Guest post by Steven Goddard
Two days ago I questioned how Antarctic ice could be both “melting faster than expected” and “expanding” at the same time. Yet (as WUWT has noted before) the answer is obvious – according to NASA, most of Antarctica is both cooling rapidly and heating rapidly at the same time.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=6502
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WilkinsIceSheet/images/wilkins_avh_2007.jpg
Since nearly the entire continent is both cooling and heating simultaneously, it makes perfect sense (using AGW logic) that the ice would be rapidly expanding and rapidly retreating simultaneously. In 2004, NASA thought that Antarctica was cooling by as much as 15 degrees C per century. But after three more years of cooling, they changed the map to show a warming trend in 2007.
The hot red warming trend seen in the second map has a stated uncertainty of “between 2-3 degrees Celsius” which means that it might actually represent a rapid cooling trend, rather than a warming trend. Vostok is averaging -96F this week. Does that make anyone think of hot, red colors?
Penguins trying to keep cool in NASA’s rapidly warming world
Nylo posted a link to an excellent parody of the state of Antarctic climate science, written by Dr. John Christy.
“What we believe,” Dr. Frost told ecoEnquirer, “is that a new paradigm is needed in scientific thought. Since mutually exclusive sets of scientific results usually are published in respected scientific publications, we suggest that they are both true. There is a higher level of physical understanding that must be developed, one where the Yin and Yang of scientific findings are reconciled, better understood, and appreciated.”
Good to see tax dollars hard at work, supporting serious and coherent science from the same organisation which put men on the moon – 40 years ago this July.
Shakespeare apparently saw AGW coming:
Much Ado About Nothing
The Comedy of Errors
All’s Well That Ends Well
Measure for Measure A Midsummer Night’s Dream The Tempest
Oh!
Now I understand.
Thanks NASA!
Great to see that tax dollars are being used wisely.
This looks like the Antarctic Oceanic Oscillation to me. It seems to have tightened around the continent and warmed up. Could this be a heat pump bringing warm ocean temps to this tight circle of water, that is then released into the atmosphere and out through a blanketless hole? Could also explain the snow down there. I am guessing the water vapor levels are high.
Thanks for the article.
You only have to take a look at http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/ and read the articles to know that this organization is fully embedded in the Scare Scheme of Global Warming, fully paid by tax revenues.
Shame on them.
I remember the days when NASA was a well-respected body, capable of putting men on the moon and bringing them safely back to earth. I would say of ‘climate research’ that it’s not rocket science, but we know NASA is no longer capable of rocket science so it’s not surprising that it is not capable of doing ‘climate science’ either. What a sad state of affairs it is to see NASA having become such a pathetic organisation.
Now, finally, I know what they mean by “Climate Chaos”.
I’m pretty sure that ecoInquirer is the parodic work of Roy Spencer and not John Christy
Is this anything less than insanity? They pretend to be serious and expect to be taken so? Must be climate science 101, and psychotropic stimulation is necessary to ‘grok’ this. (my apologies to R. Heinlein for absconding his word)
And the number of actual observation poiints (measurement sites!) and their locations that these two “opposed” trends come from are ……. ?
More to the point: Are the people mesuring and recording and evaluating and exaggerating these trends are ….
Accurate?
Unbiased?
Dispassionate?
Analytical?
Critical?
Curious?
Interested?
Passionate?
Inept?
Inaccurate?
Disciples?
Promoters?
Evangelists?
No Bull Prize aspirants?
Noble Peace Prize aspirants?
The anomaly should be depicted as a lighter shade of blue-say Cobalt v.s. Sky blue?
I get really tired of a slight difference being shown as if there are palm trees growing in Antacrtica-now..
Help me understand this, the legend on the graph goes -0.1, -0.05, 0, 0.05, 0.1, plus or minus 2 or 3 whole degrees???
This agency put men on the moon? I’m starting to see why that old conspiracy theory about the lunar landings being faked is still kicking around. If we keep getting more nonsense like that graph with that legend yet such a huge uncertainty interval in the fine print, I’m going to start questioning EVERYTHING they’ve ever claimed.
Or at least start looking for some fineprint to read before I take anything they say at their word.
It’s the cognitive dissonance of a collapsing paradigm. It’s only going to get worse.
Another example. Yesterday, when Gore was questioned about his motivations he tried to grab the high ground with squeals about donating his profits to ‘charity’. Then he slipped up and asked his questioner if she was ‘anti-business’. That’s having your cake and eating it, too. It is especially so when the ‘charity’ involved is his huge ad campaign, peddling the false prospecti for his businesses. There oughta be a law.
============================================
“…There is a higher level of physical understanding that must be developed, one where the Yin and Yang of scientific findings are reconciled, better understood, and appreciated.”
Ahhhh — now I understand.
Aristotelian logic is out and the higher realms of Platonic understanding are in.
…
That is quite an indictment of the (formerly) hard sciences.
Hey that’s climate chaos and it’s AGW in action. .
That’s the message from the Thom Hartmans and RFK Jrs on left wing radio.
I hear that all the time.
They’ve adopted all things varried in weather as signs of AGW.
Wetter, drier, cooler, warmer, flooding, burning.
Chaos is the default excuse as the climate is turning.
No poem intended.
You know Big Al’s got to be in trouble when he recycles his tired hackery about moon landings and Arizona movie sets, when he projects Madoff like fraud on to the skeptics, and when he tries to pretend his motivations are pure and his finances eleemosynary. What a joke. We may have to make a law especially for him, and it won’t be Cap and Trade. It’ll have criminal sanctions for his weapons of mass destruction.
Oh, yes, the topic du jour. Well, rising ice at both poles must really grind him.
=============================================
The second fiery looking map has a rang of .2 degrees c per/yr and and accuracy of 2-3 degrees C .
I guess that is suppose to make sense
It makes no sense to consider Antarctica to be a single climate. It’s a continent, for goshsakes (technical term)! It is quite possible and to be expected that some regions of Antarctica are warming while others are cooling. After all, the climate is supposed to change and the range of natural variability is probably greater than many people have been misled to believe.
If we indulge the fallacy of of single climate for Antarctica as a whole, it can’t be both warming and cooling, can it? Certainly it can, if we’re talking year to year, but not if we’re talking longer periods of measurement. Another issue here may be in trying to create a long-term trend from the data when no such clear trend actually exists. The noise-to-signal ratio is also too high, with the margin of error being greater than any of the noted change in climate.
Still, I can’t help but be puzzled when it’s all ‘consistent with the models’.
“What we believe,” Dr. Frost told ecoEnquirer, “is that a new paradigm is needed in scientific thought
Exactly, this is what Greenspan said about the new paradigm in innovative financial products, such as subprime mortgages:
“Innovation has brought about a multitude of new products, such as subprime loans and niche credit programs for immigrants. Such developments are representative of the market responses that have driven the financial services industry throughout the history of our country … With these advances in technology, lenders have taken advantage of credit-scoring models and other techniques for efficiently extending credit to a broader spectrum of consumers. … Where once more-marginal applicants would simply have been denied credit, lenders are now able to quite efficiently judge the risk posed by individual applicants and to price that risk appropriately. These improvements have led to rapid growth in subprime mortgage lending; indeed, today subprime mortgages account for roughly 10 percent of the number of all mortgages outstanding, up from just 1 or 2 percent in the early 1990s.” With these advances in technology, lenders have taken advantage of credit-scoring models and other techniques for efficiently extending credit to a broader spectrum of consumers. The widespread adoption of these models has reduced the costs of evaluating the creditworthiness of borrowers, and in competitive markets cost reductions tend to be passed through to borrowers. Where once more-marginal applicants would simply have been denied credit, lenders are now able to quite efficiently judge the risk posed by individual applicants and to price that risk appropriately. These improvements have led to rapid growth in subprime mortgage lending; indeed, today subprime mortgages account for roughly 10 percent of the number of all mortgages outstanding, up from just 1 or 2 percent in the early 1990s.”
There is NO NEW PARADIGM in science. Unfortunately, just like in financial services, there is simply a “boom” in snake oil and outright liars. Like the Madoff lies, dishonesty in science is just as unsustainable….eventually you get caught and the fraud is exposed.
Madness… pure madness.
ecoEnquirer, eh? Any relation to the Enquirer at the supermart checkout?
There’s a reasonable response for scientific situations like this, and that’s to admit we don’t have a good handle on what’s happening. Or that we need to do more research … or that we are just plain puzzled by the data.
There are good reasons why mental states like denial or hysteria have a bad reputation, and it’s because they then to lead to progressively deteriorating performance. They’re not stable.
As we are cautioned in our early schooling, drugs like alcohol affect the higher levels of judgement, first. So it often appears to be with denial & hysteria, too: One’s capacity for the finer aspects of sensible judgement … just starts going haywire.
This seems to me an important distinction between classic religious lifestyles, and a lot of the contemporary environmental, Green, AGW quasi-religion: The former have achieved ongoing stability, whereas the latter are more like a slow-motion social train-wreck.
Sorry for the OT, but I’m on the ferry on my way to survey the Olga, WA USHCN site. It’s overcast and a nippy 46f according to my car thermometer, but looks like it might be clearing ahead.
The ferry is about to dock at Lopez Island, then it’s on to Orcas Island and Olga.
Hopfully I can locate the MMTS, the Google Earth image is very low res for that particular area. It looks to be at the end of a cul de sac.
I’m currently surrounded by a couple hundred cyclists who are about to disembark at Lopez.
Wish me luck!
I would add that the quote from Greenspan was from Feb 2004. So just like in financial services it takes a while for the fraud to be exposed. Sadly, this is despite the obvious fact that any intelligent rational person could have a worked out that subprime (giving loans to people who could not afford them on the premise that house prices would forever go up and they could re-mortgage) was based on faulty logic.
I believe the same is true for AGW. Although the science is a little more complex and it is much harder for the average person to immediately see the scam for what it is.
I wonder how much damage will be done before people realize that the world is not about to end and it isn’t getting dramatically warmer.
Kim – “Oh, yes, the topic du jour. Well, rising ice at both poles must really grind him.”
I’ve never actually met an environmentalist who actually cared what the facts were, and they certainly don’t let it both them. If they did DDT, Global Warming and Nuclear power bans would have never happened.
Oh and millions of humans, mostly children would be alive today, but again silly facts, ignore.
You have to wonder if Dr. Frost could be partially right, at least in the context of Stephen Hawkin’s statement that “Science doesn’t advance by replacing wrong answers with right answers but by replacing wrong answers with those that are more subtly wrong”.
It seems that I have read that the Antarctic Penninsula is a site of volcanic activity. Am I missing the point that the penninsula could be warming while the rest of the continent is remaining the same or even cooling. Mcintyre’s analysis of Steig’s work would seem to indicate this.
If so, wouldn’t this be an example of:
“Since mutually exclusive sets of scientific results usually are published in respected scientific publications, we suggest that they are both true. There is a higher level of physical understanding that must be developed, one where the Yin and Yang of scientific findings are reconciled, better understood, and appreciated.”
The NASA cohort that put men on the moon were 85% engineers. Engineers got Apollo 13 home.
If engineers were measuring Antarctic, or global, temperatures, we’d know what’s happening. AGWers would never permit that to happen.
John A,
You are correct. EcoEnquirer is Roy Spencer’s site, not John Christy.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/20/AR2006052001151.html
Apologies to all for the misinformation.
Dan Lee (08:30:57)
GISS routinely reports temperature anomalies to two decimal place accuracy, even though nearly 70% of the measurement sites are prone to measurement errors greater than 2 degrees Celsius, based on the surveys reported at surfacestations.org for approximately 70% of the temperature measurement sites.
That is more impressive than alchemy! Lead CAN be picked up by its clean end.
NASA as and organization has been bipolar in it’s mission as well. Conceived as a political response to the Soviet Union’s technology challenge in rocketry, it originally emphasized engineering over science. Gradually the scientific mission gained a foothold with the missions to the outer planets and earth orbit satellites to observe weather and vegetation, but politics is reflected to this day in the International Space Station which some criticize as an expensive exercise that does relatively little science.
POLITICIANS/SCIENTISTS ALWAYS FIND WHAT THEY ARE LOOKING FOR
Thanks for showing the +/- temperature trends in the Antarctic.
Such trends in experimental data allow unscrupulous scientists and politicians to find exactly what they are looking for.
For example, the UN’s IPCC itself “does not conduct any research nor does it monitor climate related data or parameters” [1]. Thus without bias the IPCC — operating under the myopic mandate to assess only “the risk of human-induced climate change” [1] — could report exactly what they were looking for: Rising temperatures (+) not falling temperatures (-).
[1] See the IPCC Mandate in the first paragraph of “About IPCC,” Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Control: http://www.ipcc.ch/about/index.htm
With kind regards,
Oliver K. Manuel
http://www.omatumr.com
…. “Good to see tax dollars hard at work, supporting serious and coherent science from the same organisation which put men on the moon – 40 years ago this July.”….
Yeah. Some where between then and now, good science died and was replaced with this Green zombie like substitute….. Perhaps the Martian Body Snatchers do exist 😉
OT, but very interesting paper
http://www.atypon-link.com/IAHS/doi/abs/10.1623/hysj.54.2.394
To paraphrase Bill Clinton: It all depends on what your definition of “is not incosistent with” is not inconsistent with.
Some alarmist history – past and present.
————————————————————–
http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/checker.aspx?v=yd6U8zkU8z
This is the antarctic picture before massaging
http://www.giurfa.com/wilkins2007.jpg
REPLY: What is the source of that photo, can you reference where you got it? – Anthony
Obviously, the NASA that got us into space and onto the moon is now retired or dead. The politically reliable and correct NASA of today is simply pathetic.
Dr. Frost’s statement translated:
We don’t know what we’re talking about but we’re all correct and we’ll figure out a way to make it so.
Anthony —
Sorry for being OT but check this out.
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=28053
The upshot is that the special test humvee is being airlifted to the destination after 1/2 trip because the weather is worse than expected. Sorta reminds one of the Catlin business.
Yes I know this is probably trivial but wanted to add the anecdotal article for those archiving such things…
It’s a new administration and there is a mad scramble for funding. If there is nothing to study then they don’t get funds. In addition the new leftist Obama group will encourage and promote AGW studies. Use it or lose it. My brother in law works for NASA and I will assure you there are some skeptics there. It’s the Political administrators that are the problem.
In a country where you can get a ticket for parking in your own driveway, nothing surprises me anymore. What all this tells me is that no matter what your agenda, you can find data to validate it somewhere in Antarctica. It is sort of like reading Pakistani newspapers.
OT.
Steve — at the risk of exposing my ignorance of the scientific world — is your last name related at all to the NASA facility of the same name?
Or just a coinkeedink…….
It’s just like IcyHot. Even Shaq knows all about it.
Oh, oh, do enjoy this full spectrum of colour as warmism infiltrates the NASA images. I posted all 6 mindlessly morphing images alongside my comments on Steig’s paper here: http://www.greenworldtrust.org.uk/Science/Scientific/babyIce.htm#antarctic
Adolfo Giurfa: exactly! Flaming red with .2 difference in temperature, which measurement is a great big question mark! I am interested in the source of your image as well.
Remember, summertime in the Antartica is waning…
The big problem I see with those graphics is that no temperature is linked to them. A trend is superfluous if the min is -97F and the max is -77F.
100 degrees below freezing point of water is still frozen.
Until the temp reaches absolute zero, the ice is elastic, and will continue to flow outwards as it deepens.
It’s freezing and spreading. When it reaches the sea, it will break off and act to lower the temp of the surrounding ocean. Over time, the ice will have to travel further out to sea to melt.
When the globe is cooling quickly, it’s cooling everything.
When the glaciers grew in the Swiss Alps in the Little Ice Age, they grew quickly and shoved whole towns off the mountain.
The cries of desperation in the Yukon this past winter are just the beginning. Wait until next winter. The ice will spread further, and shove humans with it.
Now look at Wikipedia’s Connolley’s picture of Antarctica
and my edited version
Please enjoy and pass on.
This whole discussion of whether the Antarctic is warming or not goes back to the failed CO2 = AGW hypothesis. That’s what it’s all about. Alarmists truly believe that CO2 causes [non-existent] global warming, which, in their hypothesis, should show up at the poles first. They are wrong again: click
The NOAA uses Keeling’s distorted CO2 graph, which starts at 310 ppm instead of zero — which makes the CO2 apparently rise at a scary 45° angle. That makes it look very alarming: click
That graph shows carbon dioxide steadily increasing at a rapid rate. But it does not show if the CO2 is emitted by human activity, or if the rise is a result of ocean outgassing, or from being recorded on a volcano, or from a combination of the two. The unstated implication is that the rise is due to human emissions, which is deliberately misleading. In fact, only a very tiny fraction of the total is due to human activity. The anthropogenic CO2 emissions are too small to show up in the Keeling graph.
What the Keeling graph does show is an extremely smooth, regular rise, which does not fluctuate from year to year.
This next chart shows that the Keeling chart above reflects almost entirely non-anthropogenic CO2: click
Notice the large fluctuations in human generated CO2 emissions from one year to the next. Compare that with the smooth year to year rise in the Keeling chart, and it is obvious that the NOAA is showing almost entirely natural emissions. The anthropogenic emissions are not visible at all when the second chart is compared with the first.
The scary Keeling chart is reflecting natural biological activity. Any human emissions are so far down in the noise that they cannot be measured.
The Mauna Loa CO2 record claims to show human CO2 emissions. It does no such thing.
The NOAA and the UN/IPCC deliberately present their Mauna Loa charts in an alarming manner. Their intent is to convince the public that there is an imminent problem. Thus they are being deliberately deceptive. Propaganda is their aim, not science.
It’s called Relativism. In a relativistic society everybody, everything and every idea is right and must be respected. Therefore, religions that disagree theologically are both equally correct. All cultures are equal and correct. All beliefs and lifestyles are equal and correct. Science must respect religion, religion must respect science. They are both correct. Scientology is correct science and religion. Global warming is correct science and religion too and must be respected because out of 6.5 billion people there are 10,000 die hard protesting believers who must be respected despite the trouble they cause. I could carry on but it gets worse.
Remdial steps for advancing glaciation:
1.) Pack up belongings.
2.) Retreat to warmer climes before being trapped by impassable conditions.
3.) Repeat steps 1 & 2 until warmer climate returns.
Remember what happened to that Mr. Truman who sat it out as Mt. St. Helens was about to blow? He got cleaned off. Run for it, it’s healthier. Sacrificing one’s body to an impending volcanic eruption to cool the lava is no more significant than warming an advancing glaciation by laying down to freeze.
Contrary to what Mr. Gore says, mankind does not count in the face of terrestrial scale events.
I think it’s easy to forget how big Antarctica is since it looks small on maps. It’s the fifth largest continent so I think it’s reasonable to assume that there can be cooling and warming occurring simultaneously. Most is cooling and the largest ice masses are increasing. It’s possible that the string of extremely active solar cycles that have helped the warming until 2000ish (and that have now appear to have ended) would lead to oceans being proportionately warmer than land. As waters give off their stored heat, we can see episodes of warming on the Antarctic peninsula and higher ice melts in the Arctic until a new equilibrium is reached. It’s certainly not warm air temperatures that cause any ice melting in these areas.
It’s clear that there has been a tipping point – toward cooler temperatures… It’s just a slow process.
The Mauna Loa CO2 record claims to show human CO2 emissions. It does no such thing.
Indeed. Last I heard it was intended to track volcanic activity syptoms for the purpose of eruptive prediction capabilities. It is a perfect measure of the tectonic CO2 contribution, albeit a single volcano over a hot spot.
Better yet, subtract it’s contribution from man’s, and see whose the significant emitter. Bet the volcano wins. They usually do.
Adolfo Giurfa (10:45:34) :
This is the antarctic picture before massaging
http://www.giurfa.com/wilkins2007.jpg
REPLY: What is the source of that photo, can you reference where you got it? – Anthony
Anthony, seeing as even the text color has changed, that looks like someone just shifted the colors in Photoshop.
REPLY2: Exactly which is why I’m asking the question to show a source. – Anthony
NASA, the IPCC, Gore, Hansen, Obama and others have created “suspension of disbelief” with their scary anthropogenic global warming/climate change scenarios.
This link from MediaCollege.com explains suspension of disbelief: http://www.mediacollege.com/glossary/s/suspension-of-disbelief.html
The first line sums it up nicely: “In the world of fiction you are often required to believe a premise which you would never accept in the real world.”
Anthropogenic global warming/climate change theory has created suspension of disbelief in the mainstream media and for people all over the world, just as Gore’s fantasy film created the same effect for its millions of viewers.
Luckily there are sane people who realize the theory is a fantasy, and in time the whole world will know.
Ah, quantum climate change in which the climate assumes all states until it is oberved, at which point it collapses into a roaring heat wave when oberved by an AGW enthusiast, and into a blizzard when observed by a climate realist. Yes, this is a great advance in climate science.
OT
You really should read this paper, I like it more every time I pick it up, not Antarctic, but still.
http://www.atypon-link.com/IAHS/doi/abs/10.1623/hysj.54.2.394
Hydrological Sciences–Journal–des Sciences Hydrologiques, 54(2) April 2009
DISCUSSION of “The implications of projected climate change
for freshwater resources and their management”*
Climate, hydrology and freshwater: towards an interactive
incorporation of hydrological experience into climate research
DEMETRIS KOUTSOYIANNIS1, ALBERTO MONTANARI2, HARRY F. LINS3
& TIMOTHY A. COHN3
1 Department of Water Resources and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Civil Engineering, National Technical University of Athens, Heroon Polytechneiou 5, GR-157 80 Zographou, Greece dk@itia.ntua.gr
2 Dipartimento di Ingegneria delle Strutture, dei Trasporti, delle Acque, del Rilevamento del Territorio, Faculty of Engineering, University of Bologna, I-40136 Bologna, Italy alberto.montanari@unibo.it
3 US Geological Survey, MS 415, Reston, Virginia 20192, USA
hlins@usgs.gov; tacohn@usgs.gov
“Given the political implications of IPCC, particularly with respect to potentially adverse consequences of greenhouse gas emissions, one may understand the article’s focus (as with most IPCC texts) on negative impacts of projected climate change, especially catastrophic events. Yet we think that the necessary balance is provided seemingly as an afterthought by the last three sentences of the article, which note that: (1) the impacts of climate change, and the most effective ways of adapting to change, depend on local conditions; (2) climate change is superimposed onto other pressures on water resources; and (3) little can be said about the implications of climate change for the availability of safe water for the most vulnerable. Indeed, these concluding sentences illustrate the difficulties in predicting the future of water resources, the complexity of water resources problems, the numerous factors affecting them, and the dominance of local conditions.”
“The IPCC models (i.e. GCMs reported by IPCC) were not subject to such validation (the term “validation” does not appear in IPCC AR4) and, therefore, the reliability of the outputs of these models, that have been used to assess the impacts on water resources, is not tested. Recent independent studies on the validation of IPCC models (Douglass et al., 2008; Frank, 2008; Koutsoyiannis et al., 2008a) indicate a rather poor performance, especially on long-term (climatic) scales.”
There is more….
Lucy Skywalker,
Oh the power of colour!
It was used, to great success, during the Cold War. NATO countries were always depicted in cool blue, the Warsaw Pact countries in hot, deep, red. Guess which looked most ‘frightening’ on the map?
Nowadays, NOAA and GISS use red, for example, to demonstrate the Siberian anomaly making it look as if there is a huge amount of warming happening, even though the actual temperatures remain well below freezing. They also use distorted world map projections as well that exaggerate the effects as one moves N and S from the equator, but that is slightly OT.
Robert, I met Mr. Truman once. He told me he had one of Elvis’ pink Cadillacs in storage where he lived. Now he and it are about 200 feet under the new level of Spirit Lake. Lesson: Don’t fool with Mother Nature.
I did it using the process of “feedback massaging”
I did not have the fortune to work on one of the Apollo landers but I did do orbit determination on one of the manned lunar missions and the data confirmed that trip to the moon and back.
This was before the Hansen “fudge the data” regime.
The derivatives on the orbital solution were very small on the data compared to the anomaly’s that NASA produces now and my boss would not accept anything less especially since lives were at stake.
Adolpho just used the second photo you posted and killed the reds a bit. His source is you?
He should have mapped the reds straight into blue, and since the color range would be less than the SD they should be the very same blues as the cold range.
Adolfo Giurfa (10:45:34) :This is the antarctic picture before massaging
http://www.giurfa.com/wilkins2007.jpg
REPLY: What is the source of that photo, can you reference where you got it? – Anthony
I think the blue one looks like the fake. Blue boundaries? Look at this lookalike I just photoshopped
It is an exciting place, West Antarctica. Divided from the geologically stable East Antarctic craton by one of the largest active rift valleys on the planet with active volcanoes still building the Transantarctic Mountain range to the south and east (i.e. Terror, Erebus) of the valley, the 25-odd Km thick (thin) valley crust stretches (literally, i.e. a recent extension in the Bentley subglacial trench, only 21 Km thick) under the two major ice shelves, the Ross and Weddell. To the North of the rift there is a domed active volcanic hotspot, rivalling Yellowstone in area, called Marie Byrd land, also with active volcanoes, and then to the Antarctic Peninsula, an active subduction zone with it’s own active volcanic landscape.
To add to the confusion the Land is covered by Glaciers, and is dark and very cold on the surface for at least 6 of the 12 months of the year, which makes geological or vulcanological research rather difficult in the area. Even automatic seismographic stations are difficult to set up, maintain and monitor, or even relocate, when buried under metres of drifted snow in a single season.
And some people would have us believe that the 2-3 degrees of local warming, in terms of a short satellite temperature record in the West Antarctic is due to atmospheric causes mostly half a hemisphere away.
Maybe, but unconvincing to me.
Even local human activity down there must have a significant effect in the region:
Adolfo you crummy b*****! Just trying to prove us skeptics are gullible!
🙂 🙂
Seriously talking, and photoshoping aside, it would be interesting to know more about the origin of this “bi-polarity”. As far as I know down there it goes the pacific warm waters to take a cool break and going upwards again as the cold “Humboldt´s current”. If this is so, and being warm pacific waters no so warm due to la Nina and winter time approaching SH, the antarctica peninsula will cool down a bit in the months to come.
Big OT but I couldn’t resist
There have been big headlines over the past couple of days on Swine Flu. I thought “Oh great, how long before this is blamed on Global Warming” But before I posted, I thought, what the hell, let me check Google.
You guessed it! Here’s a question from and unidentified person asked on Yahoo in response to the Bloomberg report:
“This outbreak is predicted to become a pandemic. Did this happen because of global warming?
Could we have stopped this if we just cared about our planet just a little more?
* 7 hours ago
* – 4 days left to answer.”
Let me suggest that this person lacks some critical thinking skills
Actually, it’s better called Post-Modernism. As far as I understand this strange academic posture, every discipline simply creates ‘narratives’, with their own internal logics. The ‘narrative’ of science is simply that espoused or told by scientists, and has no necessary relationship to empirical fact or ‘truth’.
It is surely a newer wrinkle on Relativism, which it presumes: no ‘narrative’ is any better than any other. On this view, the ‘climate change’ narrative is just as valid as the ‘skeptical’ one, and doubtless better because of the good intentions of its adherents.
That of coure morphs the whole farrago of non-sense into what passes for ‘liberalism’ these days.
/Mr Lynn
I agree with Mitchel44 that this new paper by
DEMETRIS KOUTSOYIANNIS1, ALBERTO MONTANARI2, HARRY F. LINS3
& TIMOTHY A. COHN3
“”http://www.atypon-link.com/IAHS/doi/abs/10.1623/hysj.54.2.394″”
is very much worth the time to read.
Dr. Frost ….
There is a higher level of physical understanding that must be developed, one where the Yin and Yang of scientific findings are reconciled, better understood, and appreciated.
Who is this YinYang?
Hi
First point thanks for a brilliant site, just so very sad the debate is contained to the internet rather than by and large the main stream press, I need to confess I am an engineer working in a coal fired power station which I guess makes me son of Satan. I have spent many hours looking at all the information regarding AGW and have come down firmly on the side of the skeptic approach (And no its not a case of biting the hand that feeds me). I like many others do not possess the knowledge required to understand climate variations or model the future climate. I tend to have to view the issue in simple heat exchanger terms (terminal temperature difference). That is if we assume the sun is the source of heat, the earth receives the heat derived from the sun and in the short term stores some of the heat, and then consider space is the sink of the heat. Logic would state that primarily solar energy variations would drive global temperatures. CO2 would have a relatively minor effect in the earths capacity to act as a storage heater in comparison with say water vapour. One question to all:- why does the main stream media not latch on to the growing dissent on the AGW / IPCC theories.
Perhaps an unfounded concern, and if so please put me to rights, but I presume satellite surface temperatures are reduced to sea level for the purposes of mapping. Since a large part of Antarctica lies at elevations between 2000 and 4000 metres, (see)
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=5081
the temperature correction must be substantial. Is this temperature correction gradient constant in all climatic conditions and seasons and does it introduce an element of significant uncertainty particularly at the most elevated areas? I understand ground station corroboration is not available for most of Antartica. I can envisage a minor revision to the gradient could swing temperatures significantly, and maybe erroneously, unless carefully normalised over the whole dataset.
Interesting (to me) that the spokesman for this subject goes by the name of “Frost”. Certainly no rime……. nor reason.
Brent Salgat (09:04:49) :
“The second fiery looking map has a rang of .2 degrees c per/yr and and accuracy of 2-3 degrees C .
I guess that is suppose to make sense”
I thought I was misunderstanding that when I read it, because it didn’t make sense to me. I did read it right? If that is the case, what the hell is the point of that map?! “This is what’s happening as long as we aren’t 1000-1500% off?”
Somebody please tell me that’s not what’s going on here.
Classic!
…..1…..Steve Goddard expands on The Australian’s conflating of the decreasing (thick) ice, with the increasing (thin) sea ice. Neither mentions the worry that the main ice sheet might be ultimately held back by this melting ice……2…..Much of the uncertainty about East Antarctic temperatures is due to the paucity of weather stations in the interior. Is it necessary to explain why? The more recent study was based on calibrating satellite measurements with peripheral weather stations……3…..The hard part is explaining why the sea ice is expanding, since the Southern Ocean is warming faster than any other ocean. With greater evaporation, there will be more snowfall on the sea ice. But one explanation said that it wasn’t the snowfall, but “stratification” of the waters below. Whatever–the answer is more likely to lie in nature (mumble “the ozone hole” mumble); rather than in the motivations of men……The easy part is just looking at the first map, to explain the rest. Warming iln the Southern Ocean and West Antarctica, and on the Antarctic Peninsula. East Antarctica is expected to remain cold; partly because it has the additional altitude effect, from its 6500 ft average thickness.
Robinson (14:21:43)
This is true. Their observations can have a chilling effect…..on business!
Just add heat bias to the model.
Too funny!
Ohioholic (14:21:12) : Don´t worry, it´s just a matter of a few NANODEGREES 🙂
It´s their way of “massaging statistics”. “End justifies means”
OT-
Good god! When will somebody, anybody have the balls to stand up to Gore and Waxman and tell them they are lying to the world?
We are on the verge of world’s biggest tax and the lemmings are running for the cliffs at full speed!
Didn’t anyone respond to the Yahooer who asked about pandemic & global warming?
Someone should tell him that global cooling & pandemics go together like soup & sandwich. As the population’s relative health declines due to scarcity of food and fuel to keep warm, the viruses get the upper hand. The carriers of the disease, finding a decaying world to feed upon, multiply & spread.
When Lord Monckton spoke about the greater ability of cold to kill, he said a mouthful. Multi-faceted, let me count the ways. Add poor nutrition from junk food and GMO’s. Add failing inseticides and antibiotics. Add mutated specimens escaped or stolen from labs as biological warfare experiments increase the risk of accident. Add depenedence on heating sources that get cut off due to lack of payment or greed.
Hangzen (15:09:58) :
Good god! When will somebody, anybody have the balls to stand up to Gore and Waxman and tell them they are lying to the world?
It doesn’t take balls!…….Guts!
They can’t hear you, Hanzgen.
They would’t hear Lord Monckton, nor will they hear Hawking or Dyson.
They won’t hear dissent, and they won’t allow debate.
They heard Gingrich, but they have too much Wax in their ears.
They hear only the drumbeat of thier models.
They will turn a deaf ear to the cry of their own people when bitter cold descends. They will only chant their mantra of Global Warming causes all ills, as they do now.
crosspatch (11:00:45) : I believe that you do not get ticketed for parking your car in your driveway in Pakistan (But then that place is supposed to be third world). PS.In the District of Columbia, if one can lease the driveway after an application then I might scour the neighbourhood for a suitable site to park my car all day (blocking access to whoever lives there of course). I cannot see me being refused , as the land is public space and so anybody should be allowed to apply for a permit , not just the people whose homes abutt the site.
Francis (14:29:11) – I’m wondering if the positive temp. trend of the southern ocean shown in the posted photo is an artifact of the satellite measuring systems response to sea ice change revealing/hiding warmer water beneath. This is one of the things I’ve seen mentioned in relation to the strong positive trends shown in areas where calving has taken place.
If anyone has any actual sea temp data for the area and timespan of the photo please point me to it. Apologies for not digging it myself but I tried the Argo interface and it wasn’t straighforward nor has Argo been in use for 20 years.
Thanks in advance for any thoughts and data.
Derek Smith,
Thank you sir for helping to keep the electrons flowing using a fairly inexpensive (and with technology clean) form of fuel.
Mike
D. King,
Thank you for that link. It made my day. I’m sure it made Al Gores day too!
BTW, saw the Disney Earth movie last night…. I was waiting for Mr. Gore to show up with a plate of sushi and save that polar bear. I guess he was too busy tweaking his climate models.
Oh well, that polar bear died for a great cause. At least, that’s what they thought.
Ohioholic (14:21:12) :
“I thought I was misunderstanding that when I read it, because it didn’t make sense to me. I did read it right? If that is the case, what the hell is the point of that map?! “This is what’s happening as long as we aren’t 1000-1500% off?”
Somebody please tell me that’s not what’s going on here.”
that’s NOT what’s going on. if anyone would bother to actually read the source instead of taking the claim at face value, they’d read that the 2-3 degree margin of error is NOT the error of the graph. it is the possible error in readings of skin temperature from different sensors (as each is a little bit different) – however, since the sensors have the same systematic error in each measurement, trends over time from the sensors are reliable.
but, who wants to actually think critically on these blogs? BOTH SIDES are guilty of the same exact thing – distortion of the facts to fit their arguments.
Would this be from the NASA whose Johnson Space Centre public relations department didn’t recognize the names of Collins, Armstrong and Aldrin in 1989?
See Gordon Baxter, Flying, July 1989, “Moonstruck”, 38-442, quote on p. 42
[snip wayyyy off topic]
“…according to NASA, most of Antarctica is both cooling rapidly and heating rapidly at the same time.”
—————————————————————
This is true in the sense that global cooling is said to be masking global warming.
Teller and Penn have the proper response to this: Bad Science!
(or something like that)
To argue that all the error is systemic and long term trends are reliable is equally Bad Science.
Doctor Frost has a new paradigm
That is easily stated in rhyme,
“If one thing is true
Then the inverse is too.”
You’ll surely believe it in time.
Current conditions in Vostok, ANT:
-98 F with a dewpoint of -105 F
//www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/getForecast?query=vostok,%20antarctica&wuSelect=WEATHER
andrew b (18:02:03) :
“it is the possible error in readings of skin temperature from different sensors (as each is a little bit different) – however, since the sensors have the same systematic error in each measurement, trends over time from the sensors are reliable.”
Ummm, that would be true of an individual sensor perhaps, assuming the error wasn’t because of degrading sensor quality (which would make the long-term trend a continuation of error), but when you net many errors together, your result is a compilation of errors, or in layman’s, a ginormous error. That makes an interesting argument, though. Perhaps an upcoming criminal defense for some Wall Street bozo?
Weird, the spell checker doesn’t underline ginormous.
Actually, the amount of change in either direction is minuscule.
AGW promoters depend on fooling people into thinking, among the many things AGW works to fool people about, is that small changes well within the MOE or actually very significant.
The bipolar dat is so people like the Texas state meteorologist can claim that the Antarctic cooling is proof of AGW, even after he says Antarctic warming is proof of AGW.
The Antarctic cold’s multiplying
At the same time the heat’s amplifying.
How can you tell
If it’s truth or a sell?
If it’s been peer reviewed then they’re lying.
slowtofollow (15:43:13)………. I can’t help you with your quest. But I was able to work up my own theory of calving for floating ice shelves……1…..WARM WATER…..From the link in WUWT 17-4-09 (The Antarctic Wilkins Ice Shelf Collapses)…..For the calved flat topped ice shelf shown, “shear failue of the ice slabs…the weakness of the ice shelf structure is from thinning ice due to the warmer local sea temperatures below.” The weight of the ice above water is supported by the flotation of the ice below, plus shear forces in the plane of attachment to the stationary ice. Melting ice below reduces the upward flotation force, and the block falls down……2…..WARM AIR…..Conceivably, warm air could melt enough ice above water, that the upward flotation force would overcome the shear force. And the block would be lifted up……3…..ANYTHING ELSE?…..That might cause shear failure? Wave action would have negligible lifting effect. And wave action would be dampened by any floating ice, so abrasion wouldn’t be a factor. It would take a lot of snow on top to add a significant downward force. Tidal lift would be a factor only when the stationary ice is on land. A tsunami or an earthquake would presumably be a rare event……4…..CONCLUSION…..The cause of shear failures in floating ice shelves is melting.
Francis (21:34:44) :
3…..ANYTHING ELSE?
How about gravity? Warmer water is not what NOAA has found. In fact, they made an ’embarrassing correction’ to the data to show that the ocean temperature trend is actually flat. Warmer air? Over the Antarctic, warmer is relative.
Conclusion? Re-submit with the above corrections.
Well, there is an east and west side, and a volcanic rift in between:) , and look at the area it effects, gosh, isnt that the area in contention?? So is it bi polar or deceptive twins:P : http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/~mstuding/ /tam_map_large.html
http://www.geosc.psu.edu/~pwinberr/Site/J%20Paul%20Winberry_files/WinAnanGeology.pdf
The site with the large map has some pretty interesting stuff, most of which goes right over my head.. http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/~mstuding/
oops screwed up my map link http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/~mstuding/tam_map_large.html
Am I the only one having trouble getting NSIDC website up?
Francis (21:34:44)
Hi Francis – thanks for responding. Good info. on sea ice formation and fracture is here:
http://www.coolantarctica.com/Antarctica%20fact%20file/antarctica%20environment/seaice%20formation.htm
There is also a paper I have seen which mentions elestic/plastic properties of ice shelves but I can’t find it right now. However my query is to find actual sea temp. data for the Southern Ocean from physical measures over the same time period as the satellite measures. As mentioned I’m wondering if the mechanism and process of sea ice formation and melt described in the link above will tend to give the satellite data, as processed for the top image on this thread, a warming trend. IMO it would be good to see if there is agreement to the physical measures.
I’m sure the data is out there and again I think I have seen a paper with relevant info. but have not saved a copy. If/when I refind I’ll post a link.
Once really has to question the reliability of information at URL’s that end in .gov.
One image I’d like to see is an Antarctica map showing the typical number of “melting degree days” where each point is the sum of the degrees above freezing for the high temperature over the course of a year, or zero if the high does exceed freezing. This would help show how much of the continent (fifth largest? It’s third smallest) is not melting.
Quote
But after three more years of cooling, they changed the map to show a warming trend in 2007.
Endquote
so, they just changed it, eh? They didn’t use any measurements or anything? And you’re comfortable conflating trends (a period of years) with single-year measurements?
If the science behind ACC was as you like to pretend it is, you wouldn’t need to manipulate the date, nor your readers.
Since the vast majority of the Antartic is one of the driest places on earth, a simple sampling of absolute humidty should indicate an increase of some kind in water vapor (assuming that AGW is occuring to the degree Mann, Steig et als say it is). I wonder if NOAA has archived polar orbiting satellite films which include the vapor channel (IR)? Otherwise, a sample of dry bulb and wet bulb temps could derive the needed info. Of course, what intrepid artic explorer is willing to that?
The Arctic seems unwilling to cooperate. Could it be that cold AMO and PDO phases are introducing waters that are not so warm into the Arctic and thus delaying the melt?
I guess the computers are down at NSIDC.
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/daily.html
slowtofollow(03:52:57)……….Adding-on would seem to be the appropriate correction for public theorizing. The only popular discussion of calving from floating ice shelves was:…..ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITTANICA…..The ice behind the floating ice shelves, “moves seaward at…(().2-1.6miles) per year. The exposed seaward front of the ice shelf experiences stresses from subshelf currents, tides, and ocean swell in the summer and moving pack ice during the winter. Since the shelf normally possesses cracks and crevasses, it will eventually fracture to yield freely floating icebergs…Iceberg calving may be caused by ocean wave action, contact with other icebergs, or the behaviour of melting water on the upper surface of the berg.” Also, they’ve “been able to link the breaking stress occurring near the ice front to long storm-generated swells originating tens of thousands of kilometres away.” For Larsen B, the fractures are believed to be due to “frost wedging”, after meltwater filled crevasses…..FROM AN ABSTRACT…..(I’ve not been very successful at getting to page 2.) By the Amundsen Sea, “Warmer ocean waters are circulating beneath the (shelf) ice and melting their bases at a rate of 50 meters a year.”…PS…Another theory…In the age of Google…Informally, it will become acceptable to omit references when giving a (proper) quote???
ccpo (06:42:54),
You don’t indicate who you are responding to, but if you think data isn’t manipulated by the government, you are very mistaken:
click1
click2
click3
click4
click5
click6
click7
So you see, the government is spoon feeding you data that has been tampered with. And the gov’t resists releasing the unadjusted data.
Anyone who still believes that CO2 = AGW at this point is suffering from cognitive dissonance.
In the article on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vostok,_Antarctica – it specifies that: Vostok in Antarctica is a place where “A lack of carbon dioxide in the air leads to irregularities in a person’s breathing mechanism.”
Why not send some of our politicians who want to label CO2 as poison and pollutant a few weeks to Vostok?
There is apparently a pattern of both short-term (200-300 years) and long-term(1,500) years periodic warming of the West Anarctic Peninsula. Two studies supporting this notion are discussed in http://www.theresilientearth.com/?q=content/melting-antarctic-ice-part-natural-cycle.
~snip~ [Ad-hom attack on this site and its readership, with no specifics. ~dbstealey, mod.]
I think Anthony willl be interested in this. While the well-publicized Catlan expedition has been underway at the Arctic. there has been a non-publicized Google (and Virgin) funded expedition going on in the Antarctic area –an attempt to circumnavigate the Antarctic continent by a Brit in a rowboat!
http://www.stuff.co.nz/southland-times/news/2367225/Rower-determined-to-make-it-on-his-own