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:
Flanagan (13:25:08) :
I’ll bring a funny hat for you to wear. – Anthony
Suggestion?
http://www.l-page.net/funny/images/hat.jpg
Mark Fawcett (00:13:08) :
Yes, Mark, it was the cover story for Nature, it used THAT graphic and was given almost “unprecedented” hype. The two Jeffs and Ryan O have done yeoman’s work demonstrating the flaws in that paper. My point is that they have been very unwilling to label Dr. Steig’s work as anything but “flawed” and that perhaps we should follow their lead on that… unless you think, of course, that ad-hominem attacks on the integrity of the warmistas in the style of RC, Tamino, Connolley and Romm are the way to win friends and influence the wavering.
Ubique of Perth WA (17:55:26) :
Why is the NSIDC still making comparisons with a 1979-2000 average? Twenty one years is a pretty ordinary baseline – why aren’t we seeing a 1979 – 2008 average?
Climate normals are set by international treaty to be an average over 30 years with the last year ending with a zero. After 2010 there will be updates.
Has anyone ever wondered about the choice of years for averages or normals of climatic variables? In case you have but haven’t found the answer, here is one:
“Climatologists define a climatic normal as the arithmetic average of a climate element such as temperature over a prescribed 30-year interval. The 30 year interval was selected by international agreement, based on the recommendations of the International Meteorological Conference in Warsaw in 1933. The 30 year interval is sufficiently long to filter out many of the short-term interannual fluctuations and anomalies, but sufficiently short so as to be used to reflect longer term climatic trends. Currently, the 30-year interval for calculating normals extends from 1971 to 2000.”
http://www.aos.wisc.edu/~sco/normals.html
Also, here: http://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/26747.pdf
ps: I re-post this about once a month.
Re: Chris Schoneveld (05:59:43) :
“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.”
—
Exactly. Statistics are in fact values, that is: numbers, and as such are value free.
I don’t think this is splitting hairs (or ‘sorting mosquito’s’ as the saying in Holland sort of goes) because the quote itself is often used to deceive people! It is often employed to discourage the use of statistics wholesale. Or it is used as a final (instead of starting) argument to dismiss certain interpretations of statistics with.
Re: Vincent (06:07:47) :
“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. ”
—
Sure. Well, the theory isn’t mine. It was suggested by NASA scientists, a preview explains it here: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2005/sea_ice.html .
It’s just a theory, in my opinion quite plausible though (though I admit the connection more precip there + GW is spurious). Another NASA-study found the sea-ice season around Antarctica to lengthen except around the Peninsula, coinciding with the warming there that is not found around the rest of the frozen continent.
So, Antarctica must be like the negative zone, where everything works backwards. There is anthropogenic global warming everywhere except in Antarctica. Ice is melting everywhere except in Antarctica, where it is growing. On the other hand, August global temperatures were close to record levels, just because Antarctica temps were like 6 C higher than normal (there is a WUWT article about it), and yet Antarctic ice extent is growing. Antarctic physics seem to be different from the rest of the world. How is that ‘global’?
And please, Flanagan, don’t reply saying that global warming is different from homogeneous warming, like you did at CA. CO2 was supposed to be a ‘well mixed gas’, meaning that its concentration is growing homogeneously, and the main cause of global warming and ice loss, except in Antarctica, apparently.
Indeed RR Kampen: “Muggenziften” (Sorting mosquitos) but I prefer the Dutch expression “Mierenneuken” (to F… Ants) which is an even more miniaturistic undertaking.
Urederra:
“So, Antarctica must be like the negative zone, where everything works backwards.”
My God, It’s all clear now. Antarctica is at the South pole – opposite polarity you see. Comparing its behaviour to the Arctic is like comparing an electron to a positron. In the North, re-radiated IR causes the ground to warm, but in the Antarctic the CO2 re-radiates anti-IR which removes energy from the electrons in the ground, thus making it cooler. Therefore this cooling is an indication of rising CO2 levels. If we reduce CO2, the temperatures will start to rise.
I shall start working on my research paper immediately.
Interesting article in yesterday’s The Sunday Telegraph.
Extract from a new book by Sara Wheeler, called “The Magnetic North”
Refering to the Greenland icecap, she says
“Greenland’s frozen coating covers 80% of a country four times the size of France.Like the Musk Ox, summit ice is a relic of the last ice age.The cap has survived because its volume sustains its own climate. It reflects light & heat, its elevation keeps it cool and it is too largeto be dented by warm weather systems from the south. Its mass is even likely to protect it from substantial diminution as the climate warms, largely because increased melting at the margins will be offset by a rise in snowfall in the interior.”
Bang goes the “Warmists” terror about a melting Greenland turning us into “Waterworld”?
Here is something I have noticed from drawing the graphs of the extents of the Arctic, haven’t got around to the Antarctic as yet, the total ice extent in 2009 is far more than the total ice extent of 2005 already, and the difference is getting bigger now as the freeze sets in. Though one would get the impression if one just looked at the minimum extent or even the averages for September that the ice in 2009 is less than that in 2005.
This is absolutely clear visually if you plot the areas under the graphs.
I suspect that the difference at the end of the year would be huge.
Total Arctic ice in 2009 upto 20th Sept = 4.4 million Km^2 more than 2008
Total Arctic ice in 2009 upto 20th Sept = 54.3 million Km^2 more than 2005
Adam Gallon (10:22:19) “[…] snowfall in the interior.”
Good point — there’s too much focus on temperatures without sufficient awareness of, focus on, respect for, & appreciation of the power & complexities of the hydrologic cycle.
I see that the Artic temperature had a big upstep; pretty wild gyration; well it is probably just a dead cat bounce to entice some sucker kayakers.
Thanks for the illuminating link:
RR Kampen (08:01:32) ” http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2005/sea_ice.html “
That article further clarifies that although many scientists may be playing politics for power & funding, many of them may be aware of the truth about north-south oscillations and the hydrologic cycle (even if they’re just starting to try to imagine the physics involved).
See here for my opinion as to what the hydrological cycle really achieves:
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=3735
D 13:00:09
“… so why are the penguins dying. maybe because the scientists have “tagged” 70,000 and unknowingly interfered with normal penguin functions.”
I don’t know about the rest of you guys, but I sure don’t want sex with any TAGGED penguin!
Bill Illis,
From the latest paper on the GRACE ice-mass measurements:
“We find that realistic constraints to the trend in ice mass loss derived from GRACE data determine a range of variation substantially wider than commonly stated, ranging from an important ice loss of -209 Gtyr-1 to an accumulation of +88 Gtyr-1 in Antarctica, and Greenland ablation at a rate between -122 and -50 Gtyr-1. However, if we adopt the set of most probable Earth parameters, we infer a substantial mass loss in both regions, -171 +/- 39 and -101 +/- 22 Gtyr-1 for Antarctica and Greenland, respectively.”
Geophysical Journal International, Volume 172, Issue 1, pp. 18-30, 2008
So although there are uncertainties mainly, as you say, from quantifying the post-glacial rebound, GRACE indicates that both Antarctica and Greenland are probably losing ice mass.
Bulldust (21:45:06) : NOTE: Three nations are clearly exempt from using the “Gore” as they are so scientifically, let us say, eclectic as to not have adopted the SI system.
Not so much “eclectic” as allowing personal freedom. You are free here in the USA to use SI units if they work better for you, or any other units you find convenient. For most folks, things with sizes in the 1 to 10 range are easiest and up to 100 works, but is uncomfortable. So 1 lb of butter or 1 gallon of milk are more convenient than 500 gm or 4000 ml. (Though 4 L is workable, but the 250 ml cup of coffee is a pain…) I regularly use both systems, picking the one that is easiest for any particular task. BTW, this effect is why many Europeans still ask for a pound of butter when it is 500 gms that is being sold.
Now, for ‘in your head math’ it turns out that numbers with lots of factors work better since you end up doing fractions eventually and that helps a great deal. That 1, 2, 5, 10 set of factors is not so useful when you need a 1/3 of it… and don’t have a calculator. It is also the case that if you do fractions you can hold a much greater precision and accuracy all the way through your math even if done with pencil and paper or computer. Then you only take a conversion error once at the end when you convert to the less precise decimal notation. 1/3 is exact. 0.333333 not so much…
You find 360 used as the basis for many “traditional” units, so you get lots of factors to work with. (The yard is 36 inches, or 360 1/10 ths. The standard of precision for many uses is the 1/10 th inch; though for other uses you can use the 1/2 1/4 1/8 1/16 or even 1/12 divisions if you like) Many of these can be exactly engraved with a compass. That, btw, is why the F scale is the range it is. Ease of engraving the glass from two temperature standards via division with a compass.
Another “feature” is that since fractions are rather precise, you don’t end up in the land of False Precision by believing all those digits on the electronic display. Most of the time you ought to set “fixed 2” if at all possible since most of the time the majority of the digits on the calculator are a lie. Few things were ever input as 10 digit or more numbers… But if you end up with a fraction like 3/12457 you know it is exactly correct and precise.
Then there is also the rather interesting factoid that you can make an English Foot (via the Rod) with fairly decent precision any time you want anywhere on the planet with a couple of sticks, a bit of string, and a night sky. Oh, and you get a clock and time standard to boot…
So lets say we had a new ice age and civilization took a big hit. Think it might be convenient to be able to make a very accurate time standard and a very accurate length standard (and thus derived very accurate area and volume standards; that then yield very accurate mass and weight standards, and…) using little more than “found materials”? That is the virtue of the English Rod (or Pole) and thus the foot.
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/06/13/making-an-english-foot/
Then there is also the curious factoid that the English foot is rather directly related to the size of the globe. From:
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/06/06/chasing-the-greek-foot/
Where we find that the Greek foot of antiquity is almost exactly the same as the English foot and the Minoan foot … think about it… Beginning to realize that this is not about the shoe size of an English king?
…the Greeks and Egyptians had a measure named a ‘foot’ (pous) that is almost the same as the English foot. (Within a couple of mm 304.8 for the Engish, 304 mm for the Minoan, 308.4 for the Attic, 300 for the Egyptian and Phoenician, etc.)
Take a look at the Minoan vs English. 0.8 mm difference over a few thousand years of history. I’ve got to think that being buried in volcanic debris might mess up your calibration in the 4th decimal place too…
This lead me to the factoid that if you take the earth’s equatorial circumference in ‘feet’ (English) as 131479724.6 (from the wiki metric number, converted) and divide it by 360 x 1000 (call it 60 minutes x 60 seconds x 100 or call it 360 degrees x 1000) you get: 365.2214573
Gee, that looks familiar, I think… Dividing by ‘tropical year days’ of 365.2422 gives 99.994% agreement. Hmmmm….
(If the English foot were 304.7828 mm, which rounds to 304.8, the agreement would be 100.0000% which is inside the error band of 304.8 so it is possible that the original English foot is exact and the metric conversion is not precise enough to capture that…)
So please, do not bother to tell those of us who admire the strength of science as done in the past, who admire the elegance of the way it was done, and who are astonished at what was done with little more than sticks and stones 4000+ years ago, that there is anything at all inferior or inadequate about the quality of the minds that created those systems nor the quality of the product they produced.
If you do, you might just end up with a lecture on the folly of False Precision, the benefits of fractions in math vs decimal math, and the incredibly poor science as done today (i.e. GIStemp – Calculators Gone Wild).
I will, however, be polite about it and not point out that the original meter was measured wrong, twice, and is not in conformance with the original definition and so it can not be recreated via simple means and is more poorly related to the polar circumference than the English Foot is to the equatorial circumference…
Oh, and for advanced credit: Want to know why there were several different cubits and related measures in the ancient world?
They didn’t have a lot of calculating equipment, but did need to deal with irrational numbers in construction and navigation. So they often built those numbers into the measuring device. You used one cubit for the sides, another for the hypotenuse on a pyramid, for example. You find relationships of root 2 and Pi in different rulers.
There were also different lengths used for latitude vs longitude distances to allow for the variation due to the oblateness of the planet in surveying. There were also differences based on which circle of latitude you were at ( “N” degrees gives a different absolute distance…) So it wasn’t so much that the ancients were ignorant and had not any standard length; it was more that they had a very good standard and then made self calculating rulers for other uses based on it. We still do this to some extent with the shipping nautical mile. It is a unit of arc, the exact length of which changes based on your latitude and the local oblateness. On a ship, you can measure the arc. Actual length, not so well…
This same technique is still used today in casting too. The rulers used to make the molds are “adapted” by the expected contraction of the metal as it sets. You make a 10 unit mold (that is 10 units on the measure) that is really larger than 10 SI units so that the final product is, in fact, 10 SI units. It saves endlessly doing the same calculation with the same coefficients over and over. This was even more important in the age prior to calculators and when few people did much math. Still important in casting shops.
We were just a bit too daft to figure out the elegance of the system for a few hundred years…
The more I have looked into ancient metrology, the more impressed I have become. And no, I will never, ever, give it up. They worked too hard to make it “just right”… It deserves preserving.
Your daily propaganda, delivered to you by Seth Borenstein.
Brace yourselves; It’s worse than we thought.
We have to resort to “warm water is melting glaciers” to keep the gravy train on the tracks.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090923/ap_on_sc/us_sci_big_melt_2
Seth has lost his hold on reality. He needs an intervention.
Confusion reigns! “I’m all in favor of bashing the press which seems to have lost the ability to think for itself. ” It’s this kind of comment that contributes to it. The press is in part messenger and in part commentator. It’s important to distinguish between the two.
You have to look at the overall picture, ~snip~. Like the fact that arctic ice levels have showed a HUGE decline over the last 30 years. And the fact that mountains that used to be covered with snow no longer get ANY snow. And that glaciers are melting at unprecedented rates overall. If you take just ONE section of the world for ONE year, you are missing the big picture. Why are polar bears drowning all of a sudden, after living just fine for thousands of years in the arctic?