Yet Another Incorrect IPCC Assessment: Antarctic Sea Ice Increase
by Chip Knappenberger
March 8, 2010
Another error in the influential reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports has been identified. This one concerns the rate of expansion of sea ice around Antarctica.
While not an issue for estimates of future sea level rise (sea ice is floating ice which does not influence sea level), a significant expansion of Antarctic sea ice runs counter to climate model projections. As the errors in the climate change “assessment” reports from the IPCC mount, its aura of scientific authority erodes, and with it, the justification for using their findings to underpin national and international efforts to regulate greenhouse gases.
Some climate scientists have distanced themselves from the IPCC Working Group II’s (WGII’s) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4), Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability, prefering instead the stronger hard science in the Working Group I (WGI) Report—The Physical Science Basis. Some folks have even gone as far as saying that no errors have been found in the WGI Report and the process in creating it was exemplary.
Such folks are in denial.
As I document below, WGI did a poor job in regard to Antarctic sea ice trends. Somehow, the IPCC specialists assessed away a plethora of evidence showing that the sea ice around Antarctica has been significantly increasing—a behavior that runs counter to climate model projections of sea ice declines—and instead documented only a slight, statistically insignificant rise.
How did this happen? The evidence suggests that IPCC authors were either being territorial in defending and promoting their own work in lieu of other equally legitimate (and ultimately more correct) findings, were being guided by IPCC brass to produce a specific IPCC point-of-view, or both.
The handling of Antarctic sea ice is, unfortunately, not an isolated incident in the IPCC reports, but is simply one of many examples in which portions of the peer-reviewed scientific literature were cast aside, or ignored, so that a particular point of view—the preconceived IPCC point of view—could be either maintained or forwarded.
Background
The problems with the IPCC’s handling of the trends in Antarctic sea ice was first uncovered and presented a week or two ago in an article posted over at the World Climate Report—another blog with which I have been involved with for a long time.
…
The First Order Draft of Chapter 4 contained the following illustration of Southern Hemisphere sea ice, along with the caption “Sea Ice extent anomalies … the Southern Hemisphere based on passive microwave satellite data… [l]inear trend lines are indicated for each hemisphere….the small positive trend in the Southern Hemisphere is not significant. (Updated from Comiso, 2003).”
Figure 1. Figure 4.4.1b from the IPCC AR4 Chapter 4 First Order Draft.
Notice two things, 1) the figure depicts monthly ice extent anomalies from November 1978 through October 2004, and 2) the trend through them seems to be statistically significant (i.e. the confidence range does not include zero), given in the illustration as 9089.2 +/- 2970.7 km2/year or 0.735 +/- 0.240%/dec.
Yet, for some reason, the accompanying text claims that the trend in Figure 4.4.1b is insignificant (AR4 First Order Draft, page 4-14, lines 9-10):
The Antarctic results show a slight but insignificant positive trend of 0.7 ± 0.2% per decade.
This inconsistency was brought to the IPCC Chapter 4 authors’ attention by several IPCC commenters. Commentor John Church wrote “I do not understand why this trend is insignificant – it is more than three times the quoted error estimates” and Stefan Rahmstorf wrote “How can a trend of 0.7 +/- 0.2 be ‘insignificant’? Is not 0.2 the confidence interval, so it is significantly positive?” The IPCC responded to both in the same manner “Taken into account in revised text.”
And boy did they ever!
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To George E. Smith and crucilandia
The -2.9% applies to the Arctic, the +3.1% applies to the ANTarctic.
There are two poles, and the sea ice behavior at each is different.
Also to add: the sea ice behavior at the south pole is different than that at the north pole. While there is a significant amount of ice remaining through the summer melt season in the Arctic ice, nearly all of the Antarctic ice tends to melt. Perhaps the extra noise by tracking monthly data makes it more difficult to discern a trend?
AW in FT article
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2d0bfdbc-2b1a-11df-93d8-00144feabdc0.html
terry46 (14:34:23) :
I’ve not read this story yet but the first thing to jump out is the date.2004 The last time I checked it was 2010 What happened to the last 5 plus years???
When you do read it you’ll note the graph is from the IPCC’s AR4 report,
released in 2007. The IPCC only evaluates research, it claims not to
do any, so the delays between producing the graph and printing it the
AR4 report can be good for a year or two.
Graeme,
I think you nailed it – and beat me to it as well : )
I wish Max would reply, because if we can confirm that… we might be able to get to the bottom of a mystery/riddle Dr. Spencer exposed the other day in his post announcing the beginning of work towards a satellite based surface temp (not lower troposhpere) record in which he also posted a comparison of raw surface temp records vs. CRU. I think he might have known full well the implications but didn’t want to say out loud… while there was general agreement on trends, his reconstructed record was 20% more variable (both up and down) than CRU.
Now we shouldn’t go crazy shouting conspiracy… but what would be the impact to the statistical significance of CRU’s temperature trend if the variability in the temp record was, in fact, 20% greater than the CRU, GISS, etc records indicate.
Maybe nothing, maybe something… I’m not sure myself, nor do I necessarily prescribe to statistics as a replacement for observation, nor am I qualified to analyze it, but I do think it’s an interesting question that maybe someone here could answer.
Sorry to double post but this observation seems more relevant here than in the Methane article in which I made this comment earlier today:
The sea ice anomaly time series, which can be found here at Cryosphere Today has an interesting characteristic:
In EVERY year since satellite data has been available, the sea ice anomaly statistic has both risen above and dropped below the 1979-2000 mean. That is, in any one calendar year during this 31 year period, one can find a day for which it is correct to say that the recorded global sea ice extent for that day is greater than the mean extent on that day during the baseline period, and another day for which the extend is less than the mean on that day during the baseline period.
I say “baseline period” because that is what it is. To call this reference point the “normal” extent, as is often done, begs the question: what is so “normal” about the years 1979-2000 that argues for that period as a point of reference from which to measure cataclysmic change. But even if we grant such a thing, it is evident from the above observation that sea ice extent is not changing dramatically, as it does not wander from this “standard” in any year without returning to it in the same year and wandering for a period in the other direction too.
JackStraw (15:35:22) :
>>Reply: No. We explicitly recommend not calling people derogatory names. I personally use the term AGW proponent. ~ ctm.
Fair enough. But I’m done calling these AGW advocates scientists. That’s insulting to actual scientists.
—–
OK. They may have been educated in a science-based faculty but they are clearly not using any objective scientific method so, true, we should not call them ‘scientists’ out of respect for the real ones.
But, given what we now know, the term “AGW proponents” may be fair to the herd of researchers that simply followed them but is far too kind to their leaders.
In the past I have referred to Al Gore as a “greasy used planet salesman.” Yes, I know that wasn’t nice.
So how about calling the lead “scientists” from the IPCC gang “used AGW theory salespersons”?
Its gender neutral and suggests the truthiness and high pressure sales tactics that used car salespersons are famous for (e.g., trust me its supposed to do that, buy now before its too late, etc.)
Would that be nice enough?
If it’s an “insignificant trend” they’re looking for, they needn’t look any further than the GLOBAL sea ice time series I link to above.
Why are so many getting so worked up over a degree C of change?
The same reason why people get worked up over a 1% difference in pay rise. Sometimes small movements are very significant, if only to our comfort.
The city north of me has, on average, a +1 C higher temperature (average for winter and summer). They can grow things sensitive to frost, whereas we cannot.
A degree difference is significant.
If the earth was to warm a couple of degrees the changes would be very large indeed.
George E. Smith,
Are you the Nobel prize winning physicist or just honoring the great man?
thanks, Steve
Reply: He’s a real person with the same name, but not the Nobel winner. ~ ctm
We need to use alphanumerics to keep track of the various gates –
We could use 1 a i gate for #1 Arctic Ice and
2 aa i gate for #2 AntArctic Ice
and so on…
Al Gored (20:05:42) :
In the past I have referred to Al Gore as a “greasy used planet salesman.” Yes, I know that wasn’t nice.
May not have been nice, but I sure got a laugh out of it. 🙂
harrywr2 (16:20:34) :
The same reason it takes a husband years to discover his wife is having an affair. There is a sense of trust, and the various excuses seem plausible.
Once the trust is broken, then he finds hundreds of bits of evidence that had been there all along.
Guess that makes sense, but for me the trust was broken years ago.
And with that, I just noticed:
IPCC has now launched the Call for Nominations for the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5).
Governments and participating organisations are invited to nominate experts to participate in the preparation of the three Working Group contributions to the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) as coordinating lead authors, authors and review editors. Click here to access the IPCC AR5 Nominations Portal, which routes IPCC Focal Points and representatives of participating organisations to the individual working group nomination pages.
Nominations for the WGI AR5 may be submitted until 5pm CET on 12 March 2010. For more information about WGI AR5, click here.
So….they’re moving on to the next assessment. Perhaps there will be a more timely, thorough review this time. I can only imagine what nonsense we’ll be fed.
Reading the extract of the article piqued my interest, so I spent the time to read the full piece and found it so much more interesting. It shows that, “it’s worse than we thought.”
The IPCC report, that is.
They chose to include in AR4 a study with results that were more in line with AGW thinking, using the Comiso “Bootstrap” algorithm rather than the Cavalieri “NASA Team” algorithm. And the differences between the two approaches appear to have been well known in the literature of the time.
Rather than using this divergence as a point for further study, the IPCC chose the “Bootstrap” algorithm which showed a smaller increase in the Antarctic sea ice. To make matters worse, rather than going with the original figure, as shown in the above extract, which uses an anomaly based on monthly data, they used a newer figure using anomaly data based on annual data, which gave an even smaller increase in the sea ice (the confidence range is so great as to suggest that the trend could even be negative!). Skewing the data in this fashion is, at the very least, intellectually dishonest.
Gee now, I wonder why the IPCC and their supporters are finding their credibility vanishing.
Even the NASA GISS scientists begrudgingly acknowledge the expansion of Antarctic sea ice at about 3.1 percent since 1979. But they do so in such a bumbling way as to be pathetic:
“What’s Holding Antarctic Sea Ice Back From Melting?”
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/antarctic_melting.html
Gosh. Could it be the evil Kracken blowing it’s chilly breath across the continent? NASA admits they really don’t know and have recently gotten on the ozone depletion kick – bad humans still polluting with CFCs – even though they’ve been banned for twenty years.
I agree. “Hothead” would be (mildly) insulting, Warmist is merely informally brief.
This is why Climategate was so damaging, even though (as I wrote at the time) it only took the shine off their halos — but that’s enough to start a chain reaction.
Regarding labelling warmists and skeptics … the labelling scheme must be balanced on both sides with each label similar to its opposite – thus (in reference to the hockey-stick chart): Big-endians and Little-endians.
OK . . let’s call them Warmistas then.
You know , like Bruno is a fashionista.
Reply: Seriously tone it down. We are going to try and get along if serious discussions are to happen. ~ ctm
I was reading the article linked to above, and I realised I had heard this all before when trying to edit wikipedia. It’s as if the same mindset is in charge of both the IPCC and wikipedia, people play along with the rules, they go along with being sidelined because you can’t insist your view gets prominence, but somehow at the end of the day, only one view ever gets to be heard.
Is there some kind of training course for global warmers in how to subvert the system to make it into their propaganda mouthpiece?
“Codeblue (17:38:06) :
Also to add: the sea ice behavior at the south pole is different than that at the north pole. While there is a significant amount of ice remaining through the summer melt season in the Arctic ice, nearly all of the Antarctic ice tends to melt. Perhaps the extra noise by tracking monthly data makes it more difficult to discern a trend?”
Never underestimate the intelligence of the common man who has always understood that they are poles apart.
However, I would appreciate a grant to facillitate a comparitive study of the long term survival strategies of penguins and polar bears.
Charles’ use of the term AGW proponent rather than more lurid descriptions, demonstrates that he is without doubt moderate in all things and not least a gentleman.
Isn’t the word proponent defined as: “a person who argues in favour of something”? Some synonyms: advocate, champion, supporter, backer, promoter, protagonist, campaigner, booster, cheerleader.
An AGW proponent is none of those since they are not in favour of global warming, on the contrary.
More precise would be: an AGWTproponent, where T stands for Theory. Or else call them “AGW opponents”?
{Reply: note the term “lukewarmers” on the WUWT blog roll. ~dbs, mod.]
The false claims of the IPCC regarding Antarctic sea ice have been noted on my website for nearly two years, and probably at other sites. I noted there that the IPCC relied on a single book chapter and ignored several peer-reviewed papers that showed a much larger rate of increase. So Chip is not correct to say it was first uncovered a couple of weeks ago.
It is interesting that the papers Chip found (that the IPCC ignored) are different from the ones I found.
The point about the first draft and the comments is very interesting, I had not noticed that. This makes the IPCC manipulation much more blatant and transparent. I’ll add a comment to my page.
I have no clue what your reply has to do with the inappropriate term “proponent” for those who oppose the warming of the globe by human emissions of CO2. By the way, if the term “warmers” is banned on WUWT, being a derogatory name, why would you use on your blog roll the name “lukewarmers”. Isn’t that equally derogatory?
[Reply: “proponent” was not my term. “Warmers” refers to those who believe that anthropogenic global warning explains climate change. It is a widely used label, not intended to be insulting. ~dbs, mod.]
the statement that sea ice does not affect sea levels is incorrect. The formation of sea ice does raise the level of sea. You can test this concept by simply putting
ice cubes in a glass of water and observe the decrease in water level as the ice melts. therefore, the sea level will actually decrease with sea ice melt and increase with sea ice formation.
The IPCC is a “conclusion” in search of a “proof”.
visceralrebellion (16:15:50) :
“May I ask a question?
Why are so many getting so worked up over a degree C of change?
The temperature here has swung over 47 degrees F today. No one has died. Nothing has been destroyed. It’s a huge swing and it’s harmless.
Yet I’m supposed to get myself worked up over a 3 degree C or thereabouts change in average?….”
It is a tempest in a teapot. Supposedly this is an increase per unit time. The temperature is supposed to continue rising and rising until a “tipping point”is reached. Then all the glaciers would melt, the reflection of sunlight from ice would drastically change, cities flood etc etc and it would become too hot to sustain life or whatever.
The problem is the climate is ALWAYS changing. Here are some good graphs to illustrate
Temp in Greenland
http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/lappi/gisp-last-10000-new.png
Global Temperature Trends From 2500 B.C. To 2040 A.D.
http://www.longrangeweather.com/global_temperatures.htm
The best set of graphs showing global warming in a geological context. (thank you Mr. Hall for the graphing.)
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/noaa_gisp2_icecore_anim_hi-def3.gif
John L. Daly’s list of graphs. Listed here are a set of historical temperature graphs from a large selection of mostly non-urban weather stations in both hemispheres. You can click on them and see the actual graphs for specific places.
http://www.john-daly.com/stations/stations.htm
This is the real history of CO2 measurement from 1826 to 1960 complete with error bars.
http://www.biomind.de/realCO2/
CO2 vs Temp over geologic time
http://i46.tinypic.com/2582sg6.jpg
One thing to keep in mind. The Volstok Ice cores yielded CO2 measurements that do not agree (they are too low) with measurements taken from other methods.
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/stomata.html
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/01/30/co2-temperatures-and-ice-ages/
I hope that helps.