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”.
Smokey: “And exactly as I predicted, Brendan H takes any and all statements skeptical of CAGW, and preposterously claims they are new scientific hypotheses that must be defended.”
A successful prediction requires evidence. So let’s see your evidence. Remember that you bear the burden of proof for the above claim.
Mods, may I politely enquire?
Some of my posts have either gone missing in the intertubes or have been disallowed. If the latter, why?
I notice above that a post of mine has been allowed, while one above it sits in the moderation queue. Is there a reason for not allowing the previous one? This is the text (please delete the following if you allow the original through – and sorry for any inconvenience if it’s just an oversight).
————————————————
Smokey, a couple of posts I made appear to have vanished. Here’s a brief response if they don’t emerge.
You are referring to the ~800 year CO2 to temps from glacial record.
Last interglacial: global warming of 5 – 6C was accompanied by a rise in CO2 concentrations of ~100ppm over 5000 years
Since MWP: global warming of 2C (hi-figure) is followed by a rise of about 100ppm over 150 years
The two rates are different by orders of magnitude.
If we use the glacial record as a template, CO2 concentrations should be only a little bit above 280ppm at this time, and should not reach 400ppm for quite some time. Further, the amplitude of the MWP, even at the highest values out there should give a rise of considerably less than 100ppm, especially within 100 years.
The lag/lead argument has been done to death. The fallacy is that if temps cause CO2 rise, CO2 rise can’t cause increased temps. There’s no logic to this. In any case, if CO2 plays no part in the warming, then only one hemisphere should get warmer according to orbital dynamics. The ice core record shows, however, that interglacial warming is a global phenomenon.
Ah, it’s been allowed. I think it’s to do with the queuing. – please delete this and the previous post, and apologies.
Smokey (19:27:59) :
Phil. (12:48:41),
To make you happy [but probably nothing really will], I’ll make a falsifiable prediction regarding natural climate variability for you: the climate will remain within its Holocene parameters, and it will not go into runaway global warming regardless of CO2 levels. Put whatever time limits you want on it.
Is that a prediction of the ‘natural climate variability theory’, that the climate must remain within the Holocene parameters? If so, on what is it based, was the climate prior to the Holocene not natural too?
Regarding my statement that I did not intend my comment as an ad hom attack, what part of “intend” do you not understand?
How can you not have ‘intended’ it to be an ad hominem attack, did it happen by accident?
You’re like the guy who takes someone’s hat off a hat rack, puts it on, and says, “Hey, this hat fits me perfectly! So it must be my hat.”
I think you’re overly sensitive because I’ve zeroed in on the reason you’re so protective of the continuing global warming scam. That’s OK. Lots of people have their hands in my pockets, one more won’t make any difference.
And again more ad hominem didn’t you intend this either?
You say: “…the false analogy fallacy in logic is to create a false analogy and use a falsification of the analogy in an attempt to falsify the original position. Similar to a strawman argument.” If you haven’t noticed, there are a huge number of false arguments, subdivided into ever smaller categories. Your fallacy is like the one claiming that every response to CAGW is a new hypothesis which, at the option of the defender of the original, actual hypothesis, must be first defended – which turns the scientific method on its head, and stops all possibility of falsification. In fact, that is a strawman argument, combined with a red herring argument. Cool.
Changing the subject again, why not address the original issue instead of evasion?
Without Wood’s experimental details and results it’s difficult to be certain but it’s likely that his conclusion is not supported by his data, but as he said: “I do not pretend to have gone very deeply into the matter”. The experiment would be dominated by the properties of the transparent covering and you’d expect a slightly cooler temperature in the one topped by the rocksalt, but the experiment isn’t capable of answering the question that Wood posed.
Phil. (12:48:41) :
No it doesn’t, it certainly doesn’t meet the requirements of a theory since it’s not able to make falsifiable predictions. Perhaps you’d like to cite a source for this ‘theory’?
Does the theory of evolution make “falsifiable predictions”? Of course it does. In exactly the same manner that natural climate change makes them. Your logic is certainly strange. We can study history and actually SEE with our own eyes the theories in action. Maybe you just don’t like the word “theory” and would prefer the word “fact”.
Brendan H (22:11:48) :
Whether or not that is the case, it is irrelevant to my argument, which is: the burden of proof lies with the claimant.
You have offered a claim that: “The GISS temperature series has been shown to be statistically consistent with natural climate variation.”
That’s fine, but that does not negate my argument. Whatever arguments and evidence your source is offering, the claimant still bears the burden of proof.,
Your argument would be fine if the theory of natural climate change hadn’t long ago been PROVEN. But it has. So, we’ve established a BASE in science. It’s now up up any NEW theories that wish to REPLACE the old theory to provide proof.
According to your logic Young Earth adherents would require the theory of evolution to be proven over and over again rather than them providing proof the Earth is only 6000 years old.
barry:
“The lag/lead argument has been done to death. The fallacy is that if temps cause CO2 rise, CO2 rise can’t cause increased temps.”
One does not preclude the other. Rises in temperature result in measurable rises in CO2, as can be seen consistently throughout the geological record.
Radiative physics shows that rises in CO2 can also have an effect on temperature. But as Prof Wood’s experiments show, the effect is negligible.
And those YouTube experiments using candles and plastic bottles purporting to show the heating ability of CO2 are bunkum. They have been thoroughly deconstructed here not very long ago. It’s too late here for me to search WUWT for the threads showing that those silly experiments are completely worthless, but feel free to find out for yourself.
Phil,
I made my prediction. And I left it up to you to set the time frame. If you want to go back to the Cretaceous, feel free. It won’t make any difference.
Next, the history of science is filled with accounts of scientists with hurt feelings. If you take an analogy to be an ad hominem attack, fine. Those feelings come from within you, not from me. It was just a hat analogy, see?
Finally, Prof Wood was right. And at least he did some actual experiments that showed real results, instead of nitpicking others. These days, scientists write papers to get grant money, instead of doing experiments. Sad.
Watching the graphic of the Artic Ice extent, it seems like artic ice acummulation is delayed (comparing the period 1970-2000 with 2006-2007 and 2009-2010; it would be interesting to present 2007-2008 and 2008-2009).
Is this not consistent with the idea of Artic getting warmer?
Richard M (04:54:45) :
Phil. (12:48:41) :
“No it doesn’t, it certainly doesn’t meet the requirements of a theory since it’s not able to make falsifiable predictions. Perhaps you’d like to cite a source for this ‘theory’?”
Does the theory of evolution make “falsifiable predictions”? Of course it does. In exactly the same manner that natural climate change makes them.
Really, I’ll ask you again, where can I find this theory and the predictions it makes?
Your logic is certainly strange. We can study history and actually SEE with our own eyes the theories in action. Maybe you just don’t like the word “theory” and would prefer the word “fact”.
No we see the physics and chemistry etc. in action and devise theories to explain it. Saying ‘things just happen’ is not a theory and isn’t capable of making falsifiable predictions and isn’t science.
Smokey (05:27:29) :
Phil,
Next, the history of science is filled with accounts of scientists with hurt feelings. If you take an analogy to be an ad hominem attack, fine. Those feelings come from within you, not from me. It was just a hat analogy, see?
You don’t know what an ad hominem is evidently, instead of addressing the argument you attack and insult the man, in this case accuse me of lying to get money from the public purse, that is the definition of an ad hominem!
Finally, Prof Wood was right. And at least he did some actual experiments that showed real results, instead of nitpicking others.
He claimed to have done an experiment but gave no experimental conditions or data certainly no ‘real results’ e.g. which frame was hottest? And no analysis just an assertion of his opinion (proven wrong).
These days, scientists write papers to get grant money, instead of doing experiments. Sad.
No, scientists have to write proposals to get funding to support their research activities, those proposals are usually based on their experiments and those of others. You have a very strange idea of the way academic research works.
Phil. (07:59:08) :,
More strange logic. No one has been saying “things just happen”. They have been studying many factors that could lead to changes in climate. Milankovitch cycles are one example, PDO changes are another, long term ocean currents yet another. However, there is NO DOUBT that climate has changed over time without human intervention. That is the basic theory.
The exact same logic applies to evolution. I’d like to see you go to a biology forum and claim the evolution wasn’t a theory. Tell me what precise predictions evolutionary theory makes. While it predicts mutations will occur, it can’t make exact predictions. The same is true of natural climate change theory. Changes will occur but we don’t yet understand well enough to make exact predictions (and we may never be able to).
But as Prof Wood’s experiments show, the effect is negligible.
You asked for testable, repeatable evidence for AGW. This is it. Increasing CO2 in a volume of atmosphere increases radiation absorption in that volume. This is the same conclusion arrived at in the WUWT post on the experiments. It is the basic premise of AGW and it’s empirically sound. You even agree with that.
These simple experiments do not and cannot be used to assess the magnitude of the CO2 effect in the real atmosphere. To imply otherwise is ludicrous. The one done by the WUWT guest poster had starting temps of 21 – 23C. Why that value? I like the single-bottle experiment, with a candle and an infrared camera and no heating. You can see the flame disappear as the bottle is injected with CO2. It’s pretty straightforward.
Whether or not the effect is negligible, it’s there. Most critics at least accept a doubling of atmospheric CO2 leads to a 1C+ temp rise. The theory of ‘greenhouse’ warming is empirically validated in it’s primary tenet. It’s not evidence that’s missing from this picture.
Phil. (08:24:08):
I understand how “climate” research grants work. In the U.S. alone, about $2 billion a year in tax money is handed out, not including NGO money from people in the Grantham and Heinz Foundations, George Soros, and a hundred more like them. And I notice that the recipients don’t report back with findings saying the climate is acting like it always has, and there’s nothing to be concerned about.
You are either extremely naive, or you’re in on the grant game too.
Michael Mann was just granted a half million dollars for… what, exactly? For what “experiments”? Sure, these guys write grant applications. But where is the skeptical scientists’ payola? Are you saying they don’t write any grant applications?
In 2007 alone [the last year the Wayback Machine has archived, since the current on-line record has been sanitized], Keith Briffa was given £106,000 by “Ecochange”. And he was given another £248,789 by various trusts with an AGW agenda. And £226,981 more by NERC to “Estimate climate sensitivity”. And Briffa got various other government grants – these are only some examples from just one year.
In 2007 Phil Jones was given grants of £53,197 by NERC for “Probabilistic climate scenarios.” And £148,533 by the European Commission for “21st Century climate scenarios”. SCORCHIO, a quango with a heavy AGW agenda, gave Jones another £51,225. Those are just some examples from one year.
Naturally, these were in addition to Jones, Briffa and Mann’s regular pay and benefits, including their frequent all-expense paid jaunts around the world to vacation hotspots like Bali, to hobnob with like-minded taxsuckers and AGW promoters – no skeptics welcome [maybe a lukewarmer or two for appearances].
The list is far more extensive than this; I just picked Jones and Briffa. The rest of the usual suspects are there getting granted their payola, too. And they’re not going to derail the gravy train by saying things their benefactors don’t want them to say.
Entities paying that kind of loot call the tune, and the tune is catastrophic AGW. Even Stevie Wonder could see that.
The climate grant scheme by governments, NGOs and quangos is a payoff: part of a plan to alarm the public about a harmless and beneficial trace gas, that at most might raise the temperature 1.6° — and half of that has already occurred, with no catastrophe on the horizon.
The fact that people like Mann are so incompetent that they turn their hokey sticks upside down, and won’t debate skeptics, and hide what is essentially weather information, and corrupt the climate peer review process, and do “experiments” consisting of citing other scientists’ work for a half million bucks [unless you believe that Mann goes out in his galoshes with a chain saw looking at tree rings] shows how the AGW scam operates.
It’s bunkum done to grow government bureaucracies, promote world agendas, and raise Cap & Trade taxes and prices across the board. Anyone who thinks this is all on the up and up is hopelessly naive.
Smokey (09:30:42) :
Phil. (08:24:08):
“No, scientists have to write proposals to get funding to support their research activities, those proposals are usually based on their experiments and those of others. You have a very strange idea of the way academic research works.”
I understand how “climate” research grants work.
From what you posted it’s quite clear that you do not!
You list a number of grant awards to Jones, Briffa and Mann and then say:
Naturally, these were in addition to Jones, Briffa and Mann’s regular pay and benefits,
Which they are not, they are to cover costs of their research and are not personal payoffs as you imply, the expenditures are audited and have to match with the itemized proposed expenditures in the proposal. This is done by the university’s Research Grant and Contracts Dept. through which proposals are also submitted (and which have to be co-signed by the appropriate university officer). It is the institution that applies for the grant with a scientist identified as the principal investigator.
But where is the skeptical scientists’ payola? Are you saying they don’t write any grant applications?
How do you think Richard Lindzen funds his lab at MIT?
in response to R. Gates (10:54:21) :
Thanks for that graph. It really puts things in perspective.
I am looking at the absolute numbers for the global Sea Ice Extent and the “anamolies”. The changes are are very very small compared to the actual sea ice extents ( i am assuming that these numbers are for 15% ice coverage. i wonder what they look like for 30% coverage ). Trying to characterize the direction of “these small changes” and drawing conclusions from it with the level of confidence one requires is quite a foolish errand. you will most probably see various small time frames ( say 10-20 years long time frames) where you WILL GET conflicting conclusions, time frame to time frame. This will make the whole scientific enterprise look ludicrous to anyone with an iota of common sense.
You will wind up looking like the doctors who go around making all kinds of inane statements about drinking coffee or wine or beer.
Phil. (10:47:22),
I clearly said those grants were in addition to Mann’s, Jones’ and Briffa’s regular pay and benefits. They’re working on commission, paid to East Anglia, UOP, etc., by Geo. Soros, SCORCHIO, Grantham, etc.
However, I doubt [as you “imply”, to use your word] that the head of MIT’s Atmospheric Sciences department is an unpaid position, like you “imply” that Jones, Briffa and Mann are [I reject your lame implication, BTW. They are certainly on salary].
Your example of Prof Lindzen is the exception. He is too big to marginalize or terminate. And he’s honest.
While on the other side, there’s Climategate…
OK, Phil, I’m off to the new Mann thread. You can stay here if you want, but it’s old and you’ve not been convincing. If Prof Wood were here, I don’t think you’d convince him, either.
barry:
As Prof Wood’s experiments show in the citation I provided, the effect from CO2 is negligible: click Rising CO2 just doesn’t have much of an effect on global temperature: click
Here’s something to help you get up to speed, if you’re not just trolling around here: click
Can we have a quick bet on when NSIDC fess up to the fact the sea ice is higher at the moment than of late. Their current commentary, 4 weeks out of date states “In February, Arctic sea ice extent continued to track below the average”
My guess is Weds when the absence of up to date comment may get embarrasing.
Richard M: “Your argument would be fine if the theory of natural climate change hadn’t long ago been PROVEN.”
I’m not aware of any such theory. You may be confusing a methodological assumption with a theory.
It’s certainly true that pre-AGW, theories about specific climate processes assumed a natural cause. But that is not the same thing as positing a theory of “natural climate change”, which would have to be an overarching explanation encompassing all climate phenomena.
I’m not aware of any such overarching explanation that has attained the status of a theory.
“According to your logic Young Earth adherents would require the theory of evolution to be proven over and over again rather than them providing proof the Earth is only 6000 years old.”
Science doesn’t sit still, and theories can be discarded and amended. This has occurred with explanations for the behaviour of the climate.
Remember that young earth creationism arose in response to evolution. AGW scepticism arose in response to AGW. Further, creationists claim pre-Darwin science and scientists as their own, in much the same way that you retrospectively claim a “theory” of natural climate change.
barry (18:39:03) : You are correct that what I cited from Roy Spencer was not a paper. Apologies, I should have been more careful with the wording However, you have misunderstood my point. The statement that I was referring to when I said that Roy Spencer said “the opposite” was that ALL the increase in CO2 must be Anthropogenic. The opposite of that is that NOT ALL of it is. And Roy Spencer was pointing out that precise possibility.
I notice that you do not address my simple logic, which demonstrates very simply why not all the CO2 increase is anthropogenic. “The oceans release CO2 when they warm up, and absorb it when they cool. With the oceans having warmed, especially during the last PDO warming phase, the atmospheric CO2 content would have risen anyway. So AGW cannot be responsible for all of the observed increase (even AGWT doesn’t claim that all temperature increase is A).”
Phil. (21:38:18) : “∴ Source is less than Sink
So how do you arrive at “the atmospheric CO2 content might not be very different now if none of the fossil fuels had been burned”?”
As I have shown, simple logic suggests that not all of the increase is anthropogenic.
This is what I think happens : Anthropogenic emissions increase atmospheric CO2, thus reducing the rate of release of CO2 from the oceans to the point that source is less than sink. Without those emissions, with the rising temperatures source would have exceeded sink. But I have no proof – in all of the studies that I have seen and done, there are anomalies that have not been explained (such as the 1998 El Nino not having the effect that it should) and which raise doubts.
My gut feeling is that something else very significant is going on that no-one has worked out yet. The 800-year delay, which I think no-one has been able to explain, could be a symptom of that.
So until we have better analyses, the possibility (NB possibility not probability) does remain that absent fossil fuel emissions the atmospheric CO2 levels might not be very different.
FYI I have tried building a model (sic!) of the sources and sinks, and it does suggest that most but not all of the CO2 increase is from anthropogenic emissions. But it is a lousy model and can’t give me anything like a good fit to some of the data. The ways in which it fails to fit suggest that emissions have far too much weight in the model, and I am missing some important factors. If so, then the influence of emissions would be reduced. That’s why I say “It so happens that I do think that fossil fuel emissions are responsible for much of the recent atmospheric CO2 increase, but I might be wrong. I would like to see better analyses before committing to that and to any particular proportion.“
Brendan H (13:24:10) :
Richard M: “Your argument would be fine if the theory of natural climate change hadn’t long ago been PROVEN.”
I’m not aware of any such theory. You may be confusing a methodological assumption with a theory.
It’s certainly true that pre-AGW, theories about specific climate processes assumed a natural cause. …
Just because no one formally sat down and wrote up a theory of the obvious doesn’t mean the theory didn’t exist. Or, if you’d prefer, we can call it a FACT since that’s the way it was treated. There was no need to formalize something that everyone (including you with the phrase “natural cause” accept).
So, if we follow your lead and call natural climate change a FACT, exactly what is the proper scientific method of dealing with FACTs. Do you believe they need to be proved? Do they need to be falsifiable? You’ve backed yourself into an even worse position.
Richard M: “So, if we follow your lead and call natural climate change a FACT, exactly what is the proper scientific method of dealing with FACTs.”
What I said was that pre-AGW it was assumed that all climate change could be attributed to natural causes, although this was not a theory in the formal sense.
But that was then. Over the past couple of decades a new explanation for certain climate phenomena has progressed from hypothesis to theory, so the previous understanding has been modified to take account of new findings.
This new understanding has sufficient evidence behind it, and is accepted widely enough, that any challenge needs to be supported by evidence.
One could argue that currently there are two competing explanations for certain climate phenomena. But even on that argument there is no reason to priviledge one explanation over the other, such that one explanation is exempt from having to provide evidence merely on account of tradition.
Richard M (16:56:36),
Brendan H is trolling. He was absent from WUWT for a long time. Now he’s back.
He uses false rhetoric, such as “red herring” arguments, in his attempts to divert the subject away from the original stated hypothesis: CO2=CAGW.
A “Red Herring” argument is one which distracts the audience from the issue in question, through the introduction of some irrelevancy (such as numerous other hypotheses). It is a common debating tactic whereby an argument is avoided, rather than refuted, when one’s own arguments are weak.
An example of a “red herring” argument, seen upthread, is Brendan H’s unreasonable demand that all opposing comments, at his whim and selection, are themselves individual hypotheses that must be disposed of before continuing. That is a classic red herring argument.
Other logical fallacies employed by Brendan H include:
Argumentum ad Nauseam: arguing to the point of disgust; i.e., by endless repetition.
Failure To State: making peripheral attacks, thus never stating the debater’s specific position on the question being debated.
Moving The Goalposts: if your opponent successfully addresses some point, then insist that he must also address some further point. If one can make these points more and more difficult (or diverse) then eventually he may wear down his opponent. If each new goal causes a new question, it leads to the Fallacy of Infinite Regression. This is related to Argument By Question: asking questions is easy; answering them is hard.
The Fallacy of Missing (or Ignoring) The Point: this is a Red Herring Fallacy, intended to create a distraction from the original debate question. If a debater cannot defeat the best stated, most accurate portrayal of his opponent’s position, then he needs to re-examine just how strong his case is against that opponent.
* * *
The debate in question specifically asks if an increase in human emitted carbon dioxide will lead to catastrophic runaway global warming.
Anything that does not directly address that question is a red herring argument.
It surprisingly doesn’t look like anyone has commented on this, but perhaps the original confusion over what was meant by “rising past normal peak” was assisted by the fact that the graph is not a good one to make this point. It does very little to give any indication of the normal (by any measure) range of peak dates.
Smokey: “He uses false rhetoric, such as “red herring” arguments, in his attempts to divert the subject away from the original stated hypothesis: CO2=CAGW.”
Not at all. Here is my original post:
“Smokey (12:41:11): ‘By definition, scientific skeptics are pretty much immune from cognitive dissonance, as we have no hypothesis to believe in or to defend.’
BH: ‘Yes you do. Here’s one: Smokey (12:06:23): “…natural cycles – not a minor trace gas – explain the climate…”
This claim definitely counts as a hypothesis, and the burden of proof rests with the claimant.’”
So I was responding to your claim that climate sceptics “have no hypothesis to believe in or to defend”. Come to think of it, I still am contesting that claim. And of course my specific position is: the claimant bears the burden of proof .
“An example of a “red herring” argument, seen upthread…”
Which post was that again?
From the bit you cited, Prof Wood didn’t even do an experiment with CO2. His argument is not that increasing CO2 causes little warming. His argument is that the entire greenhouse effect (water vapour, CO2, and the other GHGs ) is responsible for hardly any of the warmth on Earth. His argument seems to be, from the bit you cited, that the greenhouse effect itself is entirely negligible. Can you link me to the full version of the paper so that I can check for myself?
And this is a 1909 paper, the subject of which the author himself tells us he hasn’t gone into very deeply.
If you are seriously contending that the entire greenhouse effect has practically zero effect on the Earth’s temperature, then I can’t take you seriously any more, and nor should anyone else.