I’ve been watching this NSIDC graph for a few days, figuring it was just noise. Now, it looks like “something worth blogging about“. The Arctic sea ice extent is continuing to grow past the normal historical peak which occurs typically in late February/early March. [Note: I added the following sentences since at least one commenter was confused by “peak point” in the headline above, which I’ve now changed to “peak date” to clarify what I was referring to. -A] Of course it has not exceeded the “normal” sea ice extent magnitude line, but is within – 2 STD. The point being made is that growth continues past the time when sea ice magnitude normally peaks, and historically (by the satellite record) is headed downward, as indicated by the dashed line.
Source: National Snow and Ice Data Center – link
To be fair though, the Earth seems to be suffering from “bipolar disorder” as we have a similar but opposite trend in the Antarctic:
Source: National Snow and Ice Data Center – link
If we look at Cryosphere Today’s dandy sea ice comparator tool, and choose a standard 30 year climatology period span, it looks like we may actually be ahead this year, compared to 30 years ago. Certainly the arctic sea ice today looks a lot more solid than in 1980. I wish CT offered comparisons without the snow cover added (which was added in 2008) so as to not be visually distracting.
We live in interesting times.
h/t to WUWT commenter “Tommy” for the “tipping point”.
The oceans do not outgas until they get much warmer. They are still a net sink of CO2, taking up about half of the CO2 emitted by industry. Not only does Spencer seem to be alone making this contention about current outgassing, he is alone on WUWT. I provided a link to a WUWT post specifically rebutting his thesis on the basis I mentioned. I also linked to a WUWT post hailing a paper saying that the percentage of CO2 absorbed by the oceans has not changed. WUWT, in this case, was endorsing a paper that said to the warmies that things aren’t getting worse – the oceans are absorbing as much excess CO2 (percentage-wise) as ever they did.
Spencer has not measured the CO2 content of the oceans: he’s done a correlation study. Isn’t that an automatic dismissal for AGW skeptics? This is what I mean by skeptics taking outliers and brandishing them as the truth against the entire body of literature against, and, in this case, the rest of the body of ‘literature’ at WUWT! And where ‘correlation does not prove causation’ is a catchcry against AGW, that standard evaporates if a blog post uses it to arrive at conclusions skeptics like.
There is nothing skeptical or even rational in dismissing 99% of evidence, highlighting 1%, and saying, “look, here’s the real truth.” So there must be another explanation for this conclusion besides skepticism and rationality.
crosspatch (10:50:00) : ” If you look at a graph of more consolidated ice such as this one which shows 30% concentration, you see that the ice is actually declining.”
Crosspatch’s theory is well and truly blown out of the water, 30% ice is up dramatically.
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover.uk.php
barry (23:18:26) : “The oceans do not outgas until they get much warmer.”
It seems you still have not understood the logic.
If there had not been any anthropogenic emissions, the rising temperatures – any rising temperatures – would have caused the release of CO2. That is, the CO2 levels would have risen anyway.
The emissions are only responsible for the difference between observed levels and the levels that would have been observed had there been no emissions. Therefore the emissions are not responsible for all the CO2 increase.
What we would like to discover is how much of the increase would have occurred anyway. And that is where the odd observations, like Roy Spencer’s, like Frank Lansner’s [*], like the 800-year delay, come in. Until we can explain them, we don’t really know how the system works.
If you want to argue that rising temperatures would not have caused CO2 to be released, then I think you have some explaining to do. But I will be happy to listen, because, as I said, the system is not understood properly and I am sure that something as yet unexplained is going on.
[*] – Frank Lansner has been mentioned a few times on WUWT. He alerted us to this unexpected data correlation:
http://members.westnet.com.au/jonas1/deltaco2vstemp.jpg
(I could probably find FL’s original version if reqd)
What is unexpected is that delta-CO2 correlates more strongly to temperature (T) – as shown – than it does to delta-T.
Note : CO2 has been shifted back 6 months to line up visually. The CO2 data is from Mauna Loa, the temperature from UAH. I have done the same comparison for Barrow (in the Arctic) and the South Pole, and the delays there from temperature to CO2 are 7 and 9 months resp. ie, CO2 follows temperature, not v-v.
The trace gases pre-dating human existence were not “artificially altered by humans to be otherwise.” No credible evidence has been published to demonstrate the carbon dioxide emissions of human civilization, trivial or substantial, have any greater or even substantial influence upon the global climate than any of the concentrations of such gases had before the existence of humans on the planet. Consequently, an AGW alarmist is obligated to demonstrate by repeatable experiment that any human emissions of carbon dioxide have a greater influence towards making the Earth warmer than occurred without any human contributions to the natural levels of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s past.
Yes, it is quite common to see alarmists deny and refuse to acknowledge the inconvenient evidence found in Earth;s pre-human past. A skeptical scientists does not need to promulgate an hypothesis to simply acknowledge the Earth’s past climate experience which has existed without any influence from humans. Consequently, it is the obligation of the AGW alarmists promulgating their hypothesis of global warming due to anthropgenic emissions of carbon dioxide to demonstrate by repeatable experiment that similar atmospheric changes of carbon dioxide and temperatures in the Earth’s past could not and indeed did not occur without the influence of human emissions.
The emissions are only responsible for the difference between observed levels and the levels that would have been observed had there been no emissions. Therefore the emissions are not responsible for all the CO2 increase.
You’re operating from the assumption that there just has to be another source?
As the oceans are a net sink for CO2, what is the mechanism that has caused the release of CO2 in the last 150 years if not fossil fuels? It can’t be the MWP because the 800 year lag has only just begun, and the last rise of 100ppm took ~4200 years. The MWP should only have added a few ppm, if any.
I’ll ask one more, because this is a point skeptics never answer – what is the putative period of the MWP?
The amount of estimated CO2 release from fossil fuels since the IR accounts for the amount we now have (minus 60% that the oceans absorb). Also, the isotopic ratio change is just what we expect from the amount of anthro CO2 it’s estimated we’ve burned. Decrease in atmospheric oxygen is also consistent with the amount of fossil CO2 released by industrial activity (from recent, more precise estimates of industrial CO2 release).
All these numbers add up very well. There is no need to invoke another mechanism. Nevertheless, other mechanisms have been and are being investigated. For recent history, none have been found. Relying on suppositions lacking empirical evidence from non-experts in blog posts, or using this as some basis to claim ‘we don’t know’ demonstrates a profound ignorance of the amount of work examining this issue.
There’s always a possibility that there’s another long-term source. At the moment, all the empirical evidence to hand powerfully confirms that the rise of CO2 since the IR is almost entirely due to industrial emissions.
If anyone can lay out two peer-reviewed papers that come up with the same mechanism that explains part/all of recent CO2 rise, then there might be something serious to talk about. That’s when I’ll rejoin the discussion on this subject.
Will ice extent peak April Fools Day for the folks at NSIDC??? :p
Their 15% ice graph is still climbing
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_stddev_timeseries.png
and 30% ice shows a little up tick for March 29th
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
Forgot to add…
If there had not been any anthropogenic emissions, the rising temperatures – any rising temperatures – would have caused the release of CO2. That is, the CO2 levels would have risen anyway.
I don’t believe that’s true. There have been temperature fluctuations like the MWP throughout the holocene – unless anyone would like to argue that natural variability like the MWP didn’t occur prior to it. Yet the CO2 holocene record, which is even more well resolved than the late quaternary record, shows that CO2 equilibrium changes little from ~280ppm. Assuming that natural variability is a feature of climate at all times (and I do), where is the concordant CO2 fluctuations over the last 10 000 years? Where are the 100ppm (actually, 200ppm) variances we should see from 800/yr lag of warm and cool periods prior to the MWP?
(Possibly In a single paper that someone has dug up in the climate wars – which will be brandished to claim that we don’t know very much, I suppose)
D.Patterson: “Yes, it is quite common to see alarmists deny and refuse to acknowledge the inconvenient evidence found in Earth;s pre-human past.”
Well, I’m not an alarmist, so you’re talking to the wrong person.
D. Patterson (06:22:20), quoting Brendan H, who says:
I see that Brendan H is still attempting to move the goal-posts with his red herring argument, claiming that anyone making a comment falsifying the specific hypothesis being debated [CO2=CAGW] has the tables turned on him and, at the whim of the person defending CAGW, are themselves accused of putting forth a formal hypothesis.
Nonsense. Re-framing the argument like that is a tactic. It might be ignored on realclimate, but not here on the “Best Science” site, where dissembling is pointed out.
I’ve provided chapter and verse above, showing that Brendan’s false assertion is simply a tactic, due to his weak argument for CAGW. But why would someone continue to assert something that is provably a false tactic? No reputable scientist in the world would agree that comments intended to falsify the stated hypothesis themselves become the new hypothesis that must be defended. [In addition to the Red Herring argument, see: Changing The Subject, Digression, Misdirection, and False Emphasis.]
There are two possible reasons why Brendan persists in his deliberate sidetracking of the CO2=CAGW hypothesis:
One is the fact that there is no testable, empirical evidence that CAGW exists. None. Unlike the theory of natural climate variability, CAGW is incapable of making predictions. As CO2 steadily rises, the planet has been cooling for most of the past decade. Being falsified by the planet is hard to accept.
The other reason Brendan has his On/Off switch wired around is explained in my post in this thread, on 3/26 @11:36:34.
Cognitive dissonance – Orwell’s “Doublethink” – is common among those fearful of imagined climate catastrophes. They know the end is nigh, even though they lack any real, testable evidence. The scare itself thrills them; fright is their own personal opiate, like telling ghost stories around a camp fire. Every story of impending doom is greedily read and repeated ad nauseam.
But the basic fact remains that the hypothesis being debated is, specifically, runaway global warming caused by human CO2 emissions: CO2=CAGW. That is the hypothesis; the rest is rhetorical nonsense.
It galls the alarmist contingent that skeptical scientists have nothing to prove. Their job, according to the scientific method, is to try to falsify the hypothesis. Anything left standing, after all attempts at falsification, is considered scientifically valid, and eventually becomes an accepted theory.
CAGW can never be a theory, until the empirical evidence backing it – the raw temperature data, along with the code, methodologies, and anything else used to arrive at the CAGW hypothesis – is made public. But of course, the raw data has been “lost.” And the rest of the code and methods, paid for by the taxpaying public, is regarded as personal property and kept secret.
So CAGW is nothing but a baseless conjecture. If it is to be proved, its proponents must start from scratch – or “find” the missing raw data, and open everything to public scrutiny. Meanwhile, skeptics can say whatever they think falsifies the hypothesis, because they have nothing to prove:
Ei incumbit probatio, qui dicit, non qui negat; cum per rerum naturam factum negantis probatio nulla sit. “The proof lies upon him who affirms, not upon him who denies; since, by the nature of things, he who denies a fact cannot produce any proof.”
Thus, the onus lies entirely upon those who believe CO2=CAGW. As to the proposition that there has been an unprecedented 20th century rise in global temperatures caused by human CO2 emissions: the onus lies entirely on those who make that claim – not on scientific skeptics, who say, “OK then, prove it.”
Prove it.
Mike Jonas (04:18:48) :
barry (23:18:26) : “The oceans do not outgas until they get much warmer.”
It seems you still have not understood the logic.
If there had not been any anthropogenic emissions, the rising temperatures – any rising temperatures – would have caused the release of CO2. That is, the CO2 levels would have risen anyway.
The emissions are only responsible for the difference between observed levels and the levels that would have been observed had there been no emissions. Therefore the emissions are not responsible for all the CO2 increase.
Only if the temperature rise wasn’t due to the CO2 in the first place!
What we would like to discover is how much of the increase would have occurred anyway. And that is where the odd observations, like Roy Spencer’s, like Frank Lansner’s [*], like the 800-year delay, come in. Until we can explain them, we don’t really know how the system works.
That’s ~8ppm CO2 released / ºC, a very small feedback to the increase in CO2 that caused the T rise in the first place.
Smokey
Unlike the theory of natural climate variability, CAGW is incapable of making predictions.
You’re well named, more blowing smoke from you, your ‘theory of natural climate variability’ is incapable of making predictions beyond the level of ‘some fairy waved her wand in 2010 and switched the PDO +ve again’.
Smokey (11:58:24) :
Good arguments, Smokey. Look at the Ice extent….if it continues like this, there will be a new record very soon…..
barry (07:47:33) : “You’re operating from the assumption that there just has to be another source?”
I’m working from Hoyle’s law.
“It can’t be the MWP because the 800 year lag has only just begun”
The “800” can’t be used to that accuracy. If we knew the mechanism …..
Phil. (12:57:56) : “Only if the temperature rise wasn’t due to the CO2 in the first place!”
True.
I did cover that, noting that even the IPCC did not claim that all the temperature rise was due to CO2.
“That’s ~8ppm CO2 released / ºC, a very small feedback to the increase in CO2 that caused the T rise in the first place.”
No, you’re mapping delta-CO2 to delta-T. The graph was delta-CO2 to T. In this context, that means there isn’t a “CO2 released / ºC”, but you could try “CO2 released per annum / ºC” or “CO2 rate of release / ºC” . ie, at an increased temperature, CO2 goes on being released at an increased rate even if the temperature then stays the same.
It doesn’t make sense (to me anyway), but that’s what the data indicates.
(Incidentally, the graph I posted the link to was produced from MS Excel and I couldn’t see how to put both scales (delta-CO2 and T) on the one graph, so you need to find a better version to see the scales.)
CO2 at Mauna Loa is increasing in the order of 2ppm p.a.
Mike Jonas (15:48:37) :
barry (07:47:33) : “You’re operating from the assumption that there just has to be another source?”
I’m working from Hoyle’s law.
“It can’t be the MWP because the 800 year lag has only just begun”
The “800″ can’t be used to that accuracy. If we knew the mechanism …..
Phil. (12:57:56) : “Only if the temperature rise wasn’t due to the CO2 in the first place!”
True.
I did cover that, noting that even the IPCC did not claim that all the temperature rise was due to CO2.
“That’s ~8ppm CO2 released / ºC, a very small feedback to the increase in CO2 that caused the T rise in the first place.”
No, you’re mapping delta-CO2 to delta-T. The graph was delta-CO2 to T. In this context, that means there isn’t a “CO2 released / ºC”, but you could try “CO2 released per annum / ºC” or “CO2 rate of release / ºC” . ie, at an increased temperature, CO2 goes on being released at an increased rate even if the temperature then stays the same.
It doesn’t make sense (to me anyway), but that’s what the data indicates.
(Incidentally, the graph I posted the link to was produced from MS Excel and I couldn’t see how to put both scales (delta-CO2 and T) on the one graph, so you need to find a better version to see the scales.
I don’t know what graph you’re talking about or what you think I’m ‘mapping’, I’m telling you that for the Earth’s oceans a rise 1ºC results in an additional ~8ppm of CO2.
oops – Henry’s law, not Hoyle’s law.
Phil. (16:23:26) : “I don’t know what graph you’re talking about or what you think I’m ‘mapping’”
The graph I posted a link to
Mike Jonas (04:18:48) : “[*] – Frank Lansner has been mentioned a few times on WUWT. He alerted us to this unexpected data correlation:
http://members.westnet.com.au/jonas1/deltaco2vstemp.jpg
(I could probably find FL’s original version if reqd)
What is unexpected is that delta-CO2 correlates more strongly to temperature (T) – as shown – than it does to delta-T.
Note : CO2 has been shifted back 6 months to line up visually. The CO2 data is from Mauna Loa, the temperature from UAH. I have done the same comparison for Barrow (in the Arctic) and the South Pole, and the delays there from temperature to CO2 are 7 and 9 months resp. ie, CO2 follows temperature, not v-v.“
Phil. (13:01:35):
Poor Phil. Flustered again.
For the umpteenth time, I’ll pass on what a real climatologist says:
“No one has falsified the theory that the observed temperature changes are a consequence of natural variability”
~Dr Roy Spencer.
Phil can’t understand that natural variability predicts that the climate will fluctuate, as it has done so rather predictably, cycling over and under a gradually rising trend line of natural global warming, on a multi-decadal basis: click
OTOH, the predictions made by GCMs are worse than you would get from flipping a coin. Much worse: click
The bottom line is this: estimates of climate sensitivity to CO2 have been declining ever since Arrhenius greatly overestimated it in 1896. But he revised his number drastically downward ten years later – which the alarmist folks always seem to forget.
The IPCC has likewise been periodically reducing [and never increasing] their sensitivity estimates, but because the IPCC is composed entirely of political appointees with their marching orders, they are still forced to keep their estimates too high, in order to promote their wealth-transferring, “carbon” taxing agenda.
Prof Lindzen gives a climate sensitivity of between 0.5 and <1.0.
If Dr Lindzen is right about the climate’s low sensitivity to CO2 [and he is not the only one in that ballpark], the conclusion is inescapable: the effect of CO2 on temperature is too insignificant to worry about. It is a non-problem. And the world is waking up to that fact.
Since the planet isn’t doing the bidding of the increasingly desperate alarmists, but rather, is acting just like it would with only a small sensitivity to changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide, rational folks will pay attention to what planet Earth is telling us – rather than what the alarmist contingent demands that we believe. The planet has the necessary credibility.
Mike Jonas (17:30:18) :
oops – Henry’s law, not Hoyle’s law.
Which doesn’t strictly apply to CO2 in seawater
Phil. (16:23:26) : “I don’t know what graph you’re talking about or what you think I’m ‘mapping’”
The graph I posted a link to
Which as I pointed out I didn’t use, the figure of ~8ppm CO2/ºC is a literature value.
It does not matter whether or not you claim “I’m not an alarmist, so you’re talking to the wrong person.” I referred to the act whereby a person will “deny and refuse to acknowledge the inconvenient evidence found in Earth”s pre-human past,” and such an act is common among those persons identifying themselves as supporters and/or proponents of the alarmism stemming from the AGW hypothesis. You have clearly indicated you refuse to consider the role of the Earth’s past atmospheric dioxide concentrations in falsifying certain claims about anthropogenic emissions in the present. Thusly, you have embraced a key alarmist debating tactic which denies and evades inconvenient evidence against the AGW alarmism. You thereby associated yourself with the AGW alarmist arguement regardless of whether or not you regard yourself as such an AGW alarmist.
It galls the alarmist contingent that skeptical scientists have nothing to prove.
It galls me (not an alarmist – I don’t advocate and am not particularly alarmed) that skeptical bloggers think that skeptical scientists are somehow immune from validating their work.
Their job, according to the scientific method, is to try to falsify the hypothesis. Anything left standing, after all attempts at falsification, is considered scientifically valid, and eventually becomes an accepted theory.
Some wacko scientists still try to falsify relativity theory and evolution theory. Does this mean they are only ‘hypotheses’?
Climate change theory, like most other sciences, will always attract outlying papers trying to falsify them. The logical consequence of your argument is that there are no science theories at all.
CAGW can never be a theory, until the empirical evidence backing it – the raw temperature data, along with the code, methodologies, and anything else used to arrive at the CAGW hypothesis – is made public.
Once again, this applies to all theories, and the logical consequences of your argument is the same.
But of course, the raw data has been “lost.” And the rest of the code and methods, paid for by the taxpaying public, is regarded as personal property and kept secret.
The raw data is available to anyone (minus some data gathered by CRU, which is proprietary – in which case, skeptics can apply to the originating sources – Met Offices – which are listed by CRU). There are numerous links to such, and this canard keeps popping up. If anyone wants to challenge, they can write their own code and apply the raw data to it – if they’re interested in advancing the science instead of looking for ways to tear it down. Falsification is not done by replication, but by alternate analyses using the same or different data.
So who is doing this work amongst the skeptics?
Smokey: “…claiming that anyone making a comment falsifying the specific hypothesis being debated [CO2=CAGW] has the tables turned on him and, at the whim of the person defending CAGW, are themselves accused of putting forth a formal hypothesis.”
Hmm. A red herring and a straw man all wrapped up in a bundle of projection. You’ve been working overtime, haven’t you Smokey? I recommend a cooling draught and a long lie-down.
“I’ve provided chapter and verse above…”
And yet you fail to supply references to those chapters and verses. I know it’s irksome to be challenged to supply evidence to back up your claims, but that’s how debate works. If you want to play the game, you need to play by the rules.
The same holds for scientific claims, of course, such as the “theory” of natural climate variability. A theory of natural climate change would explain every conceivable occurrence and therefore would explain nothing.
D.Patterson: “You have clearly indicated you refuse to consider the role of the Earth’s past atmospheric dioxide concentrations in falsifying certain claims about anthropogenic emissions in the present.”
That’s because I’ve been talking about something else, which seems to have generated very strong resistance. I find that rather strange, since it’s almost a truism that the claimant bears the burden of proof.
I think this resistance stems from a refusal to accept that the climate issue involves differing explanations for the observed phenomena. Seen that way, climate sceptics would have staked out some positions, and as such would be obliged to defend those positions.
barry (23:00:38):
“Some wacko scientists still try to falsify relativity theory and evolution theory. Does this mean they are only ‘hypotheses’?”
Thank you for proving my point. Relativity is subject to falsification, just as is any hypothesis, theory or law. If Relativity were falsified even in part, as Einstein himself said, it would falsify everything.
And you are simply wrong about the raw data, code and methods backing the CAGW conjecture. Believe that it’s all there publicly archived if you want, but saying so doesn’t make it so.
Read the Climategate emails, where they conspire to deny other scientists their data and methods – while sharing it with their pals – and strategize about what stories to “hide” behind to avoid sharing their work, such as it is. Their refusal to abide by the scientific method is the central problem. Sorry you can’t see it.
D. Patterson (20:06:04),
Brendan H is a crank and a troll. Don’t feed cranks, it only encourages them. He’s using the same crank tactics because his arguments for CAGW are so weak.
The catastrophic AGW hypothesis has been written about and repeatedly peer reviewed [and 80% of peer reviewed papers are eventually falsified; I suspect the climate ones are closer to 90%]. And we know that the climate peer review process is corrupt; the evidence is overwhelming.
The empirical [real world] evidence for CAGW is so scanty that its believers are forced to cite as “evidence” their round-robin circle of peer reviewed grant begging papers, which cite each other and play musical chairs with the same small clique of authors, and on their always inaccurate computer climate models, every one of which failed to predict the past decade’s global cooling.
Brendan is a crank because he has no evidence of catastrophic AGW to argue. CAGW is evidence-free. So he demands that skeptics must prove something, anything will do, and it regularly changes as his goal posts move.
But it doesn’t matter what cranks demand, because skeptics have nothing to prove. Nothing. The burden is entirely on the believers in CAGW, to show evidence that the current climate is outside its normal historical parameters. It’s not, of course.
Catastrophic AGW is the formal hypothesis put forth by people with an agenda – and that agenda does not allow for the scientific method to operate.
That is a false statement, because we are both talking about the AGW hypothesis.
You refuse to discuss much less support the AGW hypothesis with credible and repeatable experimental evidence demonstrating the anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide are equal to and greater than the natural changes in atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide in Earth’s pre-human past. Instead, you continue to obfuscate and evade the inconvenient evidence such pre-human levels of carbon dioxide demonstrate the anthropogenic emissions levels and temperature changes are not unprecedented in Nature, and the anthropogenic emissions therefore are not necessarily the cause of warming temperatures in the present times.
Smokey (18:48:33) :
Phil. (13:01:35):
“You’re well named, more blowing smoke from you, your ‘theory of natural climate variability’ is incapable of making predictions beyond the level of ’some fairy waved her wand in 2010 and switched the PDO +ve again’.”
Poor Phil. Flustered again.
For the umpteenth time, I’ll pass on what a real climatologist says:
“No one has falsified the theory that the observed temperature changes are a consequence of natural variability”
~Dr Roy Spencer.”
For the simple reason that it’s incapable of falsification and therefore isn’t a scientific theory. Spencer has a track record of advocating non-scientific theories, he thinks Intelligent Design is a scientific theory!
Phil can’t understand that natural variability predicts that the climate will fluctuate, as it has done so rather predictably, cycling over and under a gradually rising trend line of natural global warming, on a multi-decadal basis: click
Cherry picking a handful of weather related headlines from the NY Times is not support for a theory!
If Dr Lindzen is right about the climate’s low sensitivity to CO2 [and he is not the only one in that ballpark], the conclusion is inescapable: the effect of CO2 on temperature is too insignificant to worry about. It is a non-problem.
And the Ice ages didn’t happen!