NASA’s updated data appears to suggest the annual rate of global polar ice loss has actually decreased
Greenland’s Riviera – their green southwest. Will another Maunder minimum
grip the region in cages of ice again, or will bells ring in the portside squares,
as they did in the 1300’s before that cooling came, and ships sailed the fiords?
(Source: NASA)
Excerpt:
Washington Post correspondant Juliet Eilperin, in her 12-26-08 report entitled “New climate change estimates more pessimistic,” dutifully surveys the latest bleak findings of the climate change community. Her primary source is a recently released survey comissioned by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program – expanding on the findings of the 2007 4th IPPC Report on Climate Change. Apparently this “new assessment suggests that earlier projections may have underestimated the climatic shifts that could take place by 2100.” One of Eilperin’s primary examples of alarming new data is reported as follows:
“In one of the reports most worrisome findings, the agency estimates that in light of recent ice sheet melting, global sea level rise could be as much as 4 feet by 2100. The IPCC had projected a sea level rise of no more than 1.5 feet by that time, but satellite data over the past two years show the world’s major ice sheets are melting much more rapidly than previously thought. The Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets are now losing an average of 48 cubic miles of ice a year, equivalent to twice the amount of ice that exists in the Alps.”
Three years ago what NASA quantified as an alarming loss of annual ice loss from Greenland was easily demonstrated at that time to be an insignificant loss, and today NASA’s updated data appears to suggest the annual rate of global polar ice loss has actually decreased since then.
http://ecoworld.com/blog/2008/12/26/pessimistic-reporting-optimistic-data/
As an engineer myself (chemical), something seems wrong in the numbers given. I calculated a 40 cubic mile per year addition to the Earth’s oceans should result in a sea level rise of 3.6 inches after 100 years. Data input is Earth diameter 7926 miles, and ocean percent of surface area is 70.7 percent.
Yet, the link says 2 inches per century at 40 cubic miles per year melt.
What do you think? Something is not right!
I get ~1.8 inches.
First, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all here. I just dropped a donation to Anthony in appreciation for the entertaining 2008 year at WUWT. Keep up the great work!
Here are some numbers to keep in mind whenever this type of ‘news’ drivel comes out. You will note the lack of context in these stories.
48 cubic miles per year is 200 cubic km per year of melt.
Polar caps contain 33 million cubic km of ice.
Ocean contains 1300 million cubic km of water.
Glaciers contain 0.2 million cubic km of ice.
Lakes contain 0.1 million cubic km of water.
Annual precipitation worldwide is estimated at 0.2 million cubic km.
I consider it a remarkable claim that satellite measurements of gravitational anomalies over the poles are accurate enough to even see a change in ice of 200 cubic km per year, since this is roughly a 6 ppm change in ice volume. Never mind that the typical error in these measurements is on the same size (5 – 10 ppm). Indeed, the number 33 million cubic km is not even agreed upon! I predict several ‘surprising’, ‘unexpected’ discoveries by cryosphere specialists in the coming years as we learn more about how ancient ice and the geological structures beneath it behaves.
Yeah, that’s the ticket. High CO2 levels during the Cretaceous did this once before. After millions of years, the heat build up caused all the methane hydrates to melt in a matter of months. Then, one day, a dinosaur scrapped a claw against a piece of flint and the whole planet lit up. That would not have been too bad, but the intense heat set off the methane in the gut of plant eating dinosaurs. All of a sudden you then had the skies filled with flying, multi-ton herbivores. That explains the mass extinction of that time.
So, we now know our own fate. Given enough CO2 and enough time and we will all be done in by rocketcows.
Re: sea rise calculation
TTY’s calculation is probably the most accurate – my 1.8 figure used very rough estimates.
‘Guy Skoy (09:29:59) :
Pierre,
I’ll bet $1,500 that Ms Eilperin won’t take your bet…’
another sucker bet….
TTY, Retired Engineer, and others,
Thanks for the responses, and the civility! (not so common on other sites…)
No, I did not account for additional ocean area due to rising water. The gross numbers do not justify such fine-tuning, IMHO. Using a global diameter of around 8000 miles, and a rough value for water coverage of the surface of 70 percent or so, the numbers would not be that different unless an awful lot of land gets submerged.
But, getting a different number by a factor of 2 is a big difference. Even allowing for ice shrinkage as it melts into water (the roughly 10 percent given above) will not account for the numbers in the article.
My point? It is seldom a good idea to believe anything reported in the news. The list of factual errors that I have spotted over the years is rather long.
Also, TTY, it appears you are using planar geometry to get the 1.93 inches. I used spherical geometry.
On a related topic, has anyone seen (anywhere published) the contribution to sea level rise from water formed from combustion of hydrocarbons? Taking into account coal, oil, natural gas, and wood, there has been roughly 7 cubic miles of water created from such combustion in the past 100 years.
However, plants split water into hydrogen and oxygen during photosynthesis, thus somewhat decreasing the sea level. Does anyone know what the balance is between these two? My suspicion is that combustion creates more than plants destroy.
A little off topic – but I noticed one comment in this posting regarding SSTs so I thought I would add it:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/OceanCooling/page1.php
Oh, just tell them that more CO2 means more photosynthesis which is an endothermic reaction and cools the planet.
Ms. Eillperin, and her cohorts, have only one mission: to convince everyone they are right, and therefore to promote their political agenda. Despite the FACT, that her story is direct contradiction with the observations means nothing. The motivation is the old technique: “A lie repeated often enough becomes the truth.”
This is not a case where rational discussion of science facts will change any minds as long as these people have control of the press, etc. This is purely a political battle, not a scientific one, unfortunately. Yes, reality will win out eventually, but my worry is that won’t occur until after all the political/economic damage is already done. At that point the AGW’ers won’t care because they will have accomplished what they set out to do.
Britain should brace itself for a New Year ‘big freeze’ as forecasters predict temperatures plunging to as low as -13C (8.6F). At least two weeks of widespread frosts are expected as a cold front sweeps in from Siberia.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3999747/Britain-braces-itself-for-New-Year-big-freeze.html
Pierre Gosselin (07:50:47) :
Let’s write up a contract for an official bet and distribute it to the alarmists.
You aint gonna find one who will sign it.
Awhile back I offered the bet to Gavin and his other big-mouth colleagues – not a single one even dared to negotiate it. Those blowhards wouldn’t touch their own projections with a 10 foot pole!
A damning indictment indeed!
Personally I would love to see a high profile bet taken.
Steve Keohane (07:57:08) :
Atmosperic H2O http://i39.tinypic.com/2j31onm.jpg
Sea Level: http://i39.tinypic.com/2u4q13o.jpg
WRT the second graph – is that rate of increase of sea level on the vertical axis?
If so, that would indicate that the rate of increase in sea level has flatlined over the last two years and is possibly starting to trend down. A very inconvenient fact for the AGW Alarmists.
However the sign is still positive, and the sea level is still rising – just that the rising is decelerating.
Unless I’ve misunderstood the graph (possible) the statement “latest satellite measurements shown sea levels not rising” is somewhat hyperbolic.
Although I really get where you are coming from…
@tty (10:15:43) :
Thanks, somehow i was not sure about my claim of 400 km^3 of melted ice that would raise the average sealevel by 1 mm.
Robert A Cook PE (08:16:15) :
Odd.
…
Do the writers (the reviewers ?) even look at data any more?
…
Do the AGW extremists even read their own subject’s basic research reports?
If you work in a field where
(1) data is blithly manipulated to tease out “the man made global warming signal”
(2) data and methods are not routinely archived and published to allow for independent verification.
(3) the result of “man made global warming” is assumed prior to the research being conducted.
(4) data is trumped by the fictions of computer modelling.
(5) Alternative explanations (i.e. natural variation) for climatic change are not funded or researched.
and
(6) Non-consensus scientists are vilified, and if possible – denied employment.
There is nothing “Odd” about ignoring the data.
On Kangaroo Island in South Australia there are approx 3,000 (yes, thousand) ‘excess’ koalas that are in danger of being culled due to dwindling food supplies. They are breeding too fast to keep up with the gum trees rather than losing food through AGW.
This has been an extremely emotional discussion over here due to them not being able to be easily relocated as they are very particular about the type of gum leaves they will eat.
They are also often on the ground when they move between trees so this is not an increase in danger for them, regardless of why they are not still in their cosy tree forks, stoned out of their little brains on eucalyptus leaves.
The True Believers always hedge things, “could”, “up to”, “may”.
No money on that bet. If things turn out different, well, the model ‘predicted’ it, especially after a slight adjustment.
Oceans: about 131,000,000 sq mi
40 cu mi melt x 100 years, about 253,000,000 inches / sq mi
Got off my duff and came up with 1.9 inches like tty, not allowing for ice to water shrinkage. Sphere and planer will come very close for a thin layer. Seems to me that this is much less than what we have observed in the past 30 years.
They’ll need a lot more than this to scare folks properly.
Robert A Cook PE (08:16:15)
“A “scientist” in NZ recently claimed that Koala bears may be endangered in NZ because ecalyptus trees will be harmed by increasing CO2”
pablo an ex pat (08:49:40)
“While I am in complete agreement that AGW is a bunch of hooey in deference to my antipodean friends I must point out that Koala’s don’t live in New Zealand, they’re native to Australia.”
While we are about educating our antipodean friends, perhaps it’s worth pointing out that the Koala is a marsupial and not a bear.
Sorry to be repetitious (I posted this on another thread) but there IS one industry that is betting Billions of Dollars on the next decade’s climate. The Seed Companies. Any ideas on how they’re betting?
>€1000 ($1400) annual average sea levels will not rise more than 2.5 cm in the next 5 years (i.e. 50 cm in 100 years).
I’m guessing you would be less cavalier if you were one of the about 200 million people who will be displaced by a sea level rise of 50cm. A rate of 2.5cm in 5 years would be huge and nearly double the current rate of rise.
As for bets, why don’t you collectively underwrite the costs for a small island state if you are wrong?
David you said:
“I’m guessing you would be less cavalier if you were one of the about 200 million people who will be displaced by a sea level rise of 50cm. A rate of 2.5cm in 5 years would be huge and nearly double the current rate of rise.”
David did you even read the NASA numbers?
To my mind there is only one thing left to the AGW believers and that is the melting of the Arctic sea ice.
You can forget about urban heating, satellite measurements of the troposphere, different sources of graphs, temperature gauge positioning, record snowfalls and the number of Koala and Polar bears – what happens to the Arctic sea ice next summer will be the key.
I would like to know why the Arctic ice extent has suddenly dipped down:
http://www.nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
But so far, no-one has given me a satisfactory answer. In the last topic on ‘Blizzards in India’ I asked the question about volcanic activity affecting ice extent but this is also unanswered.
If there has indeed been a decade of global cooling, the oceans eventually must reflect this followed by the Arctic ice extent. If summer ice melt continues to increase then global warming is continuing but no loss of argument for the pro CO2 lobby. But if the Arctic summer ice increases from now on then Al Gore is doomed.
david (13:04:42) :
As for bets, why don’t you collectively underwrite the costs for a small island state if you are wrong?
If I was a betting man (and I’m not) I would offer a bet that the UK will be facing rolling blackouts by 2013.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/utilities/article5404061.ece
Continued lack of investment in effective baseload power has very real consequences and will happen far sooner than a 50cm rise in sea levels.
Especially given that sea level rise appears to be flatlining or even decelerating. http://i39.tinypic.com/2u4q13o.jpg
kum,
Can you give more details? I think this kind of information is very significant in view of the misinformation from the IPCC etc. The seed companies have a vested interest in getting it right while Big Green has a vested interest in alarmism.
For example, for those who are uncertain about whether it is correct that life will be unsustainable when CO2 exceeds 450 ppm, but don’t feel confident about delving into the science themselves, could look at this site:
http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/crops/facts/00-077.htm
This is from the Ontario govt and recommends CO2 supplementation in greenhouse production to around 1000 ppm. If that’s wrong, and the 450 ppm is right, all greehouse production in Ontario will have stopped. If that has happened, wouldn’t someone have noticed?
>David did you even read the NASA numbers?
Stern has previously provided estimates of people at risk.
How about that collective underwriting of the risks faced by even just one little country. It’s easy being a “sceptic” when there are no consequences for being wrong.
davidc,
I don’t have a clue what they’re doing. I suspect there’s some proprietary knowledge involved. I was kind of hoping that an employee of one of these companies with some knowledge along these lines might respond in some general way.
I know what my “suspicions” are, though.