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?
So now it begins.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090417/ap_on_go_ot/epa_climate
On another note: Arctic ROOS shows the 2009 area at this time almost within 1 STD of the 1979-2007 average.
Chart is here
I suggest the following poll:
Ask ten different people to describe what CO2 is. Nine out of ten won’ t tell you that it is the gas we all exhale.
Kum Dollison (13:37:52) :
Hitching your anti-AGW wagon to Arctic Sea Ice might be a bad short-term proposition.
How about hitching up to reality instead the prayers for disaster flowing across the lips of the doomsayers, all the “science” of catastrophe is fiction, it is made up. Hansen and Al Gore are praying for a total collapse in Arctic Sea Ice in less than 4 years from now as a form of vindication! Just the planet seems to have other plans, as far as interpreting the data my opinion is that the Arctic is Recovering and my answer to the trend watchers is simple… if one can ride the slide one can climb the ladder.
Look at the real world not the soothsayers of Armageddon, it is time for the true science to stand up and be recognized over the “crystal ball gazers” passing opinion off as fact and driving hysteria among the masses with irrelevant claims of settled science and consensus driven horrors of man made weather events.
Just like ancient civilizations we cower down and offer up sacrifices to the heavens and the Gods of Air and Water to not wipe us off the face of the earth for our transgressions, these are in the form not of flesh but of treasure passed to our benevolent leaders to act to save us.
Into this crowd wade the dictators and false prophets promising a way to redemption or a path to appeasing the Gods who we angered with our disrespect for nature, holding themselves up as the vessels of truth and justice. Denouncing all who disagree and training legions of fanatical followers to spread their “truth”. Pointing to other events of nature as portents and signs of the coming crisis.
This has been happening in civilizations since the dawn of men coming together in tribes, now we just use science instead of mysticism and authority via measures of recognition or awards instead of claims of deeds like making the rains come. Which are the functional equivalent in our modern society.
Ultimately the truth will be revealed and as all false prophets and messengers of doom, this is not the first or the last time some have moved in this manner among us, and these to will be cast out of society and the social narrative of civilized men.
We will then forget until the cycle repeats itself just like climate change.
I just did a search and could not find a single headline about “Historic Record High Arctic Ice Extent.” I guess the media is not paying attention. I would hold my breath but the limited CO2 exhaust would be offset by the methane from my rotting body.
The EPA’s Technical Support Document:
http://epa.gov/climatechange/endangerment/downloads/TSD_Endangerment.pdf
It appears they hope they wont have to defend it though: “Notwithstanding this required regulatory process, both President Obama and Administrator Jackson have repeatedly indicated their preference for comprehensive legislation to address this issue and create the framework for a clean energy economy.”
Let the public comment period begin.
A wager on our future
Artic ice so seem to be at recent record levels… but signals coming from the oppisite side of the globe show a different reality. Wilkins Ice Shelf in Antarctic peninsula is at risk. Lots of videos and scientific data confirm this. Is there a connection? Which is the right evidence to follow? Both scientists who assert or deny global warming and climate changes as a result of human activities can appear wright or wrong at the eyes of readers. Whom should we believe? What should we do?
A simple hint can come following Pascal’s Wager: if the attitude which corresponds most to truth can’t be checked out then we could at least try to find out the more rational one. Pascal’s Wager is an attempt to justify belief in God not with an appeal to evidence for his existence but rather with an appeal to self-interest. A similar wager (let’s call it a sort of Wager on Survival) can be applied in the case of climate changes. We can’t possibly know the right attitude until maybe it’s too late. Just today in Italy on La repubblica appeared the following news: ONU 2.5°C more and cycle of trees will reverse – According to the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) if earth’s temperature will rise of 2.5°C more then forest will cease to lower CO2 emissions.
So, just from a rational point of view, in which way do we loose less? ignoring the problem and facing the possible consequences of that? or maybe taking actions to make our world a better place? The last option shows less drawbacks, and if the many voices rising at the moment and the Antartic Ice melting are just false signals, then we can at least try to live in a more healthy and sensible world.
http://italianopinionist.wordpress.com/2009/04/17/antarctic-peninsula-and-ice-melting-a-wager-on-our-future/
Heretic, I’m just saying, it’s interesting to watch, but it could turn on you in a heartbeat. It’s probably better to stick with the Science (and temperature.)
One part of the AMSR-E graph intrigues me.
Why is there a pronounced upwards kick around early June, visible for 2003, ‘6 & ‘8?
“…six key greenhouse gases—carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6)—”
Why did they leave out water vapor?
Kum wrote:
“Hitching your anti-AGW wagon to Arctic Sea Ice might be a bad short-term proposition.”
Who is doing that? The challenge is that there is so much complete nonsense spouted by alarmists — much of it based on slightly-off facts, some completely made up — that it is a full time job just to counter all the nonsense one issue at a time. As you well know, there have been many recent pronouncements by alarmists about the imminent disappearance of the Arctic sea ice. It is completely valid and appropriate to challenge such pronouncements when it becomes obvious that they were not based on sound scientific principles, but rather are nothing more than PR. Challenging particular claims does not mean anyone is hitching their wagon one particular claim.
Keep in mind it is the CAGW crowd that needs to demonstrate the alarming and extravagent claims made, not the other way around.
Kum wrote:
“Heretic, I’m just saying, it’s interesting to watch, but it could turn on you in a heartbeat.”
Fair enough, and a good point.
As reported in THE AUSTRALIAN today
“Revealed: Antarctic ice growing, not shrinking”
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25349683-601,00.html
Re:janama (13:48:55)
Great to see some truth being published. And to think even the Sydney Morning Herald is coming on board…streuth!
heresy
Pronunciation: \ˈher-ə-sē, ˈhe-rə-\
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural her·e·sies
Etymology:
Middle English heresie, from Anglo-French, from Late Latin haeresis, from Late Greek hairesis, from Greek, action of taking, choice, sect, from hairein to take
Date:
13th century
1 a: adherence to a religious opinion contrary to church dogma b: denial of a revealed truth by a baptized member of the Roman Catholic Church c: an opinion or doctrine contrary to church dogma
2 a: dissent or deviation from a dominant theory, opinion, or practice b: an opinion, doctrine, or practice contrary to the truth or to generally accepted beliefs or standards
Tom in Texas,
why did they leave out water vapor?
because water is a naturally occurring substance that has a natural cycle on our planet is necessary to life. to regulate it as a pollutant would be insane. …oh wait.
Adam Gallon (14:33:58) :
One part of the AMSR-E graph intrigues me.
Why is there a pronounced upwards kick around early June, visible for 2003, ‘6 & ‘8?
I have asked the same question here (some time last year), but I don’t think it was answered. Perhaps an instrument/measurement artifact or some kind of calibration, the ice doesn’t “kick” like that the same time every year. The DNMI graph is similar overall, but has no “early June kick”.
Carsten Arnholm, Norway (15:13:04) :
Maybe the satellites hit a gravitational speed bump every June…
But yeah, it is stange. Maybe we should look at the satellite logs. Could it be a yearly calibration?
William (14:14:53) :
“I just did a search and could not find a single headline about “Historic Record High Arctic Ice Extent.” I guess the media is not paying attention. I would hold my breath but the limited CO2 exhaust would be offset by the methane from my rotting body.”
Whoa, big fella! Recognize that this is a record for this date from the IJIS dataset which only goes back to through 2003. While it’s a nice milestone, it’s not anything of historic record high proportions, at least for now.
I already got an e-mail in to the cotrnact page of the EPA to tell them how insane, absurd, stupid and politically motivated that CO2 decision is.
That’ll fix ’em :^)
Kum Dollison (14:26:46) : “<Heretic, I’m just saying, it’s interesting to watch, but it could turn on you in a heartbeat.”
There is primarily no scientific reason i follow this (maybe a secondary not direct reason to bring science to order again). Anything can happen with this ice, and the AGW will not be more true if something happens to it the coming years or decades. If we got half a degree warmer in 30 years and the Arctic ice melts completely I think that is fine! The Arctic Sea had no ice 6000-7000 years ago,…
http://www.ngu.no/en-gb/Aktuelt/2008/Less-ice-in-the-Arctic-Ocean-6000-7000-years-ago
…and also about 120000 to 125000 years ago. Greenland had no ice along its coasts 700 years ago and then open areas of an agricultural society now lies under very thick ice. So I welcome the ice melting development; in particular it isn’t a catastrophe! 🙂 You are really stupid if you can’t see that an ice free Arctic sea is the very normal condition on Earth the last 50 or 100 million years. Unfortunately the last 2 million years has been one of the coolest period the Earth has experienced.
So this is important for me because you put so much in it — no much else makes it important, although oceanography and details in science is always to some point interesting.
By the way it’s interesting that you put your only hope for “a catastrophe” — which is what you falsely call the melting of ice in the Arctic — on AMO. You forget the silent sun, and that the galactic cosmic rays affected by the sun affects low level clouds with a correlation significance of more than 99.5%; Palle/Butler/O’Brian (2004) :
http://www.arm.ac.uk/preprints/433.pdf
Don’t forget that also the PDO gets negative, which affect the global temperature a lot more then AMO.
Dollison: “It’s probably better to stick with the Science (and temperature.)”
Yes. And your obsession with melting ice isn’t good science, or – rather – science at all.
PLEASE tell me the EPA is finally regulating the emission of dihydrogen monoxide….
Anthony, any chance you could start a new thread on the EPA’s Proposed Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings?
It is clear from the first two pages of the Proposed Findings that this is taken directly from the catastrophic global warming alarmism playbook.
http://epa.gov/climatechange/endangerment/downloads/GHGEndangermentProposal.pdf
Also, the Contribute Findings seem to be directed squarely at the auto industry. I haven’t been through the 133 pages yet, but this looks to be problematic on several fronts.
Since we, as humans, are a producer of CO2, will
the EPA regulate us? Maybe we can buy carbon
credits. If you can’t afford them…well, too bad!
Kum Dollison (14:26:46).
To put it short: I have no idea of ice development that prove any science, but I think it would be fine if your Arctic ice focused anti-science suffering from more ice. It’s always good when anti-science suffers.