I’ve been so impressed with the recovery thus far for Arctic sea ice, I’ve added a live icon for it in the lower right under the global satellite image. Just click on it to get a full sized graph like above.
Watch the red line as it progresses. So far we are back to 2005 levels, and significantly ahead of last year at this time.
How about from 1000 years ago? 2000? 5000?… Oh, we don’t know, that’s right. But now that we’re able to measure any change is a catastrophe. Riiiight.
Mary H, i know you are busy, but i would like to see your answer to my post earlier. 🙂
K.R. Frank
Mike (05:15:47) :
“For example Mangus A. was clearly asking for you to post supporting evidence and not saying that any one point would prove anything.”
maybe you should read again what he wrote…
“Magnus A (14:20:20) :
“Again, please give us one (1) — only one — source which proves your comment that LIA wasn’t globally.”
Bruce Cobb (06:18:39) :
“Desperate? Pot, kettle, black. Ring any bells? LOL!”
If you think a below average freeze is a news worthy story then who’se clutching?
Frank Lansner /Denmark (09:26:37) :
“Mary H, i know you are busy, but i would like to see your answer to my post earlier. :-)”
Hi Frank,
The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation is well documented and this was the most likely cause of the MWP and LIA. You have to remember how far north Europe is and how susceptable we are to any changes in the Gulf stream and jet streams, a small change in the GS will have a large effect on our climate. Glacial ice melt will have an effect on the thermohaline circulation especially if a rapid melt occurs.
There is no doubt that the MWP and LIA happened in Europe, there is a lot of doubt they were global events.
Jeff Alberts (08:34:08) :
“How about from 1000 years ago? 2000? 5000?… Oh, we don’t know, that’s right. But now that we’re able to measure any change is a catastrophe. Riiiight.”
As far as I am aware we were talking about the graph above. However from the data we have available this melt is well below average. If you want to spout on about ice thousands of years ago fine, but your last sentence is pure gibberish.
Pamela Gray (06:39:02) :
“The trend, regardless of any kind of average, is that temps are cooling through each season.”
What trend are you refering to? If you are based in the Western half of North America then the -ve phase PDO is responsible for the recent cooling. Longer term trends are definately warming elsewhere.
Don’t panic about Arctic ice, please see here instead.
Best regards,
ClimateSanity
Coldest Oct. 12 in Ukiah Valley Ever in Recorded History!
Temperatures dropped to 31 degrees in the Ukiah Valley on Saturday night and early Sunday morning, the coldest Oct. 12 morning since record keeping began in Ukiah in 1893,
http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20081014/NEWS/810140335/-1/frontpage?Title=Frost__one_more_thing__for_grape_growers
“So, Mary, have you read Moberg et al. yet?”
Yes I have and did you notice where the measurements were taken? It is very heavily biased around the North Atlantic.
Indeed. So I assume you then looked at the supplementary figure showing the 11 low resolution proxies, and noticed that the little ice age shows up clearly in the two Chinese datasets?
If you think a below average freeze is a news worthy story then who’se clutching?
[snip, does not add to the discussion, only a personal attack ~ charles the moderator]
If you think so, fine. Seemed perfectly legible to me. However, focusing on a handful of years is pretty wasteful (even just two or three years as many do here) without being able to see if this has happened before, how often, and to what extent. If we don’t have the data, it’s hardly worthwhile to make world policy based on extremely small sample sizes.
Phil: WFT only uses monthly averages, so it’s only up to September. It was still falling August (6.03) to September (4.67) but as you can see the rate of change was reducing. No doubt we’ll see the uptick (+ve derivative) when October’s data is complete.
You can check the actual data here:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/data/nsidc-seaice-n/from:2005
Jonathan (13:41:00) :
“Indeed. So I assume you then looked at the supplementary figure showing the 11 low resolution proxies, and noticed that the little ice age shows up clearly in the two Chinese datasets?”
…and did you notice that one of Chinese datasets was from one sample of stalactite formation. For this paper to be a credible part of confirming a Northern Hemisphere LIA there would need to be more data.
Jeff Alberts (16:07:41) :
“If we don’t have the data, it’s hardly worthwhile to make world policy based on extremely small sample sizes.”
We have plenty of data to show a global warming trend over the last 100 years or so, that seems to be a large sample size. As we only have a recent timescale for accurate measurement of the Arctic and Antarctic ice caps I see where you are coming from. If the USA and Canada used your logic and didn’t formulate a national policy on the Arctic and left it to the Russians to formulate their own policy alone on the basis that the data available, though showing a rapid ice melt in extent AND depth, but this is only based on measurements of less than 30 years, then who do you think will be in the best position to exploit natural resources and shipping routes if the trend continues? My money would be on the pro-active Russsians and not the re-active Americans. What do you think should happen, do you think that it might be worthwhile to act on a relatively small sample size?
P.s. Had another look at your last sentence- “But now that we’re able to measure any change is a catastrophe. Riiiight”
Still seems like gibberish!
Mary Hinge: “There is no doubt that the MWP and LIA happened in Europe, there is a lot of doubt they were global events.”
First, Mary, You have still not met muy proof, that 98 percent of the hundreds of proxy studies all over the earth shows proof for LIA.
Secondly, in this sentence you repeat that there are doubt — presumably considerable doubt — that there was a LIA globally, but despite my question, which you quoted, you still have not delivered even a tiny tiny little positive proof that you’re correct in your statement.
I’ll wait…………..
Mary. The proof you have in my comment at 08:06. I can’t believe you read it. Otherwise you would have replied something! Not like a parrot repeat your (false) statement, that scince do not show that LIA was global. It does, just as I showed proof for.
But on the other hand you may be involved in propaganda, and the repeated statements without consideration of facts is crucial in propaganda…
LIA/MWP not global?
Vostok Ice Core data:
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/last_500_yrs.html
Is that a warm spike (MWP) followed by a cold spike (LIA) in the last 500 years?
I believe we’ll be warming until the next ice age starts:
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/last_400k_yrs.html
We are in an interglacial period, and it will end…no matter what humans do or don’t do. (Humans haven’t started or ended any previous ice ages/interglacials) All previous interglacials the temperature spiked higher then our nice moderate era now.
Mary, look at CO2science, there are dozens of papers in the LIA, on every continent. It was global, just like the MWP. Using Mann as a source is a joke, he is no scientist. His attempts at revisionist history are pathetic.
So put a comma between “measure” and “any”, or take a basic reading comprehension course.
As to “what we should do”, I’d say beat the Russians to the punch. Especially since there’s no evidence that an ice-free Arctic can or will happen, or that such a thing would be catastrophic.
Magnus A (06:00:10) :
“Mary. The proof you have in my comment at 08:06. I can’t believe you read it. Otherwise you would have replied something!”
I am glad you have confirmed my theory that you are lacking in scientific understanding! This paper ttp://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2002/2001GL014580.shtml
about proxy data from tree rings in New Zealand mentions seems to confirm the LIA but if you download and read it carefully you will note that there was a particularly cold spell in New Zealand at the time the Vikings were colonizing parts of coastal Greenland. A quik look at the abstract gives you this ” Comparisons with selected temperature proxies from the Northern and Southern Hemispheres confirm that the MWP was highly variable in time and space.”
Take a look at this paper http://bprc.osu.edu/Icecore/Abstracts/Thompsonetal-climatic-change-2003.pdf .
Note it uses an equal number of data points in both hemispheres (3 in south america and 3 in Tibet) using the same techniques in each case. Notice the South American sample includes the Quelccaya ice cap data which is cited as ‘proof’ of a LIA.
For a LIA or MWP to be considered global you would expect there to be a correlation between the two sites. If you consider the LIA and MWP to be regional events then there would be no correlation.
The results on page 15 of this document show that there seems to be an inverse correlation, where one region becomes warm the other gets cooler.
The only period that the two sets of data show a correlation is over the last 100 years, you will see the typical ‘hockey stick’ shape, and not a phone book or random digits in sight. An interesting point is when sceptics/deniers use the South American glaciers as evidence but always avoid the rest of the paper, typical cherry picking.
Other papers show evidence of a hemispherical see-saw where one hemisphere becomes warmer the other becomes cooler and vice versa, for instance http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v444/n7116/abs/nature05301.html
This can’t be the’proof’ that you seek but it is strong evidence that the LIA and MWP are regional anomolies most probably driven by ocean currents. We know from the effects on Meso American and north South American cultures that ENSO events can be particularly long lasting, the same may be true of the pan-Atlantic decadal oscillation (PADO). The PADO, from the South Atlantic to Greenland may be a contributory cause of MWP and LIA but the process is still as yet poorly understood.
The conclusion is that high resolution data analyisis shows evidence for a global MWP and LIA is not strong and that they are more likly to be regional anomolies. The ice core analysis also shows the large temperature increase in the last 100 years, the fist time there is a positive correlation between the northern and southern hemispheres.
Steve Keohane (07:20:38) :
“Mary, look at CO2science”
CO2science are particularly guilty of cherry picking pieces of data. The South American Glaciers is a classic example.
Jeff Alberts (09:39:34) :
“But now that we’re able to measure any change is a catastrophe. Riiiight”
So put a comma between “measure” and “any”, or take a basic reading comprehension course.”
The only one using ‘Catastrophe’ in this context was you. Amazing how one comma can transform gibberish into nonsensical drivel!
“As to “what we should do”, I’d say beat the Russians to the punch. Especially since there’s no evidence that an ice-free Arctic can or will happen, or that such a thing would be catastrophic.”
You’ve surpassed yourself and made the lap from nonsensical drivel to contradictory nonsensical drivel!
Steve M. (06:20:49) :
“LIA/MWP not global?
Vostok Ice Core data:”
I’m assuming you mean http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v329/n6138/abs/329403a0.html
First see my points above about timing of events then read the paper.
To put into context the difference between an Ice Age and a so called Little Ice Age look at the huge differences in the δ18O ice histories between the two events.