While the Antarctic is making new records for more ice this week, we have another press release with “could” science in it.
Image: National Snow & Ice Data Center (NSIDC)
Timing is everything I guess, but I really have to wonder how “…warming waters in the Southern Ocean are connected intimately with the movement of massive ice-sheets deep in the Antarctic interior.” Oh wait, it’s modeling, never mind.
From the University of New South Wales:
Warming ocean could start big shift of Antarctic ice
Wednesday, 19 September, 2012
Alvin Stone
Fast-flowing and narrow glaciers have the potential to trigger massive changes in the Antarctic ice sheet and contribute to rapid ice-sheet decay and sea-level rise, a new study has found.
Research results published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reveal in more detail than ever before how warming waters in the Southern Ocean are connected intimately with the movement of massive ice-sheets deep in the Antarctic interior.
“It has long been known that narrow glaciers on the edge of the Antarctica act as discrete arteries termed ice streams, draining the interior of the ice sheet,” says Dr Chris Fogwill, an author of the study and an ARC Future Fellow with the UNSW Climate Change Research Centre.
“However, our results have confirmed recent observations suggesting that ocean warming can trigger increased flow of ice through these narrow corridors. This can cause inland sectors of the ice-sheet – some larger than the state of Victoria – to become thinner and flow faster.”
The researchers, led by Dr Nicholas Golledge from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, tested high-resolution model simulations against reconstructions of the Antarctic ice sheet from 20,000 years ago, during the last glacial maximum.
They used a new model, capable of resolving responses to ice-streams and other fine- scale dynamic features that interact over the entire ice sheet. This had not previously been possible with existing models. They then used this data to analyse the effects of a warming ocean over time.
The results showed that while glacier acceleration triggered by ocean warming is relatively localized, the extent of the resultant ice-sheet thinning is far more widespread. This observation is particularly important in light of recently observed dynamic changes at the margins of Antarctica. It also highlighted areas that are more susceptible than others to changes in ocean temperatures.
The glaciers that responded most rapidly to warming oceans were found in the Weddell Sea, the Admundsen Sea, the central Ross Sea and in the Amery Trough.
The finding is important because of the enormous scale and potential impact the Antarctic ice sheets could have on sea-level rise if they shift rapidly, says Fogwill. “To get a sense of the scale, the Antarctic ice sheet is 3km deep – three times the height of the Blue Mountains in many areas – and it extends across an area that is equivalent to the distance between Perth and Sydney.
“Despite its potential impact, Antarctica’s effect on future sea level was not fully included in the last IPCC report because there was insufficient information about the behaviour of the ice sheet. This research changes that. This new, high-resolution modelling approach will be critical to improving future predictions of Antarctica’s contribution to sea level over the coming century and beyond.”
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Related – over at Bishop Hill he explains how the pooh-poohing of the current Antarctic ice surplus really doesn’t hold up when you look at past IPCC predecitions.
Question for the crowd:
What is the total volume of landed ice on the planet?
“This new, high-resolution modelling approach will be critical to improving future predictions of Antarctica’s contribution to sea level over the coming century and beyond.”
More likely it will make the predictions worse due to lack of knowledge sufficient to enable them to place these speculations into a realistic context.
Do you suppose if the Arctic starts to ice up and the Anarctic starts to melt that CO2 will be blamed?
Arctic = Open sea = heat escaping. Anarctic = Ice covered = heat trapped. At some point heat loss in the Arctic leads to a new cycle of ice build, while an increase in insulating ice in the Antarctic leads to a new cycle of ice loss. No?
“However, our results have confirmed recent observations suggesting that ocean warming can trigger increased flow of ice through these narrow corridors. This can cause inland sectors of the ice-sheet – some larger than the state of Victoria – to become thinner and flow faster.”
Then how do they explain that the Antarctic is gaining faster than it is losing, and that it has gained 45 meters in depth in the past few decades?
“.. and it extends across an area that is equivalent to the distance between Perth and Sydney”
Is explaining the size of a two-dimensional object in terms of a single dimension part of this new-fangled post-normal science?
Groan….Another warmist model resplendent in confirmation bias, and of course celebrated by the low intellectual wattage media. Some comment on the prodigious growth of Antarctic ice and maybe a model that convincingly demonstrates this empirical observation might be of more use to humanity. But this has little to do with humanity. It’s about the funding stream for the research, spun to ensure the spigot stays on!
Anthony, I hope you do know that the article is NOT concerning sea-ice?
/sarc
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/wksst/5.gif
The ocean around the Antarctic might not be warming.
It’s kinda hard to tell if their findings are ruled by their wishes or not. But I can still remember the battle here on WUWT about whether the Arctic ice extent line does or does not touch the historic average line, and while I believe nobody at that time expected it will take the plunge it took, a lot of people clearly believed it will stay over that average.
We’ll see in half a year if they’re right or wrong. There’s a (weak) El Nino after two consecutive La Ninas going on right now, more surprises might be right around the corner. Let’s wait.
Yancey:
Naturally, estimates vary widely, but for the Greenland & Antarctic ice sheets:
http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2000/HannaBerenblit.shtml
Let’s say over six to eight million cubic miles, more than 90% of it on Antarctica.
Contribution of mountain glaciers probably negligible.
What real evidence do they have that the ice sheet has been thinning? I think the warming oceans should produce more snow that increases the ice thickness. This is a classic input/output dynamic mass balance where they seem to be limiting their study to the output.
20 to 30 years ago I led a group creating computer simulations. Sometimes those who contracted for our service would demand five decimal precision on some aspects of models whose primary input was a wild guess. I argued, usually unsuccessfully. Every time I read about a “high resolution model” I have a nagging suspicion that such a model has far more precision than accuracy.
Can’t they explain the extent of their worries in Manhattans. I thought that was the new measurement of ice loss.
Ivor Ward
Uhm, what warming of the ocean? It appears to me that the Southern Ocean underwent a change of temperature regime during 2006 from which it has not recovered. Looks like a step down in ocean temperatures around the Antarctic. The article seems to imply an assumption that oceans are warming. There is no data supporting that globally and in the case of the Antarctic region, the opposite is true.
http://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/13-southern.png
The AGW alarmists will invent or endorse any scare story, no matter how laughable, that promises to keep their research funds flowing. And they will attack anyone who threatens to kill the golden goose. There is big money at stake.
Somewhere along the line the defenders of the AGW faith started to confuse modeling with science. They are not one in the same. In fact, the super-fast next-generation models they keep touting will merely help them arrive at the wrong answer faster.
I cant find the image of Antarctic sea ice extent at http://nsidc.org Am I stupid or what? Everything about the Arctic is easily accessible.
Yawwwwwn.
Antarctica does not matter unless we can find slight warming in the Peninsula to which we smooth it across half the continent and scream it out loud at the press in order to generate more funding in order to better understand out
scamtemperature.This is really getting silly. It’s like a cat and mouse game with these fraudsters.
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2012/9/20/antarctic-ice.html
“This new, high-resolution modelling [sic modeling] approach will be critical to improving future predictions of Antarctica’s contribution to sea level over the coming century and beyond.”
I shake my head as I often do when I grade a math student’s ‘solution’ to a problem where they boldly circle their incorrectly derived answer, accurate to 10 decimal places!
Paaaleeeeze: The sea surface temperarture anomalies of the Southern Ocean have been cooling for at least 30 years:
http://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/13-southern.png
I don’t need to have EXCEL throw a linear trend on there, do I?
The graph is from my August sea surface temperature update:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2012/09/10/august-2012-sea-surface-temperature-sst-anomaly-update/
Antarctic follows solar cycles
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/TMCa.htm
Quite the breathless explaination of a model run.
———
Take a breath.
It depends on the source of your information. Jeff Masters at Wunderground found some great (and short sighted) information which slams the idea that long term (more than a year) growth of the Antarctic can be supported by current warming trends:
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=2237
I really respect his views on cyclones, which seems to be his specialty, but can’t read too many views he has on Al Gores Warming…
“What is the total volume of landed ice on the planet?”
Less than 20 years ago which is such an inconvenient bit of data for WUWT isn’t it…. G.R.A.C.E is SUCH a pain in the proverbial for that.
Instead of asking why the SIE and SIA in the Antarctic is varying (you didn’t mention when it was at a record low did you………), you should be asking why the sea which is covered in so much ice is increasing in temperature, year on year. You should be asking why the Wilkins ice shelf is rapidly disintegrating after the breakdown of the ice bridge or why the pine island ice shelf is thinning so rapidly and the discharge has accelerated so much.
You should be asking yourself many things. But what you are asking is
“Where can I get a figure or a chart or anything really, anything at all that will prove that things are going in the opposite direction to logic and observation”.
Good luck with that. They are getting fewer and fewer by the year. Not because of some conspiracy of scientists to hide data but because these data simply no longer exist, or are reducing so rapidly that a 0 sum is certainly not far away.
Dream on, be my guest. It will change nothing. Just remember this. The public are fickle and they WILL want to know who to blame when their life goes in the dumpster. They won’t be polite about it either.
All this speculation ‘could’ be a waste of time time , given that a meteor ‘could’ strike the area sometime in the future which ‘could’ result in all the ice being installant vaporised. Given the earth has been a hit my many meteors in the past and that the ‘models ‘ of result of the impact will be , I reckon claims are ever bit has good as theirs . Now where I pick my grant cheque from ?
Sorry one last bit ‘ clearly it was not for AGW the effects of such impacts would reduced if not there possibility , the models suggest , it even in this case it man’s fault .
Timing is everything I guess, but I really have to wonder how “…warming waters in the Southern Ocean are connected intimately with the movement of massive ice-sheets deep in the Antarctic interior.” Oh wait, it’s modeling, never mind.
Maybe they are using a hex grid mapping system and failed to scale it down……sarcish, sort of.
What’s not to like? This article has everything!
It has wild claims and dire warnings:
“Ocean warming can trigger massive changes in the Antarctic ice sheet and contribute to rapid ice-sheet decay and sea-level rise.”
“The finding is important because of the enormous scale and potential impact the Antarctic ice sheets could have on sea-level rise…”
It’s supported by irreproducible data:
“…researchers tested high-resolution model simulations against reconstructions of the Antarctic ice sheet from 20,000 years ago,..”
It’s IPCC quality material:
“Antarctica’s effect on future sea level was not fully included in the last IPCC report because there was insufficient information about the behaviour of the ice sheet. This research changes that.”
And it’s published in a ‘Prestigious’ peer reviewed climate science journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
It’s perfect! (It’s a perfect example of why people are increasingly skeptical of global warming!)
Thank God the PNAS didn’t let us down by publishing junk science! Keep up the good work PNAS!
Do we have a formal name for “Could Science”?
A little sanity from James Taylor:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2012/09/19/antarctic-sea-ice-sets-another-record
Is this really what passes for science? How embarrassing for Science, or at least those pseudo-scientists who passed it.
Nice of the Bish to mention the title at the “Live Science” site – “Record-High Antarctic Sea Ice Levels Don’t Disprove Global Warming”. Has anyone yet discovered one thing which the alarmists would accept did disprove global warming?
Meanwhile, you have to love Jo’s suggested headlines for those famously unbiased folk of the press – “Shock Antarctic sea ice growth shrinks Southern Ocean by 1 m Sq kilometers”, “Antarctic current survives 25m years of climate change. Wiped out by man in 20 years”, etc.
Although when Bob Tisdale points out above that the Southern Ocean is cooling … and has been for years … (shiver) … I’m going to put another jumper on.
while u discuss the “science”, note:
the press release was put out by Alvin Stone:
linkedin: Alvin Stone
2011-present Media and Communications at UNSW ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science
008-2010 Media and Communications WWF-Australia
2001-2008 Editor, Assistant Editor, Features Editor, Sub Editor Fairfax Community Newspapers
http://au.linkedin.com/pub/alvin-stone/41/146/625
Welcome to the Australian Research Council’s Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science
The Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science is a major initiative funded by the Australian Research Council. The Centre is an international research consortium of five Australian universities and a suite of outstanding national and international Partner Organizations…
The Centre was established in 2011 with extensive investment from the Australian Research Council, the University of New South Wales, the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, New South Wales Government, Monash University, the Australian National University, The University of Melbourne, and the University of Tasmania. It has strong links with the Australian Community Climate and Earth System Simulator (ACCESS) initiative and works in partnership with the National Computational Infrastructure (NCI) Facility…
http://www.climatescience.org.au/
NeilT;
Instead of asking why the SIE and SIA in the Antarctic is varying (you didn’t mention when it was at a record low did you………), you should be asking why the sea which is covered in so much ice is increasing in temperature, year on year. You should be asking why the Wilkins ice shelf is rapidly disintegrating after the breakdown of the ice bridge or why the pine island ice shelf is thinning so rapidly and the discharge has accelerated so much.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
….and you should read Bob Tisdale’s last two posts, after which you may ask yourself why it is that you were previously so ill informed.
They tested the HIGH RESOLUTION models!!! That’s gooder than good, ain’t it?
Centers for Disease Control on September 20, 2012 at 3:55 pm
Do we have a formal name for “Could Science”?
“The Little Science that Could”?
“Research results published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reveal in more detail than ever before …”
Let me guess; they used two different colored crayons this time??
–>> NeilT says:
September 20, 2012 at 3:44 pm
“What is the total volume of landed ice on the planet?”.
..these data simply no longer exist, or are reducing so rapidly that a 0 sum is certainly not far away. <<–
http://nsidc.org/cryosphere/quickfacts/icesheets.html
Together, the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets contain more than 99 percent of the freshwater ice on Earth
Ice sheets contain enormous quantities of frozen water. If the Greenland Ice Sheet melted, scientists estimate that sea level would rise about 6 meters (20 feet). If the Antarctic Ice Sheet melted, sea level would rise by about 60 meters (200 feet).
“Otter says:
September 20, 2012 at 2:04 pm
“However, our results have confirmed recent observations suggesting that ocean warming can trigger increased flow of ice through these narrow corridors. This can cause inland sectors of the ice-sheet – some larger than the state of Victoria – to become thinner and flow faster.”
Then how do they explain that the Antarctic is gaining faster than it is losing, and that it has gained 45 meters in depth in the past few decades?”
Sigh. C’mon otter. Get with the pogram….er…program. The rising sea level caused by cAGW,has been eroding,and thinning the OZ state of Victoria ever since the pengies started migrating to the Arctic to party with the poly bears (according to Coke[TM]).Hence.the Antarctica ice must be melting,as all of the sea level around OZ is governed by the Antarctica. Plus all that warm Arctic water has found its way,via Trenbreth’s missing heat route,to the Antarctica,thus increasing even more its melting.Now add in the new wunderbar carbon tax of Messiah Jilliard,by this time next year it will have reversed,except the new evil government in OZ will have scrapped it,thus it will keep on a melting,every time around about,oh,say,December to July.
Now I only count 11 errors in the above.Where’s my grant???
CBS world news just had someone on saying all of the northern glaciers are about to melt.
Centers for Disease Control says:
September 20, 2012 at 3:55 pm
Do we have a formal name for “Could Science”?
———————————————————————-
Speculation.
A model can “confirm” nothing, only data from the real world can confirm or deny a fact or prediction.
Models can make calculated predictions. When the real world facts contradict a models predictions the model is broken, disproved and the modeller has to start over. Kinda of like all of the models that have been predicting catastrophic global warming.
Simulated Science, not as go0d as the real thing…
A giant meteor could enter Earth’s atmosphere at tens of thousands of miles per hour, barrel completely through the atmosphere and land on Alvin Stone’s lap!
> Models can make calculated predictions.
But…but…. they told me they weren’t making predictions, they were “just projections”.
For politicised climate science, wishful thinking is a valid source of data.
Antarctic ice is increasing and near a record high over the instrumental record? No matter.
Southern oceans are cooling, not warming? No matter.
They can still dance around the “may” pole, indulge in hypothetical hysteria, and tell us with a straight face that the Antarctic “could” be doing the opposite of what it is actually doing, and start warming and melting.
NeilT says:
September 20, 2012 at 3:44 pm
“G.R.A.C.E is SUCH a pain in the proverbial for that – which is such an inconvenient bit of data.”
Sure is:
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com.au/2012/09/grace-satellite-data-shows-antarctica.html
“Antarctica is home to 90% of the world’s ice mass. Although Antarctic sea ice is currently at a record high and recent research predicts Antarctic land ice will continue to grow during this century, some warmists continue to believe that Antarctica is melting down. Additional evidence shows that the “most vulnerable” portion of Antarctica, the Antarctic Peninsula, has gained up to 45 meters of ice over the past 155 years. Gravitational data from the GRACE satellites also show that the vast majority of Antarctica is gaining, not losing, mass. Trend plots from the GRACE data browser, using all available online data, show that Antarctica has continued to gain mass since the beginning of the mission in 2001″
“However, our results have confirmed recent observations suggesting that ocean warming can trigger increased flow of ice through these narrow corridors. This can cause inland sectors of the ice-sheet – some larger than the state of Victoria – to become thinner and flow faster.”
Why don’t they ever blame gravity? Don’t their “Results” confirm any observations of gravity, that other invisible source of planetary destruction? For God’s sake, gravity is giving birth to black holes, any one of which could swallow Antarctica, the seven seas, and our beautiful planet whole in one bite. That is far more serious than a little rise or fall in sea level rise rates.
Is their any way to blame mankind for the effects of gravity, and is planetary gravity increasing or decreasing these days? With all the BS coming out of Government Scientists, it could be increasing exponentially. We must take action now to limit the possible consequences of their continued funding.
Here’s an image that might provide some needed perspective for thinking about this
http://ima.nasa.gov/img/us_vs_antarctica.tif
“However, our results have confirmed recent observations suggesting that ocean warming can trigger increased flow of ice through these narrow corridors. This can cause inland sectors of the ice-sheet – some larger than the state of Victoria – to become thinner and flow faster.”
When a glacier is on land, the ice toward the front requires very large force from the ice behind to move forward. Melt some of that ice toward the front and less force is required to move it, and the whole glacier moves faster and ‘thins’.
When a glacier reaches the ocean and floats on the water, minimal force is required to move the ice forward, and melting that floating ice has minimal effect on the land portion of the glacier. It doesn’t move faster and thin.
I am surprised that someone publishing papers on glacier dynamics doesn’t know this.
But I think I have found the reason. The good Dr is using a model originally developed for mountain glaciers in Alaska.
There really should be a blanket ban on publishing papers using other peoples models. The person who inherits the model has no idea what undocumented assumptions and biases are built in.
“The numerical code we were using, originally developed at the University of Fairbanks, Alaska, has been specifically written for massively parallel architectures, and scaled well to the 4096 cores on BlueFern.”
http://www.nesi.org.nz/case-studies/modelling-glaciers-southern-alps
Whoops! Missed an L in that link
http://lima.nasa.gov/img/us_vs_antarctica.tif
@ NeilT September 20, 2012 at 3:44 pm said: “The public are fickle and they WILL want to know who to blame when their life goes in the dumpster. They won’t be polite about it either.”
Neil, don’t panic.
The Antarctic is gaining ice, and Greenland, should it continue to lose ice at the current rate will take 1000 years to lose 5% of its volume.
I think it is a long time before the public ‘fickles’ us. I have the feeling they are going to fickle a few alarmists before then.
Sometimes the only thing you can do where speculation is involved is ignore it. Since most speculation is irrational no rational discussion is possible.
well…. Arctic is slightly lower… and the Antarctic triples that loss in ice creation…
this could make yo think that the earth is capable of balancing itself… despite man…
who would of thought that?
Time and again research has found that, going back in time, when the arctic melts the antarctic ice increases (most of the time), seems that history is repeating itself (again).
Not that warmers would want to read that sort of stuff. No money in concluding that it is “business as usual”.
Here in Australia, we have a Carbon Tax and the Government (your grant has been approved because you agree with us) needs to constantly push the Global Warming CO2 BS to justify it. It’s obvious that reality is not matching the models; solution, new models.
I recently read an article that stated that a huge chunk of sea ice could break off from Antarctica and cause increased sea level rise. I have searched for it a few times to copy the URL but haven’t been able to relocate the article. The link was from one of the alarmist sites or a link from a link.
The point is how silly it is to consider that a melting iceberg would cause an increase in sea level.
Pull out the Duck Tape…. My head is about to explode….
When will this silliness end? Will it take the UN being under 1 KM of ice…. (wait a minute… I think we’re on to something here…) before all these insipid CAGW models are deleted from the hard drives of “academia” and from the memories of a thinking and rational public?
Yo, ADRIAN!! The Antarctic gained 1.1 MILLION KM^2 this year (about the size of EGYGT!) and ice mass is GROWING at 49GT/yr and yet these *sigh*entists are STILL talking Warmageddon…
Oh…right… the ice extent growth is all “thin ice”…. Got some news for you acolytes: the ONLY “thin ice” is what CAGW modelers are skating on.
What “warming waters in the Southern Ocean”?
Judging by real data, the reference must be to something imaginary.
“against reconstructions of the Antarctic ice sheet from 20,000 years ago, during the last glacial maximum.”
Using a reconstruction of the behavior of the ice sheet during a glacial maximum to baseline a simulation of the behavior of the ice sheet during an interglacial???
In the best tradition of Gergis, Karoly, Lewandowsky, etc, more embarrassment from Australia’s academia.
Subtle. Antarctic ice is in record territory. Just in case anyone notices, they have this story to trot out to downplay it.
There ought to be a name for it. When it was warming they used “Global Warming” all the time. It gets cold and they call it “Climate Change”.
So now we have records low ice in the Arctic and the opposite in the Antarctic.
How long before they come up with a name for it that somehow makes it bad and our fault?
Maybe it will be a headline something like, “Our Unbalanced Poles Demand Action Now!”?
Note that they say ‘warming oceans’. Perhaps we should give a little credit for good programming. After all, the oceans are presently cooling and the ice thickness is increasing. Logically if the oceans were warming the ice sheet thickness would start reducing, right? So the article may be completely accurate, just not applicable to this planet at this time.
It is also true that if the oceans were boiling it would increase the water vapour level in the atmosphere. This is also not applicable to this planet at this time. There are quite a number of other theories that are not applicable at this time. Rapid polar heating from CO2 comes to mind.
Thank you very much for reprinting the media release here and for those who have shown interest in it. There are a few points I would like to make to clarify a few issues.
* I intentionally used “could” because I personally don’t like making definite and dire predictions. Alarmist predictions do a service to no one. That said, if the oceans around the Antarctic continue to warm they undoubtedly would cause the ice sheets to shift dramatically. Maybe I should have been more definite.
* While I helped write the media release – which is part of my job – it was done with one of the authors of the paper. My job is just to make the science understandable. I get a byline for it but that is all. As a former editor I am long past being thrilled by bylines. I have nothing to do with the science.
* As I understand it from one of the authors, the modelling was used to confirm observations already coming from the Antarctic. The model was designed to reproduce those observations as closely as possible in an effort to better understand the processes beneath the ice sheets. It worked remarkably well and it is very likely the processes it reproduces are likely to be close to the reality.
* While there has been some cooling of the ocean in the Southern Hemisphere – and there continues to be quite a bit of research around this – basal melting around the Antarctic ice shelves has continued as a result of a warming waters close to the Antarctic, as shown in this Nature paper from April this year – http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v484/n7395/full/nature10968.html
* I regularly engage with sceptics in a polite way on a Facebook page, which I have set up to get a sense of where the doubts lie. it is fascinating to be constantly challenged by them and on occasions they find intriguing areas in the science that require further investigation. I have the distinct luxury of being able to ask climate scientists about these and, where I can, I try and reproduce their answers for those who visit the page.
Thanks again to you and all your followers for taking note of this paper and for the commentary of all on this page.
Kind Regards
Alvin Stone
Alvin
Correct, at the end of summer in the south the waters will be warmer then what they were at the beginning of the southern summer.
At this stage though, it seems that the waters around the antarctic are cooling in general and this results in the currently seen growth in ice.
Nothing new really.
If the sea ice around Antarctica has decreased close to the continent then why is this decrease not seen in the Antarctic sea ice minimum.just more BS supported only by peer review.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.area.antarctic.png
Alvin Stone says:
September 20, 2012 at 9:42 pm
* I regularly engage with sceptics in a polite way on a Facebook page, which I have set up to get a sense of where the doubts lie.
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Me: Perhaps you didn’t mean it to this way but this sentence sounds like you believe the science is settlled and skeptics just need to be shown that.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Alvin Stone: It is fascinating to be constantly challenged by them and on occasions they find intriguing areas in the science that require further investigation.
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Yes. The science is not settled and does require further investigation before we regulate our economy, both personal and national, into a cesspool of speculation based on “mights” and models.
(And the word of those who think it should be a crime to not believe them.)
Bruce C says:
September 20, 2012 at 5:37 pm
…
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com.au/2012/09/grace-satellite-data-shows-antarctica.html
_____________________________________________________________
You need to notice that these GRACE data do not say Antarctica is gaining ice mass. They say Antarctica is gaining mass.
The second thing you need to notice is that Antarctica is not a continent – it’s a set of islands covered by ice, connected by ice, and with ice all the way down to the bottom of the sea.
And the third thing you need to notice is that given volume of undersea water has greater mass than the same volume of undersea ice.
Warm currents moved up to the Arctic, thinned the ice a bit, then a large storm broke up that ice.
Now the warm ocean currents in the Arctic are loosing heat to the atmosphere rapidly.
The southern oceans are also colder than they have been for quite a few years.
The sun has almost gone to sleep this cycle.
The heat that was in the system because of a few of decades of high TSI, is leaving the system.
Many northern hemisphere countries have decimated their electricity supply systems by decommissioning coal and putting in useless wind turbines and solar.
Good luck northern countries.. have a pleasant winter !!
One of the most basic errors you can make is to quote figures to a greater precision that the error in the measurements. I was taught that as a teenager in high school ( The advent of electronic calculators often allowed lots of meaningless decimal places to be quoted).
Scaling that up to “high resolution computer models” seems to me to be making the same mistake if the precision of the model data has not improved, just using a much bigger and more expensive.
Alvin, for me what is missing in such report as as quoted here is any indication of the errors in both the data and the results of the model. Otherwise it is just computer gaming……..
Want to have a good chunder over yet another academic scaremonger? Check this one out in today’s edition of the Age.
http://www.theage.com.au/technology/sci-tech/climate-change-the-inside-story-20120921-26ahf.html
This time it is Monash University that is having an “how embarrassment” moment.
Plant physiologist. Let me guess, before the climate change funding arrived, whenever he spoke to an engineer and a doctor they said “two cappuccinos please.”
Australian universities: doggedly determined to slide down the international ranking scales.
Fixating on winter Antarctic sea ice would seem to show a certain amount of confirmation bias, since:
a) The Antarctic anomaly is much smaller than the Arctic anomaly (e.g. the sea ice area anomaly in the Antarctic is a surplus of 1 million square km, whereas the Arctic has a deficit of 2.5 million – compare these graphs, for instance http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.recent.arctic.png to http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.recent.antarctic.png)
b) The Antarctic anomaly has been much more short-lived than the Arctic anomaly so far.
c) Summer sea ice extent contributes more to albedo, and hence has greater potential to affect the climate.
Fixating on winter ARCTIC sea ice would seem to show a moronic amount of confirmation bias, since:
Arctic ice has been way lower in the not too distance past.
Low Arctic ice levels means that ocean warmth can more readily escape to the atmosphere as a VERY negative feedback.
mods.. if you can fix it winter (first line) I meant to change to “summer”
The magnitude of the variance seems to be approximately the same tho Paddy, which makes one wonder if they are linked by some system.
Dr. Paul Mackey says:
“One of the most basic errors you can make is to quote figures to a greater precision that the error in the measurements.”
In hydrology, rainfall/runoff estimation.. etc we can assume an error of up to 50 % , or more !!!
look at ARR (Australian Rainfall and Runoff) sometime. its just guesstimation, but the best we can do with limited information, even with lot of lovely log-pearson fitting, the data is limited.
In dam construction, a safety factor of “times 3 or 4” is often adopted.
even steel construction uses errors of 10%+
ie.. we are so LACKING in information and precision…….. because we just don’t know !
and climate science is far , far worse… mostly pure assumption. !!!
the use of “precise models” for anything to do with climate is a total w**k !
computer models can all do calculations very accurately and quickly, but the junk “info in” kills ANY sense of precision, and the climate non-scientists just don’t realise it, because they are just so ignorant, yet full of themselves.
sorry for lack of caps, .. working mostly one handed ;-(
350 PPM the Tipping Point
Prof Beeb Steeveen University of Acturus
It was observed on the 4th planet of the star system 4516LG (75.7 light years from Sol) that the tipping point for CO2 in the atmosphere is 350 PPM. The mechanism seems to be that increased CO2 causes plants to thrive thus giving off more oxygen. Simultaneously Nitrogen is taken out of the atmosphere to fertilize the ground. The proportion of oxygen to nitrogen in the atmosphere increases and thus the atmosphere becomes more volatile. Spontaneous combustion becomes more common thus heating the atmosphere and of course oxidation of metals increases. At the poles as the atmosphere spontaneously combusts the ice melts thus increasing sea levels. The inhabitants of this planet burned and drowned. The final phase was the oceans boiling away.
Your Earth bound Climate Scientists are rightly correct to see catastrophe at 350 PPM CO2 and should be worshipped as Gods.
This Peer reviewed paper can be viewed at the Prestigious University Library at Sirius 4 for a cost of 1.2 Million Galactic Units.
Footnote: There were some objections of this paper by some so called skeptics who actually believe that it was 4516LG went Nova. They were of course laughed out of the building.
Why is Alaska cooling?
“The First Decade of the New Century: A Cooling Trend for Most of Alaska”,
G. Wendler*, L. Chen and B. Moore, Alaska Climate Research Center, Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, AK 99775, USA
http://www.benthamscience.com/open/toascj/articles/V006/111TOASCJ.pdf
Abstract:
“During the first decade of the 21st century most of Alaska experienced a cooling shift, modifying the long-term warming trend, which has been about twice the global change up to this time. All of Alaska cooled with the exception of Northern Regions.
This trend was caused by a change in sign of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), which became dominantly negative, weakening the Aleutian Low. This weakening results in less relatively warm air being advected from the Northern Pacific. This transport is especially important in winter when the solar radiation is weak. It is during this period that the strongest cooling was observed.
In addition, the cooling was especially pronounced in Western Alaska, closest to the area of the center of the Aleutian Low. The changes seen in the reanalyzed data were confirmed from surface observations, both in the decrease of the North-South atmospheric pressure gradient, as well as the decrease in the mean wind speeds for stations located in the Bering Sea area.”
There is an interesting paper here on the PDO and ENSO:
“Understanding Alaska’s Climate Variation”, John Papineau, Ph.D NWS Anchorage, Alaska
http://pafc.arh.noaa.gov/climvar/climate-paper.html
Also some interesting temperature history from Sue Ann Bowling (rtd) here:
http://climate.gi.alaska.edu/Bowling/FANB.html
and this: “Problems with the Use of Climatological Data to Detect Climatic Change at High Latitudes” http://climate.gi.alaska.edu/Bowling/AKchange.html
The PDO shift in the mid 70’s was the reason for the jump in temperature in 1976-7 and effectively is the “polar amplification” where the Arctic has supposedly warmed at twice the rate of the rest of the planet. This description from 2005 seems to have been disappeared, but is still on Wayback, the charts are similar to Sue Ann Bowling’s.
http://web.archive.org/web/20051124061828/http://climate.gi.alaska.edu/ClimTrends/Change/4904Change.html
“If a linear trend is taken through mean annual temperatures, the average change over the last 5 decades is 3.4°F. However, when analyzing the trends for the four seasons, it can be seen that most of the change has occurred in winter and spring, with less of a change in summer and autumn”
“Considering just a linear trend can mask some important variability characteristics in the time series. Figure 2 shows clearly that this trend is non-linear: a linear trend might have been expected from the fairly steady observed increase of CO2 during this time period. The figure shows the temperature departure from the long-term mean (1949-2004) for the average of all stations.
It can be seen that there are large variations from year to year and the 5-year moving average demonstrates cyclical behavior. The period 1949 to 1975 was substantially colder than the period from 1977 to 2004, however since 1977 little additional warming has occurred in Alaska with the exception of Barrow and a few other locations.
In 1976, a stepwise shift appears in the temperature data, which corresponds to a phase shift of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation from a negative phase to a positive phase. Synoptic conditions with the positive phase tend to consist of increased southerly flow and warm air advection into Alaska during the winter, resulting in positive temperature anomalies.”
It is my recollection that the Antarctic has been getting cooler for three decades and the land ice growing deeper. At this moment record sea ice, with the sun asleep where is this warm water going to come from AH! Trenberths missing heat rising from the depths and turning the Antarctic into a tropical paradise. Now I understand. Useful Idiots and I am paying for them**@+###@%%%
Antarctic sea ice coverage now 1m sq kms higher than the ‘norm’
Despite their lauded climate models predicting the exact opposite
Yet google Antarctic ice and 100 articles appear about the death of the Arctic
Odd that
Nice of Alvin to drop by and offer some comments. I did check his Facebook page, but I didn’t see much discussion with sceptics. I suspect however that he votes Labor, which would suggest he is firmly of the Left. And some of the other comments on his page suggest substantial green leanings. All of which are likely to predispose him to a belief in global warming. Funnily enough, I’ll therefore take his views with a healthy dose of scepticism…
dennisambler says:
September 21, 2012 at 3:04 am
In addition to the PDO shift you note and they emphasize, they also show a correlation to recent Solar activity. It’s too short a period to make a big deal about, but is worth noting.
Looks like I can’t cut & paste the significant paragraph, let alone the graph.
I presume you mean the new bentham science paper. I can copy text OK, some graphs will copy as an image in Word, some won’t. I use Ashampoo “Snap Ya” for niggles like that.
I find it interesting the PDO reversed in 76 and temperatures went up and it reversed again in 98 (as described in the Papineau paper) and started cooling. Will it reverse again in 2020?
Its really a question of balance, in order to combat that pesky annoying thing called observed reality the alarmist side issues on the spot models, each one supposedly far more accurate and detailed than the last, each one more able to accurately predict whatever is required so far into the future the creators would either be in a nursing home unaware of their own name or pushing up daisies. This new ‘science’ deals in ‘could/if/maybe’ its the ‘science of possibilities’ tailored to fit an evidence free narrative. Models are the Trolls under the bridge, the monster in the cupboard, the scary story told to children if they misbehave. As a child I was repeatedly informed gleefully that if I didnt behave I would be duly sold to the Gypsies that passed through our part of the world, it did the trick I can tell you.
Models are the basis of the CAGW fraud because models can adjusted to predict pretty much whatever the input team requires of them, if you can find an upward/downward trend and then project that rise on an ever increasing/decreasing trajectory. If you are preaching to the choir then models are perfect because it will be taken as evidential fact instead of supposition. The aim is to scare us, the goal is to make us frightened enough to hand over power and authority to those who desire it in order for them to enact unpopular socio economic changes. Those who peddle their models have a target audience, they are the people who would flock to buy gas masks when faced with the threat of a biological attack not realising that gas masks are worse than useless unless accompanied by full NBC suits. In effect models are targeted subliminal advertising to stimulate an unreasoning knee jerk response.
Did I miss the part where these new high resolution models are going to used to determine optimal locations for a ten year series of core samples, so they can write an actual science paper?
From the weather news here in sweden last night:
“The arctic ice sheet is now so small that it will probably cause colder winters in europe due to a weaker Gulf Stream, we got interesting times ahead.”.
Interesting times ahead indeed…
OMG. The water in Antarctic is up to -12 C!!!!
Antarctica has a lot of ice because it was a cold winter. Vostok registered less than -100F a few times. Antarctica might be less variable that Arctic, it could explain why sea ice does not change as much. Also the feedback is not a planetary constant, it is dependent on many regional factors. Knowing that, it is clear that a different distribution of heat on this planet will change the feedback and create a variation in the global temperature signal. All we know with precision is that a warmer Arctic seems to be associated with a warmer global temperature.
Couple of thoughts on this; they seem to be trying to cover for the increased sea ice by stating that a warming antarctic causes the glaciers to move faster, reducing the (landed) ice cap. Then they throw in the antarctic ocean is also warming, which doesn’t seem to be agreeable to the increased sea ice thing in their narrative, but when you’re trying to make a point about warming . . .
Anyway; Is the southern ocean really warming? I don’t think that is correct, and is one of the issues with the whole ‘cannot account for the lack of recent warming and it’s a travesty that we can’t’ comment from Keith Trenberth back in 2009. I thought it was ocean data, and specifically the Southern and Indian oceans he was referring to.
Also; if I recall correctly, the Antarctic Ice Cap was actually gaining mass; in theory the warmer air carried more moisture, resulting in more snowfall over continental Antarctica, confirming the CAGW hypothesis.
Until it wasn’t; when GRACE came along, low and behold; the Antarctic Ice Cap was losing mass at an incredible rate; some hundred or more Gigatons per year. This confirmed the CAGW theory even more!
But then they recalibrated the GRACE measurements because they had failed to take isostatic changes into account, and the rate of ice loss was cut by more than half. CONFIRMING CAGW YET ANOTHER WAY!
Finally; New borehole measurements call even that into question, suggesting that ice has actually been increasing in the last 5 to 10 years. So CAGW must be right, like they said all along!!
So their theory that increased see ice is cause by the rapid melting of the landed ice cap and the warmer oceans and confirms CAGW as a theory, works just as well when sea ice is at a record extent while ice cap volume is increasing and an average sea temperature that is definitely not warming at this time and not warmer now than the long term average.
You’ve Just Got to Love Science, Man(n?)!
Alvin Stone says:
September 20, 2012 at 9:42 pm
Thank you very much for reprinting the media release here and for those who have shown interest in it. There are a few points I would like to make to clarify a few issues.
* I intentionally used “could” because I personally don’t like making definite and dire predictions. Alarmist predictions do a service to no one. That said, if the oceans around the Antarctic continue to warm they undoubtedly would cause the ice sheets to shift dramatically. Maybe I should have been more definite.
You definitely could have revealed yourself to be a supporter of The Cause of Indefinite Science, Could Science, or Speculation, however deeply rooted in nonsense all of it is.
You imply you could prefer to make indefinite and dire predictions. The authors could no doubt upbraid you for not being definite enough. You may undoubtedly receive some applause here for standing up for indefinite but likely doom since it requires even more government intervention to cure than definite impending doom.
It appears as though you could be doing service to no one but the alarmists and totalitarians.
* While I helped write the media release – which is part of my job – it was done with one of the authors of the paper. My job is just to make the science understandable. I get a byline for it but that is all.
It could be said you were paid to parrot BS. A well done job to be sure. Could you be a BS’er and a liar? There is not any science in that drivel.
As a former editor I am long past being thrilled by bylines. I have nothing to do with the science.
We figured that out pretty quickly, even though as an honest reporter you ought to have everything to do with it. We figured out pretty quickly that your author-assistant is likely or very likely in the same position.
Even though you are paid to parrot, you are complicit in what could be termed fraud.
* As I understand it from one of the authors, the modelling was used to confirm observations already coming from the Antarctic. The model was designed to reproduce those observations as closely as possible
Thank you for explaining that the models are completely valueless in predicting the future, since they were built only to mimic the behavior of discrete observations of the past. As a reporter of science, why did it not occur to you that all of the speculatory drivel about what “could” happen should not have been part of any serious scientific paper?
in an effort to better understand the processes beneath the ice sheets. It worked remarkably well and it is very likely the processes it reproduces are likely to be close to the reality.
It is good news to hear that some observed process is close to reality. Or are you trying to imply that the models can accurately predict the future of some massive terrestrial and atmospheric processes? If so, then it would a first in the history of mankind. The UK MET would come knocking on their doors, and every knee would bow.
I doubt those pseudo-scientists have a remarkable understanding of processes beneath the ice sheets, since the vastness of their speculatory forays implies they have no idea what they are talking about. They could just as well be children for all I know.
This new, high-resolution modelling approach will be critical to improving [ours and the IPCC’s] future predictions of Antarctica’s contribution to sea level over the coming century and beyond.
In case you forgot what the whole point of the “research paper” was, and your trumpeting of the farce. In reality, you could just be another stooge for the United Nations, definitely a blathering bunch of totalitarian nincompoops.
* I regularly engage with sceptics in a polite way on a Facebook page, which I have set up to get a sense of where the doubts lie. it is fascinating to be constantly challenged by them
If you are challenged by skeptics and doubters, then you hold a personal opinion which is obviously complicit in promoting what by all appearances is fraudulent activity by government paid scientists.
I have the distinct luxury of being able to ask climate scientists about these and, where I can, I try and reproduce their answers for those who visit the page.
A true reporter would call it a responsibility, and would in no wise suck up to the fraudsters just to get a little brown nose face time. You could be doing all of us a favor, instead of doing what you do do.
Kind Regards,
Centers for Disease Control
Alvin Stone says:
* I intentionally used “could” because I personally don’t like making definite and dire predictions. Alarmist predictions do a service to no one.
Neither do self serving alarmist speculations that are oversold and misleadingly advertised. The actual science you are reporting on here is very, very weak. It is not worthy of drawing any conclusions. You are attempting to advance an agenda in the public understanding based on that weak basis. Don’t pretend that you are not, by pointing to your use of weasel words – weak caveats that you simultaneously counter with expressions of absolute certainty, such as:
That said, if the oceans around the Antarctic continue to warm they undoubtedly would cause the ice sheets to shift dramatically. Maybe I should have been more definite.
You should have been substantially less definite in that comment. “Undoubtedly”? Really. No doubt whatsoever? Based on what, exactly? A brand new model that has never made so much as a single verified prediction? That such flimsy “evidence” is presented as the basis for “undoubtedly” and similar gross overstatements of certainty is the perrennial problem with you people.
* While I helped write the media release – which is part of my job – it was done with one of the authors of the paper. My job is just to make the science understandable.
Then perhaps you should have explained the science. You didn’t.
I am a scientist heavily involved in environmental monitoring and modeling, and I can just barely discern the facts of the research you are reporting on. I believe that, from my knowledge of the field, I can fill in the gaping holes. The layman is not going to be able to do that. They are going to misunderstand the facts. But you were plenty clear on communicating the substance of the speculations. Funny how that works.
* As I understand it from one of the authors, the modelling was used to confirm observations already coming from the Antarctic.
No. They made a model. They hindcast the model against reconstructions (themselves model results) of conditions from 20,000 years ago. At least that is what you report.
The bigger problem than you not understanding what they actually did, is the fact that you believe that they did something that they cannot possibly have done: “modelling was used to confirm observations”.
No. Models do not confirm observations. They cannot. Observations may (or may not) confirm models.
This fundamental confusion between imagination (models) and reality (observations), and the concomitant misunderstanding as to which is dependent on the other for validity, is endemic in this field and it thoroughly litters this press release of yours. You persistently refer to things as “findings” and “observations” when they are in fact model outputs, and you refer to the function of those model outputs as “showing” instead of “guessing at”. You even say this …
“The glaciers that responded most rapidly to warming oceans were found in the Weddell Sea, the Admundsen Sea, the central Ross Sea and in the Amery Trough.”
… using the same tense and syntax as would have been used to describe an actual event that really had occurred. No oceans warmed, no glaciers responded, nothing was found. This is an imaginary event, that never happpened. If you want to convey an understanding of the science, you need to describe model results in speculative terms, not as the object of past tense verbs.
The model was designed to reproduce those observations as closely as possible in an effort to better understand the processes beneath the ice sheets.
It is nice that their hindcast apparently went well. No indication is given as to how well – no quantification of the skill, let alone the derived error bands. Those must be huge given the timeframes involved, the use of reconstructions, etc.
Further, this is yet a hindcast. Those are nice for helping you pick a forecast on which you might want to stake the validity of your model with a documented prediction. Hindcasts do not substitute for that hypothesis testing, however. As someone else here astutely pointed out the other day: the financial markets are littered with models that do very, very well in hindcast, but they cannot predict worth shit.
It worked remarkably well and it is very likely the processes it reproduces are likely to be close to the reality.
It is very likely that it is likely to be close? Really.
When find yourself resorting to strained constructions like that, it should be an enormous red flag indicating to you that you need to stop talking, admit to yourself and others that you don’t know what you are talking about, and stop with the wild speculations. This I say to you, and this you should be saying to the people that are feeding you lines of crap like that about their own research. If your job is truly to make the science understandable, then that would include conveying the understanding that the scientists involved are too enamoured of their own BS when they obviously are. You can tell that when they give you the “Very likely that it is likely that the reconstructed reality is close to the assertion that the potential is that it could maybe be worse than we thought…” routine.
* I regularly engage with sceptics in a polite way on a Facebook page, which I have set up to get a sense of where the doubts lie.
Perhaps you should expand your purpose.
Mods Looks like a failure to close italics error above.
And for once, it doesn’t appear that the error was mine (cue video of demons ice skating). Probably near the end of CDC’s post.
[Fixed. It is a WordPress bug that pops up occasionally. — mod.]
[Fixed. It is a WordPress bug that pops up occasionally. — mod.]
Try again. 🙂
[Found another one. Fixed. — mod.]
Nice response, JJ.. Nothing more to add. 🙂
Otter says:
September 20, 2012 at 2:04 pm
Then how do they explain that the Antarctic is gaining faster than it is losing, and that it has gained 45 meters in depth in the past few decades?
Where did you get that figure from? Seems to me that nobody measures the altitude of the ice in the middle of Antarctica. The only figure ever quoted for the altitude of the South Pole Station is 2,835m (9,301ft). Apparently 3in water equivalent accumulates every year so you would expect there to have been 4-5m of altitude change since the place was built in 1958. Where’s the record? Where are the high precision altitude records since GPS became operational in 1984?
Anyone got some figures? Is the center of the continent tending to squeeze out those glaciers faster due to the additional pressure from ice in the middle?
Why oh why oh why do skeptics continually confuse sea ice with land ice in Antarctica?
As far as we know:
Antarctic sea ice has increased (a little) over the satellite period
Antarctic land ice has decreased (a little) over a shorter period
There are uncertainties to be sure, but at least, for goodness sake, know the difference between land ice and sea ice. Sheesh!
Sorry, what records are being broken by Antarctic sea ice?
Just a general note about the University of NSW, (UNSW), as I went there for 3 years in the 1980s.
It is generally a very left-leaning institution, always has been. There were always students somewhere giving out magazines of ‘Resistance’, expounding on the glories of Marxism, and so on. I thought then, that this was possibly because teh UNSW exists in the shadow of the more recognised and generally very conservative University of Sydney down the road, the bastion of the old English conservative colonial elite. There was a sort of jealous rilvalry for power and recognition, as well as an inferiority/superiority complex going on between the 2 institutions, at least that is how I interpreted it. (Remember, Australia is still essentially a British Colony, we never had any breakaway ‘Declaration of Independance’ sort of thing-and people might be surprised just how much influence the UK still has on basic culture and identity). Fundamentalist Christians were also very prominent at UNSW, althought these were Church of England fundamentalists, which were an unusual type unlike most of those in America, who tended towards Calvinist ideas.
I had a philosophy lecturer who was a Marxist at the UNSW and suggested everyone should be paid the same wages, regardless of their job. Leftist Labour politicians were often invited to speak at rallies (I never saw a right wing politician speak there, but they could have I suppose). There were same sex toilets in some areas. The Earth Sciences department in the 1990s when I attended was strong in minerals and mining science, but went all environmental about the year 2000, and has been so ever since. I don’t think you can study minerals and mining there anymore, despite the mining boom since.
I suspect the same sort of people handing out leaflets on Marxism in the 1980s have now swapped them for climate change. It’s a crude generalisation to be sure, but it is no surprise to me at least that the climate research currently churned out at the UNSW is staunchly alarmist.
Well we have a demonstration of this theory right here in San Francisco where there are all these tall buildings sitting on the sides of steep hills that lead down into San Francisco Bay; they are just like those rivers of ice in Antarctica.. The floating sea ice shelves around Antarctica stop those ice rivers from simply running off the edge into the Southern Ocean.
In San Francisco, what stop all those buildings from sliding down the hills into SF Bay, is all of the cruise ships tied up at the piers, the buildings can’t slide down with those floating ships blocking their way. If all the ships left at the same time, we could be in trouble with all those buildings down in the bay.
Since it is clear there is no major change in Antarctic ice but there is a huge one in the Arctic surely one should at least be looking for high temperature and localised sources in the Arctic.This is even more true now that without looking for then several have been discovered and have even been misused by the AGW cult to suggest the problem with AGW is worse than thought rather than climate scientists have screwed up badly which should be the logical conclusion.
Scientists should be especially checking areas where large chunks of ice have broke off. It wont happen of course as AGW has funds so tightly sewn up on the committees.
“research” … “study” … “study results” – such a perversion of language. It’s an unproven model.
Antarctic temps have now skyrocketed to -101F…
This surely spells trouble….but not for who you think!
“Global Warming Victims in Alaska Lose Novel Suit”
http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/09/21/50538.htm
Funny how climate scientists talk about a high resolution model when they mean an extremely rather than an ultra low resolution one. A high resolution model to real computer modellers is one where there would be at least sixteen bit accuracy calculation on all the variables and no more than one percent error on any single reading.
Given we now have a reference network available that proves the source data is out by ten or more times the claimed difference we can reasonably demand that any actions based on climate change being dumped immediately.
Mildly off-topic, but relevant…
Earlier this month, the BBC’s Environment Correspondent had a feature on their website, and on tv, headed: ‘Arctic ice melting at astonishing rate’.
Having looked at the graphs for Arctic sea ice from the various (unbiased) sources who keep tabs on this matter, I’m surprised he hasn’t come up with a new article, headed: ‘Arctic ice refreezing at astonishing rate’….
Not so news-worthy, perhaps..?
Re; Alvin Stone, September 20, 2012 at 9:42 pm
. . . I have the distinct luxury of being able to ask climate scientists about these and, where I can, I try and reproduce their answers for those who visit the page.
Thanks again to you and all your followers for taking note of this paper and for the commentary of all on this page.
Kind Regards Alvin Stone
. . .
Alvin,
If more climate scientists engage in honest debate, rather than denigrating any who dare to questions ‘the Great and Powerful Oz’ at every turn, the CAGW discussion might be able to move forward much more quickly.
But hiding from FOI requests and claiming ‘the dog ate my homework’ while calling making absurd ‘in the pocket of big oil’ claims against anybody who spots an error in the science is no way to advance science.
Further; every single data adjustment cannot be positive and every single new finding (including ones that contradict prior findings) cannot confirm the CAGW hypothesis. See for example; ‘growing antarctic ice cap confirms global warming’, and now; ‘shrinking antarctic ice cap confirms global warming’.
The real problem is this; scientists cannot be policy advocates. If they are advocates, they are not scientists. Why is that so difficult to understand?
@Billy Liar – You ask
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2012/2012GL052559.shtml is the answer. 45 meters is a possible local accumulation in places on the Antarctic Peninsula over the last 155 years, based on model output. So not the whole Antarctic, and not in the last few decades. Land ice, not sea ice.