Yet, still the data doesn’t support it. As I reported two days ago, the sea level threat just isn’t there. Oh noes! Sea level rising three times faster than expected (again) and we’ve heard it before, right before the 2009 Copenhagen conference. This appears to be nothing more than recycled alarm.
Steve Goddard plotted a telling graph comparing sea level rates:
The image below shows actual sea level rise in blue measured by Envisat, versus the claimed rate of the experts (green) (15 mm /year.)
Even the University of Colorado Sea Level trend only shows 3 mm per year, not 15mm, as would be required to get the sort of sea level rises they are talking about
From Lund university:
Effects of climate change in the Arctic more extensive than expected
A much reduced covering of snow, shorter winter season and thawing tundra. The effects of climate change in the Arctic are already here. And the changes are taking place significantly faster than previously thought. This is what emerges from a new research report on the Arctic, presented in Copenhagen this week. Margareta Johansson, from Lund University, is one of the researchers behind the report.
Together with Terry Callaghan, a researcher at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Margareta is the editor of the two chapters on snow and permafrost.
“The changes we see are dramatic. And they are not coincidental. The trends are unequivocal and deviate from the norm when compared with a longer term perspective”, she says.
The Arctic is one of the parts of the globe that is warming up fastest today. Measurements of air temperature show that the most recent five-year period has been the warmest since 1880, when monitoring began. Other data, from tree rings among other things, show that the summer temperatures over the last decades have been the highest in 2000 years. As a consequence, the snow cover in May and June has decreased by close to 20 per cent. The winter season has also become almost two weeks shorter – in just a few decades. In addition, the temperature in the permafrost has increased by between half a degree and two degrees.
“There is no indication that the permafrost will not continue to thaw”, says Margareta Johansson.
Large quantities of carbon are stored in the permafrost.
“Our data shows that there is significantly more than previously thought. There is approximately double the amount of carbon in the permafrost as there is in the atmosphere today”, says Margareta Johansson.
The carbon comes from organic material which was “deep frozen” in the ground during the last ice age. As long as the ground is frozen, the carbon remains stable. But as the permafrost thaws there is a risk that carbon dioxide and methane, a greenhouse gas more than 20 times more powerful than carbon dioxide, will be released, which could increase global warming.
“But it is also possible that the vegetation which will be able to grow when the ground thaws will absorb the carbon dioxide. We still know very little about this. With the knowledge we have today we cannot say for sure whether the thawing tundra will absorb or produce more greenhouse gases in the future”, says Margareta Johansson.
Effects of this type, so-called feedback effects, are of major significance for how extensive global warming will be in the future. Margareta Johansson and her colleagues present nine different feedback effects in their report. One of the most important right now is the reduction of the Arctic’s albedo. The decrease in the snow- and ice-covered surfaces means that less solar radiation is reflected back out into the atmosphere. It is absorbed instead, with temperatures rising as a result. Thus the Arctic has entered a stage where it is itself reinforcing climate change.
The future does not look brighter. Climate models show that temperatures will rise by a further 3 to 7 degrees. In Canada, the uppermost metres of permafrost will thaw on approximately one fifth of the surface currently covered by permafrost. The equivalent figure for Alaska is 57 per cent. The length of the winter season and the snow coverage in the Arctic will continue to decrease and the glaciers in the area will probably lose between 10 and 30 per cent of their total mass. All this within this century and with grave consequences for the ecosystems, existing infrastructure and human living conditions.
New estimates also show that by 2100, the sea level will have risen by between 0.9 and 1.6 metres, which is approximately twice the increase predicted by the UN’s panel on climate change, IPCC, in its 2007 report. This is largely due to the rapid melting of the Arctic icecap. Between 2003 and 2008, the melting of the Arctic icecap accounted for 40 per cent of the global rise in sea level.
“It is clear that great changes are at hand. It is all happening in the Arctic right now. And what is happening there affects us all”, says Margareta Johansson.
The report “Impacts of climate change on snow, water, ice and permafrost in the Arctic” has been compiled by close to 200 polar researchers. It is the most comprehensive synthesis of knowledge about the Arctic that has been presented in the last six years. The work was organised by the Arctic Council’s working group for environmental monitoring (the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme) and will serve as the basis for the IPCC’s fifth report, which is expected to be ready by 2014.
Besides Margareta Johansson, Torben Christensen from Lund University also took part in the work.
For more information:
Margareta Johansson, Division of Physical Geography and Ecosystems Analysis, Lund University, telephone: 046-2224480, mobile: 070-6842965, email: Margareta.Johansson@nateko.lu.se
Terry Callaghan, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, email: terry_callaghan@btinternet.com
Read more information on the report and The Artic as a messenger for global processes – climate change and pollution conference in Copenhagen where it is being presented today.
Scripps is picking up on this non-issue as well:
http://scrippsnews.ucsd.edu/Releases/?releaseID=1155
“The West Coast of North America has caught a break that has left sea level in the eastern North Pacific Ocean steady during the last few decades, but there is evidence that a change in wind patterns may be occurring that could cause coastal sea-level rise to accelerate beginning this decade.”
ISHH!!! More regurgitated garbage.
Apparently, they forgot to consult recent literature before they went full stupid on the arctic alarmism. http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/tietsche_grl_20111.pdf
Must be time to apply for the next round of Research Grants.
The scarier the press releases, the more money can be expected to do more “research”.
So the ground covered by the last ice age is now thawing. So it will end up thawed out…just like it was before the ice age. Erm….
Not the first time I have too feel shame for being from Sweden.
This post is based on actual data. Your conclusion that it is alarmist is a strawman claim. The facts are what they are, and they can not be disputed out-of-hand. There is ample supportive evidence available to lead to the conclusion that sea level rise will be a problem sooner, rather than later.
Looking close at the graph, 2010’s minimum was less than 2005’s minimum, 2011’s maximum is less than 2006’s maximum, I see little change at all, but as usual, propaganda never considers such real facts like that, just warped invalid statistics.
If you follow the links then this really seems to be another case of “the best science politics can buy”:
“Read more information on the report and The Artic as a messenger for global processes – climate change and pollution conference in Copenhagen where it is being presented today.
May 3 – the Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS) will hold a workshop entitled Young Scientists‘ Arctic Messages to Policy Makers. The results of the workshop will be reported to the panel discussion on the last day of the Conference.
Who Should Attend
Scientists, decision–makers, Ph.D. students, administrators, managers, health care officials, indigenous peoples, representatives of industry and non-governmental organizations.”
Hmm….
Hugh Pepper,
If it’s worse than we thought, why is Steve Goddard’s graph not very frightening? The only scary part is the green line – a model projection. But the empirical evidence shows only natural variability.
Did it ever occur to you that Callaghan and Johannsen are grant-trolling? If not, take another look at that green line.
Hugh Pepper. Can you supply supportive evidence that the claimed rises in sea level and thawing in the Arctic are solely due to CO2 increases? It is that which is the nub of the discussions both here and elsewhere. I am not aware of any empirical evidence for this and would be grateful if you will provide it.
And what is the regression on that plot? It must be pretty bad that you could also put in a negative slope.
“There is ample supportive evidence available to lead to the conclusion that sea level rise will be a problem sooner, rather than later.”
Man the lifeboats! Women and bedwetters first!
Hugh Pepper says:
May 4, 2011 at 1:51 pm
***This post is based on actual data. ***
What stations were used since 1880 and where can I find the temperature measurements?
Well Hugh since the sea level rise is so dangerous I will make sure that every decade or so I promise to take a single step away from the shore. In this way I should be safe. I will have to be diligent though, that pesky 1.5 mm per year can sneak up on you when you aren’t looking. sarc off
Hugh Pepper says:
May 4, 2011 at 1:51 pm
This post is based on actual data.
Try to read it without your AGW glasses on. I noticed the following:
(1) They suddenly think that a FIVE year long period is sufficient to make any conclusions about long term climate change (probably because if you look at the last 30 years, the current warming in the Arctic looks too similiar to the previous warm period in the 30s and 40s…). Well, then why not look at TEN years? Here’s “proof” that we’re entering a new ice age: RSS global temperatures trends DOWN over the last 10 years: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:2001/plot/rss/from:2001/trend
(2) I’m pretty sure that this: “Other data, from tree rings among other things, show that the summer temperatures over the last decades have been the highest in 2000 years.” refers to Kaufman et al. 2009, and then it depends on the dubious Yamal data in order to make that claim valid.
While you’re at it, Mr. Pepper, perhaps you could expound on how the sea levels 4 to 6 meters higher than today during the last interglacial were natural but the rise in that direction today is not.
Speaking of sea level:
http://talkingabouttheweather.wordpress.com/2011/05/04/remember-when-sea-level-was-stable/
Apparently you have to go several steps from the observed data to the panic button. (a) The snow melts earlier, (b) the ground is a bit warmer, (c) this will lead to release of stored carbon (maybe), and (d) more carbon in the air will cause additional warming, and (e) the warming will cause melting of ice in Greenland and Antarctica, and (f) the warmer sea will also expand, and therefore (g) the oceans will rise faster. Everything from (c) on is debatable. I’d also be interested in seeing confirmations on (a) and (b). And did the recent cold winter have any effect on this? I think the ski lifts will be open across the Western United States well into the summer.
Google: “faster than expected” “Ice”
By going back to only 2004, using different reports from different years, I get that the ice is now melting:
Much faster than even faster than faster than twice as fast as faster then three times faster then faster than expected.
If we could put a value on ‘faster’ we could know how wrong the modes where in 2004.
Sea level is similar.
It is absurd.
When I read this: “Climate models show that temperatures will rise by a further 3 to 7 degrees. ” I knew that all which followed was garbage.
Models?
What happened to REAL data? Do any of these so-called scientists ever look out of the window?
As the weather gets warmer these stories will appear like ice-cream ads.
Noted a spike in alarmism during the last brief heat-wave in UK.
They have always co-ordinated their press releases with warm weather…
Check out the sea level curve here – from Wikipedia. Sea levels in the geologic past have been up to 300m higher than present day levels. (This section has not yet been visited by the AGW police…)
“Sequence stratigraphy is a branch of geology that attempts to subdivide and link sedimentary deposits into unconformity bound units on a variety of scales and explain these stratigraphic units in terms of variations in sediment supply and variations in the rate of change in accommodation space (often associated with changes in relative sea level). ”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequence_stratigraphy
02 Nov 1947 — I experienced my first birthday.
02 Nov 1948 — I experienced my second birthday.
This trend has continued through the present day when, on 02 Nov 2010, I experienced my sixty-fourth birthday. At this rate, by the year 2100, I will be experiencing birthday number 154.
Hope you youngsters can keep up with me….
Much larger areas of permafrost thawed as the last ice age ended. Records of methane in the atmosphere from that period are available from numerous ice cores. If the methane levels then were a major player in warming then, this fact would be highly publicized. Since it hasn’t been, one can be sure the effect was small back then and will be even smaller in the future (since there is much less permafrost to thaw).
Just to be sure, let’s do the calculations: The Greenland ice core shows a sudden increase of CH4 from 500 ppb to 700 ppb about 12,000 years ago. Using the IPCC’s formula for the radiative forcing for methane (without correcting for the overlap with N2O which will reduce the forcing): deltaF = 0.036*(M2^0.5 – M1^0.5) = 0.15 W/m2; about 0.12 degC if climate sensitivity were 3 degC for 2X CO2.
In contrast, methane has increased from 700 ppb to 1745 ppb since 1750, producing am estimated forcing of 0.48 W/m2 (corrected for N2O) or 0.55 W/m2 (uncorrected).
http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc%5Ftar/?src=/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/222.htm
http://www.pnas.org/content/97/4/1331.full
According to the “newspost” at http://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/o.o.i.s?id=24890&news_item=5580
” The effects of climate change in the Arctic are already here. And the changes are taking place significantly faster than previously thought. This is what emerges from a new research report on the Arctic, presented in Copenhagen this week. Margareta Johansson, from Lund University, is one of the researchers behind the report.”
So it seems this is not a “study” or a peer-reviewed paper , it’s a “research report”. One which it seems no-one can actually see, analyse and verify unless (possibly) they go to the meeting in Copenhagen.
So we have to go on hearsay and MSM regurgitation and reinterpretation of that hearsay.
“Measurements of air temperature show that the most recent five-year period has been the warmest since 1880, when monitoring began.”
Maybe they could tell us how many thermometers are currently reporting from inside the arctic circle. How many were there in 1880 ?! How where those measurements *extrapolated* across the region?
“Other data, from tree rings among other things, show that the summer temperatures over the last decades have been the highest in 2000 years. ”
OMG, their still rolling out Mann’s broken hockey-stick but dare not actually call it by name. It’s just “other data”.
“There is no indication that the permafrost will not continue to thaw”, says Margareta Johansson.
That is a statement that they know not , not that they know. There are a million things that we have no indication are not happening. That is neither research nor new.
We have no indications that there is not a pizza van at the north pole of Neptune, that in no way proves or suggests there is one.
This is clearly nothing but hot air but we can see the foundations of AR5 being carefully lain already.
“jason says:
May 4, 2011 at 1:34 pm
So the ground covered by the last ice age is now thawing. So it will end up thawed out…just like it was before the ice age. Erm….”
But it is worse than that… at the peak of the last ice age permafrost spread down to about 45deg N and has since retreated to about 64 deg N. This melting has caused massive problems to humanity like erm…errr….mmmmmm..errm..err ahh the need for fridges and errm….errr….. help me, there must be something else.