Guest post by Steven Goddard
Last week, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon warned that “polar ice caps were melting far faster than expected just two years ago“
This was based on a number of widely publicized scientific studies released this year claiming that both the Arctic and Antarctic are melting faster than expected.
As recently as last week, scientists were sounding the alarm.
Tues., April 28, 2009OSLO – The ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica have awakened and are melting faster than expected, a leading expert told peers ahead of a conference of ministers from nations with Arctic territory.Dorthe Dahl-Jensen, an expert with the Center for Ice and Climate at the University of Copenhagen, told the conference in the Arctic town of Tromsoe that the need for a wake-up call was genuine for the polar and glacial regions.
He apparently didn’t read this paper from last Autumn’s AGU Meeting
Ice loss in Greenland has had some climatologists speculating that global warming might have brought on a scary new regime of wildly heightened ice loss and an ever-faster rise in sea level. But glaciologists reported at the American Geophysical Union meeting that Greenland ice’s Armageddon has come to an end.
One has to wonder if some scientists are lacking access to the Internet, as the amount of polar sea ice on the planet is above the 30 year mean.
Yesterday, NSIDC announced that “Arctic sea ice extent at the end of April 2009 was within the expected range of natural variability.” and “The decline rate for the month of April was the third slowest on record“
The NSIDC graph below shows that April ice extent has actually increased by more than the size of Texas over past last two years. Clearly The UN Secretary General is mistaken when he claims “”polar ice caps were melting far faster than expected just two years ago.”
I took this graph a step further and compared 2009 vs. past years. Current April extent is the greatest in the last 8 years. It is greater than it was 20 years ago.
If you look at the last 20 years, there is no statistically significant trend in the data.
Arctic ice extent is essentially normal.
It is important to remember that ice area between mid-April and mid-August is what affects the earth’s climate, because that is when the sun is up highest in the sky. When the ice reaches it’s minimum in September, the sun is so low above the horizon that the presence or absence of ice has little impact on the earth’s SW radiation balance. A more complete explanation here .
Also, the claim of Polar Bear endangerment is based largely on the idea that the ice is supposedly breaking up earlier than it used to in the spring. The “third slowest melt on record” would hardly support that popular claim.
I continue to be astonished at the amount of misinformation being propagated by some scientists and governmental officials. The correct information is readily available to anyone who has access to Google and five minutes of time. What is the real agenda?
You have all missed the most significant point in the article. The ice has awakened.
Ice melts much faster when it is awake.
The NSIDC offers us a strange analysis: “For the past few years, Arctic sea ice extent for most months has been more than two standard deviations below the 1979 to 2000 mean, particularly in summer. Two standard deviations provide an estimate of the expected range of natural variability. Because of cooler than average temperatures, Arctic sea ice extent at the end of April 2009 was within the expected range of natural variability.” AND “Compared to previous Aprils, April 2009 is near the middle of the distribution (10th lowest of 31 years). The linear trend indicates that for the month of April, ice extent is declining by 2.8% per decade, an average of 42,400 square kilometers (16,400 square miles) of ice per year.” SO the decline is therefore perfectly within the boundaries of NATURAL VARIABILITY. Thank you NSIDC!
But wait there is more…
NSIDC writes: “Causes of the slow April decline Cool conditions over the Bering Sea, noted in the April 2009 update, persisted through mid-April. Cool weather also slowed ice loss in the Barents Sea. The cool temperatures resulted from the movement of cold air from eastern Siberia across the central Arctic. After mid-April, the pattern shifted to relatively warmer conditions in the Bering Sea and melt progressed, resulting in the faster decline in the total extent during the second half of the month.” SO clearly polar air masses control the temperatures AND the ice conditions…
“It is difficult to assess how the slow decline through April will affect the summer minimum ice extent. Persistence of cool conditions through the summer could lead to a greater September ice extent compared to that of recent years. However, as discussed in our last post, the spring ice cover is thin and hence quite vulnerable to summer melt. However this summer unfolds, scientists expect to see high year-to-year variability in ice extent embedded within the long-term decline.” YET the Alfred Wegener Polar Institute measured the sea ice thickness and found unexpected thicker ice (4m insted of 2m…) NSIDC, please update your database… LOL
But wait there even funnier…
NSIDC quotes a study: “”Can summer ice extent affect winter weather? A new study suggests that Arctic ice extent at the end of summer can affect precipitation at lower latitudes the following winter. Jennifer Francis from Rutgers University and colleagues compared winter weather following summers with below-average ice extent, to weather following summers with above-average ice. The researchers found that low summer sea ice extent is linked to drier winters over much of the U.S., Scandinavia, and Alaska, and wetter winters in the northern Mediterranean, Japan, and the Pacific Northwest. The study showed that extensive ice loss in summer warmed the Arctic atmosphere during autumn. This warmth weakened the storm track that encircles the northern hemisphere, affecting weather patterns far away from the Arctic. As sea ice continues to decline in summer, these influences will become more prominent.” WHAT’s really funny is that the map attached showing the areas of dryer winters or wetter winters show the OPPOSITE result than the 2008-2009 winter… UK is supposed to be dryer OOOOOPS they had SNOW in London!!!! and the UK Met Office prediction was dead wrong… at 6 months, they could not predict the proper character of the winter… Really, One also can smile at a paper that “This warmth weakened the storm track that encircles the northern hemisphere,”… Perhaps Miss Francis should be well inspired to read about atmospheric circulation and study the works of Leroux about Mobile Polar Anticyclones, read the 2005 PhD thesis of Alexis Pommier on the North Atlantic AMP trajectories in the past 50 years… Oh but wait a minute: the AGW crowd always tell us “this is weather not climate”… LOL
There are two distinct groups of climate scientists.
Group one – let us call them alarmists – plays computer games depicting a virtual Nature with images of fantasy and unreality.
Group two – let us call them skeptics – observes, records, studies and reports on the reality of Nature.
————————————————————-
Hot-air doomsayers
Ian Plimer | May 05, 2009
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25429080-7583,00.html
Well-known catastrophists criticised the book before they actually received a review copy. Critics, who have everything to gain by frightening us witless with politicised science, have now shown their true colours. No critic has argued science with me. I have just enjoyed a fortnight of being thrashed with a feather.
Primary producers should be very worried about an emissions trading scheme underpinned by incomplete science. Unions in industrial centres may even make conditional financial support of the ALP because the workforce they represent will be lambs to the slaughter with an ETS.
The huge number of recent letters tell me that there are winds of change. The average punter has been told for more than two decades that we are all going to fry. He is not stupid and is blessed with a rare commodity missing in many academic circles: common sense.
Life experiences of rural people are very different from those of city folk who have little first-hand experience of nature. My correspondents feel helpless and disenfranchised with the unending negative moralistic cacophony about climate change. They know it smells but they cannot find where the smell comes from. The reason why the book has been a publishing sensation is because the average person knows that they are being conned and finally they have a source reference.
In the past, climate change has never been driven by CO2. Why should it be now driven by CO2 when the atmospheric CO2 content is low? The main greenhouse gas has always been water vapour. Once there is natural global warming, then CO2 in the atmosphere increases. CO2 is plant food, it is not a pollutant and it is misleading non-scientific spin to talk of carbon pollution. If we had carbon pollution, the skies would be black with fine particles of carbon. We couldn’t see or breathe. Climate Change Minister Penny Wong appeals to science yet demonstrates she does not have a primary school understanding of science.
The atmosphere contains 800 billion tonnes of carbon in CO2. Soils and plants contain 2000 billion tonnes, the oceans 39,000 billion tonnes and rocks in the top few kilometres of the crust contain 65,000,000 billion tonnes of carbon in carbon compounds. The atmosphere only contains 0.001 per cent of the total carbon in the top few kilometres of the Earth.
It is human arrogance to think that we can control climate, a process that transfers huge amounts of energy. Once we control the smaller amount of energy transferred by volcanoes and earthquakes, then we can try to control climate.
Until then, climate politics is just a load of ideological hot air.
To argue that human additions to atmospheric CO2, a trace gas in the atmosphere, changes climate requires an abandonment of all we know about history, archaeology, geology, solar physics, chemistry and astronomy. We ignore history at our peril.
I await the establishment of a Stalinist-type Truth and Retribution Commission to try me for my crimes against the established order and politicised science.
Discovery News –
May 5, 2009 — Perched on the soaring Karakoram mountains in the Western Himalayas, a group of some 230 glaciers are bucking the global warming trend. They’re growing.
Throughout much of the Tibetan Plateau, high-altitude glaciers are dwindling in the face of rising temperatures.
…in the rugged western corner of the plateau, the story is different, according to a new study. Among legendary peaks like K2 and Nanga Parbat, glaciers with a penthouse view of the world are growing, and have been for almost three decades.
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/05/05/himalayas-glaciers.html
Just how much does this alledged ‘man made global weather change‘ is about real science and how much is it about governments lying to its citizens and reaching into the collective wallets to extort more taxes?
Professor Philip Stott’s Clamour Of The Times.
http://web.mac.com/sinfonia1/Clamour_Of_The_Times/Clamour_Of_The_Times/Entries/2009/5/4_Mine_On_Australia_Fair.html
Mine On Australia Fair
[The tune is here]
Australians all let us rejoice,
For Rudd has set us free;
We’ve jet black coal and iron for toil;
Our mines are delved for thee;
Our land abounds in Nature’s gifts
Uranium rich and rare;
In history’s page, let every stage
Mine On Australia Fair.
In joyful strains then let us sing,
Dig On Australia Fair.
Beneath our radiant Southern Cross
We’ll toil with hearts and hands;
To make this CO2 of ours
Renowned in all the lands;
Emission trades we now shall freeze
Our Kev has laid that bare;
With courage let us all combine
To Mine Australia Fair.
In joyful strains then let us sing,
Dig on Australia Fair.
The political burying of totally impractical ‘global warming’ policies gathers pace – they are now ‘Rudderless in Oz’.
__________________
P.S. Australia emits more carbon per head than any other advanced industrial nation. What a mine of information we are.
a bit OT but of interest, almost worth a post
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=polar-bear-prompts-climate-change-action&print=true
Professor Philip Stott:
Excellent New Comment from India
http://sunderbanislands.blogspot.com/2009/04/great-global-warming-hoax.html
well-known Indian journalist working with The Times of India has just launched a new blog, ‘Vanishing Islands of the Sunderbans’. Like me, Achintyarup Ray has decided that there is an urgent need to launch a campaign against ‘global warming’ alarmism. His first posting, ‘A Global Warming Hoax’, is excellent, and it makes some very necessary observations about what is really happening to islands within the World Heritage zone of the Sunda(e)rbans [pictured from a satellite], the largest extent of tidal mangrove swamp in the world. The region embraces the delta of the mighty River Ganges, and it is spread across the coastal districts of West Bengal, India, and Bangladesh. The mangroves are renowned for the Royal Bengal Tiger (Panthera tigris tigris), as well as for many rare birds, spotted deer, crocodiles, and snakes. Inevitably, there has been a constant cry that the Sundarbans islands are threatened by sea-level rise caused by ‘global warming’, despite, I might add, scathing criticisms of this viewpoint from Indian Sub-Continent specialists, such as Dr. Robert Bradnock.
Shaun (14:19:21) :
Ice melts much faster when it is awake.
Presumably because it is hitting the gym twice a week in an attempt to maintain its girlish figure.
Mark
The Vikings liked living in Greenland when it had far less ice than now. 😉
“There is a clear attempt to establish truth not by scientific methods but by perpetual repetition.”
–Richard Lindzen,
MIT, Alfred P. Sloan Endowed Chair of Meteorology
“We find that the current Greenland warming is not unprecedented in recent Greenland history. Temperature increases in the two warming periods are of a similar magnitude, however, the rate of warming in 1920–1930 was about 50% higher than that in 1995–2005.”
–Geophysical Research Letters, 33, L11707, 13 June 2006, doi:10.1029/2006GL026510.
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2006/2006GL026510.shtml
(h/t Benny Peiser)
I’m glad you reproduced the article. The Australian seems to have pulled the link.
Jeremy (13:48:53) :
@ur momisugly Dave Middleton (09:58:54)
“Why do they always put a linear trend-line on the ice extent and temperature graphs?”
Excellent point. In fact I remember most of my undergrad science teachers docking us points if we *EVER* used the microsoft excel trendline feature. It is a very dubious thing to do but somehow this one area of science gets away with it time and time again.
****
In a recent WUWT blog,
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/04/11/making-holocene-spaghetti-sauce-by-proxy/
a debator “could only accept linear trend graph” despite Vulcanoes, La Ninas that randomly affected the linetrend a lot.
I then referred to many other trends:
Temperature difference 1980 to 2000 and 2009 :
UAH actual vals, 5 year smooth. 2000: 0,10K 2009: 0,20K
http://www.climate-movie.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/uah_global.gif
hadcrut, actual vals. 2000: 0,1K 2009: 0,3K
http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/5254/tropicshadcrut3rb1.png
polynom UAH trend. 2000: 0,18K 2009: 0,25K
http://www.holtlane.plus.com/images/uah_anomaly.jpg
polynom 2 UAH trend. 2000: 0,2K 2009: 0,15K
http://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/extensions/InlineImages/image.php?AttachmentID=631
polynom 5th order trend. 2000: 0,1K 2009: 0,0K
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/uah_june08_curvefits.png
(- linear trend also shown to compare)
Linear trend , UAH. 2000: 0,24K 2009: 0,36K
What is the “Correct” trend type for data graphs?
Is there a correct trend type? I think not. I personally prefer 3 – 5 degr. polynomial as they are much less sensitive to random effects.
Money and power. That’s what global warming has been about from the beginning. Our instincts tell us this. That answers the agenda question, doesn’t it?
Poll numbers show many don’t believe the global warming hype. This news from the UN likely won’t change that.
Science a Slave to Expediency
By John McLean, The Australian
http://www.icecap.us/
To the best of my knowledge, no climate conspiracy has ever existed. But another force has driven science into its present parlous state where the output of computer software is held in higher regard than observational data, where marketing spin is more important than fact and evidence, and where a trenchant defence of the notion of man-made global warming is seen as paramount. The single, pre-eminent force driving this distortion of science originates in the once-august UN.
For many years climate researchers have understood that their proposals will only be funded if they are pitched in line with government policy. Even worse, unless some aspect of their results appears to perpetuate government thinking, renewal of their funding is unlikely. Other climatologists are acutely aware of the potential consequences for their employers and their own employment prospects should they speak out in criticism of the dominant alarmist paradigm. Scientists who have criticised the hypothesis of human-caused climate change have had their funding curtailed or employment terminated.
>>>What’s the real agenda?
>>>A global command economy.
Yup. That’s why everything is global nowadays.
Global Warming
Global Pandemic(s)
Global Property Price Rise (and Fall)
Global Credit Crunch (resulting)
Global Markets
Global Migration
Global Immigration
Global Corporations
I’m sure there are more…. Anything to convince people that there are global problems that only a global government can solve – so we all get sucked into a One World Government.
JR (14:19:05) :
“Regarding the Catlin expedition, has anyone who is more patient and detail oriented than me been keeping a log of the daily latitude and longitude readings for the Catlin expedition and plotting those readings on a map? I keep noticing odd anomalies, such as today the “Time on the Arctic Ocean” is listed at 67 days, even though the counter indicates 65 days, 15 hours and counting. Also, I assume the wind has been shifting all around while they have been waiting for the resupply, because they have drifted this way and that for the last 9 days. Given the misleading biotelemetry data, what are the odds that the latitude and longitude readings are fudged?”
***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****
You’re right.
Catlin ops must be mathematically challenged. They’ve jumped a day; today’s updated data should have been for day 66 not 67. On top of that, they’ve once again ‘lost’ 20 km to the pole. How ever will they find them whem they go pick them up in 3 weeks — 400-450 kms & 15 days short of their stated goals. Rev up the spin machine…
The Arctic ice was shrinking but now returns to normal. Even the shrinking seems to have been primarily due to a natural cycle, the Arctic Oscillation. See piece:
“Winds, Ice Motion Root Cause Of Decline In Sea Ice, Not Warmer Temperatures
ScienceDaily (Dec. 29, 2004) — Extreme changes in the Arctic Oscillation in the early 1990s — and not warmer temperatures of recent years — are largely responsible for declines in how much sea ice covers the Arctic Ocean, with near record lows having been observed during the last three years, University of Washington researchers say.”
Another natural cycle, the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, may also be involved in Arctic ice behaviour; see Patrick Michaels, Ice Storm, Tech Central Station, 17 Feb. 2006. Note that the highest temperatures recorded in the Arctic were around 1940, before heavy increases in our emissions.
Down here in Australia we are having a fine old debate over the Antarctic ice. Temperatures have not risen on most of the continent since the 1970s (World Climate Report, Antarctica Again, 30 Jan. 2009), and land ice is in equilibrium with any losses balanced by gains elsewhere. Sea ice is growing not shrinking. A British team blames all this on cooling by a wind from the ozone hole coming down to the surface, swamping AGW and causing sea ice gain. But then why does the surface wind reach a maximum in autumn when the sea ice is at a minimum at this very season? (See British Antarctic Survey Press Release: “Increasing Antarctic sea ice extent linked to the ozone hole” 05/2009 April 21). Recent dramas involving some ice loss from the Wilkins ice shelf involve part of the Antarctic Peninsula, an unusually fast-warming region which extends far out from the continent and may thereby be encountering unique natural current variations (Duncan Wingham).
Whatever they have to do to get the tax money, they will do it. And yes grant money comes out of the exact same pot.
OT: But in the spirit of… 🙂
Green Carbon Neutral Expedition was fortunate to be saved by a hulking great oil tanker.
The British crew of a polar expedition have been rescued after their yacht was caught in a hurricane-force storm and capsized three times in towering north Atlantic swells.
The three members of the Carbon Neutral Expedition, two of whom were planning to cross the Greenland ice cap as part of a nationwide educational initiative, were hauled to safety on Saturday 400 miles off the coast of Ireland. They are now nursing their bruises on their way to Portland, Maine, where they are due to arrive in three days’ time.
Raoul Surcouf, 40, a landscape gardener from Jersey, and Richard Spink, 31, a physiotherapist from Bristol, had set up the expedition to show how journeys to some of the most remote places on the planet can be undertaken with minimal impact on the environment. Their relief was tinged with a sense of irony as the rescue craft sent by Falmouth coastguard was the Overseas Yellowstone, a 113,000-tonne oil tanker.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/may/05/polar-expedition-yacht-rescue
Well, last year was basically “no trend since 1989” as well, and the 1st year ice phenom did eventually bite. Now that NSIDC is claiming 2nd year ice is still vulnerable (but presumably less so than 1st year ice to some degree) I think we’re going to end up better than 2008 (and much better than 2007), but perhaps not much better than 2005 mininum. 2010 might be the real year when the arctic ice numbers will be so vividly embarrasing for AGWers that the twisting and turning to explain them should be very entertaining.
Mick J,
From the article…
“The CNE team would like to give heartfelt thanks to Falmouth and Irish coastguards for their professionalism in the rescue operation.”
What? No thanks to the brave crew of the oil tanker? Thanks to their professionalism and their BAB (Big Boat) the econauts were saved.
Finally we’re seeing the true picture of the ice at the Poles. First, it “awakens” as though sensing its own doom. Soon after, it “collapses” (probably after reading the morning paper with its cries of impending doom), and finally, almost magically it “evaporates” into thin air.
Of course, it isn’t the ice that’s awakening but people’s skepticism, and that has the Alarmists truly alarmed.
Anthony
J. Peden (12:55:34) :
An apropos quote by William Dipuccio that should be considered as a quote of the week is to be found in the last sentence of this article steered to by J. Peden. The subject of the article would also be a great post.
http://climatesci.org/2009/05/05/have-changes-in-ocean-heat-falsified-the-global-warming-hypothesis-a-guest-weblog-by-william-dipuccio/
“Open and honest debate has been marginalized by appeals to consensus. But as history has often shown, consensus is the last refuge of poor science.”