Climate FAIL from A to Z presented at Durban

Shouldn’t really use the word “fail.” It will damage their self-esteem. They do deserve marks for Attendance. They have been very good at attending these expense account parties even when they have had to fly all the way to beach resorts around the world in December.

If the Newyork Times would put that on the front page it might do some good. You are preaching to the choir Bro.

A damn fine resource of links. It really seems like the skeptics are winning, which I would have never predicted 3 or 4 years ago.

[Using multiple screen names violate site Policy. ~dbs, mod.]

Could we stick to what they say is true only?

ThePowerOfX – You are referring to the claims about Antarctic ice extent? Or Antarctic and Arctic ice levels and polar-bear populations?
While Morano’s a bit of a bomb-thrower and sometimes as guilty of cherry-picking as those pastry chefs on the warmist side he’d criticize for it, I don’t see anything particularly outlandish or unsupportable in his claims here.

Al Gored says:
“… They do deserve marks for Attendance…”
In my opinion the only attendance award that they deserve involve penal institutions.

Roger Knights says:
December 7, 2011 at 3:12 pm
Bloomberg: “US Delay on Climate Pact spurs backlash”:
=======================================================
The word ‘backlash’ is ridiculous — all the article showed as a bit of whiny bleating from the usual suspects.
A more accurate (if long-winded) headline would be “US Hint of Rationality Provokes Pathetic Whining From the Usual Freeloaders and Parasites”

JonBo – when you click on the link in the Morano article, it takes you to a stub entry on the climatedepot site with ‘Visit Site’ in the title bar. That link then takes you to an entry at the WorldClimateReport blog that references a paper published in GRL.
A little circuitous but maybe he wants to spread the clicks around…

“Recent scientific data and developments reveal that Mother Nature is playing a cruel joke on the promoters of man-made climate fears.”
Mother Nature doesn’t play cruel jokes. The ignorant AGW pranksters are the cruel joke.

That’s a Google +1 post.

Shouldn’t really use the word “fail.” It will damage their self-esteem.

Right. We should use THEIR word … “discredited”.

That’s it? 25 comments and the most negative thing about the article is Anthony saying it might be over zealous? Where the heck are the trolls? My favourite passtime is troll baiting, and I count on WUWT to real them in for me. Sorry, this powerlessX guy doesn’t even count as a troll! He needs an upgrade to get to troll! But he must be a green trollet (trolip? starter troll? what?), that’s why he’s powerless…
Oooh, I’m stretching if I used a line like that. Maybe itz up to us skeptics to play devil’s advocate in order that we have an actual debate going in these threads? Here, I’ll give it a go.
Sniff…well obviously all you folks at WUWT are suffering from mass confirmation bias. The author is a known propogandist with an openly known agenda to cast doubt on climate science by any means. Marc Morano’s obvious hatred of anything positive for the long term good of mankind is expressed in his over the top pronouncements and cherry picked studies. Consider the links he’s posted in his article. What do almost all of them have in common?
They are actual measurements, that’s what! Did any of those study authors, even one of them, consult with the modeling community? For those new to the climate debate, do you even know what a serious offence that is? Wolfgang Wagner, a PhD professor in Vienna, and the former editor of the prestigous journal Remote Sensing has to resign his position as editor and leave the journal in complete embarrasment for letting a coolist paper that was based on actual measurements get published without getting input from modelers first. He even had to apologize in person to Kevin Trenberth, that’s how bad basing studies on data instead of models actually is. Would you trust your kids with this guy? I think not.
———————-
OK everyone, have fun tearing me apart for that. I’ll read all the comments in a couple of hours, and hopefull there will be some hilarious riposts. A couple of hours is how long it is going to take me to stand in the shower and see if I will ever feel clean again…

crosspatch says:
December 7, 2011 at 6:10 pm
per Morano’s unique writing style
That’s a very diplomatic way to put it. His site looks like a hoarder’s garage.

Some people call sites like that a news aggregator site.
I find his site… entertaining. I do wish he could indicate which links takes one to a warmist article. I hate it when that happens and I am not prepared.

Canada’s CBC is currently running a poll which was worded, by design, to ensure condemnation of Canada’s withdrawal from Kyoto.
The way it was worded, it was hard for a skeptic to vote
Is Canada doing its part in the global fight against climate change?
http://www.cbc.ca/news/yourcommunity/2011/12/is-canada-doing-its-part-in-the-global-fight-against-climate-change.html
Despite this! The poll results currently are:
Yes – 47.7%
No – 51.3 %
Undec – >1%
Another fail. GK

G. Karst;
Is Canada doing its part in the global fight against climate change? >>>
That’s actually hilarious. The CBC and most of the media in Canada are wringing their hands about Canada getting out of Kyoto as if the mere act of doing so will cause the entire polar bear population to drop dead on the spot…
And 47% say… good enough for me?
And keep in mind…that’s the people who frequent the CBC!
(for our American friends, CBC regards Obama as a raving right wing lunatic)

Ammonite;
For the genuinely skeptical reader, the results of Foster and Rahmstorf are worth pondering. If the theory of AGW is so far off the mark as a theory, how is it that temperature is consistently rising?>>>
Whoopee! a TROLL!
Set/Troll Baiting = On
OK Ammonite, let’s start by saying that I agree with you that temperature is consistently rising. the graphs in those article start around 1950 and 1980 which is a pretty short time period. Really, the temperature has been consistently rising for….centuries. Since the Little Ice Age. Of course the little ice age was really only a blip in the grand scheme of things… if you take that out…the temperature has been rising for the last several thousand years…since the last full ice age. Of course, even in those scare graphs (ever notice how when you take a picture of an ant and blow it up really big it looks scary as all get out, but really, itz just an ant? Try graphing those temps on a proper scale in degrees K from0 to 350 and…ooops, looks almost flat) but back to the scare graphs, even in them, temps are pretty much flat for the last 10 to 15 years, despite CO2 being the highest EVER…and don’t go on about aerosols in China having a cooling effect, their coal plants are as clean as our and we’ve cleaned up more smog problems in North America and Europe inthe last 50 years than China can possibly compensate for….so….where’s the warming? All you got is graphs with close ups to make tiny variations look like monster ants and warming trends that are thousands of years old, long before CO2 started to increase at all.
Whew. Really needed that,thanks!
Any other drive by troll comments? Hitting the hay, will get to them in the AM.

Typo: “Stefan and Ramstorf” should read “Foster and Rahmstorf” in my last post.

davidmhoffer says: December 7, 2011 at 9:27 pm
Set/Troll Baiting = On: …despite CO2 being the highest EVER …where’s the warming?
Hi DMH. It is refreshing to know you have labelled your statement above as “bait”. Unfortunately many skeptical commentaries miss the point that warming is occuring in line with the central tenets of AGW.
Set/Invitation-for-Genuine-Skeptics = On:
For those who wish to read http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/12/global-temperature-news/ warming is clear and consistent.

it seems to me that dancing on the grave of the AGW movement may be a little premature. First, this is a machine, as amply demonstrated by the e-mails…and political machines have inertia. Second, the science is just a proxy for what liberals have wanted for decades, command and control systems based on some sad Malthusian theory. There are many other ways of continuing the movement. Sure, throw science under the bus…you still have energy independence, dirty fossil fuels, world wide pollution, the gross inequities wealth and energy consumption worldwide…etc. etc. etc.

if its worse than we thought, then the delegates don’t agree:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16080539

it must be happening, must be, the BBC says so, even David Attenborough says so. I have the highest regard for David, he is a giant amongst his profession, The BBC have put a tarnish on his latest work, with the help of WWF et al. Dam shame!.

You just know that all this Global climate warming cooling extreme weather change theyre constantly promoting is hogwash for one simple reason: Its the high pressure sales technique they use to try and sell it.
Buy now! One only! Never to be repeated! Dont lose yours! and all that familar stuff so beloved of con artists across the globe.
“Do it now or youre doomed, sign here”…. and the moment that familiar stink wafts around the media and up your nostrils you just know its all bull.
Offering up the “scary scenarios” to get “something” done about a none problem was always doomed to fail.
It might well stir up a hornets nest in the first instance, but after a while, it all settles down and because their predictions of doom ( Harold Camping style) fail to live up to expectations then theyll continue to keep losing any semblance of credibility (not of course that they had much to spare, i mean, GIGO models? c’mon fellas you can do better than that….cant you?), but then what do they expect? Reading the bones and tea leaves as opposed to proper scientific study and rigor was always going to end badly for them and rightly so.
We’ve had the end of the world via hot methods, and high sea level methods, and unbreathable air methods, im quite looking forward to some pestilence.
I was just wondering if all the scientists theyve excluded and done dirty deeds on couldnt form their own scientific group to promote real science instead of this garbage pseudoclaptrap we keep getting from the whackjobs at cru and uea …….et al?

“promoters of man-made climate fears”
I like this term.

JEM:
Thanks for that, but i am still having the same problem. No matter, I have followed the link provided by the other guys and i’m guessing this must be where Mark got his data from. Thanks all.

Gary & Mike:
Thanks for the links. I had a good look but could not find a straightforward chart showing sea ice volume; all the graphs and charts just seemed to concentrate on sea ice extent & coverage. Obviously it is the overall volume that is the more important factor here and I assume it is this that Mark Morano is refering to in his paper. It’s possible I have missed something as I am not altogether scientifically literate so can you point me in the right direction if this is the case. Many thanks.

Ammonite,
If you think that after people follow that link they are gonna think “OMG, he’s dead right – the warming is real and consistent,” in a Damascean conversion, then I can only say that you must have a very poor understanding of WUWT bloggers. There is nothing in that graph on RC that nobody here hasn’t seen over and over.
The problem we sceptics have is a) on a larger timescale, temperatures have risen (Roman, medieval warm periods) then fallen (dark ages, little ice age) then risen, so in what way is this current warming unprecedented? b) Why has the warming stopped despite higher than ever co2 levels? c) Where is the missing heat that Trenberth is on about? d) Why is there more warming in the northern hemisphere than southern if co2 is a well mixed gas?
If you want to convert sceptics, provide convincing answers without resorting to magic, and we’ll see how that works out.

Watching the local TV news in South Africa it seems there have been fisticuffs in the hall between African supporters of the Africa stance ( send us money ) and the Zuma stance of “let’s do a deal with the EU”.
Quite disturbing really.
http://www.news24.com/SciTech/News/Activists-claim-Zuma-supporters-attacked-them-20111208-2

fred berple
Dec 7, 2011 at 8:18 pm

Gillard’s CO2 policies are evidently having an impact on temperatures in Oz. As Gore pointed out, temperatures fall first, then CO2 follows.

Could this be our first example of the Gillard effect?

In the Second World War the Nazis were the bad guys and the United Nations were the good guys. Now, the climate alarmists are seen as the bad guys and the climate realists are seen as the good guys. Are we now at the stage of El Alamein? “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end but it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” The climate alarmists are on the defensive. All around them they are besieged by the attacks of the climate realists. The area they occupy is getting smaller and smaller. Their troops are getting fewer and fewer. The Leader Gore has declared that no more territory must be conceded. He has declared that the Hockey Stick, the rising sea levels and the declining population of polar bears are all Festungen and must be defended to the death. A hideous fate waits any who surrender to the realists. The alarmists take refuge in bombastic propaganda but the people can see through this. The people know that sooner or later the climate alarmists will be defeated. And then the victorious troops can go home. But, just as after the end of the Second World War many on the victorious side found life in peacetime to be dull and boring compared to the excitement they had experienced during the War, will that be the feeling that many climate realists will feel as they shut down their websites and blogs and find that life is no longer the same? Will we all celebrate the final defeat of the climate alarmists but also feel that a lot of the excitement has gone?

Also Ammonite, UAH and RSS Satellites have shown 2009/2010 as NOT the warmest years. Surface station measurements have been shown to be pure steaming crap. UAH shows flat to cooling trend over the last decade!
” As such, I anticipate the current temperature trend to continue. That temperature has had far wilder excursions in geological history does not negate current behaviour. Nor does it provide comfort that things must somehow be ok given that for most of the period depicted there were no humans on the planet.”—–What planet are you living ON? and what current behavior has you so scared compared to past temperature noise blips?

While I applaud the document, I also see some questions being raised. Many of the sources are blogs and religiously biased newspapers, which may not legitimate sources. The fact that it has a religion section alone might be a red flag to many. Religion has no place in scientific study and the claims made in it. 95% of what is in this study uses non-cited information from the original website, which is intrinsically a religiously biased, non-academic website.
I guess I’d like to see more, independent, scientific links and/or references. That would help in discussions with those supporting AGW.

Ammonite;
A clear implication of Foster, Rahmstorf is that energy is accumulating in the atmosphere/ocean.>>>
The argo buoys have been showing a declining ocean heat content from the time they first began reporting until the most recent. Before we had the Argo buoys, we had ships taking water temps through their cooling tubes and before that we had ships taking temps by throwing a bucket over the side and pulling it up to stick a thermometer in.
OHC is FALLING and that dang ocean thingy weights 1,400 TIMES as much as the atmosphere. Where the oceans go…the tiny atmosphere will follow.

Bob B says: December 8, 2011 at 2:31 pm
“UAH and RSS Satellites have shown 2009/2010 as NOT the warmest years.”
Agreed. Please read Foster, Rahmstorf 2011. Their assessment of “warmest” is made with ENSO, volcanic eruptions and solar influence backed out.
“Surface station measurements have been shown to be pure steaming crap.”
BEST + remarkable agreement in the underlying trends of surface and satellite series (the ~0.16C/decade mentioned earlier) suggest otherwise.

otsar says: December 8, 2011 at 12:14 pm
quiz hint: think about the effects of saturation.
Indeed. Satellite measurement showing decreasing radiation escaping the earth in the absorption bands of CO2 year on year is a strong indicator that we are far from saturation. Venus is another.

Ammonite, yes it will take another 30years to see that model as crap as well.
” Median sensitivity from scores of studies using multiple different approaches is +3C”.
Early signs showing pending crap:
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2011/la-nina-drives-hadcrut-nhsh-13-month-mean-outside-1sigma-model-spread/

“Matt G says:
December 8, 2011 at 4:04 pm
Global temperatures declined after with two successive La Nina’s with reports recently of the warmest La Nina ever recorded.”
“Ammonite says:
December 8, 2011 at 5:23 pm
Agreed. Please read Foster, Rahmstorf 2011. Their assessment of “warmest” is made with ENSO, volcanic eruptions and solar influence backed out.”
“Ammonite says:
December 8, 2011 at 5:29 pm
Median sensitivity from scores of studies using multiple different approaches is +3C.”
I will roughly assume that at the rate we are going now, the +3 C per doubling is close to +3 C per century which is 0.03 C per year.
Keeping the above in mind, I would like to compare apples with apples. I agree this La Nina is the warmest. The anomaly according to Hadcrut3 is 0.357 for 2011 to the end of October and I will assume any change for the last two months will be negligible. Previously, we had a La Nina in 2000 where the anomaly was 0.271. We also had one in 1996 where the anomaly was 0.137. It has been 15 years since the 1996 La Nina and 11 years since the 2000 La Nina.
Now if the +3 C were true, then according to the 1996 La Nina, the anomaly for 2011 should be 0.137 + 0.03(15) = 0.587. Likewise, according to the 2000 La Nina, the anomaly for 2011 should be 0.271 + 0.03(11) = 0.601. The anomaly for 1998 was 0.548. So this La Nina should be warmer than 1998 if the warming is indeed catastrophic and your 3 C is correct. Since 0.548 is lower than both 0.587 and 0.601, I can only conclude that your “scores of studies using multiple different approaches” is way too high. Do you agree?

otsar;
There is really good tutorial on band saturation here: http://geoflop.uchicago.edu/forecast/docs/archer.ch4.greenhouse_gases.pdf:>>>
Nice try. That’s not a tutorial on band saturation, it is a brief description of radiative physics in preperation for coming up with theoretical answers regarding various gas concentrations at various frequencies base on a COMPUTER MODEL so that the students can demonstrate their ability to run a COMPUTER MODEL correctly and get answers that match the theory programmed into the COMPUTER MODEL but there’s no requirement at all to show that the calculated results from the COMPUTER MODEL have any realistic relationship to actual measured results. Nor does the article mention that the COMPUTER MODEL doesn’t take into account feedback of any sort, which the IPCC keeps reducing their estimate of because they’ve discovered that their COMPUTER MODELS were using estimates way too high.
Any other tutorials to point us at? How about a graphics program to hide the decline? Or maybe how to write code that statistically weights data until it looks like a hockey stick? Is there a tutorial on getting journal editors fired? Putting data sets in upside down and hoping nobody notices? How about one for building a 1000 year temperature reconstruction with 50% of the data from a single tree? Is there one called “Thread Hijacking for Dummies” too?

davidmhoffer says: December 8, 2011 at 6:12 pm
Do you jokers thing you are fooling anyone? Ammonite makes a statement that is misleading and questionable, otsar jumps in with an innocent sounding question…
Ah, conspiracy theories. As otsar is apparently fluent in Norwegian and I live in Australia only you DMH have been able to penetrate our dastardly scheme. You see, otsar is just rahmstorf rearranged with a few letters missing (Harry Potter would be all over it) and I am the secret love child of Craig Foster from a Brazilian soap opera. The illuminati will not be impressed now that our cover is blown.

Ammonite;
OK, I’ll take your word for there being no collusion between you and otsar, and that you are the love child of Craig Foster. Well hold on… since you’ve announced it, it isn’t a secret…but if it isn’t a secret then everyone knows….but Craig Foster is a fictional character, so you’ve claimed something that isn’t true and attributed it to someone that doesn’t exist.
Very clever! Are you a climate scientist too?

we won’t even get to spitting distance of +3.>>>
meant to say of +2. actually that might be high too. more like…aw crap, I’d have to figure natural ln function of CO2 going from 280 to 400 multiply by time constant of 5.35 then solve for area under the curve to arrive at some sort of rough average from 1920 to now to work backwards into a time constant based on 200 years which would be roughly 40 years then use that to arrive at where we are in the equilibrium curve and extrapolate that out to arrive at a likely equilibrium sensitivity based on the combination of temperature data and CO2 increases since 1920…yikes, I’d have to be a physicist to do all that so I’ll just guestimate… less than 1. Lots of work being done showing that feedbacks are net negative…so, yup, less than one makes a buncha sense.
Now if I was Werner…I could actually do the math….

Ammonite
Yes, I agree there is a consistent warming trend—but it is consistent since the last ice age that has nothing to do with CO2. :
http://www.reportingclimatescience.com/index.php?eID=tx_cms_showpic&file=uploads%2Fpics%2Fakasofu.jpg&md5=ee101a944b2712a8ba43180ad7dbdd72664879f4&parameters%5B0%5D=YTo0OntzOjU6IndpZHRoIjtzOjQ6IjgwMG0iO3M6NjoiaGVpZ2h0IjtzOjM6IjYw&parameters%5B1%5D=MCI7czo3OiJib2R5VGFnIjtzOjQyOiI8Ym9keSBiZ0NvbG9yPSIjZmZmZmZmIiBz&parameters%5B2%5D=dHlsZT0ibWFyZ2luOjA7Ij4iO3M6NDoid3JhcCI7czozNzoiPGEgaHJlZj0iamF2&parameters%5B3%5D=YXNjcmlwdDpjbG9zZSgpOyI%2BIHwgPC9hPiI7fQ%3D%3D
I also agree CO2 will cause warming but with 0.75-1.2C with a doubling of CO2—nowhere near 3C!

Ammonite,
I asked: “a) on a larger timescale, temperatures have risen (Roman, medieval warm periods) then fallen (dark ages, little ice age) then risen, so in what way is this current warming unprecedented?”
You replied: “Current warming is clearly not unprecedented on geological time scales. It is important to make distinctions between what scientists are claiming and what journalists are reporting.”
You are agreeing then that there is nothing unusual about this warming, yet offer no evidence that is man made.
Question b) “Why has the warming stopped despite higher than ever co2 levels?”
Your reply: “?? Warming is proceeding at ~0.16C/decade in all 5 temperature sets tested and has been consistent across the 1979-2010 period with 2009/10 being the two warmest years in all 5 cases. This is the point of Foster, Rahmstorf 2011.”
You conveniently ignore that there has been no warming in the last 10 years. So let me be more specfic – why has there been no warming in the last 10 years if co2 is increasing?
Question c) “Where is the missing heat that Trenberth is on about?”
Your reply: “A clear implication of Foster, Rahmstorf is that energy is accumulating in the atmosphere/ocean. Foster challenges Trenberth’s assertions on warming significance. Warming is significant with known short term influences removed ”
Are you saying that there shouldn’t be any heat accumulation in the oceans? If not, how can there be a radiative imbalance without heat accumulation?
d)”Why is there more warming in the northern hemisphere than southern if co2 is a well mixed gas?”
Reply: “Land/ocean ratio.”
Tell me more. In what way does this land/ocean ratio translate to less warming? Again, if there is no land to warm, then the heat must be going into the oceans, but it aint. See c) above.

“Ammonite says:
December 9, 2011 at 12:57 am
Measuring from El-Nino peaks to La-Nina troughs (or vice-versa) does not give an adequate expectation for future behaviour.”
I agree that this is comparing apples and oranges to some extent. But the flatness of the last 14 yeas cannot be dismissed either. See Bob B’s post above. This lull fits perfectly with the 60 year long rough sine wave over the last 130 years. From his post, see http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/akasofu_ipcc.jpg

Bob B, Vince, Werner: The ocean. Werner, the vast majority of any accumulating energy must go there. The air doesn’t heat up +3C (say) but the ocean stays at zero. Nor does the air heat +3C and then dump its negligible content into the ocean. The systems are coupled and the ocean takes a long time to heat.
According to AGW ocean heat content (OHC) should be rising. So why has OHC seemingly stalled in the recent decade under various estimates/measurements? Measurement suffers from sampling issues (little to no measurement of the deep ocean for example), accuracy issues and noise. There are always wiggles in the data. The question then becomes, how long must OHC “stall” to bring its longer term trend into question? In general, ~10 years is too short to assess climate trends. Extrapolating from a relatively short basis does not make for sound future predictions. The jury is still out on this one.
Bob B, if climate sensitivity is of the order of 1C as you believe, OHC must still continue to rise with rising CO2. Falling OHC is just as much a problem (in principle) for 1C as 3C.
Werner, to the extent that climate cycles exist they do not negate the effect of rising GHG but would be superimposed over it. (Note that this is the case for the solar cycle according to Foster, Rahmstorf.)
Vince, you are measuring to the bottom of a La Nina year for your warming assessment. Please note that 2011 will be the warmest La Nina on record. What does this imply when the next decent sized El Nino rolls around?

Ammonite–you didn’t respond to the long time natural warming recovery from the ice ages? And the cherry picking little heating on top of that?
Regardless Ocean heat content is DECREASING!
So it all may be climate noise—move along nothing to worry about

JonBo, what makes you think this
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/wordpress/research/projects/arctic-sea-ice-volume-anomaly/
hasn’t happened 75-100yrs ago when there weren’t satellites to measure sea ice extent and volume?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/03/16/you-ask-i-provide-november-2nd-1922-arctic-ocean-getting-warm-seals-vanish-and-icebergs-melt/

Werner Brozek says: December 9, 2011 at 3:47 pm
…But if that were the case, why the stall over the last 13 years? You could argue that 13 years is too small to draw any conclusions.
Hi Werner. My last post in this thread. As stated before, measuring from an El Nino peak to La Nina trough (last 13 years) is an extremely poor predictor of future behaviour. I have the distinct impression that you have not read the RealClimate link posted above or the Foster, Rahmstorf paper. Temperature continues to rise and the rise is statistically significant when known causes of short term variability are stripped out. With all variability left in, yes, short run time frames of the order of 10 years or so are insufficient to draw definitive conclusions.

Steve C says:
December 8, 2011 at 12:29 am

Steve, my aging eyes misread, and saw “the Feeb”. Oops. Then I thought, “Wait a minute …”
;D 🙂

“Ammonite says:
Under Foster, Rahmstorf 2011 the underlying trend is calculated to be ~0.16C/decade.”
See Phil Jones interview at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8511670.stm
Note the answer to question A: A – Do you agree that according to the global temperature record used by the IPCC, the rates of global warming from 1860-1880, 1910-1940 and 1975-1998 were identical?
Period Length Trend
(Degrees C per decade) Significance
1860-1880 21 0.163 Yes
1910-1940 31 0.15 Yes
1975-1998 24 0.166 Yes
1975-2009 35 0.161 Yes
So it seems as if “Foster, Rahmstorf 2011” are agreeing with Phil Jones. So the question is: Since 1860 to 1880 and 1910 to 1940 had nothing to do with CO2, why should the conclusions of “Foster, Rahmstorf 2011” have anything to do with CO2? Their slope was no higher, even with all their adjustments.

JonBo says:
December 10, 2011 at 8:38 am
[….]
I can only repeat my first point that Moranos claim is not supported by the evidence he presents in his argument. [….]
Morano’s comment was principally a response to the Alarmist claims, and those claims are generally speaking about the measurements of sea ice extent. Although the Alarmist arguments sometimes include claims about ice volume, such claims are based upon sea ice extent and subjective guesses about what they beleive a model parameterization adjustment should be to produce a desired result. Currently, there are no objectively quantitative ice volume measurements with anthing remotely close to the necessary temporal and spatial coverages. Consequently, Morano and anyone else can only make objective observations about sea ice extent. As Morano has noted, sea ice extent has been on the rebound, meaning increasing to levels above the minimums of 2007, in the Arctic. Sea ice extent in the Antarctic has on balance been increasing even while Arctic sea ice had been decreasing. Total planetary sea ice was stable or increasing in recent decades during and despite the planetary warming of the past century. So, it can only be wondered how you would conclude Moran’s comment could be incorrect.

You may well be right in what you imply, I really don’t know, but I have noticed there is a lot of talk by skeptics about sea ice loss/gain. If, as you suggest, it does not make any difference if there is a big loss in arctic ice on the grounds that it may have happened before for all we know, then why concentrate on it as an issue.

The sea ice extent is an issue, because the Alarmists make it a political and economic issue justifying the censorship and dismissal from employment of scientific and public critics, the transfer of sovereignty to unelected representatives openly avowed to creating a One World Government under their own leadership, with the melting ice as the reason for these emergency measures to be taken without public knowledge or debate.
“if there is a big loss in arctic ice on the grounds that it may have happened before for all we know” is a misrepresentation of the situaton. We know for an indisputable fact that the Arctic has experienced a big loss of ice before beyond any possible doubt. In fact, you have the situation exactly backwards and upside down.
The normal condition of the Arctic is to be free of any ice cap. The normal conditon of the Arctic throughout the Earth’s past is to be ice free. There have been only a very limited number of relatively brief periods of time when the Earth has experienced an ice age. Of those very few ice ages, only a couple or perhaps few of them resulted in an icecap on the Arctic. The current ice age is one of those exceedingly rare occasions when an icecap existed in the Arctic. During the 20-30 million year period of the current ice age, the Arctic ice cap has been present on and off again for only a few million years, waxing and waning to great extents between glacial and inter-glacial periods in the exceptional periods when the ice cap did exist.
Even during the current and ongoing inter-glacial priod of the latest 10,000 years or longer, the Arctic ice cap has been waxing and waning with an overall decline from the last maximum glacial extent. It should always be remembered that the last maximum glacial extent of the Arctic icecap is the most extensive experienced by the Earth in about the last 2.2 billion years, long before terrestrial lifeforms colonized and inhabited the continents. In other words, the Earth has been warming up in previous inter-glacial periods and in this inter-glacial period relative to one of the coldest ice age periods experienced in the last half of its entire ~4.6 billion year existence. During these inter-glacial periods there have been many episodes of warming which melted enough Arctic sea ice to result in the formation of shoreline deposits indicative of open sea water along the northern coasts of Greenland. The Dorset Culture maintained extensive communities in Northern Greenland and Eastern Greenland on and off again through the waxing and waning of climate conditions until the recent Little Ice Age. Even during centuries, we have reports from mariners indicating great changes in sea ice extent in the Arctic.
There can be no doubt, the Arctic sea ice extent of the overall past has normally been zero and extraordinarily extended southwrds into the temperate latitudes of North America and Eurasia. We also know that the Arctic sea ice extent has been less than the present during the past 2,000 years and likely similar to the present within the past century or earlier. All of these events occurred before the late 20th Century and early 21st Century carbon dioxide emissions.

Also I am a bit puzzled in that, I have already said, when looking at the actual amount of sea ice loss or gain we have to look at volume. The first place I checked was the reference page on this site where I found several charts showing sea ice extent but none showing volume. I find this a very strange omission considering its importance.
Anyhow, as I said, you still raise a perfectly valid issue and I now intend to follow your link. Many thanks.

You have to ask yourself how anyone can display an OBJECTIVE quantitative measurement of Arctic ice volume when no such empirical measurements of the Arctic have ever been made in the necessary temporal and spatial series? A critic can discuss, analyze, and debate the SUBJECTIVE guesstimates resulting from conjectural parameterizations in the conjectural models used by Alarmists, but you cannot fault someone when they choose not to misrepresent conjectural model results as actual empirical observations of real conditions.
Also, consider the implications of the conjectural ice volume models when compared to what we observed from empirical evidence of ice volumes during the current ice age. The sea levels were hundreds of feet/meters lower during the recent maximum glacial epochs, while the northern regions of the North American and Eurasian continents were overlaid with ice glacial ice sheets hundreds of feet/meters of ice extending southwards from the Arctic. These gargantuan volumes of ice were melted by natural events to cause the sea levels to rise. Consider the quantities of thermal energy required to cause the melting of such vast amounts of ice extent and volume. Then remember the Solar scientists advise us there has not been a change in TSI (total Solar Irradiance) during these freezing and unfreezing events that could explain such massive changes. Then compare the maximum and minimum ice volumes conjectured for the last century by the Alarmist conjectural modeling to the maximum and minimum ice volumes conjectured during the prior periods of this same ice age. Ask yourself how the thermal energies required for the Modern ice volume variability are outside the range of natural ice volume variability experienced in the absence of human influence? Then ask yourself how important the ice volume variance versus the ice extent variance is today when the ice extent is mostly confined to the relatively thin Arctic sea ice and the thicker Greenland continental ice? During the maximum ice volumes of the glacial epochs, most of the ice was laid upon the continents and not the Arctic seas. These proportions have radically switched now that most of the Arctic ice is sea ice instead of continental ice sheets. The thermal energies required for changes of volume and extent are likewise altered. How important then is the current ice volume on the seas relative to their ice extent? Which measure is the greater indicator of thermal energies under Modern circumstances, in the absence of reliable and comprehensive quantitative Arctic ice volume measurements?
The Antarctic ice extent and ice volume is far greater than that of the Arctic. Why place such an emphasis upon the variations of the Arctic while disregarding the lack of such changes in the far more influential Antarctic?

JonBo says:
December 10, 2011 at 6:01 pm

The sea ice caught in the gyre in the Arctic Sea is driven by winds and sea currents, and they vary considerably. The sea ice breaks and is driven upwards into pressure ridges. Consequently, ice thickness and volume is continuously changing and varying with the current, seasonal weather, and longer cyclical weather and climate. Monitoring ice thickness and volume is highly problematical, because each of the technologies capable of providing ice thickness measurements of wide areas each has serious limitations in the areas and accuracies for which they can provide measurements.
Satellites in space are limited in coverage by their orbital parameters. They typically leave a large are at the geographic North Pole unobserved, because their orbits do not allow observations of this region. They are also limited in their abilities to sense the ice thickness beyond a certain accuracy in those areas which they can make observations.
Aerial surveys can achieve greater accuracies and observe regions around the North Pole not observable by the satellites, but perpetual nightfall and budgetary limitations limit their potential usage to do so.
Submarines are limited in their temporal availability and their ability to make measurements in the littoral regions.
Even if recent technology solved all of these existing problems with accurate measurements and coverage in an instant, there would still be no past such time series with which to make the necessary comparisons. At best, researchers at present can only use the incomplete and less than required accuracies in the measurements to make refined estimates of what they think the measurements ought to be. Such subjective estimates can provide some guidance about the scope of such measurements, but they are too inaccurate and inappropriate to detect the subtle changes the Alarmists wish to attribute to anthropogenic influences, if there were such of any significance.
No, “sea ice extent is the only indicator being used here,” but it is the only metric which can be supported by Alarmists or Skeptics with any halfway reasonable degree of measurements. Even then, their are considerable inaccuracies in the ability to sense the ice extent margins. The ice volumes can only be roughly approximated at present and guessed at in the more distant decades with the very incomplete data available to anyone.

JonBo says:
December 11, 2011 at 9:00 am
[….]
I have looked into this and it appears that you are wrong. It seems that there are a number of ways in which arctic sea ice volume is measured from ice thickness measuring buoys to US Navy submarines to aerial ice thickness measuring instrumentation packages to ships measuring the thicknesses on their recon cruises to orbiting satellites. Measurements are taken and updated on a monthly basis.

That totally misrepresents what I have said. I DID NOT say there were no measurements by these methods. On the contrary, I listed those same methods. What I did say is that those measurments are limited in scope to less than the whole ice volumes by significant measures, the methods lack adequate accuracies, and the methods lack temporal coverage. Consequently, researchers use the limited data points to estimate and therefore are making educated guesses about what they think a full set of empirical data points might say if it were possible to collect the full set of datapoints. Since they cannot observe the full set of data points, they resort to using interpolations and extrapolations of the limited data in an effort to simulate a hypotheitical model of what they hope could be a reasonable representation of what reality should look like. Unfortunately, such estimates based on assumptions are typically inaccurate to greater or lesser degrees. Until we have better ways of collecting the necessary data, the reality remains to be revealed, and the accuracies of these estimates remain to be determined. For example:

Spreen, Gunnar. Satellite-based Estimates of Sea Ice Volume Flux : Applications to the Fram Strait Region (Satellitenfernerkundung des Meereisvolumenflusses in der Framstraßenregion)
[….]
The lack of spatial sea ice thickness information has been one of the weaknesses for previous existing methods to determine the sea ice export. In this study a new method to obtain the sea ice volume flux exclusively from satellite measurements is presented. Previous estimates of the sea ice volume flux relayed on ice draft measurements of a single Upward Looking Sonar (ULS) in the Greenland Sea. The GLAS laser altimeter onboard the ICESat satellite launched in 2003 offers for the first time the opportunity to obtain the spatial sea ice thickness distribution up to 86°N latitude. In this study a method to determine the sea ice freeboard from ICESat altimeter data is developed and applied to nine ICESat measurement periods between 2003 and 2007. Assuming hydrostatic balance and by utilization of further satellite, in situ and climatological data these sea ice freeboard measurements are converted to sea ice thickness maps of the Fram Strait region. The satellite-based ice thickness estimates are combined with sea ice area and sea ice drift, as retrieved from AMSR-E microwave radiometer measurements at 89 GHz, to obtain the sea ice volume flux. The errors of the input quantities and the final sea ice volume flux are assessed. Using this method the spatial sea ice volume flux distribution is obtained from satellite observations for the first time. The Fram Strait sea ice volume flux is further investigated by calculating a monthly sea ice volume flux time series between January 2003 and April 2007. Summer months have to be disregarded due to missing sea ice drift data. The sea ice volume flux shows large interannual and -seasonal variability. A mean monthly Fram Strait sea ice volume flux of (248±90) km^3/month with respective minimum and maximum values of 112 km^3/month (May 2003) and 484 km^3/month (December 2004) was found. These satellite-based sea ice volume flux estimates from the years 2003 to 2007 are compared to previous sea ice volume flux estimates obtained for the period 1990 to 1999 and can be used as extension of these previous time series. Finally, a comparison of sea ice volume flux estimates from this study with oceanographic salinity measurements shows good coincidence of summer melting events. A comparison to model results reveals large differences in the lateral distribution of the sea ice volume flux. The presented method does not just allow, as previously, to determine the sea ice export through Fram Strait but has the potential to investigate and better understand the dynamics of sea ice volume changes north and south of Fram Strait.
[….]
http://ediss.sub.uni-hamburg.de/volltexte/2008/3776/

Estimated data points are not real or actual data points. Estimates may be useful for some purposes, but they can be in significant error and are not reality.
To understand what has been said, try to find the following empiricaldata, not the interpolated or extrapolated data, for the period of ice volume flux representative of the period of greatest anthropogenic atmospheric emissions of carbon dioxide.
With respect to submarines, let’s see the submarine upward sonar measurements of sea ice thickness for all of the littoral regions of the Kara Sea, Laptev Sea, and Queen Elizabeth Islands for the period 1945 to 2011.
With respect to satellites, let’s see the satellite measurements of sea ice thickness for all of the Arctic Sea ice north of 86 degress N. latitude for the period 1945 to 2011.
With respect to aerial surveys, let’s see the aerial survey measurements of sea ice thickness for all of the East Siberian Sea ice for the period 1945 to 2011.
Cryosat is one of the more promising research tools to come online, unfortunately it is quite useless for providing measurements the period prior to its deployment.

JonBo says:
December 11, 2011 at 1:32 pm
[….]
You are clearly well informed for which I give you full credit.
You obviously do not accept the data on the grounds that it is incomplete and therefore invalid and you have explained why this is the case.
It is not a case in which I “do not accept the data on the grounds that it is incomplete and therefore invalid [….] “ Much of the data is acceptable as far as it goes. Other data is of dubious accuracy. Other data is downright irrational. It’s a mixed bag. Worst of all is the data which has not been observed and collected, accurate or not. It is the application of the existing and non-existent data to the formulation of alleged peer reviewed studies demonstrating poor and sometimes non-existent scientific discipline which is problematic for science and the social institutions reliant upon such works. Again, estimates and modeling can be useful tools in scientific research. The problem arises when some people attempt to mislead society into trusting so-called scientists who wrongly and improperly attempt to pass off and sell estimates as the same weight of evidence as real world data of adequate accuracies. This is when the peer reviewed research abuses privilege and veers off into the area in which it may be said that scientific fraud may be taking place. People attempting the similar kinds of misrepresentations of technical data in the financial markets have often ended up behind prison bars. In the realm of so-called climate science they are awarded a Nobel prize, chairmanships, and trips to exotic resorts for the next COP conference. Then it is left to the rest of us to try and provide a general explanation why it appears someone is misrepresenting the nature of the data for whatever purposes.

Yet this data is still being used in peer reviewed studies, one of which I provided a link to.
Can you provide me with any peer reviewed studies that demonstrate why this data should not be used to draw any meaningful conclusion from due to it’s inherent uncertainties?
Many thanks

I’m not saying the “ data should not be used to draw any meaningful conclusion” at all. On the contrary, the data is quite useful when it is used within its inherent limitations. The problem occurs when the data is used in circumstances that are inappropriate. An example of an inappropriate use of data is marine navigation or aerial navigation. Maps and charts in the past were not always accurate in their marine depths and terrestrial elevations. The mapmakers often provided some cautions about the potential for data errors in the published work and the need to not rely on the data for some critical purposes. Ships captain’s who have failed to heed those warnings have been known to run their ships aground, and aerial pilots have perished along with their hapless passengers when they discovered rocks in clouds which the data misled them itno believing had no rocks.
So it is with many other types of measurement data. When I conducted a rawindsonde or a piball atmospheric sounding, there was a prescribed method by which the observations had to be made and reported. The methods were devised to capture data meant to be used for only certain purposes. If, however, some so-called scientists came along at a later date and attempted to use the observations I reported, they could very well come to completely wrong conclusions. Upper level winds in more active convective sky conditons would push the balloons in opposite directions between reported observation intervals. Consequently, the data was quite useful for their intended purposes, but would be totally unreliable when used to characterize wind directions, altitudes, and air pressure within 1 meter and 1 second intervals of accuracy. These kinds of problems rear their ugly heads whenever someone claims accuracy in the reconstruction using measurements made for other purposes in an earlier time period to reconstruct a time series of another kind in the present time and forecast of the future. The ice volume research has an inherent problem when they attempt to infer satellite measurements for time periods prior to the existence of such satellites and prior to the existence of any kind of orbital satellite.
To get a feel for the nature of the problem, you should for just the fun of it attempt to find those submarine upwards sonar scans of the ice thicknesses in the seas I wrote about earlier. You may also find it interesting to see why obtaining the aerial ice thickness measurements for the East Siberian Sea prior to recent decades tends to be problematic. Clue: aircraft attempting to do so encountered problems, often fatal.
With respect to sources discussing the uncertainties, you are basically asking for much of the content of this blog and Website. If you investigate the content here, at Climate Audit, and other worthy Websites included in their references, you can find just such discussions of innumerable references. Sometimes the authors of these peer reviewed studies have written the blog posts discussing the pros and cons of these sources. In particular, you would be well advised to see the contributions of Roy Spencer and John Christy, who are the sources of much of the satellite observations and studies. They can certainly be more helpful describing the strengths and weaknesses of their own satellite observation programmes.
As for the peer reviewed research you cited, remember most peer reviewed research is later demonstrated to be flat out wrong. The question of whether or not any particular example of the peer reviewed papers in climate science is right or wrong and to what extent is the topic of debate within and without science, regardless of attempts by anti-scientific voices attempting to propagandize that the science is settled. By its very Nature, science is not and never ever can be “settled.” You can observe this problem yourself by carefully reading your source and finding how many times it used an estimate of data or data points as if they were the same as or tantamount to an actual direct measurement. Then ask yourself whether or not the peer reviewed paper, Alarmist or Skeptic, was misleading in its representation of the accuracy and appropriate application of the existing and any non-existing data. All papers make such mistakes, but it may be illustrative to see who is more prevalent in making such inappropriate assertions.

JonBo:
I have had a look at Spencer & Christy but their work seems to be about satellite measurements of temperature. I am specifically looking for work of qualified scientists in the area of ice volume. Whatever the criticims may be of temperature measurements, I cannot extrapolite this to cover measurements of ice volumes as they are 2 different things. I am just wanting to focus on one issue at a time and not flit from issue to issue or follow other areas of enquiry until I have completed this one. I am still trying to discover what is contained in the scientific literature as to the usefulness and reliablity of polar ice volume measurements ,whether it can reliably be used to say that volume is increasing/decreasing and to what degree of accuracy, and where I can find a critique in the literature of the use of this data that would justify sceptics to exclude the use of this data.
*You can observe this problem yourself by carefully reading your source and finding how many times it used an estimate of data or data points as if they were the same as or tantamount to an actual direct measurement.”
This would tell me nothing about its validity or usefulness. For all I know measurements may be taken between large distances and estimates put in and still found to have a high degree of accuracy. That is for scientists to decide and explain in the literature and not for me to just decide for myself when I have no expertise.
*The problem arises when some people attempt to mislead society into trusting so-called scientists who wrongly and improperly attempt to pass off and sell estimates as the same weight of evidence as real world data of adequate accuracies. This is when the peer reviewed research abuses privilege and veers off into the area in which it may be said that scientific fraud may be taking place. People attempting the similar kinds of misrepresentations of technical data in the financial markets have often ended up behind prison bars.
This is a very serious accusation. If you have evidence of this in relation to the topic under discussion (measurements of polar ice volume) can you please give me the specific citations for me to check. I feel that if you are making such serious allegations then you should be providing me with the necessary citations and references rather than just advising me to look around this website.
In addition:
I have gone back and had another look at the graph on arctic sea ice extent and have ralised that Moranos use of 2007 is a blatant cherry pick.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.arctic.png
Obviously he is correct in saying that arctic ice extenthas recovered by using this low point, but it is still the second lowest point on the graph. Hardly the stunning rebuke to climate scientists that he claims. Pick a year either side and you get a downward trend. But whatever of these you choose to pick as your starting point it might not be statistically meaningful as climate scientists mainly concern themselves with long-term trends.
Thankyou