Arctic Springtime Ice On The Mend
Guest post by Steven Goddard
Two of the Arctic ice sites show April 16 ice at recent record levels. The Japanese site IJIS has a seven year April record going back to 2003, and reports 2009 levels at the highest extent on record for the date: 13,649,219 km2.
The Danish Meteorological Institute has a five year database, and also shows April 16 ice extent as the highest in their short record.
A plot of April 16 extent made from the IJIS database shows that mid April ice extent has made a nice recovery from the 2004 low, increasing by more than 5%.
This is probably not coincidental with the fact that since 2003, global temperatures have been declining.
Next time Washington Post writers decide to bash George Will about ice, perhaps they should check their facts first. The comment below from that piece shows just how irrational the thinking of climate “journalism” has become.
“citing “global” sea ice statistics like that is nearly meaningless in the context of global climate change”
Why would you use “global” statistics when examining a “global” problem? What was George thinking of?
[Delete this if its a double post; not sure if my first one went through for some reason]
[multiple URL’s get flagged as spam automatically – Anthony]
Just curious.
Why is there somuch mountainous-like terrain on one year old ice in the photo above and others coming from Catlin?
Oh and since CO2 is now dangerous to all life on Earth, we are all dangerous to life on Earth because we all emit carbon dioxide.
All: As expected the EPA has announced that they intend to regulate carbon dioxide and five other gases. Everything said here is meaningless and needs to be focused on detailed rebuttal’s to the EPA and your congressional delegation within the next sixty days. Congress can be bypassed with regulation.
By H. JOSEF HEBERT, Associated Press Writer H. Josef Hebert, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 2 mins ago
WASHINGTON – The EPA on Friday declared that carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases sent off by cars and many industrial plants “endanger public health and welfare,” setting the stage for regulating them under federal clean air laws.
The action by the Environmental Protection Agency marks the first step toward requiring power plants, cars and trucks to curtail their release of climate-changing pollution, especially carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels.
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said while the agency is prepared to move forward with regulations under the Clean Air Act, the Obama administration would prefer that Congress addressed the climate issue through “cap-and-trade” legislation limiting pollution that can contribute to global warming.
Limits on carbon dioxide and the other greenhouse gases would have widespread economic and social impact, from requiring better fuel efficiency for automobiles to limiting emissions from power plants and industrial sources, changing the way the nation produces energy.
In announcing the proposed finding, Jackson said the EPA analysis “confirms that greenhouse gas pollution is a serious problem now and for future generations” and warrants steps to curtail it.
While EPA officials said the agency may still be many months from actually issuing such regulation, the threat of dealing with climate change by regulation could spur some hesitant members of Congress to find another way to address the problem.
“The (EPA) decision is a game changer. It now changes the playing field with respect to legislation,” said Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., whose Energy and Commerce subcommittee is crafting broad limits on greenhouse emissions. “It’s now no longer doing a bill or doing nothing. It is now a choice between regulation and legislation.”
Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee responsible for climate legislation, said EPA’s action is “a wake-up call for Congress” — deal with it directly through legislation or let the EPA regulate.
Friday’s action by the EPA triggered a 60-day comment period before the agency issues a final endangerment ruling. That would be followed by a proposal on how to regulate the emissions.
Eric Anderson (11:29:59) :
But when you look at the slope for the Artic ice, it might go over the average sometime in May.
Zeke Hausfather asks:
120 years.
Here’s a thought. At what level are they going to classify CO2 as being dangerous? Maybe they will pick Hansen’s figure of >350 PPM. In that case someone ought to take along a CO2 meter to a typical congressional committee room since most small rooms crowded with people, assuming they are alive and respiring, will easily exceed 350 PPM after a few hours. That way when the meter peaks beyond 350 the operator can declare the meeting adjourned on account of CO2 and kick everyone out.
After a few of their ever so important meetings are disrupted maybe even our dimwatt legislative branchers and their odious aides can realize how silly the panic is. Hey, maybe Rep. Waxman can be nicknamed “CFL.” He is not very bright and takes a while to wake up in the committee room.
Sorry, I am not usually so cynical but I have just about reached my CO2 tolerance limit and need a breath of fresh air.
Given that the ocean currents flowing into the Arctic come mainly from the Barents Sea around Svalbard, it is no surpise the ice extent is now rising again after the AMO has gone negative now after being strongly positive for the past 5 years.
Arctic Sea Ice Extent anomaly versus the AMO back to 1972.
http://img133.imageshack.us/img133/8510/nhse72anomamo.png
AMO back to 1854.
http://img410.imageshack.us/img410/35/amoanomaly.png
IS HENRY WAXMAN SMARTER THAN A FIFTH GRADER?
Here’s a sampling of the great minds that are setting environmental policy. This is from an interview of Waxman by Tavis Smiley
http://www.pbs.org/kcet/tavissmiley/archive/200904/20090413_waxman.html
“We’re seeing the reality of a lot of the North Pole starting to evaporate, and we could get to a tipping point. Because if it evaporates to a certain point – they have lanes now where ships can go that couldn’t ever sail through before. And if it gets to a point where it evaporates too much, there’s a lot of tundra that’s being held down by that ice cap.”
All that evaporation! What’s a denialist going to do. Pretty soon the tundra under the arctic ice cap is just going to rise into the atmosphere when it’s no longer held down. Think of the chaos. I guess I now understand how we will know when we’ve arrived at the “tipping point”
Can you believe the ignorance!
Richard Sharpe,
Here you go: http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/nhwwzmu.JPG
Though I really wouldn’t trust the data before the satellite era that much, since its based on models, proxies, and whatnot.
Waxman Won’t Compromise on 20% Carbon Cap in Climate Measure
By Christopher Stern
April 17 (Bloomberg) — House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman said he won’t compromise on his proposed 20 percent reduction in greenhouse gases over the next decade in the face of criticism from lawmakers who say the economy could suffer.
“I want to keep those caps in place,” Waxman said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt” airing this weekend. “It’s what the scientists are telling us we must do” to avoid a global catastrophe, he said.
…………..
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aaE9Lr1448tM&refer=home
People still expect scientific facts that refute government propaganda to be reported by the mainstream media? That hasn’t happened since 1984-the-Manual.
Just a shout out to bobdobbs!!! Can you see me smiling and waving? The time for honoring yourselves is at an end.
“Bill Illis (12:48:55) : Arctic Sea Ice Extent anomaly versus the AMO back to 1972. http://img133.imageshack.us/img133/8510/nhse72anomamo.png ”
2009 🙂
Jan: -0.007
Feb: -0.112
Mar: -0.114
And ice is nice!
1. Has anyone whispered the word ‘photosynthesis’ into POTUS’ ear?
2. Has POTUS decided that corn hates carbon dioxide?
3. Would a war on forest burning be a better idea than Cap N Trade?
4. Will Michelle’s vegetable garden grow solely on oxygen?
5. Will high school biology classes be forced to revise the textbooks on ‘the carbon cycle’? [I think that read: plants, algae, plankton etc eat it; things eat plants; humans eat stuff and plants; EVERYONE ‘breathes’ a bit of seeohtwo] – NATURE IS EVIL!
6. Europe’s going for CCS – an English MEP’s latest newsletter says that he is the ‘political guru’ for this – carbon capture/storage technologies. That’s where we’re headed right now.
Any court of law willing to uphold a ruling that ‘laws passed based on fraudulent axioms have no validity’?
John S. (12:46:27) :
When you consider that we have about 5% of CO2 in our alveoles (alive people anyway!!!), then we are all criminals.
I guess Waxman has not read Lord Monckton’s letter yet!
Looking at the IARC-JAXA graph, I expect this year’s line will not be all that notable for the next four months or so. Now, in mid-September, if this year’s trace lies closer to that of 2003 than 2008, then things’ll start to look really interesting. In the meantime, every little squiggle of this year’s line will excite great comment, one way or the other.
Aron (12:17:37) : “Look how skewed and manipulative this poll…”
Thank for the tip! Guardian forgot to mention that the more educated you are the more you tend to not believe in AGW.
Headline proposal: Just what is it with educated people and global warming?
–
This EPA move I think is tremedously dangerous! Two not new articles:
6 March: “Anti-CO2 Campaign Like An Atom Bomb On U.S. Economy” by professor Fred Singer. It (just slightly naive?) starts like this:
“Presumably following White House directions, the EPA is ready to issue an “Endangerment Finding” on carbon dioxide, paving the way for regulations to control CO2 emissions. But with over one million “major stationary sources,” a full-blown application of the Clean Air Act would be the equivalent of an atomic bomb directed at the US economy — all without any scientific justification. Hence there is speculation that the White House strategy is to use the threat of EPA regulation to force Congress to take action.”
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=321228358224458
So now the bomb is dropped? As non-American ‘ve a limited understanding of what the consequenses are, but after all the congress make laws, or? 🙂 Can they decide to block the decision – or consequenses of – the EPA decision? Also the no-limit-spending Obama I guess is a quite scary situation.
3rd March: “Destroying Both Jobs And Energy Security” by Newt Gingrich. About the general lack of initiative to take care of even the obviously cheap and necessary energy and the harm to US economy this means.
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=320977215507791
Replying to…
Roger Knights (12:51:33) :
Waxman Won’t Compromise on 20% Carbon Cap in Climate Measure
By Christopher Stern
April 17 (Bloomberg) — House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman said he won’t compromise on his proposed 20 percent reduction in greenhouse gases over the next decade in the face of criticism from lawmakers who say the economy could suffer.
[…]
Waxman himself said it would suffer…
“If we raise the price of energy, which will happen if we’re reducing the amount of carbon emissions, and industries have to figure out how to live in a carbon-constrained environment, they are going to have to figure it out because it’s in their profitable interest to figure it out.”
–Tavis Smiley Interview
Waxman must not only have flunked science and geography…He must have flunked economics too!
There’s nothing in that chart that leads me to believe that the AMO won’t remain, basically, positive for another 30 years, or so.
Hitching your anti-AGW wagon to Arctic Sea Ice might be a bad short-term proposition.
While it’s true that 2009 is back to the level of 2003, if you look at the chart you can see that the spread of the extents narrows shortly until about Jun then it starts to disperse. So we have about two months till the real action starts.
FYI the JAXA mean for today 13.20654 million km2 so 2009 is ahead of the average by about 442,682 km2
This morning was a grand morning for Aussie press.
The Australian printed this article
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25349683-601,00.html
“Revealed: Antarctic ice growing, not shrinking”
with an endline:
“A paper to be published soon by the British Antarctic Survey in the journal Geophysical Research Letters is expected to confirm that over the past 30 years, the area of sea ice around the continent has expanded. ”
Then to cap it off the Sydney Morning Herald’s Miranda Devine has a go at the Warmanistas.
“Planet doomsayers need a cold shower”
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/planet-doomsayers-need-a-cold-shower-20090417-aa4s.html?page=-1
with this gem:
“” the University of Melbourne’s Professor David Karoly declared: “Loss of jobs is important but loss of life is really important”.
True enough, but where is the evidence that climate change has killed a single Australian?””
Here’s a sampling of some arctic rim stations today:
Station Date UTC Time Temp C
Cold Bay, AK 4/17/2009 19:53 -2
Mekuryuk, AK 4/17/2009 19:36 -6
Nome, AK 4/17/2009 19:53 -7
Barrow, AK 4/17/2009 19:53 -18
Pevek, Siberia 4/17/2009 3:00 0
Anadyr, Siberia 4/17/2009 19:00 -7
Tiski, Siberia 4/17/2009 19:00 -14
Khatanga, Siberia 4/17/2009 18:00 -16
Tuktohaktuk, Canada4/17/2009 19:00 -19
Kuglugtuk, Canada 4/17/2009 19:00 -19
Resolute, Canada 4/17/2009 19:00 -18
Alert, Canada 4/17/2009 19:00 -23
Clyde River, Canada 4/17/2009 19:55 -16
Thule, Greenland 4/17/2009 19:00 -16
Longyearbyen, Svalbard 4/17/2009 19:50 -19
Hammerfest, Norway 4/17/2009 19:50 -5
Ice loss in the near future in the near future is unlikely to start until there are at least a few days of above freezing temps. Most loss will come from the lower latitudes, i.e., St. Lawrence region, Baffin Bay/Newfoundland and Hudson Bay. IMHO I expect the current trend line to continue until there is some significant warming or current/winds change.
It will be fun to watch and see the AGW crowd squirm.
Catlin expedition should be able to confirm this……
Arctic sea ice is the least of our worries.
The EPA has “dropped one shoe.” Hearings on this “dropping” will be held:
May 18, 2009, at the EPA Potomac Yard Conference Center, Arlington, VA; and
May 21, 2009, at the Bell Harbor International Conference Center in Seattle, WA.
The report, Proposed Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases under the Clean Air Act, can be read at http://epa.gov/climatechange/endangerment.html
On April 2, 2007, in Massachusetts v. EPA, 549 U.S. 497 (2007), the Supreme Court found that greenhouse gases are air pollutants covered by the Clean Air Act.
The Administrator is proposing to find that the current and projected concentrations of the mix of six key greenhouse gases—carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6)—in the atmosphere threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations. This is referred to as the endangerment finding.
The Administrator is further proposing to find that the combined emissions of CO2, CH4, N2O, and HFCs from new motor vehicles and motor vehicle engines contribute to the atmospheric concentrations of these key greenhouse gases and hence to the threat of climate change. This is referred to as the cause or contribute finding.
Technical Support Document for the Proposed Findings (PDF) (171 pp, 2.8MB