From World Climate Report:
Another IPCC Error: Antarctic Sea Ice Increase Underestimated by 50%
Figure 1. Trend in Antarctic ice extent, November 1978 through December 2006 (source: Comiso and Nishio, 2008).
Several errors have been recently uncovered in the 4th Assessment Report (AR4) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). These include problems with Himalayan glaciers, African agriculture, Amazon rainforests, Dutch geography, and attribution of damages from extreme weather events. More seem to turn up daily. Most of these errors stem from the IPCC’s reliance on non-peer reviewed sources.
The defenders of the IPCC have contended that most of these errors are minor in significance and are confined to the Working Group II Report (the one on impacts, adaptation and vulnerability) of the IPCC which was put together by representatives from various regional interests and that there was not as much hard science available to call upon as there was in the Working Group I report (“The Physical Science Basis”). The IPCC defenders argue that there have been no (or practically no) problems identified in the Working Group I (WGI) report on the science.
We humbly disagree.
In fact, the WGI report is built upon a process which, as revealed by the Climategate emails, is, by its very nature, designed not to produce an accurate view of the state of climate science, but instead to be an “assessment” of the state of climate science—an assessment largely driven by preconceived ideas of the IPCC design team and promulgated by various elite chapter authors. The end result of this “assessment” is to elevate evidence which supports the preconceived ideas and denigrate (or ignore) ideas that run counter to it.
These practices are clearly laid bare in several recent Petitions to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)—petitions asking the EPA to reconsider its “Endangerment Finding” that anthropogenic greenhouse gases endanger our public health and welfare. The basis of the various petitions is that the process is so flawed that the IPCC cannot be considered a reliable provider of the true state of climate science, something that the EPA heavily relies on the IPCC to be. The most thorough of these petitions contains over 200 pages of descriptions of IPCC problems and it a true eye-opener into how bad things had become.
There is no doubt that the 200+ pages would continue to swell further had the submission deadline not been so tight. New material is being revealed daily.
Just last week, the IPCC’s (and thus EPA’s) primary assertion that “Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic GHG [greenhouse gas] concentrations” was shown to be wrong. This argument isn’t included in the Petition.
This adds yet another problem to the growing list of errors in the IPCC WGI report, this one concerns Antarctic sea ice trends.
While all the press is about the observed declines in Arctic sea ice extent in recent decades, little attention at all is paid to the fact that the sea ice extent in the Antarctic has been on the increase. No doubt the dearth of press coverage stems from the IPCC treatment of this topic.
In the IPCC AR4 the situation is described like this in Chapter 4, “Observations: Changes in Snow, Ice, and Frozen Ground” (p. 351):
As an example, an updated version of the analysis done by Comiso (2003), spanning the period from November 1978 through December 2005, is shown in Figure 4.8. The annual mean ice extent anomalies are shown. There is a significant decreasing trend in arctic sea ice extent of –33 ± 7.4 × 103 km2 yr–1 (equivalent to –2.7 ± 0.6% per decade), whereas the Antarctic results show a small positive trend of 5.6 ± 9.2 × 103 km2 yr–1 (0.47 ± 0.8% per decade), which is not statistically significant. The uncertainties represent the 90% confidence interval around the trend estimate and the percentages are based on the 1978 to 2005 mean.
Notice that the IPCC states that the Antarctic increase in sea ice extent from November 1979-December 2005 is “not statistically significant” which seems to give them good reason to play it down. For instance, in the Chapter 4, Executive Summary (p. 339), the sea ice bullet reads:
Satellite data indicate a continuation of the 2.7 ± 0.6% per decade decline in annual mean arctic sea ice extent since 1978. The decline for summer extent is larger than for winter, with the summer minimum declining at a rate of 7.4 ± 2.4% per decade since 1979. Other data indicate that the summer decline began around 1970. Similar observations in the Antarctic reveal larger interannual variability but no consistent trends.
Which in the AR4 Summary For Policymakers becomes two separate items:
Satellite data since 1978 show that annual average arctic sea ice extent has shrunk by 2.7 [2.1 to 3.3]% per decade, with larger decreases in summer of 7.4 [5.0 to 9.8]% per decade. These values are consistent with those reported in the TAR. {4.4}
and,
Antarctic sea ice extent continues to show interannual variability and localised changes but no statistically significant average trends, consistent with the lack of warming reflected in atmospheric temperatures averaged across the region. {3.2, 4.4}
“Continues to show…no statistically significant average trends”? Continues?
This is what the IPCC Third Assessment Report (TAR), released in 2001, had to say about Antarctic sea ice trends (Chapter 3, p. 125):
Over the period 1979 to 1996, the Antarctic (Cavalieri et al., 1997; Parkinson et al., 1999) shows a weak increase of 1.3 ± 0.2%/decade.
By anyone’s reckoning, that is a statistically significant increase.
In the IPCC TAR Chapter 3 Executive Summary is this bullet point:
…Satellite data indicate that after a possible initial decrease in the mid-1970s, Antarctic sea-ice extent has stayed almost stable or even increased since 1978.
So, the IPCC AR4’s contention that sea ice trends in Antarctica “continues” to show “no statistically significant average trends” contrasts with what it had concluded in the TAR.
Interestingly, the AR4 did not include references to any previous study that showed that Antarctic sea ice trends were increasing in a statistically significant way. The AR4 did not include the TAR references of either Cavalieri et al., 1997, or Parkinson et al., 1999. Nor did the IPCC AR4 include a reference to Zwally et al., 2002, which found that:
The derived 20 year trend in sea ice extent from the monthly deviations is 11.18 ± 4.19 x 103 km2yr-1 or 0.98 ± 0.37% (decade)-1 for the entire Antarctic sea ice cover, which is significantly positive. [emphasis added]
and (also from Zwally et al. 2002),
Also, a recent analysis of Antarctic sea ice trends for 1978–1996 by Watkins and Simmonds [2000] found significant increases in both Antarctic sea ice extent and ice area, similar to the results in this paper. [emphasis added]
Watkins and Simmonds (2000) was also not cited by the AR4.
So just what did the IPCC AR4 authors cite in support of their “assessment” that Antarctic sea ice extent was not increasing in a statistically significant manner? The answer is “an updated version of the analysis done by Comiso (2003).” And just what is “Comiso (2003)”? A book chapter!
Comiso, J.C., 2003: Large scale characteristics and variability of the global sea ice cover. In: Sea Ice – An Introduction to its Physics, Biology, Chemistry, and Geology [Thomas, D. and G.S. Dieckmann (eds.)]. Blackwell Science, Oxford, UK, pp. 112–142.
And the IPCC didn’t actually even use what was in the book chapter, but instead “an updated version” of the “analysis” that was in the book chapter.
And from this “updated” analysis, the IPCC reported that the increase in Antarctic sea ice extent was an insignificant 5.6 ± 9.2 × 103 km2 yr–1 (0.47 ± 0.8% per decade)—a value that was only about one-half of the increase reported in the peer-reviewed literature.
There are a few more things worth considering.
1) Josefino Comiso (the author of the above mentioned book chapter) was a contributing author of the IPCC AR4 Chapter 4, so the coordinating lead authors probably just turned directly to Comiso to provide an unpeer-reviewed update. (how convenient)
and 2) Comiso published a subsequent paper (along with Fumihiko Nishio) in 2008 that added only one additional year to the IPCC analysis (i.e. through 2006 instead of 2005), and once again found a statistically significant increase in Antarctic sea ice extent, with a value very similar to the value reported in the old TAR, that is:
When updated to 2006, the trends in ice extent and area …in the Antarctic remains slight but positive at 0.9 ± 0.2 and 1.7 ± 0.3% per decade.
These trends are, again, by anyone’s reckoning, statistically significant.
Figure 1. Trend in Antarctic ice extent, November 1978 through December 2006 (source: Comiso and Nishio, 2008).
And just in case further evidence is needed, and recent 2009 paper by Turner et al. (on which Comiso was a co-author), concluded that:
Based on a new analysis of passive microwave satellite data, we demonstrate that the annual mean extent of Antarctic sea ice has increased at a statistically significant rate of 0.97% dec-1 since the late 1970s.
This rate of increase is nearly twice as great as the value given in the AR4 (from its non-peer-reviewed source).
So, the peer reviewed literature, both extant at the time of the AR4 as well as published since the release of the AR4, shows that there has been a significant increase in the extent of sea ice around Antarctica since the time of the first satellite observations observed in the late 1970s. And yet the AR4 somehow “assessed” the evidence and determined not only that the increase was only half the rate established in the peer-reviewed literature, but also that it was statistically insignificant as well. And thus, the increase in sea ice in the Antarctic was downplayed in preference to highlighting the observed decline in sea ice in the Arctic.
It is little wonder why, considering that the AR4 found that “Sea ice is projected to shrink in both the Arctic and Antarctic under all SRES scenarios.”
References:
Cavalieri, D. J., P. Gloersen, C. L. Parkinson, J. C. Comiso, and H. J. Zwally, 1997. Observed hemispheric asymmetry in global sea ice changes. Science, 278, 1104–1106.
Cavalieri, D. J., C. L. Parkinson, P. Gloersen, J. C. Comiso, and H. J. Zwally, 1999. Deriving long-term time series of sea ice cover from satellite passivemicrowave multisensor data sets. Journal of Geophysical Research, 104, 15803–15814.
Comiso, J. C., and F. Nishio, 2008. Trends in the sea ice cover using enhanced and compatible AMSR-E, SSM/I, and SMMR data. Journal of Geophysical Research, 113, C02S07, doi:10.1029/2007JC004257.
Parkinson, C. L., D. J. Cavalieri, P. Gloersen, H. J. Zwally, and J. C. Comiso, 1999. Arctic sea ice extents, areas, and trends, 1978– 1996. Journal of Geophysical Research, 104, 20837–20856.
Turner, J., J. C. Comiso, G. J. Marshall, T. A. Lachlan-Cope, T. Bracegirdle, T. Maksym, M. P. Meredith, Z. Wang, and A. Orr, 2009. Non-annular atmospheric circulation change induced by stratospheric ozone depletion and its role in the recent increase of Antarctic sea ice extent. Geophysical Research Letters, 36, L08502, doi:10.1029/2009GL037524.
Watkins, A. B., and I. Simmonds, Current trends in Antarctic sea ice: The 1990s impact on a short climatology, 2000. Journal of Climate, 13, 4441–4451.
Zwally, H.J., J. C. Comiso, C. L. Parkinson, D. J. Cavalieri, and P. Gloersen, 2002. Variability of Antarctic sea ice 1979-1998. Journal of Geophysical Research, 107, C53041.
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Southern Hemisphere sea ice extent, 1979-2010. Trend 2.3% per decade.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/get-file.php?report=global&file=sh-seaice&year=2010&month=1&ext=gif
These are January anomalies, right in the middle of our summer. A pattern of higher highs and higher lows.
“Ask the people in Venice Italy if the oceans are on the rise” – Terry Edger
“Is Venice sinking? Or is the water level rising? The answer is complex but “yes” to both questions. The mean level of the land has lowered by 9 inches (23 centimeters) relative to sea level. Tapping the underground water supply has caused a reduction in pressure in the subsoil and, therefore, a contraction of the ground itself, with a subsequent lowering of structures above.
At the same time, the tidal level has increased by some 3 inches (8 centimeters) for several reasons, including organic structure growth on the barrier reef in the lagoon basin and changes in atmospheric pressure and wind action on the Adriatic Sea.
Eustasy, or the global variation in sea level, is tied to changes in the world’s climate. During the last century, the eustatic rise for the city of Venice, independent of its subsidence, was on the average 0.05 inches (1.27 milimeter) per year.”
So, 9″ from sinking, 3″ from local changes and 5″ from global sea level change. But that’s okay, you can blame all of it on global warming if it makes for a better headline…
Interestingly, the ice sheet appears to be losing mass:
“Measurements of Time-Variable Gravity Show Mass Loss in Antarctica”
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/311/5768/1754
“Recent Antarctic ice mass loss from radar interferometry and regional climate modelling.”
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v1/n2/abs/ngeo102.html
“Changes in West Antarctic ice stream dynamics observed with ALOS PALSAR data”
http://dx.doi.org/10.1029%2F2008GL033365
If both sets of results are correct, It would imply a broader but thinner ice sheet. Interesting, but hardly reassuring.
Jeff Id (14:04:04) :
“….this exaggerates the confidence interval.”
“… the significance bound estimates are very conservative to say the least.”
So when you say:
“Global Sea ice trend by year only (barely) crosses 95% significance when the first two months of satellite data is included for the entire record.”
the data’s actually very clearly demonstrating a significant global ice loss above a bar that you admit you have set too high.
Somehow your words don’t quite convey this.
***************
Tenuc (13:41:39) :
Regarding safe amounts of CO2, my dad was a miner and has been retired for 25y or so. In his day the safe level was 2%, which I think works out at 20,000ppm. Looks like our atmosphere will be safe to breath for a while yet.
*****************
All this talk about toxicity is kind of pointless. Even oxygen is toxic.
“Central Nervous System Toxicity (CNS)
This is the serious kind and needs to be tracked on every dive if doing decompression or mixed gas dives. If you breathe oxygen at very high pO2s (0.9 ATA and up) for a short period of time then problems arrive much quicker. This results in visual disturbances, ringing in the ears, dizziness, mood swings, convulsions and finally coma. According to the NOAA (a US government research group) this times are: 1.6 ATA for 45 min, 1.5 ATA for 120 min, 1.4 ATA for 150 min, 1.3 ATA for 180 min and so on. Technical divers keep track of CNS toxicity by using a CNS clock. This shows your exposure as a percentage of the total allowable exposure.”
http://tjaartdb0.tripod.com/html/oxygen_toxicity.html
Dave Wendt (11:52:55) : “Since I have seen comments from others involved in the IPCC process that indicated that what appeared in the final product was not what they assumed had been agreed to, I am willing to suspend judgement on Comiso until he has time to respond.”
I heartily second this suggestion to see what Josefino Comiso says before passing judgement based upon just what is in AR4. I’ve only had some minor, somewhat indirect dealings with J. Comiso, but every indication was that he had the attitude of a good scientist looking for the truth.
Both the NASA and JAXA’s (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) snow and ice data depend upon algorithms and subroutines by Comiso. I certainly hope he is a man of good skill and intentions.
We have seen in a case involving Roger Pielke, Jr that what ends up in the IPCC report doesn’t always accurately reflect a persons work or statements.
Robert: your
Interestingly, the ice sheet appears to be losing mass:
the ice cap may be losing mass, but the ice pack is gaining in extent. These two are not the same thing.
The ice cap is losing a few mm per year, which translates to several hundred thousand years to its demise.
the ice cap loss mechanism is also not due warming. The average air temp is less than -30 deg C, and the water temp on the shelves is still near the freezing point, and is not believed to have warmed.
Tom P (17:01:23)
Sorry Tom, I can’t disagree with you this time. I didn’t convey it strongly enough in this post, of course if you were a regular reader at tAV you would know my opinion of this method of significance calculation. That’s why I said here that people should ignore it, tAV crowd already knows.
” Les Johnson (20:00:29) :
the ice cap may be losing mass, but the ice pack is gaining in extent. These two are not the same thing.”
Who said they were? I clearly said they were different.
“The ice cap is losing a few mm per year, which translates to several hundred thousand years to its demise.”
Your point is?
“the ice cap loss mechanism is also not due warming.”
Riiiiiiiiiight. It just happens to coincide with the warmest decade on record, much like the loss of Arctic sea ice, the melting permafrost, and the lengthening growing season. Ok.
REPLY: you really should get out more, maybe less health studies and more hard science? NASA for example shows that the loss has to do with wind pattern changes.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2007/10/03/nh-sea-ice-loss-its-the-wind-says-nasa/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/08/11/nasa-sees-arctic-ocean-circulation-do-an-about-face/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/04/13/watching-the-2007-historic-low-sea-ice-flow-out-of-the-arctic-sea/
You can learn a lot by watching time lapse animation:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/05/31/arctic-sea-ice-time-lapse-from-1978-to-2009-using-nsidc-data/
I’m betting though you’ll ignore all this and come back to tell me that it can only be temperature that is the cause. We’ll see if you are open minded or not. – Anthony
So the test of open-mindedness is if I agree with you? C’mon. You’re a little better than that. I’ll take a look at the links and see what I think.
Starting with the original claim: “the ice cap loss mechanism is also not due warming.”
Note that this referring to Antarctic ice, not Arctic ice (which is what the links discuss). But I think the links are still worth discussing.
First link:
“Nghiem said the rapid decline in winter perennial ice the past two years [2006-2007] was caused by unusual winds.”
There can be more than one cause of decreasing ice in operation. The astonishing fall in the ice cover in 2006-2007, followed by the partial recovery in 2008 and 2009, may indeed be down to unusual winds. But sea ice has been declining for the last thirty years. The contribute of unusual wind conditions in 2006-2007 doesn’t say anything about the cause of the long-term trend.
If you look at 2005, the hottest year in the GISS record, you see a powerful El Nino effect. But of course there have always been El Ninos. Why is 2005 the record holder? Because you have a short-term warming and a long-term warming added together. Ice extent, same
There’s a question of common sense here, much like with your post about the disintegration of the Wilkins Ice Sheet: have these wind conditions never occurred before? If they have, why have we never seen ice minimums like those before? If they haven’t, why do we have this coincidental one-of-a-kind weather event coincidently occurring alongside warming unprecedented in modern times?
“The scientists observed less perennial ice cover in March 2007 than ever before, with the thick ice confined to the Arctic Ocean north of Canada. Consequently, the Arctic Ocean was dominated by thinner seasonal ice that melts faster. This ice is more easily compressed and responds more quickly to being pushed out of the Arctic by winds.”
Thinner ice is more responsive to wind. Why is the ice thinner?
Second link: ” The results suggest not all the large changes seen in Arctic climate in recent years are a result of long-term trends associated with global warming.”
OK. I have no problem with this. “Not all” the changes. How many things in the climate are caused by one thing? There’s a long way between “not all” and “none.”
Third link seems to rehash link #1; winds contributed in 2006-2007.
_______
Thank you for the links. I don’t think they prove the original assertion that “the ice cap loss mechanism is also not due [to] warming.” Your sources seem to feel that it is caused by a mix of factors, implicitly including warming. I agree with that.
“implicitly including warming.”
Correction: the second source doesn’t imply this, they say it: ” The results suggest not all the large changes seen in Arctic climate in recent years are a result of long-term trends associated with global warming.”
Not all are the changes are down to global warming, but some are.
Robert (21:56:25)
“Thinner ice is more responsive to wind. Why is the ice thinner?”
I’m starting to feel like Rodney Dangerfield around here. In response to your question I would refer you to my comment above Dave Wendt (14:39:39) : where I discuss the Rigor and Wallace paper of 2004 which demonstrated that the decline in sea ice age and thickness began with a shift in state in Beaufort Gyre and the TransPolar Drift in 1989 which resulted in multiyear ice declining from over 80% of the Arctic to 30% in about one year and that the persistence of that pattern has been responsible for the continuing decline. The shift coincided with a shift in the AO, but was unlikely to have been generated by any thing anthropogenic.
Robert (16:56:41) :
Interestingly, the ice sheet appears to be losing mass:
“Measurements of Time-Variable Gravity Show Mass Loss in Antarctica”
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/311/5768/1754
“Recent Antarctic ice mass loss from radar interferometry and regional climate modelling.”
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v1/n2/abs/ngeo102.html
“Changes in West Antarctic ice stream dynamics observed with ALOS PALSAR data”
http://dx.doi.org/10.1029%2F2008GL033365
If both sets of results are correct, It would imply a broader but thinner ice sheet. Interesting, but hardly reassuring.
I could only got full access to the first of your links, but judging from the abstracts of the others, it provides the largest estimated decline so I’ll deal mostly with it. Although I only had time to give it a brief perusal, my eyeball judgement is that it represents about 10% measurement and 90% mathematics, which in my book means it rates a big “We don’t know that”. For the sake of argument I’ll stipulate that it might be correct. Given that let’s consider this passage
“Using measurements of time-variable gravity from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment satellites, we determined mass variations of the Antarctic ice sheet during 2002–2005. We found that the mass of the ice sheet decreased significantly, at a rate of 152 ± 80 cubic kilometers of ice per year, which is equivalent to 0.4 ± 0.2 millimeters of global sea-level rise per year. Most of this mass loss came from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.”
It’s been quite a few years since the nuns turned me loose on the world, but from what I remember of the arithmetic they tried to drum into my head 0.4+/- 0.2 mm corresponds to an estimate somewhere between 3/4″ and 2.25″ per century. Given the estimates I’ve seen for Greenland and glacial melting the total comes out somewhat below what seems to be the conventional number for sea level rise which has been occurring since the beginning of the interglacial period. Even if we discount any potential weaknesses in these works, why exactly are we supposed to find them disturbing.
You aren’t seriously suggesting that it’s melting at 30 below, surely. The supposed mass loss (which is questionable, as Dave Wendt argues) is due instead to increased glacial flow, which in turn is due to a prior mass buildup from precipitation, which caused increased pressure. Presumably this build-up and let-go of pressure occurs in internally generated fits and starts, and is unrelated to the temperature.
The air temperature there has been steady in recent decades, and the water temperature, which has been suspected of warming and allowing the jammed ice shelves along the shore to loosen, permitting increased glacial flow, doesn’t seem to be doing so:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/11/antarctic-sea-water-shows-no-sign-of-warming/
Jeff Id (20:05:36) :
“…if you were a regular reader at tAV you would know my opinion of this method of significance calculation. That’s why I said here that people should ignore it, tAV crowd already knows.”
When AR(1) fails (and the ice-extent time series really looks nothing like a random walk) ARMA might help. I’d guess you’ve already seen this, but other readers might like to have a look here for an excellent explanation of this analysis applied to temperature trends:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2009/12/15/how-long
“…such estimates can be viewed as realistic, and they’re certainly more realistic than the AR(1) or white-noise estimates.”
[Snip. Fake email address. ~mod.]
To theconservativelie: your sarcastic comment fails on one point; the massive changes to our way of life do not come for free. Are we willing to pay the price and change the way we live for a false proposition? In fact, put your money where your mouth is and start living that cleaner, healthier, less fossil fuel dependent life… go live the Amish lifestyle. They do it just fine and so can you. You don’t need others to change in order for you to lead by example.
“I’m starting to feel like Rodney Dangerfield around here. In response to your question I would refer you to my comment above Dave Wendt (14:39:39) : where I discuss the Rigor and Wallace paper of 2004 which demonstrated that the decline in sea ice age and thickness began with a shift in state in Beaufort Gyre and the TransPolar Drift in 1989 which resulted in multiyear ice declining from over 80% of the Arctic to 30% in about one year and that the persistence of that pattern has been responsible for the continuing decline. The shift coincided with a shift in the AO, but was unlikely to have been generated by any thing anthropogenic.”
Let’s look at some of the papers that cited Rigor and Wallace (2004):
“Satellite data reveal unusually low Arctic sea ice coverage during the summer of 2007, caused in part by anomalously high temperatures and southerly winds. ”
– “Accelerated decline in the Arctic sea ice cover”
“The retreat of Arctic sea ice in recent decades is a pre-eminent signal of climate change. . . . The results indicate that concurrent atmospheric circulation trends contribute to forcing winter and summer sea ice concentration trends in many parts of the marginal ice zone during both periods. However, there is also an emerging signal of overall Arctic sea ice decline since 1979 in both winter and summer that is not directly attributable to a trend in the overlying atmospheric circulation.”
– “Evolution of Arctic sea ice concentration trends and the role of atmospheric circulation forcing, 1979–2007”
“The hemispheric-mean decline in winter ice extent is due in large part to increasing sea-surface temperatures in the Barents Sea and adjoining waters, which are consistent with increased concentrations of greenhouse gases.”
— “Drivers of declining sea ice in the Arctic winter: A tale of two seas”
Respect the peer-reviewed literature, and don’t just cherry-pick studies you like. By showing respect, you will, by the laws of karma, receive more respect in return!
Jim Clarke (09:43:07)
…says the king of the cherrypickers.
But I have to agree about the karma. The climate peer review system is totally corrupt, as can be seen throughout the Climategate emails.
Karma is now getting its revenge: Papers hand-waved through climate pal review by friendly referees are presumed to be sloppily researched, biased, and unreliable. They are written by rent-seekers primarily intended to generate grants, then used by true CAGW believers in their appeals to discredited authorities.
The climate peer review process is rotten with corruption. Anyone who doesn’t think so need only read the East Anglia emails.
“theconservativelie (07:46:39) :
wow. after reading all this, I’ve had a revelation… what if we do all this work and make a cleaner, better, healthier, less fossil fuel dependent world, and it all tuns out to be for NOTHING!!!! How stupid we will all feel then!! Thanks for the enlightenment.”
You don’t understand a thing. Companies develop very viable solutions all the time already. I happen to own shares in a company that makes Molten Carbonate Fuel Cells. These fuel cells are big, hot, and extremely efficient. They run on any kind of hydrocarbon fuel with an efficiency of 85 %, way better than combustion. You can buy one now if you want to run your freight ship on it.
If you ask me, storing energy in hydrocarbons is way smarter than storing it in H2 because the H2 fuel cell cycle has an efficiency of 10% and H2 makes steel tanks brittle so it’s all pretty complicated and expensive. If you have the energy and want it carbon neutral, you can synthesize the hydrocarbon if you don’t have oil, losing some efficiency.
So ordinary capitalism weeds out bad ideas all the time and favors good ideas. The last thing we need is a parasitic bueraucracy that takes trillions of dollars, redistributes it (taking half of it for themselves because it’s such a difficult job) and favors some ideas they – the bureaucrats – deem interesting. The free market is way better in driving innovation.
And don’t you tell me that it doesn’t matter whether we squander a few trillions on useless projects if only one of them succeeds. You might end up with a few thousand wind turbines that you have to supplement with a load of gas powered plants like Germany does only to keep your bloody grid stable, a completely wonky system. I should know, i’m german and yesterday evening i overtook a heavy truck convoy transporting the parts of a new wind turbine on the Autobahn. And i have to finance that wonkiness through my energy bill.
[Snip. Fake email address. ~mod.]
[Snip. Fake email address. ~mod.]
DirkH-I agree completely that capitalism will decide what energy sources we use, for better or for worse, and that govt mandates based on poor science should stay out of it. Theconservativelie- I also agree that it would be good to develop other energy sources and wean ourselves off of oil. Oil will be depleted at some point. But I disagree that we force it out because of some mythical AGW: the free market will move away from oil as it becomes too expensive and move to alternative sources. There’s no need to lose sleep that AGW is going to get us. The market will sort it out based on economics. But Al Gore can’t make money quickly if he waits for the free market to sort it out… He and others need to create the “demand” and sell goofy carbon offsets so they can profit NOW!
Come on guys. This is how the warmists undermined their position: by making claims they couldn’t substantiate. The first thing that caught my eye in this was where the author linked to something that was going to show us that a certain IPCC claim was “wrong”. I hit the link thinkin “real evidence” and this is what I get:
“The author has added an update at the end showing why it CAN BE REASONABLY ARGUED that anthropogenic greenhouse gases MAY BE RESPONSIBLE FOR less than half of the observed warming since the mid-20th century”
Not quite evidence that the claim was wrong. Not even close. It changes nothing. It’s just one more interpretation/hypothesis that’s very far from proven. Misrepresentation by the poster. Possibly unconsciously from desire to see what he wants to see – the greatest obstacle to the achievement of scientific truth.
But that was just an incidental. The poster’s main objectives were to show that there has been an ongoing increase in Antarctic ice extent since the late 70s, that the IPCC report hasn’t acknowledged this and that there is in fact a suspicious looking apparent contradiction in the IPCC reporting of Antarctic ice extent. But the two IPCC statements refer to different periods, and to my eye, when considered appropriately both statements appear reasonable. The 3rd report issued 2001 refers to the period 1979 to 1996 and admits a weak increase. The next report covering to 2005 claims no significant increase. Looking at the graph I’d have to go with that. The slight upward trend appears to have come to an end around 15 years ago. The trend since then looks less stable but doesn’t appear to show an increase that I can see. I think it’s fair to incorporate that reality into their assessment. If genuine sceptics think there’s merit in pointing out that the very recent trend reversal in Arctic ice extent is worth noting (and I do!) it’s surely only fair to take notice of what looks like more than ten years’ maintenance of the status quo in the southern ocean – a non-trend which when added to the weak preceding trend renders it effectively insignificant. There’s nothing in any of the above post that changes anything.that I can see.
The silver bullet that disposes of the AGW hypothesis might still be out there and on its way, but I suspect that the only really effective countering evidence will be provided by the passage of time. A few decades hence the picture should be a lot clearer. However, if it could be shown beyond doubt that the claimed temperature rise is a mistake or simply the result of natural variability then the party would be over.
As I’ve argued before, the temperature record as shown by stations that haven’t been moved and are still in environmentally uncontaminated locations may be the key to establishing an accurate temperature record from completely unprocessed data. If someone is working on that then all might be clear sooner rather than later, as it seems to me that there is some evidence of conscious and unconscious upward bias in the record for the last 100 years and more. If the warming trend is still present after such an investigation then the search for a full understanding by independent and objective scientists – though finding them might be the biggest obstacle of all – has to look at every other possible factor including CO2.
In the meantime the sceptic position gets weakened in exactly the same way as the warmist one by exaggerated and/or unfounded claims. Real evidence, very cautious analysis and meticulously supported interpretation of it has to be the way to go if credibility is to be maintained.
Apologies for any typos. I can never see them until after I press submit.