Shooting At a Rapidly Moving Target
Guest post by Steven Goddard
Arctic ice area has recovered to normal (one standard deviation) levels, so ice area no longer matters. The issue is now thickness, which is measured by a team of explorers (Catlin) with a tape measure, who intentionally seek out flat (first year) ice for their route.
The team systematically seeks out flatter ice because it is easier to travel over and camp on. Typically, the surface of first‐year ice floes is flatter than that of multi‐year ice floes.
Arctic ice area back in the normal range
Antarctic ice extent has been setting record highs, so the AGW team now claims that Antarctica doesn’t matter.
the scientific community has known for some time that that on a warming planet, sea ice in the global North (Arctic) is expected to melt while sea ice in the global South is expected to remain constant or even sightly grow.
Buoy data which shows thickening doesn’t count, because buoys don’t cover a wide enough region. Even though their region is much larger than the Catlin coverage.
Thus, while the buoys provide an excellent measurement of thickness at a point through the seasons, they do not provide good information on the large-scale spatial distribution of ice thickness.
Two year old multi-year ice no longer counts, the ice now has to be three years old to matter.
The Arctic is treading on thinner ice than ever before. Researchers say that as spring begins, more than 90 percent of the sea ice in the Arctic is only 1 or 2 years old. That makes it thinner and more vulnerable than at anytime in the past three decades, according to researchers with NASA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Colorado.
Dr. Hansen’s original prediction that Antarctic ice would diminish symmetrically with Arctic ice no longer matters, because the models have improved since he made that prediction.
A new NASA-funded study finds that predicted increases in precipitation due to warmer air temperatures from greenhouse gas emissions may actually increase sea ice volume in the Antarctic’s Southern Ocean. This adds new evidence of potential asymmetry between the two poles, and may be an indication that climate change processes may have different impact on different areas of the globe. … numerical models have improved considerably over the last two decades”
Apparently the only valid target are the latest computer models, which are constantly backfitted to mask their failures to date. Is this how science is supposed to be done?
If “increases in precipitation due to warmer air temperatures from greenhouse gas emissions”, how come yesterday we were all worried about the rivers drying up. Black is white!
Leon Brozyna (20:37:28) :
“A new NASA-funded study finds that predicted increases in precipitation due to warmer air temperatures from greenhouse gas emissions may actually increase sea ice volume in the Antarctic’s Southern Ocean.”
What the heck has this purported increase in precipitation have to do with sea ice? I can see how an increase in precipitation would add to glacial ice, but sea ice?
Snow still falls on sea ice and because of the proximity of the ocean to the antarctic sea ice snow fall can contribute significantly to the ice thickness and hence volume.
If this is true then the same should happen in the arctic with the increase in open water, resulting in more snow which should then result in more and thicker sea ice.
Generally there is much less snow fall on the arctic sea ice due to it being surrounded by land.
Interesting methodology in play here.
Public figures engage in spin; accountants cook the books. What are scientists doing who try to make the data fit the fantasy?
Instead of shooting from the hip about a subject you clearly don’t fully understand perhaps you should do some reading instead?
http://nsidc.org/seaice/characteristics/difference.html for example
Bruce Foutch (21:17:08) :
Regarding the video. Water changing state to Ice expands by 9%. Water does not expand when cooling, only when changing state to ice. So, how come the bottle doesn’t distort or the cap pop off due to the expected 9% expansion if the super-cooled water is actually turning to ice.
_________
Was wondering that myself Bruce…
Here we go again. I became absolutely bored with the breathless attention paid to the ice melt last season.
It is not a demonstration of anything except that the ice has/not melted.
There is nothing in it to show how, or why it has/not melted – that must be left to serious science to determine (and I wager that there are serious scientists doing just that and perhaps have been doing so for a long time).
I just can’t get overwrought by whether or not the ice melts this/last/whenever year.
Whatever happens, it does so as a result of physical processes in the oceans and the atmosphere which are not yet understood.
BUT THEY WILL BE.
The exploration of those processes is what is interesting. I am reasonably convinced that CO2, whilst not wholly irrelevant, is simply not a sufficient cause for what is observed. On the other hand, I am not convinced that other causes e.g. solar activity, are sufficient either.
The argument that CO2 is the only available candidate for the warming because the “others cannot explain it” runs rapidly and inextricably aground on the observations that a) there is nothing happening now which places the present circumstances outside the realms of what can and does happen to the earth’s climate from time to time; and b) a complete failure to explain why an apparently linear increase in CO2 in the atmosphere has failed to produce a corresponding increase in temperature.
I take absolute delight in a position of skepticism in relation to all of the explanatory theories proposed so far.
It may well be that one of them is correct, but we just don’t know yet.
Hansen’s and other AGW proponents’ computer models are useless and wrong. They didn’t predict the most important changes in the climate: they didn’t predict the PDO turning negative… they didn’t predict the AMO turning negative…. they didn’t predict the sun becoming dormant… they didn’t predict the temperatures declining since 2004 despite the fact CO2 levels continues to rise… they haven’t predicted the coming several decades cooling period similar to the Dalton Minimum.
E.M. Smith, I think you meant Brazen Senselessness – there you have the acronym I think you were looking for.
While I find the current (short -time) developments interesting indeed, I would think that it is wise to wait until July/August/September to make any strong conclusions. When eye-ballng the “melting” curves, there is little inter-annual spread at this part of the season. The greater variability is around June-Sep.
tetris (19:25:48) : said
————————————-Beginquote
Steven Goddard:
Not only does the Norwegian data show the ice is within 1 STD: it’s based on a 1979-2007 average. NOT a 1979-2000 average.
————————————–Endquote
While this is corect, I would think the former (Nansen ROOS) mean (having incorporated the relatively low ice extent levels in 2000 +) is LOWER than the latter.
Anyway, to summarise the current AGW description of the situation in the Arctic:
* CO2 is up (=more warming)
* Sulphate arosols are down (=less shielding=more warming)
* Soot appears to be up (=more heat capture=more ice melt)
* Multi-year ice is apparently down (remaining ice more vulnerable to melting.
I would think the only reasonable prediction from this is a record low ice extent in September 2009.
Personally I do not think the system is well enough described (above), and will sugest a september ice extent around 6 mill km2, possibly more.
Perhaps we should get Lucia (The Blackboard) to arrange a new bet ? 🙂
Cassanders
In Cod we trust
I hate to spoil the party but the most recent graphic shows the trend is already falling back to the 2003 level. Just like the 2008 ice extend did. Now if the summer low would be as high as the 1979-2000 trend, then there would be a case against AGW.
Claiming victory now is just as much bad science as claiming the arctic melt is increasing. We simply have to wait another year and see how this works out.
Mind you, if I read some of the comments here, such as Ron de Haan’s claims of a fascistic world goverment or Bill Illis “enviro-nazis”, combined with the eagerness to conclude AGW is over based on such a small snippet of data, I get the feeling that the realists are extremely rare.
Patience is required. I agree that various factors suggest the 2009 Arctic summer ice minima might be “surprisingly” high. However, in the short term, don’t be surprised if Arctic ice extent dips back well below the “normal” range in the next few days, given the forecast of sustained strong southerly winds off western Alaska. Here’s yesterday’s NOAA sea ice advisory valid through Monday 27th April:
“FORECAST THROUGH MONDAY…WEST OF 180…WARMING AIR AND WATER
TEMPERATURES WILL DIMINISH ICE. THE ICE EDGE WILL RETREAT TO THE
NORTH UP TO 60 NM THROUGH MONDAY.
FORECAST FOR WATERS BETWEEN 180 AND 165W…WARMING AIR AND WATER
TEMPERATURES WILL ERODE PACK ICE. PERIODS OF STRONG SOUTHERLY WINDS
AND WARM TEMPERATURES WILL FORCE THE ICE EDGE TO RETREAT TO THE NORTH
60 TO 75 NM THROUGH MONDAY.
FORECAST FOR WATERS EAST OF 165W…INCLUDING BRISTOL BAY…CONTINUED
SOUTHERLY WINDS AND PERIODS OF MUCH WARMER TEMPERATURES WILL DIMINISH
ICE SIGNIFICANTLY IN BRISTOL BAY. ICE WILL BE FORCED TOWARD THE NORTH
BUT WARMING LAND TEMPERATURES WILL CAUSE ICE CONCENTRATIONS ALONG THE
NORTH SHORELINE TO REMAIN LESS THAN 4 TENTHS.”
http://pafc.arh.noaa.gov/marfcst.php?fcst=FZAK80PAFC
I don’t see the problem with backfitting to match observations. The problem comes when putting faith in the “predictions” of models which require continual backfitting.
On a realted note, could someone tell me how the models could be expected to be right, given that there are things about climate that we do not understand, things that we understand poorly and many things that the models do not incude?
Anna V
Thanks for the insightfull explanation. We desperately need more of that in this discussion. I am getting a bit tired of the activism of both sides.
reality doesnt matter. today on the major italian newspaper
http://www.corriere.it/scienze_e_tecnologie/09_aprile_22/clima_fiumi_rischio_e9665e98-2f40-11de-89c1-00144f02aabc.shtml
“global warming drying up major rivers”
notice the section in which the article was published: science and technology.
On Channel 10 news tonight here in Australia a report into a British study which contradicts the consensus about ice melt in the Antartic. According to the news report, holes in the ozone layer are changing weather patterens causing ice to increase. Penny Wong, the environment minister, dismissed it staright off stating that “the science should not be ignored”. Australia is to introduce “climate pollution policy” this year.
The one thing that serves us more than anything else in this fight is that the AGW camp likes to drive ‘facts’ home to people by constant quotation and drastic prediction. The more these events do not happen, the more they change their cause/effect, the less people believe them.
Failed expeditions that ran into cold and ice work for us. I looked at some of their pictures, if thats one year ice.. Im not really worried about the Artic.. lol . Its the give them enough rope and they will hang themselves trick. Just wish we hadnt given them such a long rope:).
A few muses on the weblink to Bob Carter’s report at the Marohasy blog on bemused Australian politicos:
1. In order to evaluate between competing claims, you must first understand the basis of their claims, then the suppositions, then the presumptions for the future. It’s never an exact science, but the more you model futures the better you get at it. If good modelling is your aim rather than political power……I don’t build big computer models, but I do try and guess when and where to go ski-ing each year. I get better at it with the passing years, even if at one point I started getting worse due to a new factor at play which I was unaware of. As I became aware of it, my predictions became better still. So it can be done……..go speak to Aborigines and Maoris and I think you’d find their cultural subconscious has been doing it for centuries too……….
2. In order to learn how to evaluate between competing claims, you need independence of thought and rigorous analysis. How many political parties do you know which encourage that? [None in the UK, that’s for sure….] And how many do you know that expect subservient sycophancy from first-rate minds toward experienced pamphleteers who know about POLITICKING but not about GOVERNING?
3. Where can you gain such rigorous thought processes outside of politics? Well, anywhere where either you don’t get paid very much (high pay usually demands orthodoxy and hence repression of free thinking) or where free thought is promoted (well that’s certainly not academia any more, is it? Actually, our best free thinker in UK politics, Mr Vincent Cable, learned real-life modelling at that bastion of capitalist evil, the oil multinational Royal Dutch Shell. He’s a Liberal Democrat, not a right wing fascist….)
Based on thinking about those questions, can you conceive of a situation where regular politicians DO have the capability to deal with two warring factions?
Eh????
This logic reminds me of this logic http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0LPUI0lfVw
In Australia, the Climate Change Minister (Penny Wong) has dismissed the British Antarctic Survey announcement of a 30 year growth of Antarctic ice and claimed “we have to go with the science”.
Obviously, she is being very selective with the science she is ‘going with’ and, if it does not agree with their stated position of AGW, it is not science.
It was refreshing, though, to see a major television news item explaining an alternative to the AGW mantra.
Why, but why didn’t you show the AMSR-E data
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/AMSRE_Sea_Ice_Extent.png
which are the data WUWT is showing on its frontpage?
The answer, in my sense, is simple: that’s because the ROOS picture conveniently plots the 97-07 average, i.e. it includes the 07 and 08 records.And also because AMSR-E shows the ice is now rapidly declining (as many people pointed out it would do)
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Apart from rime ice, that gathers on our aircraft wings (which is supercooled), I have only seen supercooled once in nature.
It was a still, freezing night with ice everywhere, when I came across a liquid puddle. It was so odd to see it, I went over and trod on it – at which point it froze instantly, trapping my boot in the process.
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Re: Bruce Foutch (21:17:08) :
Water expands as the temperature decreases from 4C to 0C. I don’t know if it continues the expansion as it becomes supercooled, but if it does this would explain why there is no distortion of the bottle as it turns to ice
Ric Werme (21:21:59) :
Yes, it would be foolish to assume that it would behave like 2008, but it’s also foolish to assume that it won’t. I was trying to caution against “irrational exuberance”. I’m not taking either bet. It’s a wait and see situation from my POV.
I wish the video showed you exactly how to do the experiment. And how not to bust the bottle with the ice expanding. It should be repeatable, hey, it’s bad science if it’s not transparently repeatable and open to falsification! but thanks anyway Steve and Anthony.
Flanagan: Not sure how the 97 – 07 average contains the 08 data?? But yes, it is best to compare with the longest dataset available. I’m sure we all agree that the ice extent will rapidly decline in the next four months.
OT for those of you in the US it might be time to invest in a wood burner and a generator, not only is it not getting any warmer but also “No new nuclear or coal plants may ever be needed in the United States, the chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said today.”Wellinghoff said renewables like wind, solar and biomass will provide enough energy to meet baseload capacity and future energy demands. Nuclear and coal plants are too expensive, he added.”
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=will-the-us-need-new-coal
Good luck on a cloudy cold January day with no wind blowing.
As of 10:30 am 2009-04-23 the amsre chart has taken a dive. Frequently this is adjusted later (I believe they do a 2 day average – minimal to give a fast update to the daily data). Frequently this is an upwards adjustment
All this crowing about seaice area at this time is ridiculous. The whole yearly area anomaly gets minimised around june/july time and it is only after this that the final extent is even vaguely predictable – see 2006 (black line on amsre curve) lowest from jan to july then in the top 3 in sept.