I thought it might be time for an update on this.
Earlier this year we had the big news that even though everything else says otherwise, the statistical wizards of Steig et al (with a cameo appearance by stat-stickster Michael Mann) managed to make Antarctica show a warming trend.
At left here’s the headline from the Sydney Morning Herald January 20th 2009, introducing Steig’s results.
Gosh. This new warm picture proves it. Right? Colors don’t lie. They quote Dr. Steig who says:
“The thing you hear all the time is that Antarctica is cooling. But it’s more complex than that,” Professor Steig said. “Antarctica isn’t warming at the same rate everywhere and, while some areas have been cooling for a long time, the evidence shows the continent as a whole is getting warmer.”
Yes it is more complex than that. A part of that complex story is emerging this month. Right about the time when things should start warming up in Antarctica due to their onset of spring, it seems to be stalled according to one scientist on the ground there who writes ICE STORIES: dispatches from polar scientists (emphasis mine):
MCMURDO STATION, ANTARCTICA– Wednesday, September 16, 2009. It has been a slow, and sometimes frustrating, effort to get our first successful science flight of the project, but we did succeed last night. Before discussing that flight I’d like to write about some of the hurdles we have had to overcome to get to this point.
The first obstacle, and the one least in our control, was the weather. The Aerosonde unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been flown in temperatures as cold as -30 degrees C (-22 deg F), and this was the intended minimum operating temperature for this project.
Prior to coming to Antarctica one of the members of my research group, Shelley Knuth, analyzed 14 years of automatic weather station data from a weather station located at the Pegasus runway that we are using for our UAV flights.
Based on her analysis the temperature at Pegasus is above -30 degrees C for approximately 50% of the time in September, and is below -40 degrees C (which is also -40 degrees F) only 9% of the time in September on average. Of course the weather for any given month rarely follows the average, and this September has been a colder than average September, with most days up until the past few days having temperatures below -30 degrees C at Pegasus, and many days having temperatures below -40 degrees C. This made our attempts to fly the Aerosondes very difficult.
Yes, yes, I know It’s weather, not climate. Hold the caterwauling. But please, also have a look at the NSIDC graph of sea ice for Antarctica. Sea ice forms around the warmer periphery of the continent, not in the cold continental center where Amundsen-Scott base is located. There’s quite the uptick in Antarctic sea ice when the slope should begin heading downward:
While the uptick now is interesting, the real news is the change in extent. Quite a difference from 2008, about 1 million square kilometers more than this time last year, and well above average. The gain in Antarctica extent this year is 2 times that of the gain in the Arctic at 500,000 square kilometers.
Since the wisdom in the press headline is that “Antarctica is melting – sell the beach house”, but we see Antarctic ice increasing, one can only conclude that like Steigs upside down thermometers, we must also have upside down ice sensors, and the ice is actually less than last year. I’m sure somebody can prove that statistically.
Or, the headlines could just be bullpuckey from the press. Which is it? Inquiring minds want to know. If you need a look a how the media spins the melt season in Antarctica, look no further than this CBS News report from Scott Pelley.
Just for fun; a couple of weather forecasts from Weather Underground. Looks like they may finally get the plane launched at McMurdo.
Amundsen-Scott Base at the South Pole:
McMurdo Base:
An anthem for AGW
Every political movement needs a rousing and aspirational song to keep up morale: so here is one for proponents of AGW: “Aggressive sunbathing”
Link to file:
http://download.yousendit.com/cmcwWGJITWNxRTFjR0E9PQ
Sunny Greenland, currently:
http://www.wunderground.com/global/GL.html
Timeshare Vacations in Antarctica:
http://www.wunderground.com/global/AA.html
Lovely Yukon:
http://www.wunderground.com/global/CA_YK.html
Balmy Nunavut:
http://www.wunderground.com/global/CA_NU.html
MikeC (16:03:41)
I see nothing wrong with your description of wind effects but consider that you are mistaken in ignoring the effect of temperature variations in the water flowing into the Arctic Circle.
You place significance on the thickness of the ice but ignore the fact that warmer water (or less cold water) under the ice will inhibit thickness.
Michael hauber (21:50:13)
“We show that 72% of the Antarctic ice sheet is gaining 27+- 29 Gt yr-1”
“The change in mass of the interior (80% of the omitted area)
is likely to be small.”
http://www.cpom.org/research/djw-ptrsa364.pdf
Stephen Wilde (15:05:27) “Solar influences […]”
Apply temporal conditioning (and be vigilantly wary of confounding) when investigating solar-terrestrial relations.
Note what happens from ~1930s until ~1970s here:
http://www.sfu.ca/~plv/Cos(Phase(abs(Pr.),2r..,3LNC)).png
Compare with:
1) All figures here:
Ponyavin, D.I.; & Zolotova, N.V. (2004). Nonlinear analysis of climatic time series with cross recurrence plots.
http://geo.phys.spbu.ru/~ned/Ponyavin_and_Zolotova_2004.pdf
2) Figures 2 & 4:
Ponyavin, D.I.; Barliaeva, T.V.; & Zolotova, N.V. (2005). Hypersensitivity of climate response to solar activity output during the last 60 years. Memorie della Societa Astronomica Italiana 76, 1026-1029.
http://geo.phys.spbu.ru/~ned/P_B_Z_2005MmSAI..76.1026I.pdf
3) Figures 16-25:
Zolotova N.V.; & Ponyavin D.I. (2005). Recurrence and cross recurrence plot analysis of natural time series, Educational and methodical materials. St. Petersburg University Press. (in Russian)
http://geo.phys.spbu.ru/~ned/ZP_methodology.pdf
4) Figure 4:
Ponyavin, D.I. (2004). Solar cycle signal in geomagnetic activity and climate. Solar Physics 224, 465-471.
5) Figures 3, 5, 9b, & 11b:
Xue, Y.; Smith, T.M.; & Reynolds, R.W. (2003). Interdecadal Changes of 30-Yr SST Normals during 1871-2000. Journal of Climate 16, 1601-1612.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/sst/papers/xue-etal.pdf
Thanks Bender.
And the other 20% of the omitted area includes areas near the edge of the western peninsula which is melting rapidly but difficult to measure accurately. If I interpret a somewhat confusingly worded conclusion correctly, they esimate that when 100% of the Antarctic area is considered that overall there is an ice loss of 35 Gt/y, with uncertainty of +/- 115 GT/y – so overall no meaningful trend either way detected in that paper.
Stephen Wilde (15:05:27) :”The latitudinal position of the ITCZ can serve as a proxy for the average latitudinal position of all the air circulation systems.”
I find your proposition most interesting as a way to proxy the energy balance between the north and south hemispheres ( if I correctly understand your post). the assemetric size and shape of the worlds oceans makes it hard to model the energy balance effectively. This might let the planet do that part of the job for you. K.I.S.S.
I wouldn’t let Lief diswede you from your train of thought, he is no doubt this site’s for most expert on all that is known about the sun, but there is a lot that is not known.
TomP said:
“I said:
“It all depends on how the trend works out to see if this is a real problem. I don’t think GRACE is the best tool in the short term for working out these trends to the accuracy required to quantify any threat here.”
The Met Office says:
“A significant uncertainty in future projections of sea level is associated with dynamical changes in the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets…”
How did you come to the conclusion there’s a contradiction here?
***
Because you then spoilt that perfectly reasonable statement by saying:
“But the satellites of GRACE are determining to above a 95% confidence level that the Antarctic is losing ice.”
Clearly the confidence level is less than that.
tonyb
Robert E. Phelan (11:51:59) :
I’m all in favor of bashing the press which seems to have lost the ability to think for itself, but Dr. Steig had an interesting idea and the gumption to test it. If the results didn’t stand up to the scrutiny it was given over at the Air Vent, well, that’s science.
In an ideal world yes.
However, the original paper made the front cover of Nature (I think) with ‘that graphic’ – the one included in at the top of this WUWT entry. This is the type of image / message that leaves a last impression with people and reinforces the ‘ice is melting’ mantra. It’s the kind of picture that stands out on magazine racks, at airports etc.
Problems have been found with the paper, once again down to the use of statistical techniques on incomplete data-sets that have noise/error bars substantially larger than the variation that’s being ‘measured’. Do you see a front page correction of this – no. Does the general public know about this – unlikely.
As a test type this into google:
“antarctica warming study steig 2009”
And see the 1st page of hits – all major, major newspapers / publications etc.
Now do this:
“antarctica warming study steig 2009 flawed”
And repeat – slightly different set of results eh?
(Not entirely scientific I realise but a good indicator of likely audience reach.)
Cheers
Mark
Layne Blanchard (17:32:22) :
That’s a lot of ice surrounding that red hot continent! Must be a scorcher down there! What’s the actual in that deep red area, -20C ?????
Layne, I don’t know about the red west but the pink east temps can be monitored at this link:
http://www.aad.gov.au/weather/aws/dome-a/index.html
Currently about -65C. The best I’ve seen this winter was about -79C. We’re starting to see diurnal movements in the temp so the sun must be back 🙂
Speaking of the Sydney Morning Herald, now they’re trying to suggest that the drought in NSW is getting worse:
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/hot-weather-kills-20-of-nsw-wheat-crop-20090921-fxnd.html
Nonsense, obviously, and I doubt the measurements of temperature in 1950 were of a calibre that would make any kind of trend analysis legitimate. I suspect these drought declarations are part of the state government/MSM’s warmist agenda.
I think the GRACE paper may be reasonable, even if it comes from the University of Colorado.
Climate scientists have repeatetly said, that Antarctic ice may increase in a warming environment, due to increased precipitation.
So the opposite is also true, Antarctic ice loss is compatible with COOLING temperatures, allowing less precipitation.
A consequence of increasing Antarctic ice with increasing temperatures would, of course, reduce the expected sea level rise.
We’re still working away at a better solution for Steig. It’s getting close now. The amount of work Ryan has put into this is several times greater than Steig et al. Every pebble is being flipped to see if there’s an improvement which can be made.
Michael hauber (21:50:13) :
. . . the current rates aren’t particularly alarming – sea level rise is 3mm a year and most of that is supposed to be thermal expansion not ice sheet loss.
3.2mm/yr is for the whole satellite era. I eyeball the rate for the last several years at around 1.4mm/yr.
3.2 gives us a 10 ft rise sometime after AD 3000. 1.4 mm/yr will give us 10 ft in the early part of the 5th Millennium. Plan accordingly.
However the fact that observations show a loss of ice when models do not predict such loss should be at least enough concern to want to closely monitor and get better information?
When the data does not follow the models, we should get better models.
OT–
CNN this morning, we’re back to Greenland melting, with dire consequences:
“We accompany oceanographers in inflatable boats as they collect data on the warming water currents in the fjord. All this research, they say, points to sea levels rising beyond current predictions.
There are still those who question humankind’s role in the warming of the Earth’s climate, but these scientists are not among them.
“Things could be very bad,” glaciologist Dr Gordon Hamilton tells me. “If we don’t start to do something about it now we’ll very quickly reach a tipping point from which there’ll be no return. And the consequences for society as a whole would be catastrophic.”
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/09/20/greenland.arctic/index.html
And this has to be true, because the scientists are “independent” this time:
“Joining Greenpeace on this expedition was a difficult decision for CNN. Does it compromise our editorial independence on what can still be a highly divisive issue? …
Traveling with Greenpeace allowed us to record powerful images of Greenland’s accelerating melt. And we met independent scientists who believe the world must act boldly to slow down change that science is struggling to keep pace with. ”
Wasn’t there a recent discussion about how much thicker the icepack is?…and how more ice in the center pushes ice out to the edges?
JimB
Re: Mark Fawcett (10:28:02) :
“There’s lies, damn lies and statistics…”
—
Statistics have no truth value and therefore cannot be lies.
More sea-ice around Antarctica may simply be caused by increased snowy precipitation on the sea-ice. Increasing precipitation belongs to global warming.
TonyB,
To repeat what I wrote earlier to a jones,
“The latest GRACE mass loss figure is 210 +/- 90 Gtonnes. Why are you confused that this is more than two standard deviations, or at a 95% confidence level, more than zero?”
Re that Met Office jobspec;
“The goal of the post is to contribute to improved scenarios of sea-level rise, which is an important aspect of climate change, with large coastal impacts.”
Now I construe this as having to help with making up scenarios of large sea-level rises … in order to serve the interests of ‘climate change’
This is not a scientific job, it is an artist’s job!
… clearly on a par with scenery painting in the theatre.
True Lies?
RR Kampen (02:46:47) :
Re: Mark Fawcett (10:28:02) :
“There’s lies, damn lies and statistics…”
“Statistics have no truth value and therefore cannot be lies.”
Strictly speaking you are right but aren’t you splitting hairs? The quote (first noted in 1892 and attributed to Cornelia Augusta Hewitt Crosse) is particularly powerful exactly because statistics is supposed to be value-free but applied or interpreted wrongly could be used to deceive lay people.
Tom P,
The Grace satellite is a really great instrument.
But it cannot measure the mass balance of glacial icesheets accurately.
There are too many adjustments and assumptions required for things like post-glacial rebound, even rebound from thousands of kms away, underlying mantle conditions, even smaller things like atmospheric pressure. The raw Grace data before these corrections are applied shows that Antarctica is only losing a very small amount of mass.
RR Kampen
“More sea-ice around Antarctica may simply be caused by increased snowy precipitation on the sea-ice. Increasing precipitation belongs to global warming.”
You say sea ice MAY be caused by increased snow and that this belongs to global warming. Then again it may NOT be snow based at all.
And I remember having plenty of snow in the sixties, and it was supposed to be cooling then. Oh well, never mind!
Ron de Haan (18:48:42) : “a commercial to stop climate change in order to save the rain forest, starring a.o Prince Philips and a frog”
I am all for protecting the rain forests (aren’t we all?). By the way the commercial made the reverse claim:, namely that cutting rain forests would effectively add more CO2 to the atmosphere than cars etc. do (which I doubt) and hence would cause climate change (which is true but more likely on a regional scale due to land-use change: http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2009/05/26/new-article-regional-climate-change-in-tropical-and-northern-africa-due-to-greenhouse-forcing-and-land-use-changes-by-paeth-et-al-2009/
Michael hauber (21:50:13) : “…the fact that observations show a loss of ice when models do not predict such loss should be at least enough concern to want to closely monitor and get better information?”
We should be aware of the difficulties of lumping all GCMs together, and certainly some model runs have forecasted declining ice in Antarctica. Yet GCMs have been grossly unreliable in forecasting ice trends at either poles. It appears that the models do not capture the key variables, or handles them incorrectly or that weather events (and ongoing variability) swamp the effect of GCM variables.
While there is a distinction between ice and snow, I think it is noteworthy that manmade structures in Antarctica have been buried in snow through the years. I do not remember any pictures where manmade structures have become more exposed through melt. When we discuss the ability of satellites to precisely measure ice thickness, we should remember what we observe on land.
we should think of new ideas to go green