Arctic Sea Ice Increases at Record Rate

By the way, anyone know why NSIDC’s daily ice extent charts have gone on the blink since the end of January?

This is good. Conversation, that is. I wish I would have been able to read the [snip].
Here’s the way I see it. Carbon dioxide is the boogey man! Global warming is it’s terrible effect (not to mention rising sea levels.) Is any of it true . . . who can tell. The bottom line is the Western Powers are about to embark on a huge clean up mission. Clean up the carbon dioxide by reducing emissions. The emissions which carry all the rest of the crud will be cleaned up because of the Global Warming scare. I really don’t see the benefit of disputing this theory.
I’ve often wondered why they chose carbon dioxide instead of . . . ohhh, I don’t know . . .carbon monoxide or sulfur dioxide or . . . . Then I realized that it just doesn’t matter. We’re going to clean up our mess because “the polar bears are drowning.”8-o
The argument has been made that there are many people perpetuating this scare in order to make a lot of money. So, what’s the difference between them and those who make money from sewing gasses into our atmosphere?
Rhys Jaggar (cool name) Let’s do it. 20% oxygen, 75% carbon dioxide, the rest nitrogen. Now you’ve my curiosity aroused!;-)
Peter: I do believe DPatterson said for “informal discussion’s sake” before giving those stats.

Dave
Would you feel better if I locked several plants in the same air-tight room until they died from lack of CO2? I guess one man’s poison can be a plants food for growth. What’s the point?

To Charles the moderator: Yes but I was right. Wasn’t I?!!
Reply: not for me to say, but the choice of words was above average ~ charles the moderator

Tom,
I would respond to this:

I really don’t see the benefit of disputing this theory.

But…. I don’t think that Anthony’s ‘science’ blog is the place to get into the realities which include heavy politics.
Catch me at MY CLIMATE BUZZ or the Sean Hannity Forums (This THREAD will do: Global Warming Watch) and I will be more than happy to go into all of the issues.

Jeff you’ve id’d this one correctly. Thank-you for your clear explanation. No wonder those birds are being seen all over. I’ve heard people talk of those waxwings coming as far south as the midlands (uk). When it all clicks you know its right. Fog gone. Appreciated, Ed.

AlGore says that when the Arctic/Antarctic sea ice melts, a big chunk of the world will be underwater. Funny, but I put ten ice cubes in a big glass; filled the glass to the absolute rim; came back 60 minutes later and, guess, what? The water didn’t overflow. Did Al “The Bore” Gore forget the “Inconvenient Truth” of “displacement?

DJ,
Would you like to propose a wager for your confident prediction about ice?

I am not a scientist. But reading the main article and the comments, in regard to discussions of “normal” climates or apropos something like “normal climate change” (the opposite of AGW), how does one establish a “norm” at all?
For millions of years this planet was a habitat to various kinds of “terrible lizards.” Was that in appreciation of its longevity a “norm”? In contrast homo sapiens is really a new kid on the block. So, even, let’s say, that Anthropomorphic Global Warming is real … perhaps that is just part of what THIS species does. (There may be some ecological advantage in being a big dumb lizard.) I raise this, admittedly otherwise off-topic point, because the entire AGW debate strikes me as something like the Medieval conundrum of “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?”
There is something very weirdly psychological about all this arguing.
I also note that atheism is a fad among scientists today — not that I’m making claims about what scientists believe — who knows what they believe. But I note a “fad,” rather like the changes in hemlines and lapel styles are fads. And this fad is particularly interesting from a psychological perspective because sometimes the same people who argue that there is no God and that change occurs “randomly” are the same demographic that says the climate is no longer “normal.” But how does one define “normal” in a randomly functioning system?
I have no scientific training to analyze the scientific claims being made here by dueling parties. But I have sufficient experience of human nature to observe some of the psychological dynamics.
Certainly if human beings were changing the planetary habitat in ways that threatened their own existence, one couldn’t fault them for trying to take corrective actions. But looking at the arguements from a more cosmic perspective, I must say I find it amusing to think that non-scientist Al Gore gets a particular statum of Western society in alarms when — any stray, “randomly” arriving meteor of sufficient size could render the entire debate and the proposed “corrective actions” moot (to say the least).
Whatever. One must marvel at the economy of the terrible lizards. They flourished in one form or another for such a marvelously long time. In contrast some of us are already on the verge of expiration from the tedium of this teapot tempest.

Peter (11:46:52) :
The use of the term, “tipping point” was used wryly with an “if” to indicate a response to the use of the term by the Global Warming proponents. I would not use the term except to acknowledge the usage by global Warming proponents. Major mass extinctions have occurred in association with temperatures and carbon dioxide levels comparable to those at the present, and are often cited as an important factor in causing the mass extinctions. Certainly, plants, then and now, benefit from large increases in carbon dioxide and are thretened with extinction in the event carbon dioxide is substantially deceased from present levels.
“But to even begin to claim that one understands the relationship between atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide and ecosystem tipping points, and that we are currently in a safe zone, is nonsensical.”
We certainly do know for a demonstrated fact that certain species of plant life will perish when carbon dioxide levels are reduced beyond a certain level. I hope you are not going to contend that present plant life will not undergo extinction if present carbon dioxide levels were reduced to less than a certain “safe zone” fraction of present levels tolerable by these plants?
“You simply cannot equate past conditions for life with the current ones.”
You certainly can to a useful general degree when certain species’ genetics and biochemical mechanisms remain virtually identical or sufficiently similar to draw conclusions. We certainly cannot pretend that we’re dealing with a completely different universe having a wholly different physics and chemical properties. As a paleontologist, you must know that the fossil record reveals massive numbers of species became extinct around the world when their environment suddenly became much colder. The oxygen isotopes in the fossils alone indicate that much.
“The Earth has been considerably warmer, and considerably colder, in the past, including the Phanerozoic.”
When during the Phanerozoic did the Earth become “considerably colder” than the present; i.e. more than 3C to 10C colder than anytime in the Tertiary?
“But, the rates of change of climate that we can measure in the distant geological record are all far slower than the rates observed today, and slower than those predicted to occur in the near future. (This is a simple function of the resolution of the geological record).”
Such was the presumed interpretation of the stratigraphy until recently. The latest ice core research has revealed details from much finer resolution than is typically possible in studying rock stratigraphy. We now have the evidence to demonstrate temperature changes of 7C in only fifty (50) years, which would appear to be virtually instantaneous in the fossil record. The world climate can and has made sudden shifts in climate in only a number of decades of time, so present changes cannot be presumed to be caused by humans at all without other very substantial evidence.
“WHY do you think that predicted warmer conditions, if accurate, will be fine for humans??!”
We already know for a fact that the Earth’s climate is not static and cannot be engineered by humans to remain static, so that is not an available possibility or choice.
We also must recognize that our environment is already at the extreme lower end of Earth’s scale of experience with temperature and carbon dioxide levels during the Phanerozoic, so any further major cooling resulting from a catastrophic event like an asteroidal impactor, nuclear war, planktonic ecological disaster, etc. could result in the mass extinction of most species of multi-celled plant and animal life.
Since we are unable to remain static with regard to climate change, and we cannot risk going lower on the scale and causing or suffering a very severe ice age or a snowball Earth event; our only remaining choice is to take our chances on survival in the warmer and wetter Earth environment that was common for most of the past ~542 million years. We already know that reducing arable land with a colder climate cannot support the current global population, but a warmer climate can increase arable land, water supplies, and plant productivity. Humans have tended to prosper in wamrer climates, and most other life preceding humans prospered in a climate wamer by 10C and with carbon dioxide levels of 1200ppm to 4800ppm (Scotese; Geocarb). It’s up to humanity to reduce and adapt its population to sustainable levels before Nature does it for us.

P Folkens (00:43:50) :
DJ (22:42:26) : >. . . multi-year multi-metre thick ice. That ice is all now nearly gone, and as best as we can tell the current ice volume is the lowest on record.
This whole thread is built on a lack of understanding of basic climatology and climate change.<
One need not have temperature or ice data or even papers on climate change to make reasonable and accurate deductions. Anthropology and even early literature are sources of direct and indirect evidence that refute your notion of “the lowest on record.” For example, recent anthropological work in northern Greenland have revealed Eskimo settlements and ancient sea shores that show a sea level more than a meter higher 800-1000 years ago compared with now. If one accepts anthropological studies and carbon dating as part of the “record,” one must therefore accept basic climatology and climate change that shows rather conclusively that it has been warmer than now within the confines of what most regard as “history.” Think Strait of Anián, Northwest Passage, the Eskimo migration east from Alaska, the Norse Sagas and ventures into Baffin Island (Helluland). It all destroys the notion that the Arctic is the “warmest on record” or the ice is the least “in history.”
Mr. Folkens–
Superb post.
Climate scientists seemed to sealed in an almost hermetic, impermeable theoretical bubble. What you are describing is simply the “medieval warm period,” as verified by independent archaeological and anthropological evidence of the arctic region. Very well done post — Anthony, I think you should ask this poster to write up a more detailed and referenced account of this. Great stuff. I wonder if eskimo folk memory recalls these warmer days?