Guest Post by Steven Goddard
From time to time we hear that various places on earth have been “warming much faster than the rest of the planet – as predicted by “the models.” One of the places commonly mentioned in that list is the Arctic, based largely on 30 years of satellite data. Fortunately though, we are not limited by 30 years of satellite data, as the Danish Meteorological Institute has records going back to 1958 and GISSTEMP has even longer records.
Below is a visual comparison of DMI 1958 Arctic temperatures vs. 2009, showing that temperatures have hardly changed since the start of their record.
2009 Daily Mean Temperatures North of 80 degrees
Below is an overlay directly showing that 2009 temperatures (green) are similar to 1958 (red) and close to the mean. Blue is mean temperature for the 41 year record.
So if the Arctic has warmed since 1979, how can it be the about same as 1958? The answer can be seen in the GISSTEMP graph below of Godthab, Greenland.
Temperatures have warmed since the start of the satellite record, but they cooled even more between 1940 and 1980.
Everyone (including NSIDC) quietly acknowledges that most of the Arctic was warmer in the 1940s than now – so they shift the warming argument to the Alaska side. However, that argument also has problems. Alaska temperatures rose at the positive PDO shift in 1977, and have cooled again with the recent negative PDO shift – as seen below. 2008 was notable in that Alaska glaciers started to increase in size.
If you look at only one leg of a cycle, you will come to the wrong conclusion about the shape of the graph. Thus I would argue that Dr. Spencer’s fourth order curves are much more meaningful than the nearly meaningless linear fits being used by most prominent climate scientists. Climate is primarily cyclical, as every good climate scientist should know.
Vostok Ice Core Temperature Records
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OT
One of Russia biggest papers writes big article about “THE ILLUSION” of man made global warming.
ISVESTIA 27 april 2009
http://www.finiz.ru/economic/article1254881
A short translated resumé:
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The Crisis ended the “Global Warming” financing
-Human contribution to the CO2 emissions is max 10%.
-The relationship of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane, etc.) with the warming of the atmosphere is just a hypothesis, not proven. In general, what is so fiercely fought for by the progressive community, is proved to be an illusion.
-Is it implicated for material or political interests?
-One cannot argue that the planet has experienced warming.
-Russian geophysicist Oleg Sorohtin believes that in this case simply confused cause and effect between CO2 in atmosphere and warming.
-A cause of global warming is likely to be increase in solar activity – and this has happened before in the history of Earth’s glacial periods alternated with warming. So believes Member of RAS Andrei Kapitsa and many scientists in the world.
But even if you agree with advocates of the theory of the greenhouse, the role of humans is greatly exaggerated.
-Recently the French geologists have shown that the earlier estimates of the number of carbon dioxide, emitted during volcanic eruptions, it is to low. In fact, the greatest amount of this gas to the atmosphere due to the decomposition of carbonate rocks (Not directly from gasses), When warmed by lava.
-Almost at the same time, scientists from the University of Arizona have proven that we are wrong in estimates of CO2 from wildfires. It turns out these fires also emit into the atmosphere much more carbon dioxide than believed.
Andrei Kapitsa, Corresponding Member of Russian Academy of Sciences:
From analysing Antarctic ice cores it turned out that raise in carbon dioxide does not precede warming, but takes place after warming, which is quite understandable: 90% of carbon dioxide dissolved in the oceans, and the process of removal of carbon dioxide from the water is endless. If you just warm the ocean half a degree Kelvin, it just throws a lot of carbon dioxide in the air. And in the case of cooling the oceans can easily absorb carbon dioxide.
-But when you think … Is it really bad to create this illusion? For economy, it is important to sell more and more new cars, while the old were no good anyway …
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“”” Claude Harvey (04:56:22) :
The version of the Vostok Ice Core Temperature Record presented here clearly shows CO2 variations trailing the temperature variations, particularly on the upticks. Other versions of the chart, with its 450,000 year scale, do not consistently show this visual effect, with the explanation by skeptics being that the lag was only 800 years (ocean effect) which would not be apparent on such a scale. That leads me to suspect the chart presented here has been tampered with for dramatic effect. Explanation? “””
Well Claude, the explanations I have seen say that the 800 year number is the time delay of the temperature curve that results in the highest crosscorrelation coefficient with the CO2 data; but that actual delays for individual events can be as much as 3500 years.
In looking at the curves as presented by climate genius AlGore in his “Inconvenient Truth ” book, pages 66/67, i have suggested that one should do two separate correlations, one for generally increasing data, and one for generally decreasing events, and I bleieve such processes would show that the delay for rising edges is less than 800 years, whilke that for falling edges is greater than 800 years; for best correlation. One can see visually, that the fall time of CO2 changes is very much slower than for the temperature falling edges, and is a lot slower that the CO2 rise times.
If ocean outgassing and uptake were a big factor, one can see that 100% of the ocean surface is in contact with the atmopshere, so outgassed CO2 goes immediately into the air; but the converse is not true, 100% of the atmosphere is not in contact with the oceans, so when the oceans start to uptake CO2 upon cooling, there is a propagation delay for a good bit of the atmosphere that is not directly in contact with the ocean; so the CO2 has to migrate to the ocean first, before it can dissolve. If CO2 residence times were 200 years as they claim (I don’t believe it) then the CO2 removal by the ocean could be a lot slower.
But I think there are a lot of processes going on besides ocean uptake.
In any case the CO2 delay varies widely about that 800 years.
George
i prefer watching :
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
but maybe just because it still has 2009 as the highest year?
Thanks to Steven for this post, and to Peter Taylor for his expert analysis.
Global warming propaganda has clearly reached to point of critical mess.
“”” Rhys Jaggar (07:33:28) :
Interesting stuff.
I can’t remember: was 1958 at solar maximum or solar minimum?
Would this have any implications for your interpretation?
And now we have had, horror of horrors, two days of 74s in the key radition measurement during solar cycles, is the remainder of 2009 likely to shoot ahead or stay close to the 1958 curve?
Questions as I am ignorant and have no knowledge!!! “””
Rhys, 1957/58 was specifically chosen for the IGY (International Geophysical Year) because they knew it was going to be a solar Maximum, and the previous several sunspot pekas had been steadily increasing.
Specifically the 1905/6 peak was about 60, 1917 was around 100; 1928 was about 75; 191938 was 110 ; 1947-48 was around 150, so people were interested in the 57/58 coming peak.
What they never predicted was that the 1957/58 sunspot peak would be around 190, and be the all time sunspot peak in recorded history.
then foloowed peaks about 100, 150, 150, and then whatever cycle 23 was.
So basically we came out of the 60-70s range since around 1875 through the 1928 peak at 75, followed by the climb upt to the 150 range that has persisted ever since the IGY; and not surprisingly encompassing the recent period of “global warming”.
The Dalton minimum of about 1795-1823 had peaks below the 50s.
My numbers are stolen fair and square from Dr Willie Soon’s wonderful book; “The Maunder Minimum, and the Variable Sun-Earth Connection” and Willie attributes the data to David Hathaway at NASA/MSFC; whatever that agency is.
George
@ur momisugly Steven Goddard (09:03:41) :
Yup, agree. Still, why is the current peak so much higher?
Perphaps there were similar spikes previously but they are too short to be seen in the record?
The Vostok record suggests strong positive feedback when entering and, especially, coming out of an ice age. In the depths of the ice age, things are cold, dry, and dusty. One possibllity I’ve seen mentioned is that the dust accumulates on the ice and triggers melting.
But what is the feedback mechanism causing the end of the interglacial? Could a CO2 spike trigger it somehow?
Lance (01:18:56) :
I may be OT or not, but the google ad ( right before the comments) is selling the book “the god who wasn’t there” This could come across wrongly as an anti Christian sentiment that might be shared on this site.
I’ve seen this ad on other sites that have alterer “political” motives and pegged them as not creditable to a clean link.
I don’t think we all see the same links. It uses information it has about end users to tailor the adds that appear. So I’m guessing that you are seeing this add because of something specific about your browsing history, the contents of your email, if you have gmail, or some such. The adds you see may say more about you, than about this site.
“The Vostok record suggests strong positive feedback when entering and, especially, coming out of an ice age”
the vosotk record suggests strong positive feedbackbetween the ice age andcurrent temperatures. current stage and ice ages are long term stable, suggesting negative or feeback.
temperatures never flipped to a higher temperature state above the interglacials,suggesting there negative feedback even for higher temperatures than present.
Henry Galt (09:37:45),
Excellent suggestions, which I am going to follow starting today.
This is a bad post. Instead of showing Arctic Temp or SST data (which we have stretching well back), we’re given two cherry-picked years and one surface station in Greenland. The fact is that the Arctic should be warming rapidly, regardless of the cause of the warming, as energy is transported from low to high latitudes.
CO2 is high because of the burning of fossil fuels. The deficit is high because of the spending of the US Congress. Teen pregnancies are high because there are a lot of teens having sex. Manchester United is at the top of the tables, because they have a lot of AIG bailout money to spend on salaries.
http://news.softpedia.com/images/news2/Manchester-United-Mobile-Game-Announced-for-April-2.jpg
There are all kinds of numbers you could correlate against global temperature, which may or may not have a significant causal relationship.
Perry Debell (07:28:15) :
“Expedition Leader Pen Hadow revealed that initial Survey results show the average ice thickness in the region to be 1.774m.”
Meaning that was the thinnest ice they could find to drill through? Why did so many photos show them climbing over ridges and things so much bigger then “1.774m.”? (and how in the snip do they get three decimal places with a fabric tape measure calibrated in inches or centimeters?)
The NP could well be ice free sometime in the next 5 years. Happened before. If we have any submarines left, one might surface and photograph it.
Perform an experiment. Fill a pot on a stove with water and ice cubes. Place a thermometer in that pot then turn up the heat.
Those of you who have performed this experiment as school children will remember that the temperature of water remained a steady 32°F (0°C) until all of the ice had melted.
The same is true of the arctic. Once the ice goes, the temperature will rocket upward.
A good article in The Australian by Ian Plimer: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25429080-11949,00.html
I don’t truly believe any data on either side of the debate until there is a temperature monitoring system in place that I can trust. There needs to be a temperature monitoring grid setup equidistance of every 5 or 10 miles across the whole planet ( including the oceans ). They should take snapshots of the tempature at the same moment in time, say 3-4 times/day. Also, prefereably, they could be stacked upward into the atmosphere. I realize this is probably unfeasible at this point, but until something better is put into place I’m skeptical of everything.
George E. Smith (09:48:57) :
You’re comparing apples to apple skins. The amount of the ocean volume in contact with the atmosphere over scales of a few years is certainly much less than 100%.
Almost unelievable – or are the BBC reacting to yesterday’s complaints?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/climatechange/2009/05/catlin_arctic_survey_success.html
A questioning of the “science conducted by the Catlin team.
Excerpts:
are we learning anything
‘reporting bias’ due to the fact that the team’s journey over the ice was dictated by what it was possible to cross
Going to the Pole this time of the year is a bit stupid and you put a lot of people’s lives at risk.’
and finally
this year the sea ice ‘decline rate for the month of April was the third slowest on record’.
Just a few minutes ago I chatted with a co-worker who lives in Barrow, AK, as he has for his whole life. He was complaining that he didn’t get any fresh muktuk the last time he was home (less than a week ago), so I asked how the spring whaling season was going. He told me that the Barrow hunters haven’t really had a chance to hunt yet, because there’s no open water to speak of.
I asked him how late the season is this year due to the ice and he told me “a month.” He said that there’ll be an opening in the ice for a day, then it closes back up for a week. The man wants his muktuk.
storky,
Tell your experiment to the IPCC, Hansen, Gore, the WWF, etc.
They are the ones who think the temps are skyrocketing now.
@Lubos Motl (01:00:57) :
It’s NOT observed temperatures, but calculated by modelling (see note on the left side of the DMI site.)
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
The most interesting periode is from day 100 – 250, the melting season. When the temperature goes below the green average line, heat are sucked out of the atmosphere (due melting) the temp is above the average line it indicate freesing (due freezing and heat-enery released to the atmosphere).
See the high-summer (above 273.15 K) most of the time the temperature is below avarage (due max. melting)
The trend seems to be the same since 1958 with small fluctuations
But on the main BBC news tonight more taditional BBC coverage of Catlin team’s abandonment of their expedition. No coverage on their web site yet, but from memory they claimed they were measuring, not the thickness of the ice, but the decline in thickness (a special tool required to measure the decline in one visit?).
Hadow also surprised at the lack of snow (mostly they had to fix their tents with ice anchors because of lack of snow). Does this have any significance?
Brian in Alaska,
Here’s the Barrow webcam:
http://www.gi.alaska.edu/snowice/sea-lake-ice/barrow_webcam.html
In my country, the newspaper posted an article about the Catlin on their website…
They say the ice is going to melt very early this summer, and that they hear cracks in the ice, so they can’t go further because of too dangereous.
It’s really sad, because they don’t speak about all the misery and the failure (in my eyes) of this expedition.
But yeah, that’s media for sure 😛
Very cool statistic
“Alaska’s Hubbard Glacier is advancing at the rate of seven feet per day”
http://www.cdapress.com/articles/2009/05/11/columns/columns06.prt
From http://icecap.us/
“The Corp is involved because ‘when’ and ‘if’ the Hubbard Glacier eventually closes the Russell Fjord, the fjord will fill with fresh water, becoming a 30-mile-long lake creating a new 40,000-cubic-feet-per-second river system. This will have an extremely ‘negative’ economic impact on Yakutat and the surrounding regions. It’s possible that at the shocking rate of seven feet per day in its advancement, the Hubbard Glacier could close the fjord by later this summer, or even prior to that time, if the current rate of advancement speeds up, say to perhaps 10 or 12 feet per day.”
Interesting