The April 1st National Snow and Ice Data Center Arctic Sea Ice Extent plot continues its unusual upwards trend and is almost intersecting the “normal” line. Given the slope of the current trend it seems highly likely it will intersect the normal line with the April 2nd plot.
Other sea ice metrics such as JAXA, using a different satellite platform (AQUA) and the AMSR-E sensor agree.
It is an odd sort of a divergence, this growth of Arctic Sea ice well past the normal start of “melt”.
As first mentioned in a WUWT story two days ago, Dr. Walt Meier of NSIDC says:
“It’s a good question about the last time we’ve been above average. It was May 2001.”
It may be winds pushing ice further southwards in the Bering Sea, it may be fresh ice. It may be a combination. While this event isn’t by itself an about-face of the longer downward trend we’ve seen, it does seem to suggest that predictions assuming a linear (or even spiral) demise aren’t holding up.
We live in interesting times.
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Henry@ur momisugly Dave Springer
see 13:42:32
Henry@ur momisugly R.Gates
You still believe that CO2 is a factor in warming up the earth? How did you come to that conclusion?
We know that CO2 has absorption in the 14-15 um range causing some warming (by re-radiating earthshine, 24 hours per day) but as shown and proved it also has a number of absorptions in the 0-5 um range causing cooling (by re-radiating sunshine). This cooling happens at all levels where the sunshine hits on the carbon dioxide same as the earthshine. The way from the bottom to the top is the same as from top to the bottom. So, my question was: how much cooling and how much warming is caused by the CO2? How was the experiment done to determine this and where are the test results? If it has not been done, why don’t we just sue the oil companies to do this research? (I am afraid that simple heat retention testing might not work here, we have to use real sunshine and real earthshine to determine the effect in W/m3 [0.04%-0.06%]CO2 /m2/24hours).
When they analysed the spectra, did they look at all the absorptions, namely also at those of CO2 in the UV – that have only been discovered recently? I also doubt that spectra analysis would work here – you have to come up with a more real time experiment.
Namely, for example, I think especially the cooling of CO2 caused at 4.3 um might be considerable because this is where the sun’s radiation is at its hottest (on your skin). Note that the temp. on the coast on a sunny day (no wind) is always a few degrees cooler than more inland. This is due to same cooling caused by water vapor in the sun’s solar spectra – as you know, I am saying CO2 does exactly the same thing. Without CO2 in the atmosphere more (hot) IR radiation would be slammed on top of our heads.
So what is the net effect of CO2? How do we all know for sure that CO2 is a greenhouse gas when clearly Svante Arrhenius formula has long been proven wrong and nobody from all the relevant sites has come to me with the right formula?
Henry@DirkH
that paper does make a bit sense to me.
i.e. global warming is theoretically not really possible.
I also figured that there must be limit to what the earth can heat up, therefter it will just switch its giant cooling plant on. However, thre is no calculation or test showing that CO2 is indeed a greenhouse gas. This is just an assumption that was made 100 years ago. Evrybody thought that someone would test it, in the end nobody did it.
In the following, blue line is yearly sunspot number and red line is river Tornionjoki (Finland, latitude 65N) ice melting day from the beginning of year:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1278929/jl-ap-tas.jpg
So it seems that ice melting in Northern Europe is strongly correlated with solar activity. And this propably holds also in the arctic area which means that sea-ice melting is expected to shift later and later if solar activity continues at low levels.
Correction: In the above the melting day is from the end of year and spline smoothing is used.
*******
3 04 2010
Phil. (05:01:06) :
Merrick (03:47:31) :
In fact it has absolutely everything to do with the relatively constant summer temperature north of 80ºN!
********
Yrs ago, after a 30″ snowfall w/6′ drifts, I was amazed by afternoon temperatures of near 60F (15C). Walking along plowed roads between mountainous snow-piles in shirt-sleeves was an experience.
For 80 deg north, can we say sun-angle? I knew we could.
R. Gates, back in the old days when observations of all Arctic parameters without undo regard for CO2 hyped global warming were tabulated, calculations (IE statistical models combined with a bit o’maths) were made to estimate the amount of predicted Fram strait ice flow based on these Arctic specific WEATHER PATTERN VARIATIONS. These calculations were then made retrospectively to see if there was a match of method to data. There was. Ice flow can be calculated based on the previous 3 to 6 month weather data. If you can afford the paywall, you can get the maths.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/l41242q58071833w/
Check your prediction of summer flow out Fram Strait with the maths. My bet is that you are overestimating your bet.
A PDF of a couple of ice flow models with the maths.
http://polar.ncep.noaa.gov/seaice/docs/driftverf.pdf
This information is still used by ocean going vessels to plan trips into the ice area.
Thrasher, increased ice area and extent on the Pacific side of the bowl is one of the parameters that predicts less ice flow out the Atlantic side. This is just one of the present conditions I use to predict a normal to below normal flush during the coming melt season.
End of the game. Now, it’s downward.
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png
It will surely not cross the average line next days. How fool we were…
Folks, you will love this pdf. Great graphics, models, and pictures along with bulleted salient points about ice drift. It will help you understand Arctic flush as an outcome of weather pattern variation better than any I have seen on the web. Enjoy the mind candy. I sure did.
http://nsidc.org/pubs/special/nsidc_special_report_8.pdf
Benoit, it is nowhere near the endgame. We are just at half time. Watch and learn. Go to some of the sites I have posted in my comments and add to your knowledge so that you can compare your improved understanding with observations. Which is what I will be doing. Use historical and current ice drift, local Arctic zone ice pack (not averaged Arctic zones), weather patterns, wind patterns, oceanic current patterns, SST temps, cloud cover, etc to follow the upcoming ice melt season. The second half of the ice year is by far the most interesting. Tighten your seat belt. The best part of the roller coaster ride is before us.
Once again, I will go on record to say that ice flush will be average to below average this melt season. This will result in average ice extent and area (within two SD of the mean) at the end of the melt season in September. However, knowing that weather pattern variation can change overnight, I am not willing to lay down money on my bet.
Careful!
Mind candy has been found to be illegal, immoral, and fattening.
According to at least 864 federally-funded internationally-reviewed mind-candy studies ….
I’m of the “one data point does not establish a trend line” school, so I’ll wait a day or two before I agree.
I will agree that given the current calendar setting that “downward” is probably the way to bet.
But.
There are still Winter Storm Watches and Advisories from South Western Oregon Down to California’s Antelope Valley and east across Nevada, Utah, Wyoming and Colorado as I type.
And I would still like for somebody to show me how to plot the average for 1979 to the current date so I can see how the current line fits that.
Henry@ur momisugly R.Gates
You still believe that CO2 is a factor in warming up the earth? How did you come to that conclusion?
We know that CO2 has absorption in the 14-15 um range causing some warming (by re-radiating earthshine, 24 hours per day) but as shown and proved it also has a number of absorptions in the 0-5 um range causing cooling (by re-radiating sunshine).
_______________
Henry,
Your question is an intelligent one, and has some facts correct, but makes a a few critical assumptions, one of them being the assumption that all UV absorbed by CO2 would be re-transmitted back into space. Just as is the case with “earthshine” IR radiation, some is re-transmitted by the CO2 molecule into space, and some is transmitted back toward earth. A molecule of CO2 gas is of course not static, and is vibrating and moving rapidly, and it will be completely random direction as to which direction it will re-transmit any eletromagnetic energy, regardless of the bandwidth.
I would direct you to this rather exellent article however, for your further reading:
http://www.nat.vu.nl/en/sec/atom/Publications/pdf/DUV-CO2.pdf
But to answer your question: Yes, I am 100% convinced that CO2 is a net greenhouse gas in the earth’s atmosphere…though I remain only 75% convinced in validity of AGWT (as it is proposed today), though I expect that confidence level to increase to 95% or fall to 50% in the next few years…
@ur momisugly henry pool
I don’t believe solar magnetic field has been directly measured long enough to be useful. IIRC direct measurement is done by a satellite designed to study the sun in its own orbit closer to the sun. I also recall reading that the satellite died in the last year or two and the planned replacement hasn’t launched yet.
Here’s a chart of sunspot counts over the last 300 years. I wasn’t aware that the 20th century portion of it has a name. It’s called the Modern Maximum. Not sure how the count on the y-axis is obtained. It looks too small to be an annual number and too big for a monthly. Presumably it’s consistent over time so the trend is exposed well.
350 year sunspot record
I learned something else new as well. Carbon 14 content in atmosphere is another proxy for solar magnetic field strength. Here’s a chart of that going back 1,100 years which includes a Medieval Maximum that correlates with the pesky (for global warming alarmists) Medieval Warm Period.
Carbon 14 proxy
I read in another of your comments something about CO2 blocking infrared coming from above. That’s sort of yes and no. My understanding is that most of energy from the sun arrives in higher wavelengths that are not blocked by clear sky. That light hits the surface, is mostly absorbed (~15% is reflected back in visible wavelengths) and the rest is absorbed and reemitted at infrared wavelengths. CO2 absorbs infrared coming up from the ground and reemits it in random directions. That portion reemitted downwards is what causes surface warming. That said, when there’s CO2 emitting infrared downwards from altitude there is more CO2 below it which will serve to stop some fraction of it from reaching the surface. I visualize CO2 sort of like attic insulation. It slows down the transport of heat across it but doesn’t, in and of itself, generate any heat. What happens is through slowing down the transport the differential temperature on either side of the insulation grows. As the differential grows the insulation becomes less effective and eventually a new equilibrium point is reached at some higher differential than if the insulation wasn’t there. Water vapor does the same thing and is responsible for far more of the atmospheric insulation than CO2. The whole global warming thesis is based upon slightly warmer air from higher CO2 driving more water vapor into the air which in turns makes it even warmer and drives even more vapor into the air in a positive feedback cycle. The flaw in the ointment is that the earth for much of its history has been much warmer with a lot more CO2 in the atmosphere and there was never a so-called runaway greenhouse. So there’s obviously (to me) a negative feedback in there somewhere that limits the amount of warming. The negative feedback is thought by most to be clouds. Water vapor coming up from the ground is carrying an awful lot of what’s called latent heat of evaporation. When it condenses into a cloud it gives up all that heat. So water vapor in essence is working like a swamp cooler carrying massive amount of heat away from the surface and letting it go high in the atmosphere. Released way up high in the atmosphere means that the insulating gases below it block that heat from making it back to the surface, where your question again becomes pertinent. As well, clouds have a much higher albedo so in addition to water vapor transporting heat quickly upwards through the denser air nearer the surface when it gives up the heat to form a cloud the cloud itself reflects a lot of light directly back into space before it can ever reach the surface. Thus water vapor acts like a thermostat to limit how warm it can get.
The really scary thing isn’t global warming. It’s global cooling. The earth does indeed experience runaway cooling. When water freezes and turns into snow/ice cover it reflects a lot of light, which causes it to get colder, which generates even more snow & ice and at times in the past there’s a phenomenon called “Snowball Earth” which is exactly what it sounds like. There’s a fair amount of uncertainty about what conditions are required to melt a snowball earth but obviously something does because it has happened more than once.
@ur momisugly Henry Pool (again)
I read the Wikipedia article on snowball earth and found what sounds like the way the snowball melts. Interestingly enough it’s CO2 that comes to the rescue but it takes a long time. If everything is frozen over then there is very little in the way of green plants doing their thing of fixing atmospheric carbon into the soil and the oceans, frozen over, can’t absorb any CO2 either. Volcanoes, however, aren’t stopped by a layer of ice and so they continue to emit CO2 into the atmosphere. Not mentioned, but I’ll add it because I’m a fan of warming caused by soot, volcanoes would also tend to put out a lot of soot which would eventually be deposited on the snow surface. Soot floats so partial surface thaws only concentrate it. The soot is dark and hence absorbs more light and hastens the melt. Anyhow, the vocanic belching of CO2 builds it up in the atmosphere and without any carbon sinks it slowly gets to higher and higher concentration and eventually melts the snowball.
Henry@R.Gates&Dave Springer
on CO2
I think, according to the definition, the re-radiation (both for cooling and warming) happens at random position of the molecule, meaning, ca. 50% is beamed back to where-ever it came from…. It appears that no one has actually done any empirical testing to prove that the warming is greater than the cooling. All I could find is weighting (by IPCC -based on the gases concentration back to 1750) which is based on the assumption that greenhouse gases must be the cause of global warming, and spectral analysis which I am not sure about at all. How do you know that all absorptions of CO2 were taken into account? I think you need some actual test results to prove a theory before you apply it. Testing with 100% CO2 to prove a point is also a serious no-no, any chemist will tell you that you might get different properties from substances at different concentrations. So I am not sure how you people came to to your decision that warming must be greater than cooling.
Dave:
My understanding is that most of energy from the sun arrives in higher wavelengths that are not blocked.
Henry@Dave & R.Gates
I think you meant “lower” wavelenghts.
That paper quoted by R.Gates actually disproves that, and if you want further proof that CO2 is also cooling the atmosphere, look in this paper:
http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/0004-637X/644/1/551/64090.web.pdf?request-id=76e1a830-4451-4c80-aa58-4728c1d646ec
Look at fig. 6 bottom. This is what we are able to measure from earthshine reflecting from the moon.
My thinking is that at 4,3um (where CO2 absorbs strongly) the sun’s radition on the skin is very hot, so even if the total from the sun (higher than 4) is low, it does not necessarily mean that the energy as such is a lot less.,
I would think that without CO2 in the atmosphere even more (hot) IR would be slammed on top of our heads. Without actual experiments & measurements I don’t think we can ever be sure how it is with the net effect of CO2 on cooling and warming.
Henry@Dave
I also saw those stories where they told us that CO2 has saved earth in the past from more ice ages. But I am skeptical about that too. I would agree it is more the soot that did it. I am truly sorry, but I really think that if ever we were to fall into a LIA, it will not help us putting more CO2 in the air. This is because I believe that if some real testing were done, they would find that it pretty much evens between the warming and cooling of CO2.
Dave:
The whole global warming thesis is based upon slightly warmer air from higher CO2 driving more water vapor into the air which in turns makes it even warmer and drives even more vapor into the air in a positive feedback cycle.
Henry@Dave
I agree that there must be limit to global warming, thereafter more water vapor and clouds cause cooling.
But have you any idea about all the water vapor caused by human activities like cooling, (*e.g. nuclear power), & rocket fuel, & burning fossil fuel, building shallow dams and pools for water consumption, heating of water etc, etc )
Surely all that water vapor caused by human activities must be much, much higher than CO2 emissions?
Now they are talking again of building nuclear power plants and all of sudden (because of “global warming” due to carbon dioxide) the resistance against that is gone.
But now what about the nuclear waste from these horrible plants? And what about the safety? I think we should rather stick with coal and make sure the CO and SO2 is properly removed.
Henry@Dave
it looks the average of sunspots from 1750 was about 50 per day?
do I get that right?
do you know if there is a measurement of some sorts on actual galactic cosmic rays?
perhaps I must try and find that book from Svensmark.
I have a funny feeling that not much of that GCR is coming our way despite of what happens on the sun, because of the alignment of the sun toward the middle of the galaxy.
Anyways, a blessed Easter you all and thanks for all your help!
Arctic-roos needs to be “fixed” to hide the rise in ice?
Anu aren’t you tired to rehash the same caricature of possible solar influences?
For newbies I recommend this site for summarizing the current state and history of the polar sea ice.
http://www.climate4you.com/SeaIce.htm
@Henry
I don’t think any of the sources of water vapor you mention are significant on a global scale although they can certainly change things on a local scale. The local scale is important though because it produces misleading artifacts (like urban heat islands) in the temperature record due to the thermometers being placed nearby the altered land. Possibly (probably) land use changes are such as slash/burn of rain forests and crop irrigation could have some minor global impact on the water cycle. 70% of the earth’s surface is ocean and I don’t think anything mankind has done effects that very much and it continues to dominate.
re; lower and higher wavelengths. Sorry about that. Electromagnetic wave propogation is an area of professional expertise so that’s a notable blunder for me. Wavelengths should be referred to as shorter or longer. Frequencies should be referred to as higher or lower. I meant to say either shorter wavelengths or higher frequences. I had in my mind the electromagnetic spectrum which typically shows radio, microwave, infrared on the left side; ultraviolet, x and gamma rays on the right, with visible spectrum in between. I think of going from from left to right as lower to higher but that should be frequency not wavelength. Mibad.
I have said many times if the earth starts cooling we be left forlornly wishing that warming it up was as easy as burning lots of fossil fuels. We could easily cool it off if we needed using a fraction of the cold war nuclear arsenal to loft a bunch of dirt into the stratosphere. Wouldn’t even cost anything because we have far more nukes IMO than we need for any foreseeable purpose. The fallout would raise cancer rates marginally but other than that a combining “nuclear winter” with “global warming” should equal “global just right”. I doubt it would come to that though because from what I can see global warming is a net benefit as it appears to be thawing out the frozen north while leaving everywhere else more or less status quo. Sea level rise is the major downside but that’s our own blunder in placing so much civilization very near sea level. Sea level varies a lot over longer time frames but our short-sightedness caused us to view it as a constant. Life migrates with changes in sea level and we’ll have to do some migrating too. It’s rising slow enough so there should be ample time to back away where needed.
re; infrared coming from the sun
There isn’t very much power in that portion of the solar spectrum where CO2 absorption peaks. The following plot shows it well. The CO2 absorption peak is shown on the far left side and the power there is miniscule compared to power at visible wavelengths.
Solar irradiance power spectrum
You mention something else about absorption characteristics at different concentrations. The absorption spectrum doesn’t change but what does change is something called saturation. The first hundred parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere absorbs the lion’s share of the infrared available in that part of the spectrum. Adding more CO2 then becomes a case of diminishing returns. Think of CO2 like a sponge and infrared like a puddle of water. Once you have a sponge big enough to soak up the entire puddle then a bigger sponge can’t possibly absorb more water. Our CO2 sponge at 380ppm is soaking up almost all the available infrared there is to soak up.
re; galactic cosmic ray intensity
I don’t think any instruments are able to measure it due to solar system influences. Voyager 1 and 2 are close to where they need to be though. There’s a solar wind shock-wave that interferes with direct measurement that is far beyond the orbit of Pluto. The Voyager satellites are just about to pass through the shock wave and once they’re on the other side their cosmic ray detectors will be seeing virgin extra-solar space. The predicitable variation I mentioned has to do with our solar system not travelling in lockstep with the spiral arms of the galaxy. Over periods of tens of millions of years it passes through and between the arms both horizontally and vertically. Inside a spiral arm the GCR is more intense due to higher density of stars and hence being statistically closer to more of the random producers of cosmic rays. The vertical motion of the solar system above, through, and below the galactic plane occurs on a cycle of 35 million years with about 10 million years inside the plane. Interestingly this cycle time correlates with mass extinctions. It’s such a long period though it is unlikely to be relevant to the global warming discussion. Other factors such as the strength of the solar magnetic field, solar wind intensity, and earth’s magnetic field vary on much smaller timescales and have a much more relevant impact than where the earth happens to be relative to a spiral arm of the galaxy. One supernova in our neck of the woods, which is something currently unpredictable, could however change things dramatically in a short period of time.