A new post containing a cartoon from Josh will appear every hour. At the end of the 24 hours, everything will be collated on a single page. Readers are encouraged to post skeptical arguments below, as well as offer comments on what has been seen from the Climate Reality Project so far.
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According to some, Arctic Sea Ice is THE metric by which to gauge “global warming”. There’s only one problem. The ice is keeping it’s own schedule and temperature doesn’t seem to be much of a factor.
Here’s the graph:
More importantly though, Sea Ice News: Arctic sea ice “may” have turned the corner and it looks like only one organization reports a record low extent, while others show differently. Artic ice doesn’t appear to be as affected by temperature as one might think, there are other factors, such as wind pattern:
Peer reviewed paper – wind contributes to Arctic sea ice decline
And then there’s black soot from Asia:
“Impure as the Driven Snow Smut is a bigger problem than greenhouse gases in polar meltdown.…such dark carbon triggers melting, and may be responsible for as much as 94 percent of Arctic warming. ”
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=impure-as-the-driven-snow
And for those concerned Arctic ice may disappear, there’s this peer reviewed study:
New study suggests Arctic ‘tipping point’ may not be reached
UPDATE: There was no record low this year according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center:
In other news…Arctic sea ice has turned the corner
From NSIDC:
Arctic sea ice at minimum extent
Arctic sea ice appears to have reached its lowest extent for the year. The minimum ice extent was the second lowest in the satellite record, after 2007, and continues the decadal trend of rapidly decreasing summer sea ice.
Overview of conditions
On September 9, 2011 sea ice extent dropped to 4.33 million square kilometers (1.67 million square miles). This appears to have been the lowest extent of the year, and may mark the point when sea ice begins its cold-season cycle of growth. However, a shift in wind patterns or late season melt could still push the ice extent lower.
This year’s minimum was 160,000 square kilometers (61,800 square miles) above the 2007 record minimum extent, and 2.38 million square kilometers (919,000 square miles) below the 1979 to 2000 average minimum.
And NSIDC has avoided a new record low…yet in Gore’s CRP panel last night, the obscure University of Bremen dataset, never before touted by warmists, was trotted out as proof of another record low. Told ya so:
The answer to why such language might be used, perhaps prematurely in the face of other datasets which presently disagree, may be found in the proximity of the upcoming Climate Reality Project (aka the Gore-a-thon) on September 14-15. Al needs something to hold up as an example of gloom, since sea ice didn’t repeat the 2007 low in 2008, 2009, or 2010, and the Antarctic has not been cooperative with the melt meme at all, remaining boringly “normal” and even above normal last year.
We’ll know the answer when we see if this Bremen missive is included in Al’s upcoming presentation.
Last night in hour 1 of the CRP I noted:
Anthony Watts says:
I suspect the “views” counter now over 170K shows the number of attempted/completed connections, but doesn’t show the number of dropped.
Ah there’s the Arctic Sea Ice HITS A NEW RECORD – I was right in my recent sea ice news
This use of the Bremen press release is the worst example of alarmist cherry picking ever. For years, NSIDC is the authority they tout, now they were thrown under the bus before they could even announce whether they had a record low or not so that Gore could have a talking point.
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Josh put a lot of work into these, so if you like the work, drop by the tip jar. Unlike Gore’s CRP, he won’t spam you asking for more. Buy him a beer, he’s worked a long time bringing us enjoyment with only some “attaboys” sent his way.
It’s hour 3 and the Gore-a-thon has yet to convert me from my skeptical ways.
View count 406,000 … not impressive …
> And then there’s black soot from Asia:
Soot? How about cigarette butts and tar? Oh, sorry, I’m listening to reality. I think I’ll go get a shower. Wash that soot out of my hair. Heat some water by burning natural gas.
Back to hypotheticals … “There may be an earth where …”
Al – can you turn the volume down I was asleep. Don’t you think that you should retire too – you are so b-o-r-i-n-g.
Okay – it’s been fun commenting, but, I gotta go.
Hang on all those still watching, from my perspective the message on the Goreathon is simply being repeated …
73’s all.
There is abundant evidence that wind and atmospheric oscillations have a major influence on Arctic Sea Ice. In this October, 1 2007 NASA article;
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/quikscat-20071001.html
Son V. Nghiem of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said that “the rapid decline in winter perennial ice the past two years was caused by unusual winds. “Unusual atmospheric conditions set up wind patterns that compressed the sea ice, loaded it into the Transpolar Drift Stream and then sped its flow out of the Arctic,” he said. When that sea ice reached lower latitudes, it rapidly melted in the warmer waters.
“The winds causing this trend in ice reduction were set up by an unusual pattern of atmospheric pressure that began at the beginning of this century,” Nghiem said.”
Per this 2001 paper, “Fram Strait Ice Fluxes and Atmospheric Circulation: 1950–2000″ by Torgny Vinje published in the American Meteorological Society Journal of Climatet;
“The corresponding decadal maximum change in the Arctic Ocean ice thickness is of the order of 0.8 m. These temporal wind-induced variations may help explain observed changes in portions of the Arctic Ocean ice cover over the last decades. Due to an increasing rate in the ice drainage through the Fram Strait during the 1990s, this decade is characterized by a state of decreasing ice thickness in the Arctic Ocean.”
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/1520-0442%282001%29014%3C3508%3AFSIFAA%3E2.0.CO%3B2
This 2004 paper “Variations in the Age of Arctic Sea-ice and Summer Sea-ice Extent” by Ignatius G. Rigor & John M. Wallace, states that;
“The winter AO-index explains as much as 64% of the variance in summer sea-ice extent in the Eurasian sector, but the winter and summer AO-indices combined explain less than 20% of the variance along the Alaskan coast, where the age of sea-ice explains over 50% of the year-to year variability. If this interpretation is correct, low summer sea-ice extents are likely to persist for at least a few years. However, it is conceivable that, given an extended interval of low-index AO conditions, ice thickness and summertime sea-ice extent could gradually return to the levels characteristic of the 1980′s.”
http://seaice.apl.washington.edu/
This 2007 paper “Rapid reduction of Arctic perennial sea ice” by Nghiem, Rigor, Perovich, Clemente-Colo, Weatherly and Neumann states that;
“Perennial-ice extent loss in March within the DM domain was noticeable after the 1960s, and the loss became more rapid in the 2000s when QSCAT observations were available to verify the model results. QSCAT data also revealed mechanisms contributing to the perennial-ice extent loss: ice compression toward the western Arctic, ice loading into the Transpolar Drift (TD) together with an acceleration of the TD carrying excessive ice out of Fram Strait, and ice export to Baffin Bay.”
http://seaice.apl.washington.edu/Papers/NghiemEtal2007_MYreduction.pdf
This 2010 paper, “Influence of winter and summer surface wind anomalies on summer Arctic sea ice extent” by Masayo Ogi, Koji Yamazaki and John M. Wallace, published in Geophysical Research Letters states that;
“We have shown results indicating that wind‐induced, year‐to‐year differences in the rate of flow of ice toward and through Fram Strait play an important role in modulating September SIE on a year‐to‐year basis and that a trend toward an increased wind‐induced rate of flow has contributed to the decline in the areal coverage of Arctic summer sea ice.”
http://www.jamstec.go.jp/frcgc/research/d2/masayo.ogi/2009GL042356.pdf
This 2011 paper, “Recent wind driven high sea ice export in the Fram Strait contributes to Arctic sea ice decline”, submitted to The Cryosphere by L. H. Smedsrud, et al. used;
“geostrophic winds derived from reanalysis data to calculate the Fram Strait ice area export back to 1957, finding that the sea ice area export recently is about 25 % larger than during the 1960’s.”
http://www.the-cryosphere-discuss.net/5/1311/2011/tcd-5-1311-2011-print.pdf
On a positive note: in the chat session a H@@RP believer is getting pummeled by others. I guess that means that even the “true believers” can only absorb so much BS at one time. 🙂
Ok, I caved into the peer pressure. I saw equivocation politics relating smoking to climate. What seems so transparent to me as a loyal reader of WUWT is they (the Warmistas) are the Phillip Morris of the current day, the ones using emotion and slick advertising to overwhelm the science.
Dreary, I couldn’t stomach it for long. Going back to work and checking in on the fun.
There were no floods before 1850 is the conclusion we are to “assume”?
Steven Goddard has a lead as to why Bremen has a record low while none of the others do–there are flaws in their 2007 data:
http://www.real-science.com/uncategorized/close-smoking-gun
I’ve been to better root canals.
Well, sure… It isn’t surprising that Arctic sea ice is “turning a corner” when lows in the upper Mississippi Valley tonight are expected to be in the 20’s and snow is predicted for the mountains around Vail, Colorado. Do these people think that cold weather is only caused by the “Gore Effect”?
This comes to mind.
Still nothing on my Facebook feed. Nada. Zippo. Has anyone seen anything from FB? How many morons gave over control of their account?
Maybe it will get active tomorrow. Most people I know do their social networking during the day, at work, on their employers time. Or they work at home and aren’t on at night.
Not surprising if they rigged the counter to become a hockey stick! Up, up, up goes the viewer count, just like their phoney models.
Particulates;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particulates
especially Soot/Black Carbon;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soot
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_carbon
may have a significant influence on Sea Ice:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100728092617.htm
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/07/27/MN5H1EK6BV.DTL
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/10/25/soot-ahoy-ship-traffic-in-the-arctic/
http://www.agu.org/news/press/pr_archives/2010/2010-20.shtml
Per the Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment 2009 Report; http://www.pame.is/images/stories/PDF_Files/AMSA_2009_Report_2nd_print.pdf
Page 5 – “Black carbon emissions from ships operating in the Arctic may have
regional impacts by accelerating ice melt.”
Page 142 – Black carbon is a component of particulate matter produced by marine vessels through the incomplete oxidation of diesel fuel. The release and deposition of BC in the Arctic region is of particular concern because of the effect it has on reducing the albedo (reflectivity) of sea ice and snow. When solar radiation is applied, reduced albedo increases the rate of ice and snow melt significantly, resulting in more open water, and thereby reducing the regional albedo further. In the Arctic region in 2004, approximately 1,180 metric tons of black carbon was released, representing a small proportion of the estimated 71,000 to 160,000 metric tons released around the globe annually. However, the region-specific effects of black carbon indicate that even small amounts could have a potentially disproportionate impact on ice melt and warming in the region. More research is needed to determine the level of impact this could have on ice melt acceleration in the Arctic and the potential benefits from limiting ships’ BC emissions when operating near to or in ice-covered regions. The potential impacts of black carbon should also be a point of consideration when weighing the costs and benefits of using in-situ burning of oil in spill response situations.”
According to Alexa, WUWT is #10 in Upstream Clicks to Reality Project. I think there’s a 24 hour lag, though.
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/climaterealityproject.org#
Wonder if WUWT readers can bump it to the top 5- maybe even to #1?
Use the link embedded in the posts here. Let’s get it up to Number 1!
Podcast is up on NPR’s website for Al’s TOTN interview today:
http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=3&islist=true&id=5&d=09-14-2011
There were just a few teeny, weeny, itsy, bitsy exagerations…
I suspect that the CAGW view of cause and effect for Arctic ice should be revisited.
The warmists maintain that a shrinking ice cap is strong evidence that the Arctic area is warming, and that warming is due to the heat rays beamed down by CO2 in the atmosphere. It is more likely that polar ice acts as an insulator and prevents heat from being released from the ocean into the night sky via radiation. Ice acts in a similar way on lakes, where it keeps the lake from freezing solid unless the lake is very shallow. The growing and retreating Arctic ice likely acts as a negative feedback on the ocean’s heat content. When the oceans are warm, the ice begins to melt at the edges. There is thus more open water that loses heat due to radiation. The ice extent is at a minimum usually around mid-September, which allows great amounts of heat loss in the long polar nights. The oceans then cool, which eventually cools the air, and allows more ice to form in future years. The system oscillates then between more ice and less ice, with the ocean temperature and heat content also oscillating but slightly out of phase.
In summary, loss of Arctic ice not only cools the oceans, but is a temporary thing. We are certainly seeing a cooler Pacific Ocean, and cooler California and other West Coast temperatures. We see two La Niñas in a row presently, perhaps due to reduced Arctic ice.
And to Josh, great cartoons. Masterful.
I don’t know how you all are going to make it thru 21 more hours. I lost interest after 5 min. Life is to short and the hours are too precious for this.
One problem with the “smoking causes cancer/no it doesn’t” analogy….it’s not at all clear which side of the debate is analogous to the climate skeptics and which side to the warmists.
And then there are the non-Black Carbon/Soot based impact of Ship Traffic including Supply/Bulk Shipping, Fishing, Passenger/Cruise Ships and Icebreakers:
Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment 2009 Report Page 4;
“There were approximately 6,000 individual vessels, many making multiple voyages, in the Arctic region during the AMSA survey year; half of these were operating on the Great Circle Route in the North Pacific that crosses the Aleutian Islands. Of the 6,000 vessels reported, approximately 1,600 were fishing vessels.”
Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment 2009 Report Pages 141 – 142;
“The AMSA has developed the world’s first activity-based estimate of Arctic marine shipping emissions using empirical data for shipping reported by Arctic Council member states. Emissions were calculated for each vessel-trip for which data was available for the base year 2004. The 515,000 trips analyzed represent about 14.2 million km of distance traveled (or 7.7 million nautical miles) by transport vessels; fishing vessels represent over 15,000 fishing vessel days at sea for 2004. Some results could be an underestimation of current emissions, given potential underreporting bias and anecdotal reports of recent growth in international shipping and trade through the Arctic.”
Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment 2009 Report on Page 79;
“A specific example of where cruise ship traffic is increasing at a rapid rate is off the coast of Greenland. As Table 5.3 shows, cruise ship visits and the number of passengers visiting Greenland has increased significantly between 2003 and 2008. For example, between 2006 and 2007, port calls into Greenland increased from 157 to 222 cruise ships. The number of port calls in 2006 combined for a total of 22,051 passengers, a number that represents nearly half of Greenland’s total 2006 population of 56,901.
In 2008, approximately 375 cruise ship port calls were scheduled for Greenland ports and harbors, more than double the number of port calls seen in 2006.”
Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment 2009 Report Page 137;
“The 2004 U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy reported that, while at sea, the average cruise-ship passenger generates about eight gallons of sewage per day and an average cruise ship can generate a total of 532,000 to 798,000 liters of sewage and 3.8 million liters of wastewater from sinks, showers and laundries each week, as well as large amounts of solid waste (garbage). The average cruise ship will also produce more than 95,000 liters of oily bilge water from engines and machinery a week. Sewage, solid waste and oily bilge water release are regulated through MARPOL. There are no restrictions on the release of treated wastewater.”
Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment 2009 Report Page 84;
“During 2004-2008, there were 33 icebreaker transits to the North Pole for science and tourism. An increasing number of icebreakers and research vessels are conducting geological and geophysical research throughout the central Arctic Ocean related to establishing the limits of the extended continental shelf under UNCLOS.”
Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment 2009 Report Page 84;
“Map 5.6 demonstrates the surge in vessel activity in the summer season, when all of the community re-supply takes place and most bulk commodities are shipped out and supplies brought in for commercial operations. Summer is also the season when all of the passenger and cruise vessels travel to the region.”
and Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment 2009 Report Page 160;
“Spring break-up to mark the start of summer navigation will vary and, as happens now in more southerly seas, shippers eager to start work will test the limits of their vessels in ice.”
http://www.pame.is/images/stories/PDF_Files/AMSA_2009_Report_2nd_print.pdf
Oh god, I was just sick in my mouth. Was watching for less than 5 minutes and then a slide recommending all to join the David Suzuki Foundation came up.
That’s it, I’m outta there!
Also, the “Human population north of 60°N is in excess of 2 million with modern settlements.”
http://www.adventure-life.com/articles/pole-comparison-180/
here is a summary of “Northern Most Settlements”
http://geography.about.com/od/lists/a/northernmost-cities.htm
I imagine that the heating, transportation and waste-water/effluence associated with 2 million people, might have a measurable influence on Arctic Sea Ice…
It’s like my own personal Room 101; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLFIxt2cK_0&feature=fvsr
Time to sleep.
Let it snow! (Colorado)
Winter Weather Advisory
COZ033-034-151045-
/O.CON.KBOU.WW.Y.0031.000000T0000Z-110915T1200Z/
SOUTH AND EAST JACKSON/LARIMER/NORTH AND NORTHEAST GRAND/
NORTHWEST BOULDER COUNTIES ABOVE 9000 FEET-
SOUTH AND SOUTHEAST GRAND/WEST CENTRAL AND SOUTHWEST BOULDER/
GILPIN/CLEAR CREEK/SUMMIT/NORTH AND WEST PARK COUNTIES ABOVE
9000 FEET-
INCLUDING THE CITIES OF…CAMERON PASS…
LARAMIE AND MEDICINE BOW MOUNTAINS…RABBIT EARS RANGE…
ROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK…WILLOW CREEK PASS…
BERTHOUD PASS…BRECKENRIDGE…EAST SLOPES MOSQUITO RANGE…
EAST SLOPES SOUTHERN GORE RANGE…EISENHOWER TUNNEL…
INDIAN PEAKS…KENOSHA MOUNTAINS…MOUNT EVANS…
WILLIAMS FORK MOUNTAINS…WINTER PARK
833 PM MDT WED SEP 14 2011
…WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 AM MDT
THURSDAY…
A WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 AM MDT
THURSDAY.
* TIMING…RAIN AND SNOW CONTINUES THIS EVENING ACROSS THE
MOUNTAINS AND WILL CONTINUE THROUGH MUCH OF THE NIGHT. THE
HEAVIEST ACCUMULATIONS SHOULD END BY AROUND 3 AM IN MOST AREAS.
* ACCUMULATION/WIND…SNOW ACCUMULATIONS OF 2 TO 6 INCHES ARE
EXPECTED AT ELEVATIONS ABOVE 10500 FEET…AND MAINLY ON THE
HIGHER EAST SLOPES. LESSER AMOUNTS OVER LOCATIONS WEST OF THE
DIVIDE AND MAINLY RAIN ACROSS MOUNTAIN VALLEYS.
* IMPACTS…ROADS ARE GENERALLY STILL WARM BUT THE HEAVIER
BURSTS OF SNOW COULD ACCUMULATE AT TIMES ALONG WITH AREAS OF
SLUSH. ADDITIONALLY VISIBILITY WILL BE REDUCED IN AREAS OF
HEAVIER SNOWFALL ACROSS THE HIGHER PASSES.
Anthony follow up on this please: Nobel Prize-Winning Physicist Resigns Over Global Warming.
Dr. Ivar Giaever, a former professor with Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the 1973 winner of the Nobel Prize in physics,
“I resign from APS,” Giaever wrote.
Giaever was cooled to the statement on warming theory by a line claiming that “the evidence is inconvertible.”
“In the APS it is ok to discuss whether the mass of the proton changes over time and how a multi-universe behaves, but the evidence of global warming is incontrovertible?” he wrote in an email to Kate Kirby, executive officer of the physics society.
“The claim … is that the temperature has changed from ~288.0 to ~288.8 degree Kelvin in about 150 years, which (if true) means to me is that the temperature has been amazingly stable, and both human health and happiness have definitely improved in this ‘warming’ period,” his email message said.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/09/14/nobel-prize-winning-physicist-resigns-from-top-physics-group-over-global/#ixzz1XzBnA1DD
[Reply: Thanks muchly. I think WUWT was ahead, again, from FOX: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/09/14/nobel-laureate-resigns-from-american-physical-society-to-protest-the-organizations-stance-on-global-warming/ …. but keep it up. We don’t have the infrastructure or salaries FOX offers, so post early and post often. REP, mod]
And we can’t forget about Icebreakers. I was particularly interested to see the “Ajurak Icebreaker trials – Fram Strait (2009)) Icebreaker and ice-management trials on behalf of ExxonMobil in connection with the Ajurak project. In this research expedition during September 2009 Icebreaker Oden (TransAtlantic management) and Icebreaker Fennica was performing various tests for ExxonMobil.”;
/http://www.rabt.se/Offshoreicebreaking/Reference-list/
“As the only major southward flowing current in the Greenland Sea, the EGC transports recirculating Atlantic Water, Arctic Ocean water masses, and >90% of the ice exported from the Arctic Ocean (Woodgate et al. 1999, Rudels et al. 1999).”
http://oceancurrents.rsmas.miami.edu/atlantic/east-greenland.html
Per this Coast Guard Compass article;
http://coastguard.dodlive.mil/index.php/2009/06/coast-guard-and-the-arctic-part-2/
“Coast Guard Cutter Healy is the largest of the heavy ice breakers in the Coast Guard. Her ice breaking capabilities are 4.5 ft @ 3 knots continuous and 8 ft of ice when backing and ramming. Backing and ramming is pretty much what it sounds like and I don’t mean how you parallel parked a car when you were a teenager.”
“Key sea and air lanes need to remain open as a matter of international legal right and not depend on the approval from nations along the routes, so that vessels like Healy can get where they need to go and get there quickly.”
If you look at the icebreaker Healy’s Cruise Track for 2006;
http://www.icefloe.net/images/HLY-06annot.pdf
2007;
http://www.icefloe.net/docs/HLY-07track.pdf
and 2008;
http://www.icefloe.net/docs/healy2008.pdf
it is easy to see how effective a single Icebreaker can be at breaking up the ice.
Per this report from Baltic Ice Management (BIM) on their 2008 – 2009 season;
http://portal.fma.fi/sivu/www/baltice/BIM_Joint_Annual_2008_2009.pdf
the chart on page 10 it seems to indicate that they had 23 icebreakers in use in just the Baltic Sea at the peak of their icebreaking season. Much of it is about opening and maintaining shipping lanes, cruise ship routes and fishing grounds.
Steve R says:
September 14, 2011 at 7:39 pm
One problem with the “smoking causes cancer/no it doesn’t” analogy….it’s not at all clear which side of the debate is analogous to the climate skeptics and which side to the warmists.
#######################
[Snip. No labeling of others as “deniers” here. ~dbs, mod.]
Have they ever proved “CO2 is a well mixed gas”?
OK, so this morning, tuning in to the broadcast over my bowel of oatmeal, what was I greeted with first? Al Gory’s commercial featuring of all things, a pile of feces flying through the air and hitting the blades of a fan, to be sprayed on a globe of the earth, with Big Al smoothly describing something about how this is the day the denier s**t hits the fan, whatever that means. Frankly, the exact words were lost in the revulsion of what I was seeing. What a wonderful engaging image to lure people into the program.
As for the program itself, after about 30 seconds of watching a stunningly boring couch full of unidentified people describing to some poor Indonesian how all of the bad monsoons they were suffering were a direct result of AGW and then moving on to blame La Ninas and El Ninos on AGW, I tuned out and went back to the far more interesting task of reading Doonesbury, which I would submit contains more truth and is certainly more entertaining.
I can’t see this program moving the Gore-O-Meter of Denial even one notch in his direction. It would be fascinating to see the server stats…