First, let’s get our bearings. Unlike the Northwest passage, which traverses the icy north above Canada, the Northeast passage is an entirely different route, shown on the map in red.
Source: UK Register graphic
From The Register: Also called the Northeast Passage or North Sea Passage, it’s a trade route that in summer months links the North European and Siberian ports to Asia, around the Arctic Circle. Orient-bound traffic heads east, then South via the Bering Strait. The route offers significant gains over the alternatives via Suez or the Cape, it’s shorter, quicker and cheaper. But until technological advances in the early 20th Century it was considered too hazardous for commercial operation.
The merchant ships MV Beluga Fraternity and MV Beluga Foresight arrived this week in Yamburg, Siberia. Ownership is Beluga Group Shipping Gmbh. From the company website: “During the passed days which led through the East Siberian Sea, the Sannikov Strait and the Vilkizki Strait as northernmost part the Beluga vessels were part of a little convoy behind the Russian Atomflot-ice breakers “50 let Pobedy” and “Rossia”.”.
Icebreaker & Merchant ship - from the company website
“We are all very proud and delighted to be the first western shipping company which has successfully transited the legendary Northeast-Passage and delivered the sensitive cargo safely through this extraordinarily demanding sea area”, Niels Stolberg said, President and CEO of Beluga Shipping GmbH, after the masters Captain Aleksander Antonov and Captain Valeriy Durov had notified that they had dropped anchor at their port of destination. “To transit the Northeast-Passage so well and professionally without incidents on the premiere trip is the result of our extremely thorough and accurate preparation as well as the outstanding team work between our attentive captains, our reliable meteorologists and our engaged crew”, said Stolberg.
One newspaper is making the most of this “first ever event”, according to a story in the UK Register:
The Times has liberally papered London underground carriages with a fascinating new ad campaign. One poster shows a ship navigating some treacherous icy waters, with the accompanying copy reading:
Climate change has allowed the Northeast Passage to be used as a commercial shipping route for the first time.
The Times advertisment
Impressive – if only it were true.
According to the ad copy:
To help you navigate the changing world we have more dedicated science and environment correspondents than the Guardian, Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail or Independent.
Only one problem: The Northeast Passage has been opened for commerce since 1934 – and never ‘closed’.
Over the years hundreds of thousands of freighters have passed through, and after Russia put Soviet-era politics aside it was extended to foreign commerce in the 1990s. As the Register reported two weeks ago.
It’s a disaster all right, a disaster of bad journalism. I won’t mince words. It’s crap.
But we all know the MSM can’t get much right these days. My guess is that the MSM simply confused the difficult and almost always closed Northwest passage with the Northeast passage.
Bloggers once again were the leaders in discovering the real truth instead of paid journalists. Is it really so hard to use Google? For example the EU referendum had details and pictures of many previous transits of the Northeast passage. In this story, they show the history of this shipping lane.
Read the details of the latest failure of journalism turned advertising opportunity in the UK Register, here.
Thanks to Andrew Orlowski of the register for his assistance with this story.
===
Readers, especially those in the UK, I’d like to make a suggestion. Let the Times know they screwed up, not only for the journalistic failure, but also for the touting of the failure as advertising. Letters to the editor, letters to the managements, and to the advertising office might be a good start. If nobody calls them on it, they’ll never learn.
There’s also the UK Advertising Standards Authority, that works to keep advertising legal, decent, honest and truthful. The ad being run by the Times is failing most of those points. Here’s where you can complain:
The merchant ships MV Beluga Fraternity and MV Beluga Foresight arrived this week in Yamburg, Siberia. Ownership is Beluga Group Shipping Gmbh. From the company website: “During the passed days which led through the East Siberian Sea, the Sannikov Strait and the Vilkizki Strait as northernmost part the Beluga vessels were part of a little convoy behind the Russian Atomflot-ice breakers “50 let Pobedy” and “Rossia”.”.
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carlbrannen
October 8, 2009 9:10 pm
The article in the Seattle Times was titled 2 German cargo ships pass through ‘Arctic Passage’ attributed to Matt Moore and Seth Borenstein through Associated Press Writers. The first sentence was “Two German merchant ships have traversed the fabled Northeast Passage after global warming and melting ice opened a route from South Korea along Russia’s Arctic coast to Siberia.”
When I briefly scanned this in the local newspaper, I misread “northeast passage” for “northwest passage” and assumed they’d gone over Canada. Certainly I wasn’t aware that this was a long used traditional trade route. I’m writing a letter to the editor.
tty
October 9, 2009 12:05 am
Phil. (13:58:48) :
“More newsworthy, this year re the NE Passage was traversed by two yachts, unaccompanied by ice-breakers.”
Actually the swedish one was lucky enough to meet the “Beluga” convoy when they were stuck in the ice in Sannikov Strait and was helped to get loose by “50 years since Victory”. However I don’t blame you for missing this since it was only mentioned very discreetly in their swedish-language blog.
Karmakaze
October 9, 2009 1:11 pm
Actually, there was an error but not the kind you think. The company claimed to be the first WESTERN company to make the passage with commercial ships, not the first ever. Adding WESTERN is a qualifier that makes the claim accurate.
The media has jumped on it in error, but that doesnt make what is happening in the Arctic untrue – its just typical misreporting form journalists.
If this is an example of your “evidence” that AGW isn’t happening, well you ceretainly haven’t convinced me.
Karmakaze
October 9, 2009 1:21 pm
By the way, has anyone else noticed that despite this being a very low solar minimum AND despite the effects of La Nina, the global average temperature right now puts 2009 in the top ten hottest years?
Have a look at the latest data from Spencer: http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_Sept_09.jpg
What happened to that cooling you were talking about? How come the end of that graph is heading up?
How can the sun be the coldest we’ve ever seen it, and yet the earth is STILL warmer than at any time previous to 1998?
Natural cycles are at work here for sure – they are DSIGUISING AGW for the SHORT TERM, and that term is coming to an end.
Karmakaze
October 9, 2009 1:43 pm
PPS (sorry for the multiple posts, but I keep thinking of something else to say 🙂 ):
For those of you who think it is all the sun, explain this. Look at that graph linked from Spencer in my previous comment. The last Solar maximum was in 2001 and since then the sun has been getting weaker until it hit minimum in the last couple of years.
Throughout the entire period after 2001, the world was WARMER than during the last solar maximum, including right now, during what may be the deepest solar minimum we’ve ever seen.
If the sun is the sole driver of climate, how come the world was getting warmer while the sun was getting colder? And why is it warmer now during minimum than during the last maximum?
Another thing to note… there was one period after 2001 where temperatures dropped lower than 2001: the 2007-08 time period. That corresponds to the stongest La Nina event since 1988-89.
Have a look at 1988-89 and compare to 2007-08. Notice anything? During both events, global average temperature dropped by about 0.3C but the 2007-08 event doesn’t drop below the 1979-1998 average, unlike the 1988-89 event. The world is clearly warmer now than then.
Karmakaze – I have addressed just about every point in your last posts already in comments to WUWT, but not necessarily on this thread. I’ll go through your points one by one, but just at this moment am short of time. Please stay on this thread and I’ll get back to you.
But first, I just have time to give you some preliminary data. Spencer’s graph only goes back to 1979 because it is from satellite data. Mine takes pre-satellite data from Hadcrut3 and goes back further – in it you can clearly see the global temperature cycles.
A lot of the debate has centred around whether we are in a blip in a long term warming trend, or in the start of a cooling phase in a temperature cycle.
This global temperature graph shows the phases visually. We are now in a cooling phase of a ~60-year temperature cycle, but there is also a modest long term rising trend. http://members.westnet.com.au/jonas1/GlobalTemperature_PDOPhaseTrends.JPG
We can’t be sure that the phases will continue exactly as a continuation of the pattern, because we don’t understand the mechanisms. In particular, we don’t know how the current lack of solar activity will play out, though it would be reasonable to expect it to deliver a bit more cooling.
I’ll get back to you with more detail hopefully within a day or two.
Remember the lesson of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf”. The assumption that there is or ever will be man-made climate change (Orwellian global warming?) is the big dead elephant in the room. I think all the politicians on the bandwagon need to be replaced by public servants who can objectively evaluate scientific and technical data. The backlash will be swift.
tty (00:05:38) :
Phil. (13:58:48) :
“More newsworthy, this year re the NE Passage was traversed by two yachts, unaccompanied by ice-breakers.”
Actually the swedish one was lucky enough to meet the “Beluga” convoy when they were stuck in the ice in Sannikov Strait and was helped to get loose by “50 years since Victory”. However I don’t blame you for missing this since it was only mentioned very discreetly in their swedish-language blog.
No I was well aware of the encounter but my reading of the encounter (see below) was that it took place after they had cleared the ice. The other yacht had already made it through, unfortunately their attempt to complete a circumnavigation was forestalled by their being arrested and taken to court in the Bering St for problems with their paperwork back in Murmansk.
“From the fog, one ice floe after another let loose. In the end, we arrived to a dense barrier of ice that effectively set a stop in our way.
After a small consultation within the team, we decided to sail southwards. This was not an easy decision to take, because the ice was on its way there with the help of the wind, and in towards land. But according to the latest ice map, a northerly route would be an enormous detour. The last thing we wanted was to get stuck between ice and land. It was several nervous hours before we could eventually find a southerly route through the worst ice and sail east again.
Right before darkness was to fall, we saw on our AIS and radar three ships on their way towards us. Via VHF radio, we could gladly verify that it was our friend Captain Dimitry, who onboard his icebreaker was escorting two cargo ships west through the ice. Fun to see Dimitry again, who we met in Saint Petersburg during our sailing training as well as in Murmansk during the actual trip. Dimitry’s ship, Fifty Years of Victory, is the world’s largest icebreaker and runs on two nuclear reactors that together put out 75,000 horsepower.
For a moment, he left the convoy and set off in full speed to meet us. Very impressive to see this almost silent ship pass only several hundred metres from us. With a great foghorn, he saluted us, while we saluted back as best we could with our little air horn that we bought from Watski. I can’t say whether Dimitry heard this or not, but we saw how he gladly waved from the bridge about 30 metres above the water.”
Karmakaze
October 11, 2009 2:56 pm
@Mike Jonas
What are you graphing when you say “PDO Phase Trends”? It appears to simply be the change from positive to negative, yet you appear to be showing a magnitude as well – either that or for some reason you decided to set the magnitude so that it appeared to track the warming.
Here is a link with the actual PDO index magnitude graphed, which shows something very different. http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/pdo_temp.gif
So why did you set yours to look like it was tracking with the temperatures? It looks like an attempt at deception to me.
That graph also shows why your attempts to blame it all on the PDO are utterly wrong. There is no underlying trend in the PDO index, yet there is a CLEAR trend in the temperature data, a trend that nicely matches the trend in the atmospheric GHG data.
Yes, the PDO is affecting temperatures, as can be seen by the graph, but it is NOT responsible for the warming trend. For example, if it is ALL due to the PDO, why was the last warm phase warmer than the previous warm phase when it is clear the magnitudes of the PDO index are essentially the same?
Secondly you missed what I was saying – look at Spencer’s graph and you can see that the temps are going up again. If PDO is now in a cool phase, and that is causing global cooling, why are temperatures now higher than last year? http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_Sept_09.jpg
Funnily enough, that upturn at the end nicely coincides with the end of La Nina and the transition it appears to El Nino. Right now we are warmer than at any time prior to 1998, and in the top 10 warmest years on record, and we are entering an El Nino phase that seems to be a strong one – maybe as strong as 1998.
So we now have very strong solar minimum, just coming out of La Nina, and entering a PDO cool phase and STILL the global mean temperature is warmer now than at any time prior to 1998 AND temperatures appear to be heading UP again.
I am willing to bet that in the next year or two we will have a new record high – PDO cool phase or not.
Karmakaze – apologies, I posted in haste and wasn’t able to supply enough detail.
What did I plot? The graph that you posted shows that there is some correlation between temperature and PDO. In order to make the PDO phases easier to see in my temperature graph, I took the approximate turning-points in the PDO phases as starting-points, and then did a multi-segment least-squares linear fit to the temperature graph. The turning-points are optimised both vertically (temperature) and horizontally (time). So you are correct in saying that it looks like it was tracking with the temperatures – that was what it was intended to do. But what it does do is to show more clearly the influence of the PDO on temperature.
What I said was “This global temperature graph shows the phases visually. We are now in a cooling phase of a ~60-year temperature cycle, but there is also a modest long term rising trend.” – there was no attempt to say anything other than that I was graphing temperature and making the PDO phases visible, but I accept that it wasn’t fully explained.
Looking at the graph, you can clearly see that the PDO-driven cycles are superimposed on a rising trend. And note that I did say this. But in order to quantify the rising trend separately from the cycles, I calculated the trend over the complete cycles – if you take a trend from one part of one cycle to a different part of another cycle, then you get a misleading figure. The underlying trend came out at less than 0.5 deg C per century, which is a lot less than the 0.74 claimed by the IPCC for the 20th century (and also outside their error bounds).
You accuse me of trying to blame it all on the PDO, but I clearly did not, because I said there were cycles AND a rising trend. So when you say that the PDO is not reponsible for the rising trend, I agree, in fact that is what I was saying (but not clearly enough).
Coming back to the Spencer graph. Yes it has an upturn at the end. But if you look at any temperature graph you will see plenty of upturns during warming phases, and downturns during cooling phases. So my view, which I think is extremely reasonable given the evidence, is that the upturn at the end of Spencer’s graph is just another such upturn, and, given that there is no reason to suppose that the PDO will suddenly break its pattern, the climate will continue cooling overall for another decade or two.
You point out that in spite of a solar minimum, we are still warmer than we were more than a decade ago. To my mind, that’s reasonable. We have only just passed through the last PDO temperature peak, so we are still warm. Even a solar minimum is going to take time to have its full effect on the climate. What I think some of the mechanisms are, are as follows : Both the PDO and the sun (and probably ENSO) affect the Earth’s cloud cover. As cloud cover decreases – as it did quite markedly up to around 2000 – more sunlight gets through to the oceans and warms them up. As cloud cover increases again – as it did from around 2000 onwards – the oceans similarly cool. But this is a fairly slow process, so even after they have started cooling, the oceans are still warm, and hence the climate is still warm.
There is still a huge amount unknown about these mechanisms, so I am speculating not putting forward a firm scientific theory(!). My guess is that the cloud changes are local in nature, ie depending on specific local conditions, but, via the oceans, are global in eventual overall effect. So in a cooling phase, we can expect pockets of temporary cold weather (driven by local clouds) while the rest of the planet is driven more by SST and all the other usual factors. And this, I think, is what we are seeing today : there are increasing numbers of reports of local record cold temperatures, even though the “official” global temperature is rising (probably driven mainly by El Nino) as your Spencer graph showed.
I don’t bet on things like this, and you may well be right about us hitting a new high in the next year or two if the El Nino continues. After all, an El Nino seems to be the overriding influence when it is present, outweighing all other factors for a short time. But sooner or later the longer term influences such as the PDO will prevail – and a quiet sun may accelerate this cooling phase. If you are betting on those high temperatures you might be well advised not to bet too much or to get long odds.
I posted a correction but it didn’t appear – apologies if it now shows twice :
For “upturns during warming phases, and downturns during cooling phases” read “upturns during cooling phases, and downturns during warming phases”.
David Q.
October 11, 2009 7:40 pm
tty (06:56:37) :
David Q. (21:28:06) :
The norse (”vikings”) actually did go as far east along the Arctic coast as the White Sea and the mouth of the Dvina river (”Bjarmaland”)
Fair enough tty. However, you are putting them all as one people, they actually went in different directions based on their geography. So, Vikings on the Swedish east coast, went past current day St. Petersburg, then down via Dnepr and Volga. That was the route to the South. Only Vikings out of Norway would have gone north to the area you describe. However, they would have been at an disadvantage trying to then turn south and down to the Mediteranian for trade. So, instead you find Norwegian Vikings and Danish Vikings traveling west and south, Swedish Vikings traveling primarily east. That leaves the White Sea pretty much out of the main routes they took.
Pamela Gray
October 11, 2009 8:35 pm
Over the next 5 years:
bet: I am willing to bet that Arctic temperatures will continue to show a swinging trend that follows ENSO measures related to Arctic weather. I am not willing to bet that we will be frozen in ice along the Canadian boarder in July. However, without a rising trend, my winning bet will call into question the strength of anthropogenic changes.
bet: Given the nature of oceanic oscillations, and in particular the Arctic Oscillation, I am willing to bet the Arctic will also continue to see a slow return to average ice melt in the summer, calling into question anthropogenic changes.
To be sure, CO2 is a greenhouse gas that contributes to our blanket and thank God we have one, but any increasing or decreasing influence that anthropogenic CO2 sources have are buried in the temperature variability sourced by the natural and highly variable weather and climate systems of Earth’s water, air, and land structures.
Karmakaze
October 11, 2009 11:48 pm
“So you are correct in saying that it looks like it was tracking with the temperatures – that was what it was intended to do. But what it does do is to show more clearly the influence of the PDO on temperature.”
No, what it does is (seemingly intentionally) mislead as to how much influence the PDO has.
“there was no attempt to say anything other than that I was graphing temperature and making the PDO phases visible, but I accept that it wasn’t fully explained.”
Why not just show the positive or negative changes, rather than making them trend upwards like the temperature does? That is NOT in the data, but makes the PDO look much more closely tied to the warming trend than is the case.
You may not THINK you are misleading people, but that is what you are doing. Why else do it the way you did? Properly plotted, your graph actually disproves your contention, because there is nothing about the PDO that can explain why the world is warmer now than 30 or 60 years ago. The PDO hasn’t changed, so how can it be the cause?
In the properly formatted graph, you can see the phase changes affecting temps, but you can ALSO see a warming trend in the temps that is NOT accompanied by a warming trend in the PDO. The one thing you changed is the one thing that gives information regarding the question of whether the warming is governed by the PDO – and you seem to think it is just a matter of style.
“So when you say that the PDO is not reponsible for the rising trend, I agree, in fact that is what I was saying (but not clearly enough).”
Ok, so what is the point of your post then? If the PDO is NOT responsible for the warming trend, then it is simply another type of natural variability that has been taken account of in the models.
“So my view, which I think is extremely reasonable given the evidence, is that the upturn at the end of Spencer’s graph is just another such upturn,”
OK, so your contention is a downturn means AGW isn’t true, but an upturn doesn’t mean that AGC isn’t true? At least that’s what you appear to be saying. The fact there has been NO downturn notwithstanding (The world has indeed kept on warming these last 10 years).
“You point out that in spite of a solar minimum, we are still warmer than we were more than a decade ago.”
No, I pointed out that we are currently warmer now than at any time PREVIOUS to 1998 – regardless of past PDO phases or otherwise – you already admitted that when you confirmed an underlying warming trend not attributable to the PDO!
Basically your whole point seems to be “AGW is false, but I can’t prove it, so here are some random facts that have no real bearing on the debate, oh, and my half-assed theory as to what it REALLY is”.
Sorry pal, but that doesn’t even come close to being anywhere near as convincing as the evidence for AGW.
K – Either I don’t explain myself very well, or you aren’t very good at understanding me.
“The PDO hasn’t changed, so how can it be the cause?”
My point exactly : [“So when you say that the PDO is not reponsible for the rising trend, I agree“.]
“In the properly formatted graph, you can see the phase changes affecting temps, but you can ALSO see a warming trend in the temps that is NOT accompanied by a warming trend in the PDO. The one thing you changed is the one thing that gives information regarding the question of whether the warming is governed by the PDO – and you seem to think it is just a matter of style.”
Please stop trying to read something into what I said which isn’t there. The graph is not a graph of the PDO, it is a graph of temperatures, and the trend lines are temperature trends. It is not trying to prove that the PDO causes a rising trend, it is making it easy to see that there are PDO-related cycles and a rising trend. [“Looking at the graph, you can clearly see that the PDO-driven cycles are superimposed on a rising trend. “].
If you want a graph of the trend, with the cycles and “noise” removed, it is here (but it isn’t very exciting, which is why I didn’t post before) : http://members.westnet.com.au/jonas1/GlobalTemperature_NoCyclesTrendOnly.jpg
The reason that I did the phase trend lines – and which I thought I explained [“But in order to quantify the rising trend separately from the cycles, I calculated the trend over the complete cycles – if you take a trend from one part of one cycle to a different part of another cycle, then you get a misleading figure.”] – was the exact opposite of what you are accusing me of. I did it in order to be able to separate out the cycles from the trend, so that I could identify the magnitude of the trend. That is, the temperature trend which is not attributable to the PDO. I can’t take the cycles out of the temperatures, to see the trend, until I can see the cycles.
“,i>OK, so your contention is a downturn means AGW isn’t true, but an upturn doesn’t mean that AGC isn’t true? At least that’s what you appear to be saying. The fact there has been NO downturn notwithstanding (The world has indeed kept on warming these last 10 years).”
Like I said, stop trying to read something into what I said that isn’t there. The upturns and downturns (and we were talking about short-term upturns and downturns not the cycles) are not significant. They don’t prove AGW and they don’t prove not-AGW, in this context they are just “noise”. [“if you look at any temperature graph you will see plenty of upturns during cooling phases, and downturns during warming phases” (corrected version)]. Take a look at the graph: http://members.westnet.com.au/jonas1/GlobalTemperature_PDOPhaseTrends.JPG
There are upturns at 1879-82, 1885, 1888-9, 1890-1, 1893-9 (5+ yrs, 1 deg C), 1898-9, 1903-6, 1943-5, 1950-1, 1955-8, 1960-3, 1964-70 (5+ yrs), 1972-3, and downturns at 1852-7, 1863-4 (>1 deg C), 1869-76 (but v.near the end of the rising phase), 1915-7 (1 deg C), 1918-9, 1925-9, 1932-3, 1979-84 (6+ yrs), 1987-9, 1991-2, and, of course, 1998-2000.
“No, I pointed out that we are currently warmer now than at any time PREVIOUS to 1998 – regardless of past PDO phases or otherwise – you already admitted that when you confirmed an underlying warming trend not attributable to the PDO!”
I changed the wording to something we could both agree on (it is a true subset of your statement and enough for the context), because I didn’t think you really meant at any time – we have countless peer reviewed papers pointing out that temperatures have been higher in the past, and the IPCC report of course “Much warmer times have also occurred in climate history – during most of the past 500 million years, Earth was probably completely free of ice sheets” (ch.6). The IPCC report also leaves open the possibility that it was warmer around 1100AD.
The warming trend in my graph is only identifiable for 150 years max (the whole data period), as are the cycles. I indicated that we can’t assume anything from it going forwards [“We can’t be sure that the phases will continue exactly as a continuation of the pattern, because we don’t understand the mechanisms.”], and I don’t think it’s at all unreasonable to expect not to be able to deduce anything going backwards either. (We could use other studies and other data for going back further, but not this data).
“Basically your whole point seems to be “AGW is false, but I can’t prove it, so here are some random facts that have no real bearing on the debate ..”.”
The debate is all about temperature changes and what causes them.
“.. oh, and my half-assed theory as to what it REALLY is”.”
We are in a very interesting situation at the moment, where “record cold” reports are pouring in from various locations, even though in the context of the last hundred years or so, the planet is still quite warm. I haven’t seen an explanation anywhere, and I’m pretty sure the IPCC’s computer models can’t throw any light on it (I’d be happy for you to prove me wrong), so I thought that a bit of “thinking aloud” about it might be a positive way of opening the topic. [“I am speculating not putting forward a firm scientific theory(!)”].
“Sorry pal, but that doesn’t even come close to being anywhere near as convincing as the evidence for AGW.”
Well, that’s your opinion. It would be more constructive to prove me wrong or put up an explanation for the “record cold”s, but it’s a free world. It’s a real world too, and the problem with the AGW case is that it doesn’t even remotely match what is going on in the real world. (That’s my opinion, again you’re welcome to prove me wrong).
K – ignore the last graph I posted (done in haste ) here is a much better one http://members.westnet.com.au/jonas1/GlobalTemperature_CyclesAndTrend.jpg
It shows temperature, cycles, and trend.
Note that the trend is based on full cycles only.
I have deleted the old graph (GlobalTemperature_NoCyclesTrendOnly.jpg)
Karmakaze
October 13, 2009 12:59 pm
@Mike Jonas
OK I seem to have been totally misunderstanding you. When you started talking about the PDO, I thought you were saying it was responsible for the warming trend, but you’re not. Then I thought you were saying it isn’t responsible for the warming trend but will be responsible for a cooling trend. After that last post I’m not sure you’re saying that either.
“The debate is all about temperature changes and what causes them.”
Well maybe in the loosest general terms, but no one is debating that temperature changes naturally. We aren’t really debating the causes of temperature changes, we are debating the cause of one specific temperature change, which you already admitted is not caused by the PDO – the global warming trend – which is why I’m confused as to why you keep focusing on the PDO then say “but it isn’t the cause” (apparently).
“We are in a very interesting situation at the moment, where “record cold” reports are pouring in from various locations,”
Irrelevent. There are record highs pouring in from all over the place too. Climate change isn’t just one way, there can be local cooling due to global warming regardless of how counter-intuitive that seems.
“I haven’t seen an explanation anywhere”
Mainly because there isn’t ONE explanation. One explanation for many of the cold reports are the changes to snow and rainfall. Warmer air can hold more water which leads to greater precipitation. More snowfall for example can lower temperatures where the snow falls. This is why there is an ice buildup in some areas of the Antarctic: there is more snow falling from warmer air, but the temps are still well below freezing so more ice forms than would have been the case.
Let me just close out by asking straight out: Is a change to the PDO responsible for the warming trend? Or is the PDO going to be responsible for a cooling trend despite not being responsible for the warming trend? What are you trying to say?
The answers to your 2 questions are No and No.
What am I trying to say? This is what I said :
“The reason that I did the phase trend lines .. was .. in order to be able to separate out the cycles from the trend, so that I could identify the magnitude of the trend. That is, the temperature trend which is not attributable to the PDO. I can’t take the cycles out of the temperatures, to see the trend, until I can see the cycles.”
After I had taken out the cycles, the trend was less than 0.5 deg C per century. The IPCC used 0.74 +- 0.18 as their temperature trend. Apart from showing that there obviously was a relationship between temperature and PDO, the main message was that the IPCC was using too high a temperature trend.
The IPCC Report shows that their wrong temperature trend ended up in their climate sensitivity (ECS), so that is also wrong.
And the ECS is the basis for all of the IPCC temperature projections.
The article in the Seattle Times was titled 2 German cargo ships pass through ‘Arctic Passage’ attributed to Matt Moore and Seth Borenstein through Associated Press Writers. The first sentence was “Two German merchant ships have traversed the fabled Northeast Passage after global warming and melting ice opened a route from South Korea along Russia’s Arctic coast to Siberia.”
When I briefly scanned this in the local newspaper, I misread “northeast passage” for “northwest passage” and assumed they’d gone over Canada. Certainly I wasn’t aware that this was a long used traditional trade route. I’m writing a letter to the editor.
Phil. (13:58:48) :
“More newsworthy, this year re the NE Passage was traversed by two yachts, unaccompanied by ice-breakers.”
Actually the swedish one was lucky enough to meet the “Beluga” convoy when they were stuck in the ice in Sannikov Strait and was helped to get loose by “50 years since Victory”. However I don’t blame you for missing this since it was only mentioned very discreetly in their swedish-language blog.
Actually, there was an error but not the kind you think. The company claimed to be the first WESTERN company to make the passage with commercial ships, not the first ever. Adding WESTERN is a qualifier that makes the claim accurate.
The media has jumped on it in error, but that doesnt make what is happening in the Arctic untrue – its just typical misreporting form journalists.
If this is an example of your “evidence” that AGW isn’t happening, well you ceretainly haven’t convinced me.
By the way, has anyone else noticed that despite this being a very low solar minimum AND despite the effects of La Nina, the global average temperature right now puts 2009 in the top ten hottest years?
Have a look at the latest data from Spencer:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_Sept_09.jpg
What happened to that cooling you were talking about? How come the end of that graph is heading up?
How can the sun be the coldest we’ve ever seen it, and yet the earth is STILL warmer than at any time previous to 1998?
Natural cycles are at work here for sure – they are DSIGUISING AGW for the SHORT TERM, and that term is coming to an end.
PPS (sorry for the multiple posts, but I keep thinking of something else to say 🙂 ):
For those of you who think it is all the sun, explain this. Look at that graph linked from Spencer in my previous comment. The last Solar maximum was in 2001 and since then the sun has been getting weaker until it hit minimum in the last couple of years.
Throughout the entire period after 2001, the world was WARMER than during the last solar maximum, including right now, during what may be the deepest solar minimum we’ve ever seen.
If the sun is the sole driver of climate, how come the world was getting warmer while the sun was getting colder? And why is it warmer now during minimum than during the last maximum?
Another thing to note… there was one period after 2001 where temperatures dropped lower than 2001: the 2007-08 time period. That corresponds to the stongest La Nina event since 1988-89.
Have a look at 1988-89 and compare to 2007-08. Notice anything? During both events, global average temperature dropped by about 0.3C but the 2007-08 event doesn’t drop below the 1979-1998 average, unlike the 1988-89 event. The world is clearly warmer now than then.
Karmakaze – I have addressed just about every point in your last posts already in comments to WUWT, but not necessarily on this thread. I’ll go through your points one by one, but just at this moment am short of time. Please stay on this thread and I’ll get back to you.
But first, I just have time to give you some preliminary data. Spencer’s graph only goes back to 1979 because it is from satellite data. Mine takes pre-satellite data from Hadcrut3 and goes back further – in it you can clearly see the global temperature cycles.
A lot of the debate has centred around whether we are in a blip in a long term warming trend, or in the start of a cooling phase in a temperature cycle.
This global temperature graph shows the phases visually. We are now in a cooling phase of a ~60-year temperature cycle, but there is also a modest long term rising trend.
http://members.westnet.com.au/jonas1/GlobalTemperature_PDOPhaseTrends.JPG
We can’t be sure that the phases will continue exactly as a continuation of the pattern, because we don’t understand the mechanisms. In particular, we don’t know how the current lack of solar activity will play out, though it would be reasonable to expect it to deliver a bit more cooling.
I’ll get back to you with more detail hopefully within a day or two.
K – in haste – you can read my past comments on this WUWT thread, relevant to many of your points.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/10/05/united-nations-pulls-hockey-stick-from-climate-report/
I’ll still try to get back to you within a day or two on the details.
Remember the lesson of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf”. The assumption that there is or ever will be man-made climate change (Orwellian global warming?) is the big dead elephant in the room. I think all the politicians on the bandwagon need to be replaced by public servants who can objectively evaluate scientific and technical data. The backlash will be swift.
tty (00:05:38) :
Phil. (13:58:48) :
“More newsworthy, this year re the NE Passage was traversed by two yachts, unaccompanied by ice-breakers.”
Actually the swedish one was lucky enough to meet the “Beluga” convoy when they were stuck in the ice in Sannikov Strait and was helped to get loose by “50 years since Victory”. However I don’t blame you for missing this since it was only mentioned very discreetly in their swedish-language blog.
No I was well aware of the encounter but my reading of the encounter (see below) was that it took place after they had cleared the ice. The other yacht had already made it through, unfortunately their attempt to complete a circumnavigation was forestalled by their being arrested and taken to court in the Bering St for problems with their paperwork back in Murmansk.
“From the fog, one ice floe after another let loose. In the end, we arrived to a dense barrier of ice that effectively set a stop in our way.
After a small consultation within the team, we decided to sail southwards. This was not an easy decision to take, because the ice was on its way there with the help of the wind, and in towards land. But according to the latest ice map, a northerly route would be an enormous detour. The last thing we wanted was to get stuck between ice and land. It was several nervous hours before we could eventually find a southerly route through the worst ice and sail east again.
Right before darkness was to fall, we saw on our AIS and radar three ships on their way towards us. Via VHF radio, we could gladly verify that it was our friend Captain Dimitry, who onboard his icebreaker was escorting two cargo ships west through the ice. Fun to see Dimitry again, who we met in Saint Petersburg during our sailing training as well as in Murmansk during the actual trip. Dimitry’s ship, Fifty Years of Victory, is the world’s largest icebreaker and runs on two nuclear reactors that together put out 75,000 horsepower.
For a moment, he left the convoy and set off in full speed to meet us. Very impressive to see this almost silent ship pass only several hundred metres from us. With a great foghorn, he saluted us, while we saluted back as best we could with our little air horn that we bought from Watski. I can’t say whether Dimitry heard this or not, but we saw how he gladly waved from the bridge about 30 metres above the water.”
@Mike Jonas
What are you graphing when you say “PDO Phase Trends”? It appears to simply be the change from positive to negative, yet you appear to be showing a magnitude as well – either that or for some reason you decided to set the magnitude so that it appeared to track the warming.
Here is a link with the actual PDO index magnitude graphed, which shows something very different.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/pdo_temp.gif
So why did you set yours to look like it was tracking with the temperatures? It looks like an attempt at deception to me.
That graph also shows why your attempts to blame it all on the PDO are utterly wrong. There is no underlying trend in the PDO index, yet there is a CLEAR trend in the temperature data, a trend that nicely matches the trend in the atmospheric GHG data.
Yes, the PDO is affecting temperatures, as can be seen by the graph, but it is NOT responsible for the warming trend. For example, if it is ALL due to the PDO, why was the last warm phase warmer than the previous warm phase when it is clear the magnitudes of the PDO index are essentially the same?
Secondly you missed what I was saying – look at Spencer’s graph and you can see that the temps are going up again. If PDO is now in a cool phase, and that is causing global cooling, why are temperatures now higher than last year?
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_Sept_09.jpg
Funnily enough, that upturn at the end nicely coincides with the end of La Nina and the transition it appears to El Nino. Right now we are warmer than at any time prior to 1998, and in the top 10 warmest years on record, and we are entering an El Nino phase that seems to be a strong one – maybe as strong as 1998.
So we now have very strong solar minimum, just coming out of La Nina, and entering a PDO cool phase and STILL the global mean temperature is warmer now than at any time prior to 1998 AND temperatures appear to be heading UP again.
I am willing to bet that in the next year or two we will have a new record high – PDO cool phase or not.
Karmakaze – apologies, I posted in haste and wasn’t able to supply enough detail.
What did I plot? The graph that you posted shows that there is some correlation between temperature and PDO. In order to make the PDO phases easier to see in my temperature graph, I took the approximate turning-points in the PDO phases as starting-points, and then did a multi-segment least-squares linear fit to the temperature graph. The turning-points are optimised both vertically (temperature) and horizontally (time). So you are correct in saying that it looks like it was tracking with the temperatures – that was what it was intended to do. But what it does do is to show more clearly the influence of the PDO on temperature.
What I said was “This global temperature graph shows the phases visually. We are now in a cooling phase of a ~60-year temperature cycle, but there is also a modest long term rising trend.” – there was no attempt to say anything other than that I was graphing temperature and making the PDO phases visible, but I accept that it wasn’t fully explained.
Looking at the graph, you can clearly see that the PDO-driven cycles are superimposed on a rising trend. And note that I did say this. But in order to quantify the rising trend separately from the cycles, I calculated the trend over the complete cycles – if you take a trend from one part of one cycle to a different part of another cycle, then you get a misleading figure. The underlying trend came out at less than 0.5 deg C per century, which is a lot less than the 0.74 claimed by the IPCC for the 20th century (and also outside their error bounds).
You accuse me of trying to blame it all on the PDO, but I clearly did not, because I said there were cycles AND a rising trend. So when you say that the PDO is not reponsible for the rising trend, I agree, in fact that is what I was saying (but not clearly enough).
Coming back to the Spencer graph. Yes it has an upturn at the end. But if you look at any temperature graph you will see plenty of upturns during warming phases, and downturns during cooling phases. So my view, which I think is extremely reasonable given the evidence, is that the upturn at the end of Spencer’s graph is just another such upturn, and, given that there is no reason to suppose that the PDO will suddenly break its pattern, the climate will continue cooling overall for another decade or two.
You point out that in spite of a solar minimum, we are still warmer than we were more than a decade ago. To my mind, that’s reasonable. We have only just passed through the last PDO temperature peak, so we are still warm. Even a solar minimum is going to take time to have its full effect on the climate. What I think some of the mechanisms are, are as follows : Both the PDO and the sun (and probably ENSO) affect the Earth’s cloud cover. As cloud cover decreases – as it did quite markedly up to around 2000 – more sunlight gets through to the oceans and warms them up. As cloud cover increases again – as it did from around 2000 onwards – the oceans similarly cool. But this is a fairly slow process, so even after they have started cooling, the oceans are still warm, and hence the climate is still warm.
There is still a huge amount unknown about these mechanisms, so I am speculating not putting forward a firm scientific theory(!). My guess is that the cloud changes are local in nature, ie depending on specific local conditions, but, via the oceans, are global in eventual overall effect. So in a cooling phase, we can expect pockets of temporary cold weather (driven by local clouds) while the rest of the planet is driven more by SST and all the other usual factors. And this, I think, is what we are seeing today : there are increasing numbers of reports of local record cold temperatures, even though the “official” global temperature is rising (probably driven mainly by El Nino) as your Spencer graph showed.
I don’t bet on things like this, and you may well be right about us hitting a new high in the next year or two if the El Nino continues. After all, an El Nino seems to be the overriding influence when it is present, outweighing all other factors for a short time. But sooner or later the longer term influences such as the PDO will prevail – and a quiet sun may accelerate this cooling phase. If you are betting on those high temperatures you might be well advised not to bet too much or to get long odds.
correction : “upturns during cooling phases, and downturns during warming phases”
I posted a correction but it didn’t appear – apologies if it now shows twice :
For “upturns during warming phases, and downturns during cooling phases” read “upturns during cooling phases, and downturns during warming phases”.
tty (06:56:37) :
David Q. (21:28:06) :
The norse (”vikings”) actually did go as far east along the Arctic coast as the White Sea and the mouth of the Dvina river (”Bjarmaland”)
Fair enough tty. However, you are putting them all as one people, they actually went in different directions based on their geography. So, Vikings on the Swedish east coast, went past current day St. Petersburg, then down via Dnepr and Volga. That was the route to the South. Only Vikings out of Norway would have gone north to the area you describe. However, they would have been at an disadvantage trying to then turn south and down to the Mediteranian for trade. So, instead you find Norwegian Vikings and Danish Vikings traveling west and south, Swedish Vikings traveling primarily east. That leaves the White Sea pretty much out of the main routes they took.
Over the next 5 years:
bet: I am willing to bet that Arctic temperatures will continue to show a swinging trend that follows ENSO measures related to Arctic weather. I am not willing to bet that we will be frozen in ice along the Canadian boarder in July. However, without a rising trend, my winning bet will call into question the strength of anthropogenic changes.
bet: Given the nature of oceanic oscillations, and in particular the Arctic Oscillation, I am willing to bet the Arctic will also continue to see a slow return to average ice melt in the summer, calling into question anthropogenic changes.
To be sure, CO2 is a greenhouse gas that contributes to our blanket and thank God we have one, but any increasing or decreasing influence that anthropogenic CO2 sources have are buried in the temperature variability sourced by the natural and highly variable weather and climate systems of Earth’s water, air, and land structures.
“So you are correct in saying that it looks like it was tracking with the temperatures – that was what it was intended to do. But what it does do is to show more clearly the influence of the PDO on temperature.”
No, what it does is (seemingly intentionally) mislead as to how much influence the PDO has.
“there was no attempt to say anything other than that I was graphing temperature and making the PDO phases visible, but I accept that it wasn’t fully explained.”
Why not just show the positive or negative changes, rather than making them trend upwards like the temperature does? That is NOT in the data, but makes the PDO look much more closely tied to the warming trend than is the case.
You may not THINK you are misleading people, but that is what you are doing. Why else do it the way you did? Properly plotted, your graph actually disproves your contention, because there is nothing about the PDO that can explain why the world is warmer now than 30 or 60 years ago. The PDO hasn’t changed, so how can it be the cause?
In the properly formatted graph, you can see the phase changes affecting temps, but you can ALSO see a warming trend in the temps that is NOT accompanied by a warming trend in the PDO. The one thing you changed is the one thing that gives information regarding the question of whether the warming is governed by the PDO – and you seem to think it is just a matter of style.
“So when you say that the PDO is not reponsible for the rising trend, I agree, in fact that is what I was saying (but not clearly enough).”
Ok, so what is the point of your post then? If the PDO is NOT responsible for the warming trend, then it is simply another type of natural variability that has been taken account of in the models.
“So my view, which I think is extremely reasonable given the evidence, is that the upturn at the end of Spencer’s graph is just another such upturn,”
OK, so your contention is a downturn means AGW isn’t true, but an upturn doesn’t mean that AGC isn’t true? At least that’s what you appear to be saying. The fact there has been NO downturn notwithstanding (The world has indeed kept on warming these last 10 years).
“You point out that in spite of a solar minimum, we are still warmer than we were more than a decade ago.”
No, I pointed out that we are currently warmer now than at any time PREVIOUS to 1998 – regardless of past PDO phases or otherwise – you already admitted that when you confirmed an underlying warming trend not attributable to the PDO!
Basically your whole point seems to be “AGW is false, but I can’t prove it, so here are some random facts that have no real bearing on the debate, oh, and my half-assed theory as to what it REALLY is”.
Sorry pal, but that doesn’t even come close to being anywhere near as convincing as the evidence for AGW.
K – Either I don’t explain myself very well, or you aren’t very good at understanding me.
“The PDO hasn’t changed, so how can it be the cause?”
My point exactly : [“So when you say that the PDO is not reponsible for the rising trend, I agree“.]
“In the properly formatted graph, you can see the phase changes affecting temps, but you can ALSO see a warming trend in the temps that is NOT accompanied by a warming trend in the PDO. The one thing you changed is the one thing that gives information regarding the question of whether the warming is governed by the PDO – and you seem to think it is just a matter of style.”
Please stop trying to read something into what I said which isn’t there. The graph is not a graph of the PDO, it is a graph of temperatures, and the trend lines are temperature trends. It is not trying to prove that the PDO causes a rising trend, it is making it easy to see that there are PDO-related cycles and a rising trend. [“Looking at the graph, you can clearly see that the PDO-driven cycles are superimposed on a rising trend. “].
If you want a graph of the trend, with the cycles and “noise” removed, it is here (but it isn’t very exciting, which is why I didn’t post before) :
http://members.westnet.com.au/jonas1/GlobalTemperature_NoCyclesTrendOnly.jpg
The reason that I did the phase trend lines – and which I thought I explained [“But in order to quantify the rising trend separately from the cycles, I calculated the trend over the complete cycles – if you take a trend from one part of one cycle to a different part of another cycle, then you get a misleading figure.”] – was the exact opposite of what you are accusing me of. I did it in order to be able to separate out the cycles from the trend, so that I could identify the magnitude of the trend. That is, the temperature trend which is not attributable to the PDO. I can’t take the cycles out of the temperatures, to see the trend, until I can see the cycles.
“,i>OK, so your contention is a downturn means AGW isn’t true, but an upturn doesn’t mean that AGC isn’t true? At least that’s what you appear to be saying. The fact there has been NO downturn notwithstanding (The world has indeed kept on warming these last 10 years).”
Like I said, stop trying to read something into what I said that isn’t there. The upturns and downturns (and we were talking about short-term upturns and downturns not the cycles) are not significant. They don’t prove AGW and they don’t prove not-AGW, in this context they are just “noise”. [“if you look at any temperature graph you will see plenty of upturns during cooling phases, and downturns during warming phases” (corrected version)]. Take a look at the graph:
http://members.westnet.com.au/jonas1/GlobalTemperature_PDOPhaseTrends.JPG
There are upturns at 1879-82, 1885, 1888-9, 1890-1, 1893-9 (5+ yrs, 1 deg C), 1898-9, 1903-6, 1943-5, 1950-1, 1955-8, 1960-3, 1964-70 (5+ yrs), 1972-3, and downturns at 1852-7, 1863-4 (>1 deg C), 1869-76 (but v.near the end of the rising phase), 1915-7 (1 deg C), 1918-9, 1925-9, 1932-3, 1979-84 (6+ yrs), 1987-9, 1991-2, and, of course, 1998-2000.
“No, I pointed out that we are currently warmer now than at any time PREVIOUS to 1998 – regardless of past PDO phases or otherwise – you already admitted that when you confirmed an underlying warming trend not attributable to the PDO!”
I changed the wording to something we could both agree on (it is a true subset of your statement and enough for the context), because I didn’t think you really meant at any time – we have countless peer reviewed papers pointing out that temperatures have been higher in the past, and the IPCC report of course “Much warmer times have also occurred in climate history – during most of the past 500 million years, Earth was probably completely free of ice sheets” (ch.6). The IPCC report also leaves open the possibility that it was warmer around 1100AD.
The warming trend in my graph is only identifiable for 150 years max (the whole data period), as are the cycles. I indicated that we can’t assume anything from it going forwards [“We can’t be sure that the phases will continue exactly as a continuation of the pattern, because we don’t understand the mechanisms.”], and I don’t think it’s at all unreasonable to expect not to be able to deduce anything going backwards either. (We could use other studies and other data for going back further, but not this data).
“Basically your whole point seems to be “AGW is false, but I can’t prove it, so here are some random facts that have no real bearing on the debate ..”.”
The debate is all about temperature changes and what causes them.
“.. oh, and my half-assed theory as to what it REALLY is”.”
We are in a very interesting situation at the moment, where “record cold” reports are pouring in from various locations, even though in the context of the last hundred years or so, the planet is still quite warm. I haven’t seen an explanation anywhere, and I’m pretty sure the IPCC’s computer models can’t throw any light on it (I’d be happy for you to prove me wrong), so I thought that a bit of “thinking aloud” about it might be a positive way of opening the topic. [“I am speculating not putting forward a firm scientific theory(!)”].
“Sorry pal, but that doesn’t even come close to being anywhere near as convincing as the evidence for AGW.”
Well, that’s your opinion. It would be more constructive to prove me wrong or put up an explanation for the “record cold”s, but it’s a free world. It’s a real world too, and the problem with the AGW case is that it doesn’t even remotely match what is going on in the real world. (That’s my opinion, again you’re welcome to prove me wrong).
K – ignore the last graph I posted (done in haste ) here is a much better one
http://members.westnet.com.au/jonas1/GlobalTemperature_CyclesAndTrend.jpg
It shows temperature, cycles, and trend.
Note that the trend is based on full cycles only.
I have deleted the old graph (GlobalTemperature_NoCyclesTrendOnly.jpg)
@Mike Jonas
OK I seem to have been totally misunderstanding you. When you started talking about the PDO, I thought you were saying it was responsible for the warming trend, but you’re not. Then I thought you were saying it isn’t responsible for the warming trend but will be responsible for a cooling trend. After that last post I’m not sure you’re saying that either.
“The debate is all about temperature changes and what causes them.”
Well maybe in the loosest general terms, but no one is debating that temperature changes naturally. We aren’t really debating the causes of temperature changes, we are debating the cause of one specific temperature change, which you already admitted is not caused by the PDO – the global warming trend – which is why I’m confused as to why you keep focusing on the PDO then say “but it isn’t the cause” (apparently).
“We are in a very interesting situation at the moment, where “record cold” reports are pouring in from various locations,”
Irrelevent. There are record highs pouring in from all over the place too. Climate change isn’t just one way, there can be local cooling due to global warming regardless of how counter-intuitive that seems.
“I haven’t seen an explanation anywhere”
Mainly because there isn’t ONE explanation. One explanation for many of the cold reports are the changes to snow and rainfall. Warmer air can hold more water which leads to greater precipitation. More snowfall for example can lower temperatures where the snow falls. This is why there is an ice buildup in some areas of the Antarctic: there is more snow falling from warmer air, but the temps are still well below freezing so more ice forms than would have been the case.
Let me just close out by asking straight out: Is a change to the PDO responsible for the warming trend? Or is the PDO going to be responsible for a cooling trend despite not being responsible for the warming trend? What are you trying to say?
The answers to your 2 questions are No and No.
What am I trying to say? This is what I said :
“The reason that I did the phase trend lines .. was .. in order to be able to separate out the cycles from the trend, so that I could identify the magnitude of the trend. That is, the temperature trend which is not attributable to the PDO. I can’t take the cycles out of the temperatures, to see the trend, until I can see the cycles.”
After I had taken out the cycles, the trend was less than 0.5 deg C per century. The IPCC used 0.74 +- 0.18 as their temperature trend. Apart from showing that there obviously was a relationship between temperature and PDO, the main message was that the IPCC was using too high a temperature trend.
The IPCC Report shows that their wrong temperature trend ended up in their climate sensitivity (ECS), so that is also wrong.
And the ECS is the basis for all of the IPCC temperature projections.