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 Shaw:
In response to my correct statement saying:
“Firstly, no prediction – n.b. not one – of the AGW hypothesis is observed in the data.”
You assert:
“Yes…They have been. For example, one prediction is that the troposphere will warm while the stratosphere cools, which is very different than what would occur if the warming were due to an increase in solar irradiance, and matches what has been observed. Another is that the arctic will warm faster than it warms closer to the equator. A third is that the day – night temperature differences will tend to decrease.”
Taking your above claims in turn:
1.
“one prediction is that the troposphere will warm while the stratosphere cools, which is very different than what would occur if the warming were due to an increase in solar irradiance, and matches what has been observed”
Wrong. Your dispute is an extreme form of cherry picking. The AGW prediction is a pattern of temperature change in the atmosphere that includes troposphere warming especially at altitude in the tropics and stratosphere cooling. The stratosphere has cooled, but so what? The pattern of temperature change in the atmosphere that AGW predicts has not happened.
And whether or not stratospheric cooling is consistent with something other than AGW is not relevant to the fact that the pattern of temperature change in the atmosphere that AGW predicts has not happened.
2.
“Another is that the arctic will warm faster than it warms closer to the equator.”
Wrong. Your dispute is another example of extreme cherry picking. The AGW prediction is that polar regions will warm faster than it warms closer to the equator. There are two polar regions and the Antarctic is cooling. That the Arctic is warming does not refute the fact that the prediction of cooling polar regions (n.b. both of them) is not happening.
3.
“A third is that the day – night temperature differences will tend to decrease.”
Wrong. Cherry picking again. And this time it is combined with a misunderstanding. Any global warming from any cause induces a reduction to day-night temperatures. The reduction to day-night temperatures is a predicted effect of increased surface heating: it is NOT a prediction of AGW. There is a limit to maximum surface temperatures in the tropical warm pool (first determined by Ramanathan & Collins, Nature, v351, 27-32 (1991) and subsequently confirmed by several others). This limit to surface temperature results from increased surface heating inducing increased evapouration (which cools the surface) with resulting increase to cloud cover (that reflects more solar energy as every sunbather has noticed). Similar increase to surface cooling by evapouration can be expected – but to a lesser degree – wherever there is surface moisture except in polar regions. So, increased heating raises temperatures but the temperatures rise is inhibited to greater degree for warmer temperatures. It follows from this that coolest regions will warm most and night-time temperatures will rise more than day-time temperatures (because on average nights are cooler than days)
Having made those errors, you quote me saying:
“Secondly, the warm hot spot in the troposphere is absent: in fact, cooling is present in that region of the troposphere. But that pattern has to be present if AGW induced by enhanced GH is present.
It matters not whether other effects “control climate” because the absence of the ‘hot spot’ demonstrates the absence of AGW.”
And you dispute that saying:
“No. As I have said a million times on this website and will probably have to say a million times more, the amplification of temperature trends or fluctuations as you go up in the tropical troposphere is NOT a prediction specific to AGW as the mechanism causing the warming. It is a prediction that follows from the basic physics of moist adiabatic lapse rate theory and is expected independent of the mechanism causing the warming.”
Iteration of an assertion does not prove the correctness of the assertion. But it is important to note that all the GCM predictions of AGW show the ‘warm spot’; see the CCSP report available at
http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/sap/sap5-1/final-report/sap5-1-final-all.pdf
And the ‘warm spot’ is absent.
Importantly, if you were right to say that the warm spot “is a prediction that follows from the basic physics of moist adiabatic lapse rate theory and is expected independent of the mechanism causing the warming” then its absence would be evidence for absence of warming. But warming is a prediction of AGW so absence of the ‘warm spot’ is a refutation of AGW whether or not you re right.
I repeat what I said at
http://www.tech-know.eu/uploads/AGW_hypothesis_disproved.pdf
“The above list provides a complete refutation of the AGW-hypothesis according to the normal rules of science: i.e.
Nothing the hypothesis predicts is observed in the empirical data and the opposite of the hypothesis’ predictions is observed in the empirical data.”
Richard
Norm (22:39:45) :
“If the current cooling trend is a sign of AGW, what would have to happen to signal the IPCC to stop pushing AGW?”
The body would need to be dissolved.
One may as well expect Albert to give back his fantasy fiction award.
And his Nobel.
And his $100,000,000
John Philips (22:15:33) :
“…..the title IPCC Expert Reviewer can be used by anyone asked to view the draft report or who submitted a comment, even unsolicited, to the review process?”
Ahhhh. Is that how “2500 scientists” sign off on complete junk?
Brendan H (18:40:56) :
“Dodgy Geezer: “In support of this aim, and in recognition of Dr. Meier’s attitude, I think that Anthony should make a particular effort to weed insulting, off-topic, or plain ‘denial’ posts from this thread.”
Well said. The peanut gallery should be closed on threads like this. It’s not as if they’re saying anything new or original, and there are plenty of other threads for mindless politicking.”
Hmmm. New…..original…..mindless……pot…kettle…etc
In The News:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/09/080922-permafrost.html
“Estimated to be at least 740,000 years old, the wedges of Canadian ice illustrate the longevity and resiliency of deeper permafrost during warmer climates of the past, they say.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/sep/23/climatechange.scienceofclimatechange
“The new research confirms that the world has cooled slightly since 2005, but says this is down to a weather phenomena called La Niña, when cold water rises to the surface of the Pacific Ocean.”
This is your guardian speaking… Come baaa ck to the fold.
Smokey: “…your evidence supporting the catastrophic AGW hypothesis.”
The IPCC offers a number of climate change scenarios for this century, not all of them “catastrophic”. The evidence for AGW covers a number of areas: increases in CO2 levels, overall warming, a rise in sea levels, falls in snow cover, receding glaciers, a decrease in Arctic ice, earlier springs, treelines moving towards the poles. These are covered in the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report.
http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/ar4-syr.htm,
Of course, these indicators will undergo the normal fluctuations attributable to weather. What is important is the long-term trend, and to date the long term favours AGW.
“Catastrophic AGW has been repeatedly falsified. It keeps coming back like Mann’s discredited Hockey Stick for one reason: $Billions in annual grant money.”
You are claiming here that AGW – “catastrophic” or otherwise – cannot be happening because scientists gain grant money. And of course this is a nonsensical proposition, both a non-sequitur and an ad hominen. Grant money may exercise a powerful grip on your imagination, but its power does not extend to influencing the climate.
Tom in Florida: “Why not restrict every thread to just those that can prove they have accredited knowledge of the thread subject?”
That’s up to the people who run this show. When I referred to the “peanut gallery” I was referring to peanut throwers, not genuine knowledge seekers. As I said, there’s plenty of opportunity for letting off steam on other threads. The NSIDC scientist took time to answer in detail a number of questions. I see no problem in providing a courteous hearing.
A few responses…
@Jeff
To claim that if the change attributed to CO2 is less than that caused by natural forcings is proof that the change could not have actually been caused by CO2 seems to me to require randomness in climate change. ..
No, Jeff, I think you misunderstand me. Misunderstandings of positions seem to be very common in this game, possibly because we try to talk in isolation about a complex phenomenon in a few sentences. I was NOT saying that this proves that ‘no change was caused by CO2’. I was talking about the ‘whole AGW hypothesis’ being disproven, NOT CO2 warming.
I don’t think that anyone doubts the theoretical physics – that increasing CO2 in an atmosphere increases temperatures somewhat (leaving aside the practical issue of whether it may just go into a sink and have no effect on temperature). But that projected warming is small. The AGW hypothesis claims that CO2 feedback exists, and that it is powerful. So if this powerful effect is shown not to exist, I would say that the hypothesis is disproved.
@joel
Thanks for the reference. It will take time for me to look through and examine all the issues in more than 450 responses, however!
Your comments about 8 and 16 years are of interest – When I eyeball various datasets I do get an impression that much of the data conforms to an approximate 30-year sine wave cycle, which would obviously have trends at 7.5 and 15 years. I was taken with one comment in your reference:
“The problem with the models is that their error bars are so huge, compared to the trend that they are intended to predict, that they basically cannot be falsified during the academic lifetime of their creators, no matter what happens.”
which seemed to match a comment of mine! I see that 20 years is voiced as a point at which you can be fairly sure the weather signal is well suppressed – this suggests that looking at data from 1988 onwards is a reasonable thing to do, and that seems to show a step change.
@Tom,
Well said. The peanut gallery should be closed on threads like this. It’s not as if they’re saying anything new or original, and there are plenty of other threads for mindless politicking….
As a probable member of your peanut gallery, I take quick offense of your nobler than thou attitude. You have your peer reviewed articles and conferences to do your discussions, we do not. Why not restrict every thread to just those that can prove they have accredited knowledge of the thread subject? If you do not want to read a comment, then don’t. You know which posters to overlook…”
Although not initially addressed, I feel I must jump in here. I never proposed that only people with ‘accredited’ knowledge should post in this thread, nor that the whole of the blog should be ‘cleansed’. I just suggested that, for the one thread where Dr. Meier was giving us the benefit of his expert opinion, we should leave off posts such as “Dr. Meier is an idiot”, or “What about cosmic rays?”. Note that I do not call any such posts ‘peanuts’. Some may be rude and thoughtless, some may be insulting but clever, some may be insightful but off the subject. I was suggesting, for this one thread only, that we confine ourselves to polite comment on only the 10 questions, to assist Dr. Meier in his responses.
I have posted on uniformly hostile boards before – it is impossible to cover single precise issues in detail when people are impolite, agressive, or wander widely from the topic. Science advances with communication, not disparagement…
Phil: Now you’re playing games.
In response to Kim’s comment, you wrote initially at 5:40:07 yesterday, “A cool phase PDO leads to increased sea temperatures in the N Pacific so you’d expect it to enhance melting.” I commented to you and Kim, but you, not Kim, elected to reply and you did so in a condescending manner. Example: “It’s not an accident they named it ‘cool’ phase and ‘warm’ phase, there is a temperature correlation there, just not where you’re looking.” I let that remark slide…then.
Now you write to me in response to my last comment at 15:59:20, “You appear to be obsessing about the PDO index, not something I mentioned.” Again, you’re playing games. Also, I don’t appreciate the implication of your last remark. I’m not obsessed with the PDO. I’m simply illustrating that you misunderstand the PDO or misrepresent it. My motivation is that simple. Nothing more. Nothing less.
Clearly you’d forgotten that YOU had previously written about the PDO, which was why I commented in the first place and which was why you responded to that comment at 13:14:48 with: “Not if you’re trying to correlate with the Pacific, 0º-65ºN, however if you look at the Pacific from about 30ºN you’ll see a difference, see the illustration I posted: http://jisao.washington.edu/pdo/ earlier. It’s not an accident they named it ‘cool’ phase and ‘warm’ phase, there is a temperature correlation there, just not where you’re looking”.
I then provided three graphs of SST anomaly data for the North Pacific at various latitudes to illustrate your misunderstanding.
In your most current comment to me, you go on to quote Nathan Mantua of JISAO, “Typical surface climate anomaly patterns for warm phases of PDO are shown in Figure 1. SSTs tend to be anomalously cool in the central North Pacific coincident with unusually warm sea surface temperatures (SSTs) along the west coast of the Americas.” To which you add, “Clearly Mantua thinks that SSTs correlate with the phase of the PDO, how the PDO Index is calculated is not germane to its effects.”
But what YOU FAIL to recognize is that Mantua is discussing PATTERNS of SST that TEND to take a certain form. He’s not talking about SST anomaly. And YOU FAIL to understand that I’m talking about SST anomaly, not SST patterns. This has apparently been the underlying problem with your replies to me all along.
Again, the PDO is not what you think it is.
You probably have also failed to notice that in the three most recent North Pacific SST graphs I linked, North Pacific SSTs have been dropping for the last four years. I’ll post them again.
30 to 65N (the latitudes you suggested)
http://i34.tinypic.com/bgd4y.jpg
20 to 65N (10 deg latitude more)
http://i37.tinypic.com/98ygit.jpg
40 to 65N (10 deg latitude more)
http://i38.tinypic.com/2ljpa9e.jpg
In all three graphs, North Pacific SSTs peaked 2004, which implies the North Pacific would have had less contribution to the Arctic sea ice decline in 2007 and 2008 than it did in 2004. It also implies that the North Pacific has not been contributing to global warming for the last 4 years.
If the PATTERN of the PDO is providing any contribution to any elevation in Arctic Sea SSTs, then it would be visible at the Bering Strait, since the North Pacific only interacts directly with the Arctic Sea at the Bering Strait. But the Bering Sea SST anomalies have also been decreasing since 2004, which also implies the Bering Sea would have had less contribution to the Arctic sea ice decline in 2007 and 2008 than it did in 2004.
http://i33.tinypic.com/2eb9wqu.jpg
Phil, again, in response to Kim’s comment, you wrote, “A cool phase PDO leads to increased sea temperatures in the N Pacific so you’d expect it to enhance melting.” You clearly misunderstand the PDO or intentionally misrepresent its effects. Either way, you’ve missed something.
For factual questions, I agree that the key question is about the evidence that leads him to believe that the current arctic warming is global while the previous comparable warming was regional. Beyond that, soot seems like a reasonable second area.
In terms of interpretation rather than facts (I suspect he will refuse to answer this but it might still be worth asking) I would like his opinion on whether, given only the records for the last 100 years of arctic temperatures and ice levels one would deduce that the arctic is currently experiencing unprecedented and alarming warming, or is the present warming only alarming when interpreted within the framework of the current global warming consensus. In other words, does the current arctic melt provide independent grounds for concern, or is it only concerning as part of the AGW package?
“Perhaps that should cause you to wonder if it is you, rather than Dr. Meier, who is out of step with his fellow scientists.”
Oh, by all means! Where would science be if scientists ever fell out of step with the apparatchiki?
Andy W (23:56:52) You have a point, but I believe this year’s maximum will be less than last year’s because this winter will be milder than last. I’m on a thin twig of a speculative branch. Were the cooling steady, my speculation wouldn’t make sense, but it isn’t. Still, I base these on the notion that Arctic Ice will be a proxy for global temperature, when I know that local conditions often predominate.
John Philips (23:48:07) Think of this: If the PDO phase is 30 years and you call a trend just at the end of one of its 30 year phases, then you will always be wrong about the next 30 years. Nice, huh? Also, why waste so much breath on your gigantic ad hominem about Richard. It’s possible to demonstrate your fallacious logic with much greater brevity.
Phil. (00:11:20) In case you’ve conveniently forgotten, all the hullaballoo and intemperate and extravagant speech last year was about ice extent. It’s only fair to continue about the same metric. How come you didn’t bring up ice volume?
Bob Tisdale (03:46:21) This is absolutely typical of Phil. He’s very bright, knows his stuff superlatively, but lies constantly by omission. Very dangerous to count on him. And frankly, the good Doctor Mieir seems cut from the same cloth.
Jeff (22:05:08) See lucia’s Blackboard at rankexploits.com for disconfirmation of the IPCC’s prediction of 0.2 degrees Celsius temperature rise per decade, and derivatively of their central contention about climate sensitivity to CO2. You don’t have to be convinced, but lots of people see that huge questions are raised.
Norm (22:45:39) Pachauri, head of the IPCC, has already publicly wondered if someone ‘got their sums wrong’. Incidentally, the IPCC was chartered to investigate and deal with man’s effect on climate, not to understand climate more generally. Sadly, in a throwback to a superstitious world, they fastened on a miniscule and chimeric effect of man, and have completely missed the boat about land use changes and its effect on climate.
I’m afraid that it will take a disastrous spell of cold weather to bring the IPCC and the ‘Hockey Team’ to their senses. Denial is not just a river in Egypt, etc., etc. Incidentally an elegant study shows a correlation from antiquity between aurorae and Nile River levels. We sun worshippers go way back.
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kim says:
Actually, a significant number of them show cooling over any particular short timescale of, say, 8 years or so. So, when you consider an 8 year timescale like the last 8 years, there is a significant probability that it will have a negative trend. And, if you consider, say, a time period of 30 years and ask whether some of the 8 year time periods contained within it will show a negative trend, the answer is that this is not only possible but in fact extremely likely according to the climate models.
As for verification, you might want to look at the chapter in the IPCC report that is devoted to a discussion of how the models are tested.
Aazure says:
Using this logic, I could also conclude by going out on the internet that evolution is not a fact but merely a hypothesis. And, the notion that the World Trade Center buildings fell down because of the planes hitting them rather than because of, say, explosive charges being set, is also not a fact but merely a hypothesis.
Rather, I think what all of the argument (in light of the universal agreement among scientific bodies like the IPCC, the National Academy of Sciences, etc.) demonstrates is how strongly people will be unwilling to believe something that goes against their strongly-held beliefs.
Jeff says:
Also, was this the same paper by those authors that reached incorrect conclusions because they mixed up radians and degrees? See here: http://timlambert.org/2004/08/mckitrick6/
Boy, those papers falsifying AGW theory are really quite impressive once you take a look at them! 😉
It seems to me that the relevant aspect of AGW theory here can be summarized thus:
Increased levels of CO2 will cause amplified global warming which will cause arctic ice to melt.
Given that global temperatures have not risen over the last 5 or 10 years, I don’t see how melting ice in the arctic over the same time period is evidence of anything. Can somebody enlighten me?
(05:07:34) Sorry, Joel, I’ve seen the spaghetti graphs and something like two of the twenty graphs show a short cooling trend possible. The mass of them don’t see it at all. Also, I’m sorry, but I’m not taking the IPCC’s word on anything, particularly about testing of their circular logic models. You do know that that the IPCC’s reports are written by a small coterie of some 50 scientists, and its misleading Summary for Policymakers by a small fraction of that number, don’t you? It’s bogus, and that’s why they’ve completely missed the boat about the present cooling.
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@brazil84:
If you are heating water and the pot starts to simmer, you can back off the heat to prevent a full-boil. The pot continues to simmer, but the temperature stays the same. Only by further decreasing the heat into the system, will the pot cool further.
Note: Before I get hammered, I know this is a sloppy analogy because in it we are dealing with a phase transition and the temperature of the water will never rise above 100C.
brazil84 (05:30:02) You ask an excellent question which I can’t answer. I suspect that last years melting was the last gasp of the recent warming finally working its North, but that implies a lag at which I’m just guessing.
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Joel Shore:
This thread is about Dr Meir’s gracious response to questions. In that context, you are being offensive when you say:
“Rather, I think what all of the argument (in light of the universal agreement among scientific bodies like the IPCC, the National Academy of Sciences, etc.) demonstrates is how strongly people will be unwilling to believe something that goes against their strongly-held beliefs.”
Scientists assess available information and reach judgements on the basis of the weight they put on the parts of that information. And scientists are people, so their weightings differ and therefore they reach different conclusions. But, being scientists, they dispute each others conclusions by clearly stating those conclusions and how they reached them, then challenging the underlying data and each others weightings of that data.
The different conclusions are not “beliefs”. They are considered evaluations that can be changed by alteration of (i.e. addition to or refutation of) the available data.
Indeed, this refusal of scientists to accept “beliefs” is why the practice of ‘cherry picking’ data is reprehensible to science: the cherry picking distorts any challenge of the underlying data and each others weightings of that data.
All scientists understand that their present understandings of anything could need amendment in the light of additional evidence. I interpret Dr Meir’s answers to indicate that he concludes the available data confirms the AGW paradigm. But I conclude that the available data refutes the AGW paradigm. Such matters need to be debated: such is science. Many scientists conclude the same as Dr Meir and many others conclude as I do.
Eventually, the science – including robust but honest debate – will reveal which of these conclusions is right or most nearly right.
Until then, relying on authorities “like the IPCC, the National Academy of Sciences, etc.” is offensive to all honest scientists (including Dr Meir) who engage in the scientific debate. And relying on the authorities you cite can be very, very misleading for reasons that Lindzen cogently explains in a paper – that is an enjoyable read – at
http://arxiv.org/abs/0809.3762
Richard
Anthony, I think your web cite is great. Keep up the good work. The one thing about Dr. Meier’s answers that interested me was this idea he has that regional warming can be natural and cyclical, but that if it is world wide than it has to be caused by manmade sources. Even if the whole world is in a warming trend can’t there be a natural explanation or cause for this? Why does it have to be assumed by him that it is human caused?
brazil84 says:
Let’s say that you take a big block of ice out of the freezer and put it on the counter. A few hours later, you come back and part of it has melted. A few more hours later, you come back and find that more of it has melted. Would you conclusion be that you couldn’t possibly blame taking this latter amount that melted on the ice being in a warmer environment because the temperature in the room hasn’t changed between the two times you checked on the ice?
kim says:
In other words, I am wasting my time presenting any evidence to you because you simply will not believe it if you don’t like what it shows. I should have learned this already from your comments on tamino’s blog. (And, by the way, I think you may be confusing graphs you’ve seen with regards to the issue of tropospheric temperature amplification in the tropical troposphere, a different issue…but whatever.)
Joel Shore (12:21:35) :
**In regards to point 2, the evidence for AGW is based on a lot more than just the work of Michael Mann. In fact, the evidence for the current temperatures being unprecedented in the last ~1200 years is based on much more than just the work of Michael Mann…and this particular piece of evidence is just one of the independent lines of evidence supporting AGW (and, in fact, the most circumstantial at that).**
Mann is part of a social club defined by Dr. Wegman which use the same data -bristlecone pines.
**And, Mann et al. have made considerable advances in regards to the more legitimate issues of proxy quality and robustness of results in their most recent paper.**
This paper is more of the same, with some deceptive techniques. However, it is being thoroughly dismantled by Steve McIntyre on Climateaudit.
Richard S Courtney says:
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?
You will always be able to find a few scientists who will support almost any point of view. If you have no way of deciding which is the more accepted scientific viewpoint at the moment, then you simply cannot use science to inform public policy (which may be a fine result if you work for the coal industry…but may not be the result that the rest of us find very satisfying).
[By the way, I do agree with you that all scientific knowledge is tentative and may need to be amended in light of further evidence. However, in less controversial areas, this does not stop us from using assessments of the current scientific understanding in order to make the most scientifically-informed public policy decisions. To use the fact that science can never know anything for certain to argue against putting any weight on scientific assessments such as the IPCC report or the joint statement by the NAS and counterpart bodies in the G8+5 countries is basically to argue against using science to inform us on any public policy decisions, which is a recipe for the return to the Dark Ages.]
Does anyone here know how many versions of each of the GCMs there have been?
It would be good if each one was numbered to show how many times they have been changed.
Kim: I haven’t gone through the thread to see and what you and Brazil84 were discussing, but on the topic of Arctic time lags, Trenberth et al discussed a 13-month lag between an El Nino and the high-latitude surface temperature response. I hope that helps.
Refer to “The evolution of ENSO and global atmospheric temperatures.”
Would that be the incredibly long 30 year trend?
Wow, you really twisted that one. It’s power DOES, however, extend to influencing how people perceive climate. Hence propaganda.
Actually I think the claim is that CO2 warming (but mysteriously not “natural” warming) triggers other positive feedbacks causing a runaway effect (I won’t call it “greenhouse” because that’s a misnomer). Those feedbacks don’t seem to be happening, which is a falsification of AGW.
Joel (06:46:42) Once in my last post to you I said ‘graphs’ where I meant ‘models’. Sure, I don’t believe what you say; you, as well as Tamino, are not scientific about climate. You’ve got too much invested in CO2=AGW. Do you remember me telling Tamino that his defense of Mann’s hockey stick was complete rubbish? Granted, I stole the knowledge from JeanS, but now, six months later, Tamino admits as much, after being called on it by the expert he cited, Ian Jolliffe. Tamino censored JeanS from his blog, and he has censored me. Pheh.
And, I agree with Gerald Machnee about the thorough dismantling of Mann that Steve McIntyre is doing. Steve won’t go so far as to call it deliberate deception, but it seems obvious from the hoops Mann jumps through and the bizarre constructions he makes, that he is no longer just a naive statistician making innocent mistakes. I’d call him purposefully crooked, and for what? Fleeting defense of his ego? Does he really think climate has gone post modern and can become what he wants it to be? Doesn’t he see that the tip of the blade of his imaginary hockey stick has broken and is now pointing down. How much longer can this hoax persist?
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Yeah, like Hockey Schticks…