ll bet you couldn’t get good odds betting against the alarmist forecasts. I don’t think anybody; Real Climate, or Gore, or anybody else would actually bet on them. Would this disprove consensus, I wonder. Somebody should set up a booking office in Vegas for an experiment.
I wonder if James Overland has forgotten the poster which he co-authored for the ACSYS conference in 2003/4?
“First-Hand Accounts from 19th Century Explorers Logs for the Canadian
Arctic Reflect Similar Climate Conditions as Present”
Kevin R, Wood • Arctic Research Qffice & James E Overland • Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory
“The widely perceived failure of 19th century expeditions to find and transit the Northwest Passage in the Canadian Arctic is often attributed to extraordinary cold climatic conditions associated with the ‘Little Ice Age’ evident in proxy records.
However, examination of 44 explorers’ logs for the western Arctic from 1818 to 1910 reveals that climate indicators such as navigability, the distribution and thickness of annual sea ice, monthly surface air temperature, and the onset of melt and freeze were within the present range of variability.
The majority of data come from large naval expeditions that had the capacity to support an intensive scientific program through the Arctic winter.
The ship tracks and winter-over location of Arctic discovery expeditions from 1818 to 1859 are surprisingly consistent with present sea ice climatology.
On a number of occasions expeditions came within 150 km of completing the Northwest Passage. By 1859, all possible routes comprising the Northwest Passage had been discovered.”
http://acsys.npolar.no/meetings/final/metadata_pabstracts.php?s=0&table=Abstracts&id=39&parid=&tag=&country=&letter=&sorder=&stype=&limit=&q=
“Carbone (02:41:04) :
“Sooner Than Expected”
Every year I hear the same – everything is worse than expected.
I’m pretty sure that it will be 20 instead of 30 years next year. They need to keep it fresh.”
I agree. In fact…they can go from 30 to 20, then from 20 to 10, and then, magically, it will have already taken place in the past! 🙂
“Didn’t you see it?…it happened already 2yrs ago!…all of our models were correct!”
Or, as John Cleese put it…”That parrott’s dead.”
JimB
Rhys Jaggar (00:00:52) :
Could you please explain what you mean by:
“Scots’ style left-wing demagoguery”
JimB.. Unforunately i believe it will be 8 years. As soon as i read ” models”, the analysis goes to the scrap heap. Investing in energy companies, in view of a) gov’t restrictions on new supplies, b) colder climate, c), relatively low prices. Natural gas prices are at 10 year lows. My feeling is, there is too much vested interest in “global Warming”, to derail the train, no matter the facts. We just as well should profit from the misinformation. AMSU temps., especially at 46k feet, are at multi year lows. RSS for march shows cooling, particularly in the tropics. fm
Of course the models are correct. If it wasn’t for that pesky volcano in Alaska the ice would be less this year. Come October we will fit some arbitrary constants to the models to take into account the volcano to show how perfectly they fit looking backwards.
Timebandit — By the way Al made his prediction of ice free in five years in 2008 so we get to judge at the end of 2013 not 2014. Can’t be moving the goal posts.
“analyzed projections from six computer models, including three with sophisticated sea ice physics capabilities. That data was then combined with observations of summer sea ice loss in 2007 and 2008.”
Without being able to see the actual paper this appears to be based on the wind related ice loss of 2007 and subsequent low ice levels in 2008. In other words, it really isn’t based on Co2 but is a simple curve fitting exercise. Of course, these researchers will be retired in 30 years and will never be held accountable.
Maybe they could be held responsible if the ice extent in 5 years is outside the error bars …
New computer studies have revealed that the sea ice loss is directly caused by humans. The icebreakers that have taken untold thousands to view the disappearing ice are causing the premature breakup which allows the correct weather conditions of wind and currents to empty the Arctic Ocean’s ice down along Greenland’s coast and into the warmer Atlantic where it melts.
Sometimes you have to kill the patient to save him.
“I’m pretty sure that it will be 20 instead of 30 years next year. They need to keep it fresh.”
Not only that, but they need to get a major treaty or legislation passed pronto. I truly believe that the likes of Gore and Hanson are worried that temperatures will trend downwards for the next 5, 10 or even 20 years. If that happens, they can save face by claiming it was their treaty which turned things around.
My opinion only.
The NSIDC is going to hold a news conference on Monday and will trumpet the fact that the winter sea ice reached its maximum extent on February 28th, the earliest date for the maximum since their records began in 1978 – proof positive of global warming.
[Except their records go back farther than that and there was almost an earlier date on February 19th, 1972 but it was beat about a month later when there was a surge in sea ice freezing for a week or so. This is common in the arctic sea ice at maximum as there are ebbs and flows in the max depending on the margins of the arctic sea ice areas in the south – Hudson Bay, Pacific margins – Saint Lawrence and Newfoundland etc.]
ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/pub/DATASETS/seaice/polar-stereo/trends-climatologies/esmr-smmr-ssmi-merged/gsfc.nasateam.extent.1972-2002.n
It was cold in late February in the Sea of Okhotsk and the sea ice anomaly in this region went very high which is why the maximum happened a little earlier than normal. The sea ice maximum this year is still higher than it has been in recent years.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/recent365.anom.region.14.html
In terms of the sea ice completely melting on September 10th at some day in the distant future, I imagine someone could do a linear regression on the below chart and come up with one in 30 years or so. [But that would be the definition of spurious regression].
Arctic Sea Ice back to 1972.
http://img519.imageshack.us/img519/7721/nhseitotalsa.png
My question is: have they run their models starting in, say, 1970 and running through 2000 to see if the model reproduces the archived data? If not, then to have any sense of belief in their models with the input data starting in 2007 is ridiculous.
Well, I think the good news here is that the next 5 years are going to largely settle the question. Either the PDO will do its thing, or it won’t. And if it does, the modellers are going to be forced to halve their future predictions taking much of the urgency out of policy making. And if it doesn’t, the skeptics are going to be in a sticky place as well.
Check out this site for sea ice data: http://ice-glaces.ec.gc.ca/IceGraph/IceGraph-GraphdesGlaces.jsf
It never ceases to amaze me that there is all this speculation about “boil-the-planet” scenarios with decreasing Arctic sea ice. The math is simple – the Arctic circle receives only about 1.4% of the incident solar energy to the planet. We’re only talking about a potential loss of 25% of that area primarily in late summer, early autumn where the angle of incidence of this solar energy is so low that most ends up being reflected in smooth sea conditions. Add into this the previously mentioned fact that lack of ice actually allows oceans to cool faster and this notion of a drastic warming of the planet by loss of sea ice ends up being complete and utter garbage!
Maybe the ice will continue to decline, but not because of CO2. See http://ker-plunk.blogspot.com/2009/03/up-to-50-of-arctic-warming-caused-by.html
Could it be that the filthy atmosphere from China is drifting north to cover the ice with tiny black solar collectors?
Sorry, I meant to say the Sea of Okhotsk melted earlier than normal this year.
The only other area below the 1979-2000 mean right now is the Barents Sea.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/recent365.anom.region.6.html
The global sea ice area has been above the 1979-2000 mean for parts of the past two years and is currently 75,000 km^2 above the average.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/iphone/images/iphone.recent.global.png
My car is fitted with one of these new-fangled (well, it’s pretty new-fangled in the UK) digital readouts that tells me how many miles I can do before I need to fill the tank again.
When I left the house this morning it said 302; when I got back later it said 318. So how far do I have to drive before it reaches infinity?
So what is the difference between my computer predicting that if I keep driving I may never have to fill my tank again and NASA’s computer predicting that the arctic ice will all met in 10/30/50/90/whatever years?
My common sense (and the fact that I don’t get paid zillions a year to churn out this rubbish) tells me it ain’t possible. How come theirs seems to let them down at crucial moments?
Maybe by the time the Arctic is ice free, the author will learn how to convert square kilomters to square miles.
REPLY: and spell it too! 😉 Actually there’s a neat tool in Google, just type this into the Google search box:
“4.6 million square kilometers to square miles”
and the result given is:
4.6 million (square kilometers) = 1 776 069.93 square miles
A little different than the Canwest author saying: (about 2.8 million square miles)
or the 1 million square kilometers (about 620,000 square miles)
when it is actually: 1 million (square kilometers) = 386 102.159 square miles
The Google calculator is a handy tool for all sorts of these conversions, pity the author didn’t use it. – Anthony
Well, there seem to be (in my mind) four questions with regard to arctic ice: 1) Is the summer ice declining, and by what measure? A corollary to that would be: is 30 years of data really enough to determine what is actually happening? 2) If the ice can be determined to be in decline, how much of a positive feedback effect will that have on our climate via loss of albedo? 3) How much of a proxie for global warming aka “climate change” is arctic ice loss? and 4) Is man responsible, and if so to what extent?
NOAA can make all the predictions it wants, but despite its claim to the contrary, it doesn’t really understand the changes in the Earth’s environment at all, primarily because they vastly overestimate man’s influence via “greenhouse gasses”. Thus, its predictions are always proven false by reality, and they continually have to move the goal posts. They also seem to greatly overstate the positive feedback (if indeed there is any) due to whatever loss of albedo results from lower arctic ice extent. They do not seem to be so much interested in the science as they are of pushing the CAGW/CC ideology. Such a sad state of affairs for science, and for humanity.
NSIDC conference? When there is no news, manufacture it…
Perhaps they should establish a comm link with the Catlin guys who for the occasion would don bikinis and enjoy a martini by the pool?
Mikey (22:19:32) wrote:
“You know what would be fascinating? If they took book against climate models at Vegas. Say five year payouts.”
The problem with bets in Vegas is that bettors have to go there personally to make a bet. It’s desirable instead that they can bet from their computers. This can be done on the Intrade.com website, which I’ve recommended recently in a different thread. (I repeat what I posted beneath the line below.) I haven’t suggested such a bet to their management myself, because I’m not expert enough to be confident I’d suggest proper questions, and because I’d like to make sure the other side agrees to the wording first.
It’s necessary for there to be a centralized site that will hold the bets and flexibly adjust the odds to reflect the money committed by each side. It’s impossibly awkward and problematic for there to be bets set up between individuals.
=====================
I think it would be an excellent idea for the partisans of both sides to be able to bet against the other side. But arranging such bets on an ad hoc, one-to-one basis imposes a high overhead (making bets that are under $1000 (say) impractical), a high risk of non-payment, a great potential for foot-dragging “denial” in the event of a loss, a great potential for inter-personal nastiness during the negotiation and afterwards, etc.
What’s needed instead is a neutral venue where betting can be done impersonally, in small amounts, at a low overhead, with assurance of being paid (or at least getting ones money back in the event of a “draw” or “inconclusive”), etc.
Such a venue already exists. Bettors “bid” for bets at odds that sellers offer, in terms of any number of small-amount “contracts.” This has the effect of causing the odds offered to adjust quickly to reflect the money placed on each side of the bet. One of the additional advantages of this site’s method is that a person can cash-out or reduce his bet if he changes his mind, or has an emergency for which he temporarily needs money. (Of course, the “house” takes a cut as its commission when this occurs.)
The site already has a category for climate-related bets (click “Climate and Weather” in the menu on the left side of the screen). Its current bets relate only to whether laws regulating CO2 emissions will be passed in five countries. It also has bets relating to numbers-of-hurricanes and snowfall-levels in various cities, here:
http://www.intrade.net/market/listing/showEventGroup.faces?eg=508
It deals mostly with political and economic events, like the price of gold in the future, etc. That sort of question is easier to settle, because of its sharp Yes/No boundary, than questions like whether arctic sea ice has retreated, sea levels have risen, global temperature has risen, glaciers have retreated, etc. It would be very desirable if Intrade could be persuaded to add these fuzzier sorts of bets. It would do so only if the bet could be settled by reference to a data point from an agreed-upon “authority.” It wouldn’t want to have to serve as an arbitrator or interpreter of the fine points of the question.
There are downsides (and disagreements) to every authority, and downsides to every indicator of global warming (arctic ice, sea level, etc.), and to every data point regarding that indicator. But that problem can be easily finessed if Intrade were to provide a dozen (say) separate questions relating to the matter. That would allow bettors who don’t trust the indicator or an authority cited in certain questions to bet on the other questions where they believe those are more reliable. And it would allow the question of overall global warming to be distributed over several data points, reducing the risk that an anomalous reading in one indicator or data point would improperly answer the question. By employing a majority vote among indicators, a bettor could compensate for the weakness of each of them.
I therefore suggest that a new thread be set up here (or somewhere else on the Internet–or in many sites) where a preliminary set of betting-questions can be proposed and their wording thrashed out. Once these have been debugged sufficiently that lots of folks on both sides have said, “I’d bet on that question,” then Intrade could be approached by e-mail and asked to start taking bets on one or more of those questions. I think it would be a good idea to start small, with only a couple of questions, and to approach Intrade with a statement endorsed by leading names on both sides of the debate that they are prepared to abide by the settling of the bet in the manner described. One can suggest a contract to Intrade by e-mail here:
markets@intrade.com
Here’s another link, this one giving access to a pageful of contact information (by mail, fax, etc.):
http://www.intrade.net/faq/contactUs.faces
Intrade desires more respectability, visibility, and trading volume. By adding bets on the impact of the highly contentious matter of climate change, it would be performing a great social service. It would also thereby get lots of visibility, as its site would surely be regularly alluded to during online exchanges whenever a disputant is tempted to say, “Put your money where your mouth is.” Finally, once people register with the site, some will no doubt be tempted to place bets on the hundred or so other propositions on offer there. So Intrade will do well by doing good.
Intrade has been in business since 1999, and the predictions of the odds set by its markets in choosing winners of elections have been more accurate than those of pollsters. It’s been widely cited by political pundits as having a high accuracy rate.
Intrade is located in Dublin, Ireland and can’t accept payment from US credit cards. One has to set up an account online (there is a real-time online assistant to help step one through the process), then mail them a check, and then wait ten days for it to clear. In the interim, you should “learn the ropes” by making play-money bets in its training-wheels section, on its “Labs” tab.
Here are links to the sections of Intrade’s site where the details of participating are discussed. (NOTE TO MODERATOR: Delete the remainder if it seems like too much of a “plug.” I’m just trying to be helpful with all this info.)
About Intrade: https://www.intrade.com/jsp/intrade/help/general.html
Rules: https://www.intrade.com/jsp/intrade/help/index.jsp?page=rules.html
Safety & Security: https://www.intrade.com/jsp/intrade/home/safety_and_security.jsp
Help & FAQs: https://www.intrade.com/jsp/intrade/help/index.jsp?page=general.html
Rates & Fees: https://www.intrade.com/jsp/intrade/help/index.jsp?page=general.html%23fees
Forum (where bettors can argue for their positions: it’s pretty spicy): https://www.intrade.com/forum/
++++++++++
Incidentally, as a first step, there’s a site where “play money” bets can be made on a variety of topics, including the environment. (I’ve turned $2,000 to $700,000 in a little over a year, mostly by betting heavily at long odds on the stock market crash.) See here for the home page, where you can register to participate:
http://www.hubdub.com/
Here’s the page on the environment topic, which has other bets relating to AGW. (I just bet $1000 (in play money), at 10-to-1 odds, that the Wilkins Ice Shelf will hang on until 2010.):
http://www.hubdub.com/science/environment
Here’s a bet that was proposed to Gore. Here’s a link to this bet:
http://www.hubdub.com/m30611/Who_will_win_the_Climate_Bet__Al_Gore_or_Wharton_Professor_Scott_Armstrong
Who will win the “Climate Bet” – Al Gore or Wharton Professor Scott Armstrong?
Current forecast: J. Scott Armstrong (68% chance)
Combining all predictions, the current most likely outcome is J. Scott Armstrong with a probability of 68% (up 7% in last 1 day)
In June 2007, Wharton Professor Scott Armstrong offered Al Gore a bet of $10,000 on who could best predict global mean temperature over the next ten years. Al Gore declined the bet, citing the reason that he does not bet money (the full story can be reviewed at http://theclimatebet.com).
Now, assume that Armstrong and Gore had made a gentleman’s bet (no money) and that the ten years of the bet started on January 1, 2008.
• Armstrong’s forecast was that there would be no change in global mean temperature over the next ten years.
• Gore did not specify a method or a forecast. Nor did searches of his book or on the Internet reveal any quantitative forecasts or any methodology he relies on. He did, however, imply that the global mean temperature would increase at a rapid rate – presumably at least as great as the IPCC’s 1992 projection of 0.03°C-per-year; thus. The IPCC’s 1992 projection is to be taken as Gore’s forecast.
Settlement details: The criterion will be the mean absolute errors of Armstrong’s and Gore’s annual forecasts for the ten year period, with the errors to be measured against the UAH global temperature record (http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu). The win goes to the smallest mean absolute error.
PS: Individual Hubdubbers can post questions on the site themselves, without moderation. This could be a good way for both Warm-mongers and Cooler Heads to put forward their first versions of bets that could later be submitted to Intrade, for Real Money wagering.
REPLY: and spell it too! 😉
Not a chance…
Don you think “the prophet” could melt north pole in a few minutes if he contracts some nukes from koreans and iranians?
Well if the sea ice all melts, that will be good, because we know that every year when some of the sea ice melts it takes about 18ppm of CO2 out of the atmosphere; which is from 10-15 years of the background baseline increase in CO2. Melt enough of that arctic sea ice, and the CO2 curve could go to a negative slope instead.
In the northern summer the sun gets to about 23.5 deg North of the equator.
The arctic ocean is pretty much ALL north of 70 degrees north, which means the sun at the southern edge of the arctic ocean never gets above 46.5 degrees above the horizon. Actually a lot of the arctic ocen perimeter is north of 75 degress and higher above Greenland. But let’s leave it at 70 degrees.
So the minimum angle of incidence of the sun on calm Arctic ocean waters is 43.5 degrees.
Se a water has a refractive index of 1.333 in the visible, so the Brewster’s angle is 53 degrees, so we can conclude that at least at the soltice, the sea surface at the edge of the arctic ocean absorbs about 98% of the sunlight that strikes it, but the irradiance is reduced by cos (43.5 deg) or 72.5% of max .
At the north pole, the solar incidence angle never gets below 66.5 deg so the irradiance is only 40% of maximum, but the incidence angle is now well beyond Brewsters angle, so the surface reflection coefficient from flat open water is considerably higher than the 2% at normal incidence, but it probably doesn’t get above 6% reflectance.
So to a large extent, they are right, that a considerable amount of sunlight goews into the ocean. But reme,ber that the earth doesn’t stop rotating, so those high sun angles don’t persist for more than a few hours even at the solstice.
In any case depositing all that solar energy some tens of metres deep, will set up a vertical convection that will bring it all back to the surface, which is very much colder than tropical waters, so the convection current should be stronger than in the tropics. That will then result in accelerated evaporation from the sea surface; particularly of surface waters from the tropics come into the arctic ocean, so there will be an anomalous amount of evaporation, and ultimatley precipitation of snow over remaining ice and surrounding land areas.
So far the predictions of their computer data generators haven’t been batting too high; so I plan to live long enough to see this model come into disrepute too.
George
Steven Goddard (20:20:52) :
The summer Arctic sea ice minimum occurs near the autumn equinox, when the sun is disappearing below the horizon. So it has very little effect on the earth’s radiation balance.
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/AMSRE_Sea_Ice_Extent.png
But all that anomalously warm water, above freezing point, instead of ice at zero or below, does make a difference to the gridded temperatures, and thus the global temperature anomaly for July-October in the Northern hemisphere rises. Thus the recession in the sea ice causes global warming. Yet we must be losing more radiation from the warm ocean surface than from the cold ice, causing global cooling.
Perhaps they will cancel each other out.
Anthony,
Please do me a favor. If and when the arctic sea ice extent reaches the 1979-2000 average on the NSIDC website due to a slow melt rate, please post a story on it here. Watching the melt progress, I have a funny feeling that once the ice in the sea of Okhotsk is done melting, that the rate of melting will slow dramatically, causing the extent to catch up with the 1979-2000 average.
Thanks!
REPLY: Noted
Bruce Cobb asks:
With some of these ocean modes taking 30 years to play out, I suspect that we need something like 4 cycles worth of data to even begin to figure out what is going on.
Thanks for all the info Roger Knights. I think I’ll register at Hubdub, and I agree with you. The idea of a centralized climate betting site publicized through independent blogs, and websites agreeing to bets to be placed on the site has potential.
In this way there would be less strutting, and more actual odds to look at. Odds are important, I think. I like the idea of self-regulating odds, like at a horse race.
From the article:
analyzed projections from six computer models, including three with sophisticated sea ice physics capabilities. That data was then combined with observations of summer sea ice loss in 2007 and 2008.
So, what exactly did they do? Using “physics” they made some projections. Well OK. Then validated the computer models with only two recent years of data. Ummm-No thanks. I agree with:
Mike Monce (05:07:02):
If not, then to have any sense of belief in their models with the input data starting in 2007 is ridiculous.
Tim Clark (10:16:05) :
From the article:
analyzed projections from six computer models, including three with sophisticated sea ice physics capabilities. That data was then combined with observations of summer sea ice loss in 2007 and 2008.
So, what exactly did they do? Using “physics” they made some projections. Well OK. Then validated the computer models with only two recent years of data. Ummm-No thanks. I agree with:
Mike Monce (05:07:02):
If not, then to have any sense of belief in their models with the input data starting in 2007 is ridiculous.
Perhaps you should read the paper rather than erect a strawman?
http://www.agu.org/journals/gl/gl0907/2009GL037820/figures.shtml#fig01
5? 30? 100?
How about NEVER!
Even knowing what Anthony has shown here for possible bias in surface measurements, here are some easy ones to look at, courtesy of the Government of Canada:
http://www.climate.weatheroffice.ec.gc.ca/climate_normals/results_e.html?Province=ALL&StationName=aler&SearchType=BeginsWith&LocateBy=Province&Proximity=25&ProximityFrom=City&StationNumber=&IDType=MSC&CityName=&ParkName=&LatitudeDegrees=&LatitudeMinutes=&LongitudeDegrees=&LongitudeMinutes=&NormalsClass=A&SelNormals=&StnId=1731&
that’s the 1971 to 2000 Climate normals for Alert, no big sign of extreme warming there, but here is the data link for the same site, daily, monthly or even hourly:
http://www.climate.weatheroffice.ec.gc.ca/climateData/hourlydata_e.html?timeframe=1&Prov=NU&StationID=1731&Year=2009&Month=4&Day=2
Just as a random check, I chose monthly data, and looked at August Mean Monthly from 1950 to 2006, if there is an “extreme climate emergency” in those numbers, I fail to see it.
Phil. (10:51:54) :
Perhaps you should read the paper rather than erect a strawman?
Nice pics. The strawman here is access to the original data. Or, perhaps you could provide it?
Howarteh (21:40:31) :
“Who writes this tripe? I agree with Keith. “NOAA understands and predicts changes in the Earth’s environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and conserves and manages our coastal and marine resources.” This is hugely arrogant and reeks of elitism. Is this a science organization or a PR firm?”
Perhaps they’re stating they are proud to lead the rest of the government in the race into (ever-greater) arrogance and elitism.
Computer models are almost useless in macro-scenarios like global climate prediction. They can never fully cover all of the variables and even if they do, mathematical uncertainty (depending on how many dimensions or degrees of freedom are allowed for) makes any predictions based on such models tenuous at best.
But the worst thing about modeling like this is that computers don’t do what you want them to, rather, they do what you tell them to and they do it immediately.
Nature, on the other hand, does what it wants when it wants. Nature does not do what you tell it to do nor does it care when you issue the command.
Big difference there.
Robert (06:26:40) : & Anthony sq km to sq miles !!!
Do you suppose the writer just multiplied the number by 0.6 and rounded it off? . . . under the mistaken assumption that if 1 km = ~0.6 miles the same would hold for an area measurement ? No!
They must have meant to post this on April 1, not on the 2nd.
“Phil. (10:51:54) :
Perhaps you should read the paper rather than erect a strawman?”
That wasn’t my intent; instead if you will reread my statement, I was asking if such had been done. Now that you’ve provided access I can see they did start their runs at 1950. I also note that the models only run for September, and not the rest of the year. The graphs are vey tough to read, but from what I see the models follow the general trend of the HADISST data, but as far as I can tell there is a lot of “out of phase” oscillations between the data and the models. The CNRM seems to give the best results up until the past year or so.
My next question is then: how reliable is the HADISST data? i.e. has the ice decreased from 8.5 Msqkm to about 5.5 Msqkm? A large percentage decrease. And if so, can there be other explanations other than anthropogenic forcing which the paper seems to assume.
The have corrected their conversions.
I’m just glad the claims are finally starting to get ridiculous enough that we will be able to discredit the charade in the near future by their own claims.
After looking at the MONTHLY average sea ice trends on the NSIDC website… my curiosity got to me about the published percentage of growth or shrinkage of sea ice at the poles.
The monthly trend graph as of March 31 shows that the Arctic is shrinking at a rate of -2.7% per decade, and now the Antarctic growing at the rate of +4.7% per decade.
So, being a good little engineer, I imported the actual published data tables used for the NSIDC graphs. There are about 350 data points for the nearly 30 years of monthly averages of each type of ice trend: Arctic Extent, Arctic Area, Antarctic Extent, Antarctic Area.
Unless my spreadsheet and trend graphs are radically incorrect because of some typo or bad import of their data, I got different results from their graphs.
First off, the GLOBAL averages over all 12 months of the year are as follows:
Extent: 15.05 mIllion sq. kilometers (both poles averaged)
Area: 18.55 million square kilometers
But in graphing the trends, I got even more curious results that show a definite 30-year downward trend in global sea ice since the 1979 satellite data commenced, as follows:
Global Ice Area decline of 4.3 % in the last 30 years (1.4 % per decade)
Global Ice Extent decline of 3.3 % in 30 years (1.1 % per decade)
This included the 2006-2007 minimums in the averages, which did impact the trend. Obviously this does not include thickness.
What does this mean if my numbers are correct? It means that if the trend continues, it will take around 750 to 900 years or so for the poles to be ice free assuming the entire globe heats up for the next millenium. But somehow, I don’t think this is gonna happen considering natural cycles of little ice ages that occur from time to time. And of course, the south pole has been trending up almost constantly.
The less ice we have, the higher the CO2 taxes that we must pay. Yes, that’s it.
ROLLERBALL is coming, the G20 was the first meeting.
You know that cutting pollution would be a great idea even if the efforts of man have little to do with global warming, right? Saying that the pole may be largely ice free in 5 years is idiotic, but then so is burying your heads in the sand.
Funny thing about that Wilkins Ice Shelf breaking off, but no doubt a mere coincidence, as long as you bury your head deep enough. Mmm, sand.
I just read this one about the loss of a large section of the Wilkins ice shelf in Antarctica. See . Seems that the author is worried that the loss of the ice shelf will raise the ocean levels. My guess is that it won’t.
Well the link works, but the html is wrong.
“It’s a combination of natural variability, along with warmer air and sea conditions caused by increased greenhouse gases.” Says Dr Overland… perhaps he may want to explain to us the shape of the remaining sea ice during the 2007 melt and how “warmer air caused by increased greenhouse gases” can be that selective in melting sea ice… Or is the fact to repeat the mantra ad nauseum sufficient peer review justification?
Timothy, perhaps you may want to get familiar with the issue of iceberg calving. For your information the largest ever measured berg to calve from the Antarctica came from the Filchner Shelf, 335 km by 97km or 31,000km2, almost 10 times bigger than Larsen B. And do you know when this one was measured? In 1956 by the USS Glacier…
We have just had a summer of record low summer Arctic ice (by area), followed by a summer of record low volume. Complete meltback (in 30 years) would mean thin one-year ice the next year. With earlier meltback, the following year there would be earlier (and longer) warming of the darker water. And warmer temperatures would further increase the melting of the surrounlding permafrost, and release even more methane. Would this be one tipping point, or two?
I guess TWO YEARS…2007 and 2008…plus WHATEVER methods are used to measure and compute…makes highly accurate predictions.
Give me a break! And just wait….!
Why doesn’t the ICCP sue Al Gore & Jim Hansen and have them prosecuted for false statements and see if they can prove their case in court — that would give the ‘skeptics’ a chance to ‘debate’ AWG in front of the world!
maybe you should ask these guys
http://madrad2002.wordpress.com/2009/01/21/scientific-consensus/
NASA
http://www.nasa.gov/worldbook/global_warming_worldbook.html
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/GlobalWarmingQandA/
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.lrg.gif (The graph)
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
National Climatic Data Center
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalwarming.html
World Meteorological Organization (WMO)
http://www.wmo.ch/pages/about/wmo50/e/world/climate_pages/global_warming_e.html
American Meteorological Society
http://www.ametsoc.org/policy/2007climatechange.html
National Center for Atmospheric Research
“How do we know Earth is warming now?”
http://www.ncar.ucar.edu/research/climate/now.php
Earth System Research Laboratory – Global Monitoring Division
“Climate Forcing”
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/about/climate.html
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
http://www.ucar.edu/research/climate/warming.jsp
Jet Propulsion Laboratory – California Institute of Technology
“Global Climate Change” “How do we know?”
http://climate.jpl.nasa.gov/evidence/
American Geophysical Union (world’s largest scientific society of Earth and space scientists)
“Human Impacts on Climate”
http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/policy/climate_change_position.html
American Association for the Advancement of Science
“The scientific evidence is clear: global climate change caused by human activities is occurring now”
http://www.aaas.org/news/press_room/climate_change/mtg_200702/aaas_climate_statement.pdf
http://www.aaas.org/news/press_room/climate_change/
The United States Energy Information Administration
“Greenhouse Gases, Climate Change, and Energy”
http://www.eia.doe.gov/bookshelf/brochures/greenhouse/Chapter1.htm
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
“Report: Human activity fuels global warming”
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/climate.html
California Institute of Technology
“How We Know Global Warming is Real”
“The science behind human-induced climate change”
http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~tapio/papers/skeptic_2008.pdf
Atmospheric Sciences – University of Illinois – Champaign
“Evidence continues to mount that human activities are altering the Earth’s climate on a global scale.”
http://www.atmos.uiuc.edu/research/01climate.html
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
“Global Warming”
http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=12457
The UK’s Met Office Hadley Centre
“Climate change – the big picture”
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/myths/index.html
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/guide/
The UK’s Royal Society
“Climate change controversies: a simple guide”
http://royalsociety.org/page.asp?id=6229
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Based in Switzerland)
“Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report”
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr_spm.pdf
Japan Meteorological Agency
“Global Warming Projection Vol.7”
http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/tcc/tcc/products/gwp/gwp7/index-e.html
The Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society
“Our climate has changed substantially.” “Global climate change and global warming are real and observable.”
http://www.amos.org.au/publications/cid/3/t/publications
Royal Society of New Zealand
“The globe is warming because of increasing greenhouse gas emissions.”
http://www.royalsociety.org.nz/Site/news/media_releases/2008/clim0708.aspx
National Geographic Magazine
http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/
Scientific American Magazine
http://www.sciam.com/topic.cfm?id=global-warming-and-climate-change
Yes, we’ll ask those guys–when they’re in the dock, a dozen years from now.
“NOAA understands and predicts changes in the Earth’s environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and conserves and manages our coastal and marine resources.”
How’s that cycle 24 prediction going for you?
Francis (18:08:50) :
We have just had a summer of record low summer Arctic ice (by area), followed by a summer of record low volume. Complete meltback (in 30 years) would mean thin one-year ice the next year. With earlier meltback, the following year there would be earlier (and longer) warming of the darker water. And warmer temperatures would further increase the melting of the surrounlding permafrost, and release even more methane. Would this be one tipping point, or two?
Francis, the “record lows” are only for the period since 1979, a period of 30 years. Of course, Arctic ice extents prior to 1979 seem to be completely unknown to Arctic ice experts. Palaeoclimatologists can perform great feats of statistical legerdemain in reconstructing climate history from various climate proxies but I have yet to see the equivalent efforts devoted to reconstructing historical Arctic ice extents. Why bother, the 1979 to present records contain the proper message.
So I ask, do you really think it is solid science to extrapolate a 30 year trend ahead another 30 years? Were it that climate was so simple!
Matt Dernoga (22:11:22) :
maybe you should ask these guys
All big and respected names of impeccable credentials, but so were Bear Sterns, Fanny Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers, Merril Lynch before they disgraced themselves and hurt a lot of people. Appeal to authority does not carry much weight these days
Stories of ice melts just don’t add up. For example, can someone explain to me how Meier and others can claim that ice is going at both poles (with whole shelves leaving us around Antarctica) according to this story I saw on FoxNews:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,512836,00.html
and yet the global ice anomaly is ABOVE the 1979-2000 mean???
Anthony,
What about this article from NASA:
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/arctic_thinice.html
andyschlei (21:04:42) :
Anthony,
What about this article from NASA:
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/arctic_thinice.html
This is all very interesting but it still suffers from unwarranted projections of the future of Arctic ice based on a short 30 years of data. Anecdotally, there is evidence that historical Arctic ice extents have gone through multi-decadal cycles. Could we not be witnessing a cyclical behavior rather than feared extropolation to zero summer/fall ice coverage?
This is the ice record for Baffin Bay (1968 – 2008) … note there is no declining trend although ice levels have been relatively low since 1999:
http://ice-glaces.ec.gc.ca/IceGraph/CwtClimChtSrvlt?region=cea12_00&nrmlsta=1971&nrmlend=2000&sizex=1230&sizey=780&lang=en&showwarn=false&plotnormal=true&plotmedian=false&plottrend=false&plothilite=false&plotwarn=false&plotscaled=false&cachelife=60&errorpage=/IceGraphDisplay-GraphdesGlacesDisplay.jsf&charttype=stac&ssnsta=1968&ssnend=2009&histdtsta=0514&histdtend=1015&format=ct