From the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, something we’ve heard before. For example this claim from 2008. Gotta love the use of props to show how climate tipping points work:
NASA: Arctic Ocean Could be Mostly Ice Free in 2013
Apr 4, 2008
“The sea ice is decreasing faster than all the models predicted,” says Jay Zwally, the ice satellite project scientist at NASA Goddard, “We not only have the warming of the atmosphere, we have a warming of the ocean that is affecting this. It has been surprising to everybody, this decrease in area. This is a marked departure, and this is suggesting to us that maybe we are getting at this tipping point.”
Ice-free Arctic may be in our future, say UMass-Amherst, international researchers
AMHERST, Mass., USA; COLOGNE, Germany; MAGADAN, Russia – Analyses of the longest continental sediment core ever collected in the Arctic, recently completed by an international team led by Julie Brigham-Grette of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, provide “absolutely new knowledge” of Arctic climate from 2.2 to 3.6 million years ago.
“While existing geologic records from the Arctic contain important hints about this time period, what we are presenting is the most continuous archive of information about past climate change from the entire Arctic borderlands. As if reading a detective novel, we can go back in time and reconstruct how the Arctic evolved with only a few pages missing here and there,” says Brigham-Grette.
Results of analyses that provide “an exceptional window into environmental dynamics” never before possible were published this week in Science and have “major implications for understanding how the Arctic transitioned from a forested landscape without ice sheets to the ice- and snow-covered land we know today,” she adds.
Their data come from analyzing sediment cores collected in the winter of 2009 from ice-covered Lake El’gygytgyn, the oldest deep lake in the northeast Russian Arctic, located 100 km north of the Arctic Circle. “Lake E” was formed 3.6 million years ago when a meteorite, perhaps a kilometer in diameter, hit the Earth and blasted out an 11-mile (18 km) wide crater. It has been collecting sediment layers ever since. Luckily for geoscientists, it lies in one of the few Arctic areas not eroded by continental ice sheets during ice ages, so a thick, continuous sediment record was left remarkably undisturbed. Cores from Lake E reach back in geologic time nearly 25 times farther than Greenland ice cores that span only the past 140,000 years.
“One of our major findings is that the Arctic was very warm in the middle Pliocene and Early Pleistocene [~ 3.6 to 2.2 million years ago] when others have suggested atmospheric CO2 was not much higher than levels we see today. This could tell us where we are going in the near future. In other words, the Earth system response to small changes in carbon dioxide is bigger than suggested by earlier climate models,” the authors state.
Important to the story are the fossil pollen found in the core, including Douglas fir and hemlock. These allow the reconstruction of vegetation around the lake in the past, which in turn paints a picture of past temperatures and precipitation.
Another significant finding is documentation of sustained warmth in the Middle Pliocene, with summer temperatures of about 59 to 61 degrees F [15 to 16 degrees C], about 14.4 degrees F [8 degrees C] warmer than today, and regional precipitation three times higher. “We show that this exceptional warmth well north of the Arctic Circle occurred throughout both warm and cold orbital cycles and coincides with a long interval of 1.2 million years when other researchers have shown the West Antarctic Ice Sheet did not exist,” Brigham-Grette notes. Hence both poles share some common history, but the pace of change differed.
Her co-authors, Martin Melles of the University of Cologne and Pavel Minyuk of Russia’s Northeast Interdisciplinary Scientific Research Institute, Magadan, led research teams on the project. Robert DeConto, also at UMass Amherst, led climate modeling efforts. These data were compared with ecosystem reconstructions performed by collaborators at universities of Berlin and Cologne.
The Lake E cores provide a terrestrial perspective on the stepped pacing of several portions of the climate system through the transition from a warm, forested Arctic to the first occurrence of land ice, Brigham-Grette says, and the eventual onset of major glacial/interglacial cycles. “It is very impressive that summer temperatures during warm intervals even as late as 2.2 million years ago were always warmer than in our pre-Industrial reconstructions.”
Minyuk notes that they also observed a major drop in Arctic precipitation at around the same time large Northern Hemispheric ice sheets first expanded and ocean conditions changed in the North Pacific. This has major implications for understanding both what drove the onset of the ice ages
The sediment core also reveals that even during the first major “cold snap” to show up in the record 3.3 Million years ago, temperatures in the western Arctic were similar to recent averages of the past 12,000 years. “Most importantly, conditions were not ‘glacial,’ raising new questions as to the timing of the first appearance of ice sheets in the Northern Hemisphere,” the authors add.
This week’s paper is the second article published in Science by these authors using data from the Lake E project. Their first, in July 2012, covered the period from the present to 2.8 million years ago, while the current work addresses the record from 2.2 to 3.6 million years ago. Melles says, “This latest paper completes our goal of providing an overview of new knowledge of the evolution of Arctic change across the western borderlands back to 3.6 million years and places this record into a global context with comparisons to records in the Pacific, the Atlantic and Antarctica.”
The new Lake E paleoclimate reconstructions and climate modeling are consistent with estimates made by other research groups that support the idea that Earth’s climate sensitivity to CO2 may well be higher than suggested by the 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
###
The International Lake El’gygytgyn Drilling Project was funded by the International Continental Drilling Program (ICDP), the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Division of Earth Sciences and Office of Polar Programs, the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research, Alfred Wegener Institute, GeoForschungsZentrum-Potsdam, the Russian Academy of Sciences Far East Branch, the Russian Foundation for Basic Research and the Austrian Ministry for Science and Research.
“One of our major findings is that the Arctic was very warm in the middle Pliocene and Early Pleistocene [~ 3.6 to 2.2 million years ago] when others have suggested atmospheric CO2 was not much higher than levels we see today. This could tell us where we are going in the near future. In other words, the Earth system response to small changes in carbon dioxide is bigger than suggested by earlier climate models,” the authors state.*
Now that’s what you call really good scientific method. They could only reach that assumption by being 100% certain that CO² heats the planet proportionally. Where is their proof? Oh, sorry, they don’t need one. Utter, Utter numpties. Just unbelievable stupidity. aaaaaaaaaargh !!!!!!
It sounds like an interesting study – too bad they garbaged it up with the global warming nonsense.
“In other words, the Earth system response to small changes in carbon dioxide is bigger than suggested by earlier climate models,”
—————–
Pretty obvious to me that this is the money quote needed to pay for the project. The data says nothing of the sort. He who pays the piper..
Here’s the paper.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/75831381/Brigham-Grette.pdf
all this from sediment cores … these guys are amazing !!!! maybe sediment cores can cure cancer too …
It is not the C02 that is causing the ice to melt in the Arctic during summer time! It is is BC, Black Carbon released in the N Hemisphere by man, volcanic ash and the last 50 years of intense sun spot cycles. If you look at the records of when the multiple year ice started melting at faster rates was when the start of High Altitude Jet Engine travel started. Low altitude BC emissions do not reach the Arctic regions as much as high altitude BC emissions from Jet exhaust do.
The Great Dust Bowl of the 1930′ did also play a roll in faster multi-year Arctic melt. Put the puzzle together of dirty snow fall and BC on the ice with intense sun spot cycles and you get fast melting. Look at it this way, if it snows when the sun angle is higher ( March, April &May)the snow and ice will melt off the pavement areas melt very fast because the darker surface below the sow and ice absorbs the radiation just like BC in the snow and on the ice in the Arctic region.
why do these researchers always look like the only “field work” they’ve ever done is going to the grocery store for lunch …
We now know a bit about the 2.2 to 3.6 million year ago interval.
There is some, still, that we do not know.
Were the ancient, pollen-producing, Douglas fir and hemlock [Hmmm – which hemlock – I guess it’s in the paper. (There was a paper, not a press release, I guess)] exact ecological equivalents of those same species – or genera – today?
Do not plant have an innate ability to evolve to better reproduce in the conditions they find themselves in?
And a couple of million years? [Even for Douglas fir, that must average a thousand generations or so. Some hemlocks are weeds, so likely annuals. A fair old number of hemlock generations, at one a year for a couple of million years. How many generations separate us from Ardipithecus ramidus? Half a million or so, no more.]
When exactly did the Isthmus of Panama finally close?
And what effects might that have had?
What were cloud levels, and densities [and so albedos]?
How active was the Sun?
How prevalent were ‘wildfires’ [we know there were no SUVs in that era]?
Do we know anything at all about three-million-year-old ENSOs? Did they even happen?
‘Atmospheric CO2 was not much higher than levels we see today.’ Even if true, and it may well be true, that’s not the entire story. Is it?
Fascinating science, but maybe the interpretation presented goes a tad further than the evidence presented can fully support in the long term.
True its the some old story , but somethings have changed. They have largley learned to make prodictions which are a ‘long time ‘ away, safe in the knowledge they will not to around to be reminded of them when they prove to be BS.
“One of our major findings is that the Arctic was very warm in the middle Pliocene and Early Pleistocene [~ 3.6 to 2.2 million years ago] when others have suggested atmospheric CO2 was not much higher than levels we see today. This could tell us where we are going in the near future. In other words, the Earth system response to small changes in carbon dioxide is bigger than suggested by earlier climate models,” the authors state.
This always trips up climate “researchers”. They assume that C02 is a major climate driver, and for “evidence”, they have the fact that C02 levels were up (about today’s levels) during a certain time period, therefore must be the cause of the warmer temperatures. They always ignore the inconvenient fact that the C02 went up only after it warmed, so couldn’t possibly have caused it.
But wait, there’s more. Now, it appears that the “earth system response” to even small changes in C02 is even bigger than they thought. This, when studies, and all reality is actually showing the reverse: that the sensitivity of Earth’s climate to C02 is subject to the law of diminishing returns. Whatever the C02 levels were during the mid-Pliocene or early Pleistocene tell us absolutely nothing about “where we’re going” climate-wise.
“One of our major findings is that the Arctic was very warm in the middle Pliocene and Early Pleistocene when….. CO2 was not much higher than levels we see today. In other words, the Earth system response to small changes in carbon dioxide is bigger than suggested by earlier climate models,”
……..Or something else caused the warming and CO2 had nothing to do with it! Surely anyone with a grain of intelligence would have thought of that! No? Oh……
Hmm – their paper just says ‘hemlock’, once. [Thank you – Lance Wallace, May 9, 2013 at 12:01 pm ]
The reference [18] appears to be the authors’ previous paper on Lake E – 0 to 2.8 million years ago. In ‘Science’, and seems to be pay-walled [or they wish to send me many ads].
So, might there have been a greater biomass of flatulent bovids then?
More methane . . . . .
The pics/maps in the paper clearly show a differently-configures Northern Hemisphere to that we enjoy today. A seaman’s guess is that affected ocean currents [and possibly tides, too].
One thing is for sure, polar ice levels are a great proxy that demonstrate how much hotter our climate has gotten since mankind has foolishly polluted out air with nasty CO2. If only we had a proxy to show how much less ice there really is up North. Like The Nenana Ice Classic! 97 years demonstrating global warming. I’m sure this year, must be one of the earliest breakups on record… Let’s check in…
May 9, and the ice is still ~40 freakin inches thick, and breakup usually happens in April. It is possible that warmer weather may have caused more ice to form. This is consistent with global warming. /sarc
Note: the last measurement was on 6 May. The measurement will be updated later today if the ice is safe enough for a measurement.
In other news, this year’s ice classic is looking like it might be one for the record books. The unseasonably cold weather we have had this spring has finally broken, and it has warmed up considerably. This would indicate that breakup could be in the next few days. However, The ice is still solid from bank to bank, with no visible sign of water. The temperatures were in the mid to lower 30’s from Wednesday April 23rd thru Thursday May 2nd during the day, and dropping down to the mid 20’s in the evenings. The temperatures have been in the mid to upper 40’s and into the mid 50’s the last few days, and in the mid 20’s to the mid 30’s in the evenings for the same time period. The Nenana River is still showing no signs of breakup. It is generally 7 – 10 days after the Nenana River breaks up, that the Tanana River breaks up. It’s could be awhile before the ice moves out, so stay tuned!!!
http://www.nenanaakiceclassic.com/
sediment cores or sentiment cores?
One is science, one is believing.
As in CAGW.
3.5M years ago was the (mid-) Pliocene. Here’s what is known about this era : The global average temperature was 2-3°C higher than today, global sea level 25 m higher! The formation of an Arctic ice cap and Mid-latitude glaciation started. Global cooling started during the Pliocene.
Continents were drifting fast: moving ~250 km from their present locations to ~70 km from their current locations. South America became linked to North America! This had major consequences on global temperatures, since warm equatorial ocean currents were cut off and an Atlantic cooling cycle began, with cold Arctic and Antarctic waters dropping temperatures in the now-isolated Atlantic Ocean. Africa collided with Europe and formed the Mediterranean Sea. ETC ETC ETC
Do we need to go on and on and on, or do these people not realize that comparing 3.5M yrs ago is comparing apples with oranges, unless 2-3C warmer and 25mtr higher sea levels is thought of being the same (weird to see everybody screaming “end of days are here”, when we’re experiencing 0.4C change and 1.5mm/yr sea level rise…).
Massive, and major changes were occurring on all levels: from global, continental, to local. The world was in turmoil. There were major oceanic changes, major changes in flora, fauna, ecosystems, etc. ALL occurred without 1 single human being present at that time. ALL these massive changes -e.g. link SA with NA, were UNRELATED to CO2. The subsequent changes in oceanic temps were UNRELATED to CO2. The subsequent changes in global temperatures were UNRELATED to CO2.
And in Live Sciences, there are always the usual suspects’ wishful thinking:
“Moran is director of NEPTUNE Canada, an underwater ocean observatory managed by the University of Victoria in British Columbia.
“This new paleoclimate record adds to the growing evidence that Earth’s sensitivity to these levels of greenhouse gases may be higher than previously thought,” Moran said. “Understanding Earth’s sensitivity is one of the key parameters for predicting future conditions of the planet under global warming.”
LOL Wishful thinking: there is no evidence of cause/effect, only teleconnection.
“And a return to Pliocene-type conditions may not be too far off in the future, said Gifford Miller, a professor in the department of geological sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder, who conducts research in the Canadian Arctic.
“The ice is melting at all elevations,” Miller said. “Even if there is no additional warming, it’s only a matter of time before the ice is all gone.”
Sure … Bet your mother’s saving on it Miller?
“The extended warm period during the middle Pliocene also raises new questions about the subsequent ice ages. According to the new study, warm Arctic temperatures persisted past the time when previous studies estimated the start of expanding glaciers in the Northern Hemisphere, Moran said.
These conflicting results mean scientists are still unclear when big continental ice sheets began to expand and grow, and what triggered these changes.
“It really stays relatively warm in the Arctic, even in the onset of the first part of the ice age cycle,” Miller said. “That one was unexpected.”
Miller and Moran demonstrate their ignorance of atmospheric circulation processes in their ridiculous comments.
OT: Wind Turbine chewing an eagle
http://www.contrepoints.org/2013/05/09/123906-un-jeune-aigle-coupe-en-deux-par-un-eolienne
“The sea ice is decreasing faster than all the models predicted,”
==============
He doesn’t realize that makes them wrong…….
…which means the computer games have gotten nothing right
BTW here is Moran’s bio… Says it all about the kind University of Victoria BC is recruiting…
Kate Moran
Director
Dr. Moran formerly served a two-year term as assistant director in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy in Washington, DC. In her White House role, Moran advised the Obama administration on the oceans, the Arctic and global warming. She was seconded to the position from a faculty appointment at the University of Rhode Island where she was a professor of oceanography and associate dean of the Graduate School of Oceanography.
Dr. Moran holds degrees in marine science and engineering from the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Rhode Island and Dalhousie University. Her research focuses on marine geotechnics and its application to the study of paleoceanography, tectonics and seafloor stability. She has authored more than 45 publications.
Kate Moran has led several major oceanographic expeditions, including the first drilling expedition to the Arctic Ocean in 2004. The following year she led the first expedition to find the source of the earthquake that caused the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. She has also made major contributions to the assessment of hazards in Canada’s offshore regions.
“…which means the computer games have gotten nothing right”
Zactly. High or low, errors are errors.
Echoing Tom Miller: Imagine one had a true Time Machine. Would these guys be willing to bet their lives that if one zapped them back to the described period, one would find exactly what they describe? You’re correct or dead; now exactly how certain are you? We have a hard enough time getting any sort of picture of not-yet-ancient civilizations from artifacts and site exploration; yet this group has even more certainty about what happened to a vastly more complex system over 2 million years ago? Ha.
I just flew AMS-PDX this morning, taking the Great Circle north of Hudson Bay. Lots–and lots–of ice and snow. Anecdotal, yes, and non-scientific–but my God what an amazing sight are both Greenland and Baffin Island. Good to be home.
TomRude says:
May 9, 2013 at 12:53 pm
OT: Wind Turbine chewing an eagle
49 sea eagles !! Shhhhhhhh I can’t hear the greenie beenies !!! No, still no sound. Amazing that. Mustn’t dig in a field in england because of danger to lizards, mustn’t touch bats at all or go nearr them even if they are making your house unlivable but CHOP UP A FEW RARE BIRDS? what’s the problem??
“”The sea ice is decreasing faster than all the models predicted,” says Jay Zwally, the ice satellite project scientist at NASA Goddard,”
So all the models are wrong. Don’t sceptics keep saying that.
Chris @NJSnowFan says:
May 9, 2013 at 12:11 pm
“It is not the C02 that is causing the ice to melt in the Arctic during summer time! It is is BC, Black Carbon released in the N Hemisphere by man, volcanic ash and the last 50 years of intense sun spot cycles.”…………..
=============
If this were true, wouldn’t there be photographic evidence of black carbon sprinkled over the entire surface of the Arctic, instead of just in the bottom of melt lakes in Greenland ?
Also, how would we know if it is increasing past background levels ?
Has anyone analyzed the carbon found to determine its origin ?
Just a few thoughts.
Abstract from the authors’ earlier paper in Science:
“The reliability of Arctic climate predictions is currently hampered by insufficient knowledge of
natural climate variability in the past. A sediment core from Lake El’gygytgyn in northeastern
(NE) Russia provides a continuous, high-resolution record from the Arctic, spanning the past
2.8 million years. This core reveals numerous “super interglacials” during the Quaternary; for
marine benthic isotope stages (MIS) 11c and 31, maximum summer temperatures and annual
precipitation values are ~4° to 5°C and ~300 millimeters higher than those of MIS 1 and 5e.
Climate simulations show that these extreme warm conditions are difficult to explain with
greenhouse gas and astronomical forcing alone, implying the importance of amplifying feedbacks and far field influences. The timing of Arctic warming relative to West Antarctic Ice Sheet retreats implies strong interhemispheric climate connectivity.”
At least they are clear that the standard greenhouse models can’t explain the natural variation.
Wow, I have to admit that I jumped when that sippy cup tipped over! What if something spilled out? Hot coffee perhaps, or maybe even ginger ale with rotten ice? That demonstration really made me sit up and pay attention to the words of these brave scientists that by late summer of this year, and that’s only about 3 more months, Arctic ice will be lost forever. Or something like that. I guess.
/snark
“Another significant finding is documentation of sustained warmth in the Middle Pliocene, with summer temperatures of about 59 to 61 degrees F [15 to 16 degrees C], about 14.4 degrees F [8 degrees C] warmer than today…”
________________
So… been there, done that.
NASA: Arctic Ocean Could be Mostly Ice Free in 2013
Apr 4, 2008
“The sea ice is decreasing faster than all the models predicted,” says Jay Zwally, the ice satellite project scientist at NASA Goddard, “We not only have the warming of the atmosphere, we have a warming of the ocean that is affecting this. It has been surprising to everybody, this decrease in area. This is a marked departure, and this is suggesting to us that maybe we are getting at this tipping point.”
Oh please oh please yes pleasssse can we just get to the tipping point and be done with this!!!!
Like turkeys voting for an early Christmas these “scientists” are pining for the ice free fjords. It’s so pathetic to see their anxious wish for disaster that I almost wish we could just give it to them. But alas in over a hundred years the trend has been less than a single degree warmer. That has to be in the deep realm of mere noise and natural variation. And in the past two decades or so there has been practically no discernible warming. How can a tipping point be reached if the balance isn’t even changed? Sure if you ignore the big picture and pick out a few outliers you can make a case that something is going on. Well, until those outliers regress to the mean, as they surely will.
I’m not afraid to claim the Arctic will become ice free. Safest prediction one could make. It’s been ice free before and it will be that way again, and when it is, mind the crocodiles.
Now… just don’t try to pin me down to ‘when.’
From the story: “One of our major findings is that the Arctic was very warm in the middle Pliocene and Early Pleistocene [~ 3.6 to 2.2 million years ago] when others have suggested atmospheric CO2 was not much higher than levels we see today”
If the Artice was so warm during the Pliocene and Early Pleistocene eras, and “CO2 was not much higher than levels we see today”, doesn’t logic say that it must have been some other factor than CO2???
I stopped reading at- “… University of Massachusetts at Amherst”
Dell from Michigan says:
May 9, 2013 at 1:44 pm
From the story: “One of our major findings is that the Arctic was very warm in the middle Pliocene and Early Pleistocene [~ 3.6 to 2.2 million years ago] when others have suggested atmospheric CO2 was not much higher than levels we see today”
===============
Dell, what is says is that something else is causing the rise in CO2…………
Oh noes! The arctic Ice “death spiral” is on, and they’re predicting an “ice-free arctic” by 2015.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/earth-insight/2013/may/02/white-house-arctic-ice-death-spiral
Apparently, they had an alarmapalooza™ meeting at the White House hosted by the Office of Science and Technology Policy OSTP) organized by JOSS of UCAR on behalf of IARPC, which is chaired by the NSF which includes NASA, the USDHS, and the Pentagon. See, “climate change” has all kinds of wonderful international and domestic security implications.
We’re doomed, I tell ya, doomed.
Like the 15+ year temperature standstill which most of the models did not project?
I could go on and on about past predictions for an ice free Arctic but I think someone has already prepared something earlier.
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/ice-free-arctic-forecasts/
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/polar-meltdown/
“One of our major findings is that the Arctic was very warm in the middle Pliocene and Early Pleistocene [~ 3.6 to 2.2 million years ago] when others have suggested atmospheric CO2 was not much higher than levels we see today. This could tell us where we are going in the near future. In other words, the Earth system response to small changes in carbon dioxide is bigger than suggested by earlier climate models,” the authors state.”
This is a surprising, very unscientific conclusion. One might just as well conclude that with a warm climate and low CO2 that the warmth has nothing to do with CO2! Could this really dumb statement have been included to appease the funders at NSF?
“Another significant finding is documentation of sustained warmth in the Middle Pliocene, with summer temperatures of about 59 to 61 degrees F [15 to 16 degrees C], about 14.4 degrees F [8 degrees C] warmer than today, and regional precipitation three times higher. “We show that this exceptional warmth well north of the Arctic Circle occurred throughout both warm and cold orbital cycles and coincides with a long interval of 1.2 million years when other researchers have shown the West Antarctic Ice Sheet did not exist,” Brigham-Grette notes. Hence both poles share some common history, but the pace of change differed.”
Another unsubstantiated conclusion. Evidence shows that the Antarctic ice sheet has not melted since the Miocene 8.1 million years ago. (see excerpt from paper below)
Preservation of Miocene Glacier Ice in East Antarctica
“buried glacier ice in Beacon valley, East Antarctica, ….. appears to have survived for at least 8.1 million years. We have dated the ice by 40Ar/39Ar analysis of volcanic ash in the thin, overlying glacial till which, we argue, has undergone little (if any) reworking. Isotope and crystal fabric analyses of the ice show that it was derived from an ice sheet. We suggest that stable polar conditions must have persisted in this region for at least 8.1 million years for this ice to have avoided sublimation.
With tectonic movements – where was the Russia plate 3m years ago? I mean in relation to the earth poles. Australia is still moving north at about a centimetre each year so I guess the rest of the world keeps drifting in one direction or another. India is still pushing into Asia etc.
Lake E might be unchanged but where it was may have if the Russian plate is like the rest of the world.
where was the Russia plate 3m years ago?
3m years x 1cm / year = 300Km – so not that big a change.
The funny thing though is the finding that since temperatures were very different to today, but CO2 levels were very similar, that the Earth is far more sensitive to CO2 than everyone thinks. As others have noted, the possibility that CO2 and temperature are not well correlated doesn’t occur to them.
“In other words, the Earth system response to small changes in carbon dioxide is bigger than suggested by earlier climate models,” the authors state.
================
total disconnect from reality……
What an embarrassment this “science” has become…………..
Somehow I managed to erase one of my most prized papers on the Arctic. It happened sometime about 2009 I think, so the paper would be slightly older than that. It was a report on the Deep Ocean Drilling project. The key thing I remember from that paper is the comment from one of the authors that the one thing they clearly see in Arctic sediment cores is the complete melting away of the Arctic ice cap at the end of most interglacials. As I remember the discussion, this could be seen as a wider distribution of sediments from all provenances around the basin due to the open fetch of the de-iced Arctic allowing atmospheric driven currents to carry these sediments to deposition in places they only see this happening right at the end interglacials.
I have been through 2 computers since 2009, and so long ago lost any links I may have had to the paper. If I remember correctly it was in the form of a .txt file. If anyone can find it I would be in their debt. I have tried in vain to duplicate whatever search string I was used to find it in the first place.
So, although I cannot provide the source, it is difficult to forget that comment because if or when we do see an ice-free Arctic again, that could be the signal that the half-precession old (and change) Holocene is heading for the glacial offramp……..
I’ll donate a bathing suit if they want to swim to the North Pole this summer.
I love cut and paste:
…data come from analyzing sediment cores collected… from… Lake El’gygytgyn, the oldest deep lake in the northeast Russian Arctic,…“One of our major findings is that the Arctic was very warm in the middle Pliocene and Early Pleistocene [~ 3.6 to 2.2 million years ago] when others have suggested atmospheric CO2 was not much higher than levels we see today.” The sediment core also reveals that even during the first major “cold snap” to show up in the record 3.3 Million years ago, temperatures in the western Arctic were similar to recent averages of the past 12,000 years.
IMHO: When it comes to Arctic ice predictions, Jay Swally nd Mark Sereze are “Dumb and Dumber”. Their claims made in 2008 are contradicted by data from 2013.
Some studies I have seen long ago suggested that the arctic is much warmer and drier during ice ages. Comparing their cores to the time line of the last inter-glacials may be more appropriate than CO2 comparisons. If a link is discovered a warming arctic maybe a precursor to the start of some serious cold.
Wait, 2013 is not yet over, it is still not even summer, it might still happen!
Don Easterbrook says:
May 9, 2013 at 2:32 pm
“Another significant finding is documentation of sustained warmth in the Middle Pliocene, with summer temperatures of about 59 to 61 degrees F [15 to 16 degrees C], about 14.4 degrees F [8 degrees C] warmer than today, and regional precipitation three times higher. “We show that this exceptional warmth well north of the Arctic Circle occurred throughout both warm and cold orbital cycles and coincides with a long interval of 1.2 million years when other researchers have shown the West Antarctic Ice Sheet did not exist,” Brigham-Grette notes. Hence both poles share some common history, but the pace of change differed.”
Another unsubstantiated conclusion. Evidence shows that the Antarctic ice sheet has not melted since the Miocene 8.1 million years ago. (see excerpt from paper below)
Preservation of Miocene Glacier Ice in East Antarctica
“buried glacier ice in Beacon valley, East Antarctica, ….. appears to have survived for at least 8.1 million years. We have dated the ice by 40Ar/39Ar analysis of volcanic ash in the thin, overlying glacial till which, we argue, has undergone little (if any) reworking. Isotope and crystal fabric analyses of the ice show that it was derived from an ice sheet. We suggest that stable polar conditions must have persisted in this region for at least 8.1 million years for this ice to have avoided sublimation.
To be fair, their claim was about West Antarctica while your example was from East Antarctica, Don.
There was a study that I read about 25 years ago that described a correlation to meteorite particulate diffusion in the atmosphere in the past causing a change in the absorption of infrared in the upper atmosphere and also ice mass reflectivity. Apparently there is a cyclical period which reinforces solar forcing at times.
Who cares about this anymore? It’s colder in NA. It’s colder in Europe. It’s colder in Asia. It’s colder in the SH. Global Ice is at all time measurable records. The 30 year satellite temperature variance is +0.1 C. UNNOTICEABLE.
Who cares if there are lily pads in the Arctic? Can we plant crops in the Arctic with no ice there? Guaranteed you can’t plant in parts of the northern plains right now. Don’t you wish you could sit up in the audience for one of these presentations and call out: “Boooooorrring!” for an hour.
Even better, stand up and say, “The Arctic is melting? Finally!” Permanent melting of the Arctic would be GREAT. Shipping, energy production, safety, so many new opportunities!
By definition the whole thing is transient. The whole thing turns over every 5 years or so. This old ice, young ice garbage. Think about that, the entire Arctic ice cap changes over entirely in about 5 years. Massive melting, churning and refreezing.
Perfect title – heard it all before. A total waste of time, money and brain power. From the moon in 1969, NASA could land a man in Starbucks today.
Who cares about the temperature is at the airport? Nobody lives at the airport. George Carlin
if it was co2 driven, what caused that vast amount of co2 back then anyways
@ Katherine: Yet the quote by the lead author shows a significant lack of understanding of atmospheric circulation. Here is the quote: ““We show that this exceptional warmth well north of the Arctic Circle occurred throughout both warm and cold orbital cycles and coincides with a long interval of 1.2 million years when other researchers have shown the West Antarctic Ice Sheet did not exist,” Brigham-Grette notes”.
Had they read Marcel Leroux, she’d known that this is hardly surprising since powerful MPHs and associated catabatic winds from main Antarctica will displace warmer air further north and also bring renewed advection of warmer moist air towards the pole, along the main reliefs higher than 2,000m. Not only that explains the situation in western Antarctica and in particular the peninsula but it provides an elegant mechanism bringing heavy precipitation of snow to build the icecap faster. The same situation exists in the Arctic, withrenewed warm air advections along the east Greenland reliefs -hence their melting- . During the beginning of the last glaciation the Svalbard islands enjoyed a warmer period that finally was overwhelmed by the advancing icecaps. This warming during the onset of a cold period is brought through the dynamics of atmospheric circulation. The russian Lake location is indeed critical and in fact its record can be explained through the same process, as more powerful MPHs would come down between Kamchatka peninsula and Japan bringing renewed advections of warm moist air through the Bering Strait to the lake region.
By the way, it also puts a dent into their pollen analysis conclusion of tree lines as it could very well correspond to a regional situation controlled by this dynamic warming.
In the end, it shows the authors’ conclusions betray their utter ignorance of basic geometry of the circulation which for supposed climate scientists is quite rich.
“Dynamic Analysis of Weather and Climate”, Marcel Leroux, Springer-Praxis 2010, chap. 13.3 p. 318, a must read for all imo.
@Tom Rude:
Every wind power lover should be forced to stare at this photo of the bisected eagle for the duration. I’d like nothing better than to make the greenies all have the picture tattooed on their foreheads, as an advertisement of their faith.
The French text pulls no punches (I could read most of it).
GREEN KILLS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Robert M
I did, as you suggested click thru to the Nenana Ice Classic page and mosied around a bit. Your ASSERTIONS don’t stand up to scrutiny totally, I’m afraid.
On the site, there is a calendar which shows which date each year the ice moved. It shows the commonest dates are between April 29th and May 12th, with a few outwith that band.
As a result, it is incontestably NOT the case that ‘break up usually occurs in April’, as you claim. It incontestably usually breaks up in early May.
All you can say, therefore, is that break-up is currently within the bounds of normality and a further week of ice-bound solidity is required for the year to be unusual as a ‘cold’ one. Even that statement is probably contestable, since the sensitivity of the system will not be the temperature from January to mid March, but the spring-time temperature, which is what will drive the melt. I’m sure there’s never been a less cold January and a cold spring, nor a freezing cold January and an early spring, has there??
BOTH sides of the climate debate would do well to spend less time making assertions and more time presenting insightful data.
“In other words, the Earth system response to small changes in carbon dioxide is bigger than suggested by earlier climate models,” the authors state”
Group think in action. Alternatively one can conclude that:
“Evidently carbon dioxide is not an important factor in regulating the climate”.
Now apply Occam’s razor.
from paper’s conclusion: “Mechanistic explanations for observed trends in temperature and precipitation have yet to be determined but imply high sensitivity to CO2 forcing. ”
Sheesh, if they have yet to be determined they don’t imply ANYTHING.
They only ‘imply’ high sensitivity to CO2 if you ASSUME a priori that CO2 is the major determining factor of global temperature.
As usual, the basic observational science reported seems good but gets spun into some AGW fairytale that has zero basis in the reported results.
Sadly this is now par for the course in the once “prestigious” Science journal.
There has been significant change in arctic ice area over the last 35 years. So if we are about to see a catastrophic collapse, tipping point etc. we should be able to see some significant acceleration in ice area.
So let’s plot acceleration ice arctic ice area:
http://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=216
What this reveals is strong oscillatory pattern but no visible acceleration or deceleration overall .
Much of the pattern, including the 2007 event can be described by a two year periodicity modulated by a 12.8 cycle.
No tipping points there.
So why is Russia expanding its ice-breaker fleet with new, nuclear powered ships, immense vessels at immense expense?
What is interesting, is that we are now a few years down the line from when these fatuous predictions were made – so now we can see just how fatuous they were..
David Viner of the UK’s Met Office in 2002: ‘Children just aren’t going to know what snow is..’
Cue the worst winter (2012/13) in the UK for 50 years…
This feature: ‘Arctic could be ice-free in 2013..’
About as averagely iced up as you could reasonably expect…
And so it goes on…
David says:
May 10, 2013 at 6:07 am
What is interesting, is that we are now a few years down the line from when these fatuous predictions were made – so now we can see just how fatuous they were..
David Viner of the UK’s Met Office in 2002: ‘Children just aren’t going to know what snow is..’
Cue the worst winter (2012/13) in the UK for 50 years…
This feature: ‘Arctic could be ice-free in 2013..’
About as averagely iced up as you could reasonably expect…
Hardly average (-1.5 sds), a good chance of surpassing last year’s record minimum.
There exist a gap in knowledge but there isn’t any climate threats.
How anyone can belive that a vulcano on one of Hawaii’s islands can be used to correct CO2-values, goes beyond comprehension. EVERY Vulcano active or dead day out and day in gives CO2 to the atmosphere in high doses. Variable doses due to internal pressure in any given vulcano as well as variable doses from Earth quakes adds to CO2 in atmosphere due to tectonic plates movements/interactions/collisions etc.
@Eric Worrall
I am sure you just made a simple error or a type. But I can’t let it stand uncorrected:
“where was the Russia plate 3m years ago?
3m years x 1cm / year = 300Km – so not that big a change.”
3000000 cm = 30000 m = only 30 km
It could of course be that the Russia plate moved somewhat faster.
Kajajuk,
Interesting video. But misleading, because global ice extent is unchanged from it’s long term average. Also misleading because Antarctic ice cover is kept at the same number, when in fact it has been steadily rising.
Phil. says:
May 10, 2013 at 12:05 pm
Hardly average (-1.5 sds), a good chance of surpassing last year’s record minimum.
—————————————————————–
But, but, but …..
In December 2008, Al Gore said the Arctic would be ice-free in 5 years ….
Hmmmmm 8 + 5 = ……. time to run a model.
So what’s the spectroscopist’s explanation for Antarctica again ??
@dbstealey
May 11, 2013 at 4:58 pm
“Kajajuk,
Interesting video. But misleading, because global ice extent is unchanged from it’s long term average. Also misleading because Antarctic ice cover is kept at the same number, when in fact it has been steadily rising.”
What’s misleading? In the video the words ‘Arctic sea ice volume‘ are displayed quite clearly. In addition, Zwally was talking about the arctic as well.
philincalifornia says:
May 11, 2013 at 5:11 pm
Phil. says:
May 10, 2013 at 12:05 pm
Hardly average (-1.5 sds), a good chance of surpassing last year’s record minimum.
—————————————————————–
But, but, but …..
In December 2008, Al Gore said the Arctic would be ice-free in 5 years ….
Actually he didn’t, his speech was frequently misquoted though! Even so it could still happen this fall, but very likely within the next couple of years.
wayne Job says:
May 9, 2013 at 4:30 pm
Not surprising: At 80 north latitude, the edge of today’s ice coverage in the Arctic, there is not enough direct sunshine to heat the ocean’s water at today’s minimum sea ice extents date of mid-September. In fact, at that time of year, so much extra heat is lost from radiation, evaporation, and conduction into the Arctic air that, the more sea ice is lost from today’s levels of 3-5 to 4.5 million km square, the colder the Arctic ocean gets.
Arctic sea ice “amplification” (or positive feedback from open Arctic waters heating up) is a propagandistic myth that does not stand up to the math.
On the other hand, the more the Antarctic sea ice expands – from today’s Antarctic sea extend of 15 million km square at 61 south latitude – the more solar energy IS reflected and the colder the earth DOES gets.
The CAGW community is dead wrong in their mythology. Again.
Let me say this … there is no doubt the man-made global alarmist camp, which has the backing of governments and scientific institutions etc etc etc, continue to have the upper hand in the climate change debate. Therefore, the global warming science that suits them is all they care about.
Because “climate change” – dangerous man-made global warming – is an agenda driven by politics rather than science, sadly, the science is now all but irrelevant. All the errors and scandals associated with the IPCC, its reports, etc etc etc, have not caused the global warming establishment to even bat an eye lid with concern. They’ve continued with a business as usual attitude. The “new scientific method” adopted by alarmist climate scientists is to take their hypotheses, and rather than search for the data that contradicts the hypotheses so as to improve and refine them, they just cherry-pick the data that supports the hypotheses and overlook the rest of the data.
You see, it’s the political truth that matters, not scientific truth.
I cannot comprehend how anyone could be concerned about the incredibly insignificant contribution to the total greenhouse heat effect from human activities, which amounts to about 0.12 of 1% of the overall greenhouse heat effect. It is so small, even if all human activity ceased immediately, there would be no discernible effect on the climate.
How can it possibly be true that such an insignificant contribution to the greenhouse heat effect by human activity is responsible for all these so called “man-made extreme weather events”?
How can it be possible that that such an insignificant contribution to the greenhouse heat effect by human activity is now responsible for climate change.
Yet this is what the global warming alarmist establishment is saying based on all the alarmist claims about today’s weather events and climate.
Why do they keep quoting the minimum value of ice when the years that the north west passage was successfully crossed the levels were also very low and this was at very obvious recurring intervals.
Phil. says:
May 11, 2013 at 6:09 pm
philincalifornia says:
—————————————————————–
But, but, but …..
In December 2008, Al Gore said the Arctic would be ice-free in 5 years ….
Actually he didn’t, his speech was frequently misquoted though!
———————————
Yes he did, and you know it.
You only made that comment because you know the speech in question has been removed from Youtube to save further embarrassment. Sometime in the first two weeks of December, 2008, probably December 13th at a German museum, with dinosaur skeleton in the background.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/12/14/gore-entire-north-polar-ice-cap-will-be-gone-in-5-years/
philincalifornia says:
May 12, 2013 at 6:21 am
Phil. says:
May 11, 2013 at 6:09 pm
philincalifornia says:
—————————————————————–
But, but, but …..
In December 2008, Al Gore said the Arctic would be ice-free in 5 years ….
Actually he didn’t, his speech was frequently misquoted though!
———————————
Yes he did, and you know it.
Actually I know that he did not say that, I actually listened to that youtube and although it was poor quality it was clear that he did not say “entire north polar ice cap will be gone in 5 years”, near as I could tell it was “may” not “will”. I posted this at the time.
You only made that comment because you know the speech in question has been removed from Youtube to save further embarrassment.
The account no longer exists, not embarrassing.
Sometime in the first two weeks of December, 2008, probably December 13th at a German museum, with dinosaur skeleton in the background.
Yes that’s the one.
dbstealey says:
May 11, 2013 at 4:58 pm
————————————
That ‘s very comforting, thanks.
Kajajuk,
You are welcome.
If you look here, you will see that the current sea ice total is right at the 35-year global sea ice average [the red line at the bottom of the chart].
It is true that the Arctic is losing ice. But that is offset by the gain in Antarctic ice. And thus, the last cherry-picked climate alarm — declining Arctic ice — is deconstructed. Nothing either unusual or unprecedented is happening. The climate fluctuates, that’s all. And of course, CO2 has nothing to do with it, or the Antarctic would also be losing ice. It isn’t.
Without a satellite of my own, i am reliant on released findings…
“Meanwhile, measurements from the Grace satellites confirm that Antarctica is losing mass. Isabella Velicogna of JPL and the University of California, Irvine, uses Grace data to weigh the Antarctic ice sheet from space. Her work shows that the ice sheet is not only losing mass, but it is losing mass at an accelerating rate”
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/20100108_Is_Antarctica_Melting.html
And so it is comforting to be told there is nothing to worry about, and that the opposite is true.