Comments on: Arctic temperature is still not above 0°C – the latest date in fifty years of record keeping

By: Chefguy

Chefguy — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 18:18:53 +0000

I am not a high caliber scientist.
My question concerns the the ocean’s salinity. In regards to municipalities storing large amounts of water(maybe we could even include those who have stored bottled water for emergencies) , could this have changed the salinity of the oceans and the thermal belt in the atlantic? I do know if i add salt to water it changes the temperature that it freezes and boils at( I add salt to ice to help freeze ice cream and salt to pasta water to cook it quicker).
First law of thermal dinamics: If i place an ice cube in a glass of water in a room, at room temp the ice cube will melt and the water will eventually become the temperature of the room. increase the temp of the water or temp of the room the ice melts faster. But, if i put an ice cube in a glass of saline solution at room temp what is the rate of melt? What does increasing or decreasing the salinity of the water do to the rate of melt.
Matter can neither be created or destroyed: If storing h2o affects the total available h20 on planet earth; the salt content in the oceans does not change however water levels do. Could this cause the oceans salinity to change or polar precipitation to change. I think if we have to factor el nino’s and volcano’s into the equation we have to factor everything before we pass things like cap and trade to control co2 emmisions….. maybe free the h20. :)
Global climate change is the new buzz word. It incompasses all thing climate and weather …..if you are hot today or cold tomorrow maybe there is a flood in your state or drought; it’s a great catch all phrase. No one has yet prove to me that I am the cause, cigarettes cause co2 emmisions not to mention cancer and heart disease but they are still legal . Heck people cause co2 emmisions by breathing. Plant more trees.
It seems the non believers have become quite cynical (myself included) about theories with no data to back them up. They “cherry pick” years to prove the CC religion. Some don’t include data after 2003. It’s 2009. Our legislators are about to pass a bill that will tax you on your co2 emisions based on incomplete and sometimes misrepresented data. Does anyone know how much co2 is produced making a Burger king flame broiled burger?
Does anyone remember methane emmisions(cow farts) causing this ?

http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/cow_emissions_more_harmful_to_the_environment_than_car_emissions/
however i recall some article in the news about this causing holes in the ozone, but that was before Al Gore invented the internet.
If MY thoughts on this are way off base please politely inform me that i don’t know my butt from a whole in the ground. I will accept that and move on. I am sure this is all high school physics to you gusy but I have questions. Could someone answer them?

By: Mark

Mark — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 15:01:28 +0000

Do we have a Watts effect (or more precisely a Joe D’Aleo) effect? Since this was posted, Arctic temperatures have shot up close to their average. You need to quiet about announcing things like this lest the curse of Al Gore be upon you!

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:22:39 +0000

This is quite impressive:

Flanagan (01:58:17) :

Actually, this is exactly what is to be expected…

Melting is mainly due to contact with “hot” water, not melting from the top…

Flanagan (05:34:06) :

Thanks andy, sometimes I feel desperate in front of the certainty with which some people tend to affirm completely false stuff.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen the likes of that.

By: Ripper

Ripper — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 01:55:25 +0000

Long time lurker here on this excellent educational site.

I notice today 2nd July that it still seems to be not above zero and appears to be at least a one in 50 year event.

The slow start to solarcycle24 also appears to be a 1 in 50 year event.

Could they be connected?

By: Pamela Gray

Pamela Gray — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 23:43:51 +0000

noiv, that is way cool. All this handwringing over the Arctic melting as if some giant thing is standing over it with a blow torch. The alarmists are beginning to sound like a bad B movie complete with giant CO2 molecules taking the place of the giant ants. Anyone with a lick of sense knows that weather and water melts ice. We have no wind and very cold water and air temperatures in the Arctic circle. That ice ain’t goin nowheres.

By: noiv

noiv — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 08:58:04 +0000

if you actually want to see the Arctic melting: http://ice-map.appspot.com is updated daily.

By: Steve Milesworthy

Steve Milesworthy — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 07:02:46 +0000

Sorry, this report is complete rubbish (I bet). I’m not an expert, but there was something immediately fishy with the smoothness of temperature data for the early years of this 50 year period.

The reason (I think) is that the data is derived from weather models!

Prior to 2002, the data relies on the ERA40 reanalysis (putting all known data into a weather model and assuming the areas you don’t have data from are “average”). Hence some of the early years (eg. 1970) are so close to the mean over summer to be unrealistic.

Obviously, the satellite era brings in better observations of high latitudes, and so weather variability is more accurately reflected in the later years.

It is pretty poor that a weather expert can represent these results as “data” without explaining how they were derived.

By: Mike Odin

Mike Odin — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 16:30:35 +0000

The point bears repeating–
These low temperatures are UNPRECEDENTED –
in the past 50 yearas of recording –possibly longer–

and are supported fully by CURRENT
functioning US Army buoys
which likewise correlate and remain at or below 0 degrees C
(unless someonr clues the US Army to
start fudging)

http://imb.crrel.usace.army.mil/buoy_plots/met2009E.gif
http://imb.crrel.usace.army.mil/buoy_plots/met2009D.gif
http://imb.crrel.usace.army.mil/buoy_plots/met2009B.gif
http://imb.crrel.usace.army.mil/buoy_plots/met2009A.gif

and some 2008 buoys have sunk–
http://imb.crrel.usace.army.mil/buoy_plots/met2008C.gif
http://imb.crrel.usace.army.mil/buoy_plots/met2008B.gif
http://imb.crrel.usace.army.mil/buoy_plots/met2007J.gif
http://imb.crrel.usace.army.mil/buoy_plots/met2006C.gif

archived

http://imb.crrel.usace.army.mil/buoy_plots/met2008F.gif

all graphs from –
http://imb.crrel.usace.army.mil/buoysum.htm

(which also shows increased ice thickness
at 4 out 5 buoys)

compare with-
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php

By: Phil.

Phil. — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 22:21:42 +0000

Jim (12:01:16) :
Phil – here are some of the references from Moncton’s paper:

LORD MONCKTON
Global warming’ is No Global Crisis – Major Talking Points
Thursday, June 25th 2009, 4:37 PM EDT
Co2sceptic (Site Admin)
The warming effect of greenhouse gases is less than one-tenth the UN’s central estimate.

Spencer et al. (2008, cloud albedo); Douglass (2008, tropical mid-troposphere temperature change); Lindzen & Choi (2009 in press, outgoing long-wave radiation); and Armstrong, Green & Soon (2009 in press, zero-change benchmarking of climate forecasts) empirically confirm theoretical demonstrations (Schwartz, 2007; Monckton, 2008; Monckton & Evans, 2009 in draft) that climate sensitivity – the warming effect of all greenhouse gases, not just of CO2 – is less than one-fourth of the UN’s current central estimate. A CO2 doubling would cause just 1.5 F warming, not the 5.9 F imagined by the UN.

None of those are references, nowhere is there a bibliography telling us where they’re published or where we can read them. In any case of the 7, 3 are said to be in press or not yet drafted and of the remainder one is a reference to his own ‘work’. It’s just a list of unsubstantiated assertions.

By: Lucy Skywalker

Lucy Skywalker — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 21:28:44 +0000

TJA (17:29:57) : [quoting me saying] “a skeptic version of “how to answer a Climate Septic””

Why would we want a version of a set of rhetorical arguments designed to disguise the true issues, and containing false facts. Last time I checked, they were claiming that the climate never changed in Greenland during the MWP, despite the extensive contemporaneous writings on the subject from across Europe, not to mention ice core data.

I think their basic advice was to shout louder if you weren’t getting through to a skeptic. Maybe the site has improved, but I ain’t going back to find out.

TJA, I totally agree with you, perhaps I worded my post badly. I was being sarcastic to Phil but aiming to get him to respond, which he did. However, what I would genuinely like to see is web pages that systematically deconstruct at least ONE of the key sets of “answers to skeptics” web pages that warmists keep referring to. There is no systematic deconstruction except Warren Meyer’s Sceptical Layman’s Guide to AGW Chapter 9. But IMHO, Real Climate (info pages especially Responses to Common Contrarian Arguments), Skeptical Science, Coby Beck at Gristmill, New Scientist, Royal Society, and the Met Office all have “answers to skeptics” pages that deserve clear, simple, sourced, clinching answers from the skeptics’ community; IMHO this would seriously help us get taken seriously; IMHO this would help turn the tide and help throw out the abominable pending legislation.

By: lweinstein

lweinstein — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 02:00:56 +0000

The air temperature and Sunlight are not going to melt the ice in near polar regions unless it is much warmer than freezing (say >10 deg C) due to the high surface albedo (reflection) and long wave radiation out dominating low insolation Solar absorption and air to snow heat transfer (with the exception if it gets very dirty, this may critically lower the albedo). The water temperature and flow rate under the ice totally dominate the melting. I assume if the air is especially cold (below 0 deg C), that it also implies the nearby water is also very cold, so the ice would not melt.

By: acementhead

acementhead — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 00:58:44 +0000

James P

“I’m not sure about the supercooled water,

I don’t think it’s correct to view sea water at -4 °C as “supercooled” as that’s the temerature at which sea water freezes. (Unless I’m wrong of course, and the salt is rejected in the cystalisation process and sea water freezes to fresh water ice.)

By: George E. Smith

George E. Smith — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 00:08:48 +0000

“”" Flanagan (13:37:58) :

Mr Smith: well tried, but you won’t catch me misunderstanding thermodynamics. When ice melts, a lot of heat from oceans is used, which tends to cool sea surface temperatures. This, in turn, will in any case modify the flow of heat between water and air in the favor of liquid water. All in all, the surrounding atmopshere will tend to cool. “”"

Nor I, Mr/Mrs/Miss/MS Flanagan.

You may have noticed Flanagan, that I said in my comment, that MOST of the ice surface is underwater in contact with that water.
I did NOT say that ALL of the ice surface is under water, or in contact with that water. Ergo, some of the ice surface is above the water, and is infact in contact with the air; and yes; during the period of ice melting, it is common to have the air temperature warmer than the ice; and it not unreasonable for some of the thermal energy required to melt some of the ice to come from the atmosphere, so that the atmosphere like the sea water also cools when the floating sea ice melts.

I invite your consideration of the following two part experiment; better yet, you could carry out such an experiment. the needed equipment is a thermometer to record the temperature, and a stop watch.
A good place to carry out such an experiment would be a winter/spring lake in Michigan or Wisconsin for example, and the selection of a lake, with a water temperature near zero, having floating ice on the water (broken),a nd an ambient air temperature of zero deg C. The experiment is best conducted at night so extraneous sorces of energy are absent.
Having confirmed that the water temperature, is about zero, and that ice is present, and that the still (no wind) air is also zero deg C, perform part one of the experiment.

Strip off all of your clothes, and start the stop watch. time how long it takes you to freeze to death; or get so cold that you are forced to abandon the experiment. Record that time (in the event you do survive).

Part two of the experiment is similar to part one; do all of the steps required in part one of the experiment, except before you start the stop watch; why don’t you just go and jump in the lake.
File a report here, on which stop watch reading is the smaller number.

I have already done this experiemnt; but not in Wisconsin; so I know the answer; so no cheating.

George

By: George E. Smith

George E. Smith — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 23:43:00 +0000

“”" Dr Reese (19:14:00) :

Change is opportunity in disguise. Let’s forge forward and truly leave the 20th century in our dust! In the meantime let’s not wreck every ecosystem in our wake — especially the few remaining old growth forests in the Pacific Northwest.
http://DrReese.wordpress.com “”"

Just clicked on your link Dr Reese. I’m not sure I would go on about the carbon credit of old growth forests.

If I am a forest left to my own ends; it seems to me that one of three things can happen to me.

The first possibility is that I can continue to gather carbon and other materials and turn them into wood; until I am just one solid block of wood.

The second option is that I could continue to lose carbon to the atmosphere, in decay, or fire, and simply evaporate and disappear.

A third option is that I could continue to absorb carbon from the atmosphere and build wood, but that rot and decay, could continue to return that carbon to the atmosphere, so that there was no net gain or loss of carbon.

Neither of the first two options has ever been observed to happen; and we have many examples of the last case; they are called “Old Growth Forests”.

Old Growth Forests, Dr Reese, are carbon neutral; unlike tree farming programs, which are net carbon sinks. Fortunately, the USA has so much tree farming; and other agriculture, that the entire USA is a net carbon sink; the only land based carbon sink on the planet (of any size).

But I am on your side; I too favor the conservation of old growth forests; but don’t try to sell that on the basis of carbon footprint; it just ain’t so.

By: George E. Smith

George E. Smith — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 23:24:57 +0000

“”" James P (10:08:41) :

The water beneath the ice in the Artic can have a temperature between 0°C and -4 °C. The ice above (depending on air temperature, thickness, composition) between 0°C and -4°C

The ice can get a lot colder than that, surely? I’m not sure about the supercooled water, either, although I’m open to persuasion. “”"

Well James, there isn’t any supercooled water below the arctic ice, and I wouldn’t bank on finding much 0 deg C water there either (at the north pole).

Salt water freezes well below zero C, so sub zero water is not supercooled if it is salty enough. If it is about 2.47% salinity, it freezes at its maximum density and at about -2.5 deg C. But sea water is typically 3.5% salinity, so it never has a maximum density before freezing and it freezes below -2.5 C

The floating ice however is largely fresh water, so it does melt at around zero C, so there is a temperature hysteresis, between freezing, and melting; once frozen the ice is stable till it gets heated back to zeroC.