Regular readers may recall some of the posts here, here, here, and here, where the sea ice data presented by NSIDC and by Cryosphere today were brought into question. We finally have an end to this year’s arctic melt season, and our regular contributor on sea-ice, Steven Goddard, was able to ask Dr. Walt Meier, who operates the National Snow and Ice Data Center 10 questions, and they are presented here for you. I have had correspondence with Dr. Meier and found him straightforward and amiable. If only other scientists were so gracious with questions from the public. – Anthony
Questions from Steven Goddard:
Dr. Walt Meier from The US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) has graciously agreed to answer 10 of my favorite Arctic questions. His much appreciated responses below are complete and unedited.
1. Many GISS stations north of 60 latitude show temperatures 70 years ago being nearly as warm as today. This pattern is seen from Coppermine, Canada (115W) all the way east to Dzardzan, Siberia (124E.) The 30 year satellite record seems to correspond to a period of warming, quite similar to a GISS reported period in the 1920s and 1930s. Is it possible that Arctic temperatures are cyclical rather than on a linear upwards trend?
No. Analysis of the temperatures does not support a cyclic explanation for the recent warming. The warming during the 1920s and 1930s was more regional in nature and focused on the Atlantic side of the Arctic (though there was warming in some other regions as well) and was most pronounced during winter. In contrast, the current warming is observed over almost the entire Arctic and is seen in all seasons. Another thing that is clear is that, the warming during the 1920s and 1930s was limited to the Arctic and lower latitude temperatures were not unusually warm. The recent warming in the Arctic, though amplified there, is part of a global trend where temperatures are rising in most regions of the earth. There are always natural variations in climate but the current warming in the Arctic is not explained by such variations.
2. The US Weather Bureau wrote a 1922 article describing drastic Arctic warming and ice loss. In that article, the author wrote that waters around Spitzbergen warmed 12C over just a few years and that ships were able to sail in open waters north of 81N. This agrees with the GISS record, which would seem to imply that the Arctic can and does experience significant warming unrelated to CO2. Do you believe that what we are seeing now is different from that event, and why?
Yes. The current warming is different from the conditions described in the article. The Weather Bureau article is specifically discussing the North Atlantic region around Spitsbergen, not the Arctic as a whole. The Arctic has historically shown regional variations in climate, with one region warmer than normal while another region was cooler, and then after a while flipping to the opposite conditions. As discussed above, the current warming is different in nature; it is pan-Arctic and is part of widespread warming over most of the earth.
3. A number of prominent papers, including one from Dr. James Hansen in 2003, describe the important role of man-made soot in Arctic melt and warming. Some have hypothesized that the majority of melt and warming is due to soot. How is this issue addressed by NSIDC?
NSIDC does not have any scientists who currently study the effect of soot on melt and warming. Soot, dust and other pollution can enhance melting by lower the albedo (reflectance of solar energy). However, it is not clear that soot has increased significantly in the Arctic. Russia is a major source of soot in the Arctic and Russian soot declined dramatically after the break-up of the former Soviet Union – just as sea ice decline was starting to accelerate. Furthermore, while soot on the snow/ice surface will enhance melt, soot and other aerosols in the atmosphere have a cooling effect that would slow melt. Thus, the effect of soot, while it may contribute in some way, cannot explain the dramatic rate of warming and melt seen in the Arctic seen over the past 30 years.
4. The NSIDC Sea Ice News and Analysis May 2008 report seems to have forecast more ice loss than has actually occurred, including forecasts of a possible “ice-free North Pole.” Please comment on this?
What NSIDC provided in its May report was “a simple estimate of the likelihood of breaking last year’s September record.” This gave an average estimate that was below 2007, but included a range that included a possibility of being above 2007. With the melt season in the Arctic ending for the year, the actual 2008 minimum is near the high end of this range. In its June report, NSIDC further commented on its minimum estimate by stating that much of the thin ice that usually melts in summer was much farther north than normal and thus would be less likely to melt.
In the May report, NSIDC also quoted a colleague, Sheldon Drobot at the University of Colorado, who used a more sophisticated forecast model to estimate a 59% chance of setting a new record low – far from a sure-thing. NSIDC also quoted colleague Ron Lindsey at the University of Washington, who used a physical model to estimate “a very low, but not extreme [i.e., not record-breaking], sea ice minimum.” He also made an important point, cautioning that “that sea ice conditions are now changing so rapidly that predictions based on relationships developed from the past 50 years of data may no longer apply.” Thus NSIDC’s report was a balanced assessment of the possibility of setting a new record, taking account of different methods and recognizing the uncertainty inherent any seasonal forecast, especially under conditions that had not been seen before.
For the first time in our records, the North Pole was covered by seasonal ice (i.e., ice that grew since the end of the previous summer). Since seasonal ice is thinner than multiyear ice (i.e., ice that has survived at least one melt season) and vulnerable to melting completely, there was a possibility that the ice edge could recede beyond the pole and leaving the pole completely ice-free. This would be fundamentally different from events in the past where a crack in the ice might temporarily expose some open water at the pole in the midst of surrounding ice. It would mean completely ice-free conditions at the geographic North Pole (just the pole, not the entire Arctic Ocean). The remarkable thing was not whether the North Pole would be ice-free or not; it was that this year, for the first time in a long time it was possible. This does not bode well for the long-term health of the sea ice
The fact that the initial analysis of potential minimum ice extent and an ice-free pole did not come to pass reflects a cooler and cloudier summer that wasn’t as conducive to ice loss as it might have been. There will always be natural variations, with cooler than normal conditions possible for a time. However, despite the lack of extreme conditions, the minimum extent in 2008 is the second lowest ever and very close to last year. Most importantly, the 2008 minimum reinforces the long-term declining trend that is not due to natural climate fluctuations.
5. The June 2008 NSIDC web site entry mentioned that it is difficult to melt first year ice at very high latitudes. Is it possible that there is a lower practical bound to ice extent, based on the very short melt season and low angle of the sun near the North Pole?
It is unlikely that there is a lower bound to sea ice extent. One of the things that helped save this year from setting a record was that the seasonal ice was so far north and did not melt as much as seasonal ice at lower latitudes would. The North Pole, being the location that last sees the sun rise and first sees the sun set, has the longest “polar night” and shortest “polar day.” Thus, it receives the least amount of solar radiation in the Arctic. So there is less energy and less time to melt ice at the pole. However there is a feedback where the more ice that is melted, the easier it is to melt still more ice. This is because the exposed ocean absorbs more heat than the ice and that heat can further melt the ice. Eventually, we will get to a state where there is enough heat absorbed during the summer, even at the shorter summer near the pole, to completely melt the sea ice. Climate models have also shown that under warmer conditions, the Arctic sea ice will completely melt during summer.
6. GISS records show most of Greenland cooler today than 70 years ago. Why should we be concerned?
We should be concerned because the warming in Greenland of 70 years ago was part of the regional warming in the North Atlantic region discussed in questions 1 and 2 above. Seventy years ago one might expect temperatures to eventually cool as the regional climate fluctuated from a warmer state to a cooler state. The current Greenland warming, while not yet quite matching the temperatures of 70 years ago, is part of a global warming signal that for the foreseeable future will continue to increase temperatures (with of course occasional short-term fluctuations), in Greenland and around the world. This will eventually, over the coming centuries, lead to significant melting of the Greenland ice sheet and sea level rise with accompanying impacts on coastal regions.
7. Antarctica seems to be gaining sea ice, and eastern Antarctica is apparently cooling. Ocean temperatures in most of the Southern Hemisphere don’t seem to be changing much. How does this fit in to models which predicted symmetric NH/SH warming (i.e. Hansen 1980)? Shouldn’t we expect to see broad warming of southern hemisphere waters?
No. Hansen’s model of 1980 is no longer relevant as climate models have improved considerably in the past 28 years. Current models show a delayed warming in the Antarctic region in agreement with observations. A delayed warming is expected from our understanding of the climate processes. Antarctic is a continent surrounded on all sides by an ocean. Strong ocean currents and winds swirl around the continent. These act as a barrier to heat coming down from lower latitudes. The winds and currents have strengthened in recent years, partly in response to the ozone hole. But while most of the Antarctic has cooled, the one part of Antarctica that does interact with the lower latitudes, the Antarctic Peninsula – the “thumb” of the continent that sticks up toward South America – is a region that has undergone some of the most dramatic warming over the past decades.
Likewise, Antarctic sea ice is also insulated from the warming because of the isolated nature of Antarctica and the strong circumpolar winds and currents. There are increasing trends in Antarctic sea ice extent, but they are fairly small and there is so much variability in the Antarctic sea ice from year to year that is difficult to ascribe any significance to the trends – they could simply be an artifact of natural variability. Even if the increasing trend is real, this is not unexpected in response to slightly cooler temperatures.
This is in stark contrast with the Arctic where there are strong decreasing trends that cannot be explained by natural variability. These decreasing Arctic trends are seen throughout every region in every season. Because much of the Arctic has been covered by multiyear ice that doesn’t melt during the summer, the downward trend in the summer and the loss of the multiyear ice has a particularly big impact on climate. In contrast, the Antarctic has very little multiyear sea ice and most of the ice cover melts away completely each summer. So the impact of any Antarctic sea ice trends on climate is less than in the Arctic. There is currently one clearly significant sea ice trend in the Antarctic; it is in the region bordering the Antarctic Peninsula, and it is a declining trend.
Because the changes in Antarctic sea ice are not yet significant in terms of climate change, they do not receive the same attention as the changes in the Arctic. It doesn’t mean that Antarctic sea ice is uninteresting, unimportant, or unworthy of scientific study. In fact, there is a lot of research being conducted on Antarctic sea ice and several scientific papers have been recently published on the topic.
8. In January, 2008 the Northern Hemisphere broke the record for the greatest snow extent ever recorded. What caused this?
The large amount of snow was due to weather and short-term climate fluctuations. Extreme weather events, even extreme cold and snow, will still happen in a warmer world. There is always natural variability. Weather extremes are always a part of climate and always will be. In fact, the latest IPCC report predicts more extreme weather due to global warming. It is important to remember that weather is not climate. The extreme January 2008 snowfall is not a significant factor in long-term climate change. One cold, snowy month does not make a climate trend and a cold January last year does not negate a decades-long pattern of warming. This is true of unusually warm events – one heat wave or one low sea ice year does not “prove” global warming. It is the 30-year significant downward trend in Arctic sea ice extent, which has accelerated in recent years, that is the important indicator of climate change.
9. Sea Surface Temperatures are running low near southern Alaska, and portions of Alaska are coming off one of their coldest summers on record. Will this affect ice during the coming winter?
It is possible that this year there could be an earlier freeze-up and more ice off of southern Alaska in the Bering Sea due to the colder temperatures. But again, this represents short-term variability and says nothing about long-term climate change. I would also note that in the Bering Sea winds often control the location of the ice edge more than temperature. Winds blowing from the north will push the ice edge southward and result in more ice cover. Winds blowing from the south will push the edge northward and result in less total ice.
10. As a result of being bombarded by disaster stories from the press and politicians, it often becomes difficult to filter out the serious science from organisations like NSIDC. In your own words, what does the public need to know about the Arctic and its future?
I agree that the media and politicians sometimes sensationalize stories on global warming. At NSIDC we stick to the science and report our near-real-time analyses as accurately as possible. Scientists at NSIDC, like the rest of the scientific community, publish our research results in peer-reviewed science journals.
There is no doubt that the Arctic is undergoing dramatic change. Sea ice is declining rapidly, Greenland is experience greater melt, snow is melting earlier, glaciers are receding, permafrost is thawing, flora and fauna are migrating northward. The traditional knowledge of native peoples, passed down through generations, is no longer valid. Coastal regions once protected by the sea ice cover are now being eroded by pounding surf from storms whipped up over the ice-free ocean. These dramatic changes are Arctic-wide and are a harbinger of what is to come in the rest of the world. Such wide-ranging change cannot be explained through natural processes. There is a clear human fingerprint, through greenhouse gas emissions, on the changing climate of the Arctic.
Changes in the Arctic will impact the rest of the world. Because the Arctic is largely ice-covered year-round, it acts as a “refrigerator” for the earth, keeping the Arctic and the rest of the earth cooler than it would be without ice. The contrast between the cold Arctic and the warmer lower latitudes plays an important role in the direction and strength of winds and currents. These in turn affect weather patterns. Removing summer sea ice in the Arctic will alter these patterns. How exactly they will change is still an unresolved question, but the impacts will be felt well beyond the Arctic.
The significant changes in the Arctic are key pieces of evidence for global warming, but the observations from Arctic are complemented by evidence from around the world. That evidence is reported in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and thousands of peer-reviewed scientific journal articles.
Let me close by putting Arctic change and climate science within the broader scientific framework. Skepticism is the hallmark of science. A good scientist is skeptical. A good scientist understands that no theory can be “proven”. Most theories develop slowly and all scientific theories are subject to rejection or modification in light of new evidence, including the theory of anthropogenic climate change. Since the first thoughts of a possible human influence on climate over a hundred years ago, more and more evidence has accumulated and the idea gradually gained credibility. So much evidence has now been gathered from multiple disciplines that there is a clear consensus among scientists that humans are significantly altering the climate. That consensus is based on hard evidence. And some of the most important pieces of evidence are coming from the Arctic.
Mr. Goddard, through his demonstrated skeptical and curious nature, clearly has the soul of a scientist. I thank him for his invitation to share my knowledge of sea ice and Arctic climate. I also thank Anthony Watts for publishing my responses. It is through such dialogue that the public will hopefully better understand the unequivocal evidence for anthropogenic global warming so that informed decisions can be made to address the impacts that are already being seen in the Arctic and that will soon be felt around the world. And thanks to Stephanie Renfrow and Ted Scambos at NSIDC, and Jim Overland at the NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory for their helpful comments.
Thanks once again to Dr. Walt Meier from NSIDC. He has spent a lot of time answering these questions and many others, and has been extremely responsive and courteous throughout the process.
Joel Shore (06:53:53) You are using the argument to authority and that is not a logical fallacy when your authorities are right. It fails when they are wrong, and when you see that the IPCC report is actually the product of a small number of deluded scientists you will understand that your authorities fail on this subject. Your models mistake the climate sensitivity to CO2 by assuming positive feedbacks that are apparently not there. Why can’t the modelers re-examine their basic assumptions in the face of a cooling globe, and the spectacular failure of their models?
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The problem with the logic here is that the whole globe ISN’T warming. Parts are, parts aren’t. The idea of a global temperature is silly. All things are NOT equal.
Jeff:
Thanks for ‘glancing’ at one of the 53 papers cited. If you are interested, I have more available. However, I must reiterate one point which is being deliberately misrepresented:
At no time have I said that carbon dioxide has absolutely zero effect on temperature. The first ~20 ppmv of CO2 has a quite small, but measurable effect. However, doubling that atmospheric concentration has a smaller effect. Doubling it again has a still smaller effect. And the current <400 ppmv of CO2 has such a negligible effect on the Earth’s temperature, that its effect cannot be sorted out from the background noise. Many other feedbacks and forcings drown out the very, very tiny effect of additional increases in carbon dioxide. Keep in mind that atmospheric CO2 has exceeded 7,000 ppmv in the past without ever resulting in “runaway global warming.” In fact, substantial rises in CO2 are the result, not the cause, of rising temperature.
By misrepresenting this, Jeff and others are attempting to frame the argument in such a way as to claim that skeptics are denying any influence of CO2 whatever. This is not honest on their part.
Yes, CO2 has a negligible effect. No, CO2 will not cause runaway global warming — which is the specific scare tactic that has brought us to this point.
The climate alarmists make believe that the human-produced component of CO2 — a minor portion of a very minor trace gas — will shortly bring about climate catastrophe. That is their hypothesis.
Skeptical scientists disagree, since no credible mechanism for runaway global warming has withstood falsification. Always remember that those hypothesizing AGW/climate catastrophe have the burden of proving their case. They have abjectly failed to do so; the climate is well within normal historical parameters. In fact, despite rising CO2, the planet has been cooling for close to a decade.
Make no mistake: the climate alarmists’ hypothesis is not that CO2 has only a negligible effect on the planet’s temperature.
Rather, the alarmists are still trying to convince an increasingly skeptical public that human production of carbon dioxide will soon lead to runaway global warming and climate catastrophe.
That is their hypothesis. Because if their hypothesis were merely that an increase in CO2 would cause only a negligible rise in temperature, which is so very tiny that it can not be detected from the background noise, or from the planet’s natural emergence from the last Ice Age, then no one would pay any attention to them at all, and the $Billions in annual grant money to study the “problem” would quickly evaporate.
That is why the alarmists must continue to insist that the planet is on the verge of runaway global warming, and that only Al Gore, James Hansen, and the UN/IPCC can save us. The runaway global warming/AGW hypothesis is a financial scam, nothing more and nothing less. Unfortunately, we taxpayers are being bilked by these con men.
And those who attempt to misrepresent the situation will not get away with their sophistry here.
Slamdunk (11:25:48) .”If the science is so settled and AGW is a proven fact, as claimed by Al Gore, Hansen et al, why would IPCC Co-Lead Author Johathan Overpeck tell Prof. David Deming that they had to “get rid of” the MWP?”
They don’t claim AGW is a proven ‘fact’. AGW remains a theory supported by facts increase in CO2, melting in the arctic, increased ocean temperatures and sea level rise, etc. AGW will always remain a theory, if it were ‘proven’ it would then be considered a law, like the law of gravity, thermodynamics, etc. Perhaps this misunderstanding arises from talking about scientific ideas in lay terms. There is no doubt that many scientists consider the theory of AGW the best current explanation of the facts as we currently know them and are finding them. Sooner or later, the facts will reveal weaknesses and strengths in the AGW theory.
I wasn’t there when Overpeck allegedly said, ‘we’ll have to get rid of the MWP.’ Assuming a group scientists decided to conspire to make the MWP ‘disappear’ doesn’t make the MWP in reality disappear. Indeed, such a folly, if it was undertaken and let’s assume it was leaves the conspirators open to being discredited. So let’s see what happens. If the MWP was found once it can be found again, right. Verifiability. Repeatability. A means to challenge AGW. Perhaps the beginning of a good counter argument! It may not be a slamdunk, but if it’s there it’s there.
Dee Norris (11:34:18) “ It is not necessary to provide an alternate explanation for climate change in order to successfully falsify AGW.”
Your right. Often, additional facts will result in alternate explanations though and hopefully to more accurate understanding. A different understanding doesn’t stop melting in the arctic, droughts, shifting climate zones, increased ocean temps and sea level rise or the need to anticipate changes these realities will FORCE on society, changes that can’t be made quickly.
We are unwilling participants in an ongoing experiment that may be slipping beyond our control. We can dispute the ‘causes’ or the relative percentage of responsibility for the changes we are seeing, but that doesn’t change what we are seeing. A couple of interesting analogies apply. It has not been ‘proven’ that cigarettes cause cancer, yet the accumulation of facts (scientific evidence) eventually resulted in our accepting that they do and most importantly after much fighting, a societal response occurred. Unfortunately, we may not have enough time for an insurmountable amount of evidence to accumulate to get to the point where oil/coal CEOs testify to congress say they don’t believe that CO2 cause global warming the way cigarette CEOs said they didn’t believe cigarettes cause cancer while everyone was disgusted by their self-serving denial.
The second analogy is our current financial crisis. When the postmortem is done they are going to find instances of people warning this crisis was coming, it was foreseeable and preventable. Warren Buffett warned 5 years ago that derivatives were a “time bomb.” But, he and others were not heeded. Swap Hansen for Buffett, only the stakes are bigger, inertia and self-interest, and the possibility for delay and obfuscation, larger.
Robert in Calgary (11:59:58) In response to my saying one could find balanced and reasonable discussion at Real Climate Robert said, “Possibly….the most outlandish statement I have read on this site!”
If one has done much reading on climate change on the net, this is comment is simply baffling.
Michael Ingram (angrygodz@gmail.com) (12:24:09) It’s hard to pass up such low hanging fruit!
Michael, take the other 10 ice cubes from the tray and place them on a wooden board tilted slightly into bowl and watch them. Then watch them some more. Then watch them slide into the bowl and raise the level beyond the line you drew when you put other two cubes in the bowl. That’s because a good deal of the ice in this world in ON LAND.
Smokey (12:35:32) “It is the duty of those putting forth a hypothesis, such as catastrophic AGW, to prove their case.”
No, it isn’t.
It is a scientist’s duty to put forth the strongest factually based case they can. When I say ‘factually based’, I mean that other scientists who may or may not agree can then review the data and offer competing hypotheses and repeat experiments or recollect data using the alternate methods to validate or invalidate the original data. In science, nothing is ever ‘proven.’ Everything remains open to refutation. Certainly, some hypotheses are backed by so many verified facts that they gain the status of law, but even they can be modified when new facts or discoveries are made. Such is now happening in the field of physics – some of Einstein’s long standing hypotheses are being challenged in the light of new data and discoveries.
“The AGW/CO2/planetary disaster hypothesis is wrong. Cooling [is occurring], not warming, as they have so confidently predicted based on nothing more than their always-inaccurate computer models.”
If you have read Hansen and others they acknowledge the inaccuracies of computer models. Computer models tend to be several steps, if not many, behind, even so they can contribute to our understanding of the things they represent. Computer models will never take into account all the variables and their dynamic interactions with each other. It just is not going to happen. But, Hansen’s strongest argument comes from ice cores, geological and atmospheric data (REAL TESTABLE DATA). Those REAL things provide a record that takes into account all the variables and their dynamic interactions with each other something a computer model can NEVER do.
“To date, the proponents of AGW/CO2/planetary catastrophe have failed miserably in proving their hypothesis, which has been repeatedly falsified. Maybe you can do better. I await your proof.”
Wow. You must be aware of some hypotheses that explain the melting arctic, sea level and temperature rise, shifting climate zones, increased (overtime) global temperatures, etc. But more importantly, these hypotheses seem to relieve you of concern about the course of the changes you are witnessing on this planet. One wonders do you as a result of these hypotheses see any need to change the impact we are having on this planet or is our impact negligible?
One last word, it’s not about ‘proving’ anything. I shouldn’t have used that word in my post. It’s about make a case (hypothesis) that explains a set of facts, scientifically testable and verifiable, that is important and then evaluating how well each hypothesis fits with the facts. Then modifying that hypothesis as new facts and relationships are revealed. That’s what missing from those who oppose AGW – which is a fine, I think good thing to do because it forces a refinement of AGW. But just like cigarettes causing cancer has never been proven likewise AGW will never be proven. While bodies stacked up before action was taken on cigarettes, changes undeniably are occurring in our world.
Smokey (12:55:15) “As Einstein said,”To defeat relativity one did not need the word of 100 scientists, just one fact”
It’s not going to just take ‘one fact’ to disprove AGW. It’s going to take many that will stand up to scrutiny and explain the changes we are seeing and most importantly give us some idea what if anything to do about the changes we are seeing. I’ll look forward to reading the articles you cited.
Dodgy Geezer (15:27:41): With respect to what I am saying, I should clarify what I mean by ‘sniping’.
A sniper takes a shot at one fact or argument and then acts as if the whole theory is disproven – case closed. Like someone doing a drive-by they take off their deed done and claim ‘victory!’ Evil AGW is disproven!
Undoubtedly, there are mistaken understandings and new dynamics to be understood in AGW, that does not mean the idea that we are causing warming or can influence temperature is null and void and we can just walk away without responsibility for stewardship for our children’s and the planets and all that inhabit it futures.
“I have several times asked, on AGW boards, what would be accepted as constituting a disproval of AGW theory. I have never received an answer. If AGW supporters are not able to describe what would count as a ‘comprehensive undermining of AGW theory’, I am not sure how they would recognize one if we provided it.”
I can only speak for myself here. I don’t know what such a competing hypothesis would sound like. I know though that it would have to take data that AGW is based on and offer a plausible counter explanation and since many object to AGW’s claim of catastrophic changes that it should offer explanation for what’s happening now and project a different future, perhaps one where we breathe a sigh of relief followed by staggering incredulity that we had been so misled and hoodwinked by the scientific community at large. Also, this would no doubt mark a new era in science where every claim is left open to vigorous challenge – a sea change (no pun intended). Such a competing hypothesis would since it had corrected previous misunderstandings of AGW tell us what if anything we need to do about the changes we are seeing.
Jeff,
I am surprised that you are still confused about “pixel counting” despite numerous explanations. Being a patient person, I will try again.
Pixel counting is the most fundamental operation of a gigantic industry known as “image processing.” It is used in nearly every high tech field – any application which involves large or small scale images. Astronomers, nano-technologists, spy satellite surveillance, DNA sequencing, etc. all rely on pixel counting of low quality images. Dr. Meier tells me that NSIDC teaches their students pixel counting as a way to make “good rough estimate” of sea ice. Conversion from compressed to uncompressed image formats is a technology that was mastered decades ago.
You display an astonishing lack of knowledge in your seemingly endless discussion of this topic.
Jeff Alberts says:
This is the sort of manifestly incorrect statement that seems to thrive here. There is nothing in the climate models that says that the positive feedbacks such as the water vapor feedback and the ice albedo feedback, etc. operate only for CO2 warming and not on natural warming. They operate whatever is causing the warming (or, e.g., in the case of aerosols from volcanoes or man, cooling). The claim that these feedbacks are not also included in warmings due to natural processes is a complete and utter figment of your imagination.
In fact, the only people who I know of who have been trying to dream up positive feedbacks that operate only on specific processes are the skeptics who are desperately trying to come with a way to magnify the solar forcing through the cosmic ray hypothesis. This is because we have measurements that show the direct solar forcing is much smaller than the forcing due to CO2 and thus it is necessary to invoke a feedback process specific to solar only in order to be able to have any hope of having it dominate (and, even then, you have trouble getting the time-dependence right over the last half century or so).
kim says:
Kim, one can always come up with reasons to doubt the authorities and thus to ignore the scientific consensus. The creationists / intelligent design proponents do the exact same thing. I suggest you watch the movie “Expelled” to educate yourself on how close your tactics are to theirs.
As for the the modelers re-examining their assumptions, in fact they have been constantly examining their assumptions. E.g., Soden has done a lot of work testing the water vapor feedback against data, they are constantly looking at how the models are able to reproduce various events and aspects of the climate.
However, as I have noted before, the models have not failed. In fact, the models would have failed if we had not ever seen periods on the order of 8 years where the temperature trend was downward because the models quite clearly show that natural variability is large enough that over a long enough lenght of time such periods are highly likely to occur even in the face of steadily increasing greenhouse gas forcings. If such periods did not occur, we would have to conclude that the models overestimate natural variability. As it turns it, it appears that the models get natural variability at least approximately right. (“Approximately” because I doubt that there are the necessary statistics available to make rigorous quantitative comparisons between the natural variability seen in the models and that seen in reality.)
Dill Weed,
“It is a scientist’s duty to put forth the strongest factually based case they can. When I say ‘factually based’, I mean that other scientists who may or may not agree can then review the data and offer competing hypotheses and repeat experiments or recollect data using the alternate methods to validate or invalidate the original data.”
….and herein lies the very uneasy feeling that many scientists have about much of the AGW theory:
Steve Macintyre (and others) have made a career out of trying to obtain the data archives used by Hansen, Mann and others, in order that their hypotheses may subjected to the rigours of verification and repeatability of which you speak. For me any scientific hypothesis that fails to provide such data for wider scrutiny must be considered shaky at best. To date, the reluctance and, in some cases, downright refusal to release such data by prominent AGW scientists is (rightly I believe) cause enough for a healthy dose of scepticism, before any alternatives to the AGW explanation – of which there are many – need even be considered.
Until Hansen and others are willing to be transparent with their data and methodology, their conclusions should be treated with extreme caution, rather than celebrated by the media and used as policy cornerstones by governments that should know better.
Your own position seems reasonable to me although, for many reasons including the above, I can’t agree with your conclusions. Perhaps you could try and get your hands on some of the missing data and methodology – I’m sure Steve Macintyre for one would be most grateful!
This “debate” seems to be a dialogue of the deaf. Let’s cut to the chase! Ignoring all the downstream climate issues, most of which consist of pure guesswork, the most important item is the CO2 climate sensitivity. Skeptics say it is 0 to 1K and the IPCC says 1.5K to 4.5K. This latter value when used in the models gives 1K to 6K per century as output. So far so good, but the base theory gives only 1K without feedbacks and those larger values seem to come from an odd assortment of biased interpretations of unreliable, cherry-picked and ambiguous paleo data combined with some circular reasoning from the use of other models. The science behind these higher numbers is therefore not settled at all, except in the sense that few scientists are prepared to go against the mainstream. And, judging from the abuse the mavericks get, who can really blame them?
What we skeptics want to know is really quite reasonable – how well do the higher sensitivities compare to real world data? Without some proof, preferably of unadjusted data, then an honest scientist should conclude that 1K is the most likely value and the higher values are rather less likely. Don’t you warmers agree? The real problem though is that only a few scientists, not all of them skeptics I add, have even bothered to check this vital assumption and all such checks have reported that there isn’t any apparent positive feedback at all. That the majority of scientists (consensus if you like) ignore this and seem quite content with an unverified assumption is not a reason to trust them – it is a darn good reason to mistrust them. Worse still, the more strident activist/scientists conclude that the data must be wrong because it doesn’t agree with the models: Which is a nonsensical reversal of normal scientific practice!
In the face of this widespread scientific laxity on such an important issue, skeptics are naturally forced to conclude that the message is more important than the actual science. And that message is; “let’s stop using fossil fuels”. I’m not against this idea myself but I tend to be more realistic about it. What I really cannot figure out though is where this hatred of fossil fuel and car companies has come from. It is obviously a very recent phenomenon because most of you guys are probably two or three car families and commute longish distances. Is it guilt?
Dill Weed says:
Two comments on this:
(1) In fact, this is an extremely apt analogy since some of the very same tactics (and even some of the very same people, like Steven Milloy of JunkScience.com) that were involved in the campaign to raise doubt about the connection between cigarettes and cancer are now involved in the campaign to raise doubt about AGW.
(2) As to your comment regarding CEOs of oil and coal companies, in fact we have already waited so long that many of the the oil companies now accept the science on AGW! (The coal companies maybe less so, since coal is the worst energy source from the point of view of greenhouse gas emissions.) You might want to check out what BP and Shell have to say about climate change on their corporate websites. Even Exxon/Mobil, the oil company that has been fueling the organizations that spread doubt about the science of AGW, is no longer flatly denying that AGW is a potentially significant problem, at least publicly. Most of the people contributing on this website are considerably behind the oil companies in their acceptance of the science of AGW.
Counters wrote:
I’m sorry, but this simply isn’t correct. Models aren’t created on the premise that if they can “fit to data from 1980 to 2008,” they might have “predictive ability.” A climate model is not some statistical program which generates trends from previous data.
Really. From Environmental Modelling & Software Volume 23 , Issue 6 (June 2008):
In the last 10 years, downscaling techniques, both dynamical (i.e. Regional Climate Model) and statistical methods, have been developed to obtain fine resolution climate change scenarios. In this study, an automated statistical downscaling (ASD) regression-based approach inspired by the SDSM method (statistical downscaling model) developed by Wilby, R.L., Dawson, C.W., Barrow, E.M. [2002. SDSM – a decision support tool for the assessment of regional climate change impacts, Environmental Modelling and Software 17, 147-159] is presented and assessed to reconstruct the observed climate in eastern Canada based extremes as well as mean state. In the ASD model, automatic predictor selection methods are based on backward stepwise regression and partial correlation coefficients.
And from the article “Constraining climate model properties using optimal fingerprint detection methods” by Forest, Allen, Sokolov, and Stone:
We compare the height-latitude pattern of temperature changes as simulated by the MIT 2D model with observed changes, using optimal fingerprint detection statistics. Using a linear regression model as in Allen and Tett this approach yields an objective measure of model-observation goodness-of-fit (via the residual sum of squares weighted by differences expected due to internal variability). The MIT model permits one to systematically vary the model’s climate sensitivity (by varying the strength of the cloud feedback) and rate of mixing of heat into the deep ocean and determine how the goodness-of-fit with observations depends on these factors.
While a climate model may be a “sophisticated array of the physics equations and dynamics”, regression analysis is used to fit existing measurements to the model.
The result of parameterizing the functions is not really to train it to produce data from the 1980-2008 period, but to calibrate it the current condition of the climate.
This might not be the stated intention, but it is in effect the means to the end.
A final note: Climate models are not used to ‘predict the future.’ a Climate model is not numerical weather prediction.
Wow, I wish others understood this. For example from the “American Geophysical Union”:
http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/prrl/prrl0312.html
By the end of the 21st century, the authors state, the increase in carbon dioxide and decrease of sulphates will cause a substantially higher global warming of 5.5 degrees Celsius [9.9 degrees Fahrenheit].
Joel Shore wrote:
So, the global cooling myth rears its head once again.
http://www.dailytech.com/NASA+James+Hansen+and+the+Politicization+of+Science/article9061.htm
“In 1971, Hansen wrote his first climate model, which showed the world was about to experience severe global cooling. NASA colleagues used it to warn the world that immediate action was needed to prevent catastrophe.”
Joel,
Good answer on the ‘block of ice’. It stresses the importance of a temperature trend, rather than a point temperature. Although my understanding of the graphs is that a closer illustration would be taking a block of ice out of the freezer in 1998 and putting it in front of a fire, then putting it in a warm chiller, and slowly turning the temperature down. The surprising thing is that we got a melt of the size we did, not when global temperatures were at their highest, but only when they had dropped back to the same levels as the 1980s….
You commented that:
The point is that if one is unwilling to ever accept the conclusions of scientific authorities on the matter, the debate can go on forever. Do you think that the fact that there is still considerable debate on the web (including by some people who are scientists and engineers) in regards to evolution means that there is legitimate scientific evidence against it?
This is a common argument to make. But you must be aware that there is considerable evidence of manipulation and suppression of evidence for some aspects of AGW, which is absent in the field of evolution?
The hockey stick is a good example – if M&M’s initial paper had been accepted for publishing, considered fairly, and the BCP evidence withdrawn or redone, there would probably have been none of the detailed later examination of the maths which uncovered all the further problems. Instead, Mann elected to suppress dissent and not co-operate with any examination of his work. No wonder people think there is something wrong if the first response is to hide!
This blog itself started the same way. Mr Watts had a theory about latex paint which might have required a minor correction to the temperature data. While researching this, he uncovered so many major discrepancies in weather stations that the whole data-set was called into question. If NASA had initially thanked him, and then run their own audit, correcting sites where necessary, there would have been no ‘Watts up with that?’. But they seem anxious to show that facts we know are true do not exist!
When geneticists or paeleontologists consider evolution, they are open abbout their data. So no one feels the need to suspect or audit it. They welcome investigation and testing of the hypothesis – it makes it stronger when it survives attack. By contrast, AGW supporters such as Hansen stand up in public and announce that no one should now question his findings – the subject is closed. Can you wonder that suspicion is rampant?
I cannot understand why the AGW team seem to want to defend the indefensible. It simply encourages opposition. I suspect that it is because AGW is possible, but not proven, and a lot of people believe that, by the time it is able to be proven, it would be too late to reverse it. So, rather than explain this position accurately, they pretend it is already proven to speed up the response. Unfortunately, if they exaggerate, manipulate or suppress evidence to show this and are found out they are likely to fail totally…
Joel Shore–the models have failed. The temperatures over the last 10yrs are not even in line with Hansens’ 1988 projection of scenario C . Gavin at Realclimate refuses to invoke any testable cases as suggested by Pielke. Climate models are worthless.
Joel Shore (08:45:30) Oh, hogwash. The models have failed and comparing my arguments with the Creationists is a nasty tactic and typical of you true believers.
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I wonder what a blog like this would have looked like when the concensus did not consider plate tectonics and continental drift to be correct.
When did we ever have “control”? You make it obvious what this is all about. As for “melting in the arctic, droughts, shifting climate zones, increased ocean temps and sea level rise”, these things have always happened and always will happen, as will their opposites. There’s no evidence that what “we’re seeing” is unprecedented or due to a specific human-induced factor. That’s just a fact.
Joel Shore wrote:
Excuse me, Joel, but your insistence that I was talking about climate models is a complete and utter figment of your imagination. I never mentioned them. What other mechanism would you like to invoke besides CO2, since it’s obviously not cutting the mustard?
Jeff Alberts says:
What sophistry! While it may be technically true that you never mentioned climate models, you said: “Actually I think the claim is that CO2 warming (but mysteriously not ‘natural’ warming) triggers other positive feedbacks causing a runaway effect.” If the climate models that are used to predict the reaction to the climate from natural and anthropogenic effects include positive feedbacks independent of the warming mechnism, then your statement about such feedbacks not being invoked when talking about natural warming is manifestly incorrect. (By the way, the term “runaway effect” is usually reserved to mean an instability rather than just a magnification of the warming by the feedbacks. No serious scientist that I know of is claiming a real runaway effect will occur.)
Dodgy Geezer:
And, do you seriously not think that the opponents of evolution make the same sort of claims?!? For heaven’s sake, watch “Expelled”!
John B says:
Do you seriously think that finding a blog that repeats a lie counts as evidence? That sentence you quote is garbage from start to finish. As near as I can tell, they are referring to a 1971 paper by Rasool and Schneider. They are associating it with Hansen because he provided them with code to do some Mie theory scattering calculations. They might as well have said Newton predicted global cooling since I am sure that paper also relied on calculus.
As for “warn[ing] the world that immediate action was needed to prevent catastrophe”, if you actually read that paper, you will find that it did nothing of the sort. It admitted to being a first attempt to determine which effect would dominate: the cooling effect of aerosol pollutants or the warming effect of greenhouse gases. For various reasons (including some errors in determining the relative effects along with not realizing that we would soon pass laws like the Clean Air Act that reduce sulfate aerosols), they concluded that cooling would dominate.
However, they did not make any suggestion that immediate action was needed. In fact, in a very contrite reply to a comment on their paper, they not only agreed with the commenter that his criticism was potentially valid but they pointed out that there were other even more important deficiencies in their model. So, even if Rasool and Schneider were the only two scientists on the planet, it would be an exaggeration to claim that they were in consensus regarding global cooling…as they were acutely aware of the limitations of their work. Once you add in the rest of the scientific community, the claim that such a consensus existed becomes laughable since there were still more papers arguing for warming than cooling.
Dill Weed (07:35:02)
Thank you for your calm explanation of your views. Although I do appreciate your thoughts, I do disagree with your conclusion. I am not waiting with bated breath for an alternative explanation to CO2-induced global warming. I can offer a dozen other explanations on why temperatures (and our measurement of temperatures) have moved the way that they have. There is nothing unusual occurring that cannot be explained by emergence from LIA, oscillations, volcanoes, solar variances, land use changes, tilts, orbits and so forth. (By the way, I do acknowledge the laboratory / theoretical / isolated impact of CO2 as a “greenhouse” gas; but the concept of a positive feedback loop is far from proven and the evidence seems to suggest otherwise.) The IPCC acknowledges that there are various items in which they are unclear, and in other items I believe they express far more certainty than is warranted. It reminds me of those who were so certain the there were no problems in how the mortgage and financial industries were being handled in the last 10 years.
I do not believe that we being hoodwinked and misled the scientific community at large. We as a society are hoodwinking ourselves — such as in the Duke LaCrosse case. There are plenty of scientists and analysts who are pointing out the weak points in IPCC models and data. Will we listen to them any more than we listened to those who warned us of sub-prime and subsequent financial packaging? The last time I saw, a solid majority of meteorologists did not see CO2-induced GW as a significant problem. I will grant you that the strongest argument in favor of AGW is the sheer numbers of scientific organization leaderships who say that we must control CO2 emissions. Nevertheless, I suspect that what we see is the product of activists rather than objective discussion of the dispassionate scientists.
There have been improvements in GCM – I was involved in studying them back in the 1980s, and the improvements should be acknowledged. Yet, they are not nearly in a position to be basis for massive policy decisions. Rather than a “sea change,” I anticipate continuous improvement as new observations force models to modify perceived relationships. Perhaps there is a potential for a “sea change” if the models truly were independent of a presumption of CO2-induced positive feedback GW.
JamesG (08:50:32) :
“This “debate” seems to be a dialogue of the deaf.”
“Fossil” fuels are the villain of the piece, but what is the piece? Policy makers have decided that mankind is a virus. The virus must be stamped out. The processes for doing so are becoming more obvious as time progresses.
CO2 was singled out for a couple of reasons.
The science of the greenhouse effect is …. beset with difficulties.
Climate will thwart modelling by current technology and for the foreseeable future – just ask a Computational Fluid Dynamicist with a wind tunnel and large budget set aside for creating a “better” aerofoil for the aeronautical, or racing industries.
It pleases to twist the giver of all life into the harbinger of doom for profit and maybe just to prove you are so powerful that you can. Fiction can be fun.
Handily, taxation is a by-product of the drive to demonize progress and this flow of money and power away from individuals and industry toward government is blinding the aforementioned deaf.
I just finished listening to the NASA broadcast on Ulysses. The solar wind has dropped by 25% and the panel see no upswing in the pipeline. There is no replacement planned. You may be sure, however, that something is planned and is probably not to your benefit. Or mine. Or humanity as a whole’s.
We obviously do not need to study the Sun any further even if it were to cost one millionth (I kid you not) of the proposed outlay to ward off the vagaries of the very climate it modulates.
Let us not spend a few million carrying on the study of our major source of heat. Let us spend trillions mitigating that which is NOT coming folks.
Follow the money. The places and people it is leaking from, and those where it is accumulating.
Cold. Soon. Very both.
Dodgy Geezer: – This is a common argument to make. But you must be aware that there is considerable evidence of manipulation and suppression of evidence for some aspects of AGW, which is absent in the field of evolution?
And, do you seriously not think that the opponents of evolution make the same sort of claims?!? For heaven’s sake, watch “Expelled”!
Joel, I cannot tell what you are arguing here. You are rejecting my argument without addressing it. Are you really arguing that, because creationists claim they have been unreasonably treated, no other claim of unreasonable treatment anywhere in the world will be countenanced? Surely there is a need to examine such claims on their merits?
Perhaps you are claiming that there has been no manipulation and suppression of evidence against various aspects of AGW which later turned out to be correct? If that is the case, the hockey-stick saga surely shows that there is manipulation of data, on a grand scale, to support AGW, which was later shown to have been false. Dr. Ian Jolliffe is surely a suitably independent judge?
Dill Weed,
Thanks for your input.
Yes, I have come across (and suffered from) the approach you call the ‘sniper’. As you see above, sometimes an implied analogy with creationism is seen as enough to reject an argument! But I am intrigued by your obvious belief that AGW is an all-encompassing theory, similar in spread and explaining power to evolution. Most sceptics would see it as a quite specific set of proposals which are critically dependent on some individual facts. Climate sensitivity, for example. If this were proven to be 0.3 or lower, would not this ‘single shot’ disprove AGW? So surely some sniper shots are valid points to make?
Your comments about responsibility and stewardship give the impression you see this as a religion rather than a scientific theory. This is reinforced by your view of a competing hypothesis, which would have to offer explanation for what’s happening now and project a different future, perhaps one where we breathe a sigh of relief...
Why can’t we just say “it’s weather”? Are you really saying that to disprove AGW one must create a GCM which predicts historical temperature change assuming a sensitivity of 0.3? I believe that there is no one GCM which, even with the benefit of hindsight, accurately predicts all temperatures in the historical record…
I’m sure I’m late to the game here, but this seems related:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/09/23/arctic.ice/index.html
My comment didn’t show up, so apologize if this is duplicative. Seems this is relevant to this thread:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/09/23/arctic.ice/index.html
Male Polar Bears are notorious for killing other bears. Females stay as far away from them as possible, except during rutting season. The CNN article is grossly misleading, and a good example of question 10 above.