Wikipedia : Traditional Santa Claus
Arctic ice extent continues downwards on the trend line started at the end of March, having lost a little over 1,000,000 km2 during April. If that linear rate continues, the Arctic will be ice free around January 1, 2011. That would be a complete disaster for Santa Claus and the billions of people who depend on him.
During the past month, Arctic sea ice has straddled between the NSIDC 1979-2000 average (wide black line) and the NSIDC 1979-2009 average (wide turquoise line.) The composite image below shows all four commonly used extent graphs – NSIDC/NORSEX/DMI/JAXA . The thin turquoise line is NSIDC 2009. Note that the melt season is about three weeks behind the 2007 extent (dashed) line.
During the last few days, ice has begun to disappear from the Barents Sea. The modified NSIDC map below shows loss of ice from one week ago, marked in red. I wonder if any soot from Iceland is dirtying the ice? Hansen says that soot may be responsible for 25% of all global warming.
The UIUC graph below provides a more detailed blow by blow of what is happening to ice area in the Barents Sea.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/recent365.anom.region.6.html
The modified NSIDC map below shows loss of ice since the first week in April, marked in red.
The modified NSIDC map below shows changes in ice since May 2, 2007. Green areas have more ice, and red areas have less ice.
The modified NSIDC map below shows areas of above “normal” (green) and below “normal” (red) ice. The western Arctic is above average, and the eastern Arctic is below average. Perhaps all the hot air from Copenhagen in December thinned the ice?
During the past few summers, the low anomalies have been on the western side of the Arctic. Note in the SST map below, that ocean temperatures are abnormally cold on the western side, which is likely to slow melt this summer.
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.html
The Arctic Oscillation is forecast to go negative again, which should inhibit melt in the Arctic and growth in my garden.
http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/ao.sprd2.gif
We are still about eight weeks away from the beginning of the really interesting melt season. Stay tuned. The Antarctic remains boring, staying average to slightly above. No meltdowns or collapsing ice sheets to report this week.
Gail Combs says:
May 4, 2010 at 1:46 pm
The natural sequestering of CO2 in limestone, coal and oil was heading us for the real catastrophe. Luckily humans liberated life giving CO2 saving the planet and the environment.
Are you serious?
jeff brown says: May 4, 2010 at 3:07 pm
Jeff, you are aware that plant life shuts down when CO2 in the atmosphere hits 200 ppm. I wonder if today’s plants are feeling like we would feel if we were trying to breathe 5% oxygen….
Roger Knights says:
May 4, 2010 at 3:30 am
“Our theory is that the PDO was in a 30-year warm cycle, ”
Its just a theory, one that does not fit the oberverved cycle of 90 years for the AO, and which is also so blatantly obvious in World temeperatures. Look, The last full cycle was from 1900 to 1990. The positive phase being 1900 to 1945, ok, so the center of the positive phase was 1922.5. Take off 90yrs = 1830`s = warm. Take off another 90yrs = 1740`s = warm. You can`t repeat the 60yr cycle hisorically with any success, It is an illusion. 1922.5 + 90yrs is 2012.5, so we are in the middle of the positive phase now, and it will be just turning negative by 2035/6. If you study the AO sequence: http://jisao.washington.edu/ao/ you will see some massive exceptions to the cycle in certain years. I can give deterministic forecasts to the exact years that cooler years/seasons will be occurring through this period, but the general phase is clearly positive. Get over the 60yr cycle, it doesn`t work, this is not Chinese astrology!
its Gleissberg.
kwik says:
May 4, 2010 at 2:49 pm
Anu,
you seem to think Jim Hansen knows his climate science.
I hope he wont start pushing the idea that CO2 will cause a new ice age.
I dont think anyone will buy it this time;
Those same tired old deceptions raise their ugly head from time to time.
They’re still not true!
skye says:
“Smokey, why do you keep talking about alarmists on this site?”
Because I don’t want to talk about bed-wetters?
From the April 16, 2007 issue of Newsweak, an op-ed by Prof Richard Lindzen:
Skye doesn’t like the term ‘alarmist.’ But that is exactly what the purveyors of CAGW are doing. Because if the total effect of human emitted CO2 is so insignificant that it can not even be empirically measured, which is in fact the case, then nothing except baseless alarmism justifies the demands for $trillions to mitigate a non-problem.
And regarding Anu’s hand-waving over the relatively tiny assistance given to the GMI by the e-e-evil Exxon-Mobil, I note this in the Wiki [always questionable] link that Anu posted above:
So what? Since 2002 the George Marshall Institute was supported with $715,000 from Exxon-Mobil. Well then, let’s contrast that with this.
Government grants for alarmist climate studies are about 10,000 times greater than Exxon-Mobil’s contribution. And the government rarely funds universities and scientists whose research shows that CO2 isn’t a problem; the greater the scare, the greater the funding. And rich foundations and individuals with a CAGW agenda are also fanning the flames by funding scientists who sound the CO2=CAGW alarm.
When you throw out bread in the public square, you get pigeons. When the gov’t throws out $billions in AGW grants, it attracts climate alarmists.
Finally, jeff brown, the fact that you ask “Are you serious” regarding Gail Combs’ statement [you only quoted the last part, BTW], indicates that you still have a mental block that doesn’t allow you to see that, at atmospheric trace gas concentrations, CO2 is entirely beneficial, not harmful. You need to work on that.
If this year does uptick, as it seems to be doing, it’ll be a “Last Hurrah.”
@Ulrich Lyons:
The 60-year PDO cycle I cited is a simplification. It does not occur in regular 60-year cycles, and other oceanic multi-decadal cycles play a role as well. My impression from comments here is that the PDO has entered a cool phase (one in which La Nina events outnumber El Ninos).
Here’s the link (which I’m sure you’re familiar with) to some background on the subject: Dr. Syun-Ichi Akasofu’s paper, “Two Natural Components of Recent Climate Change,” here (as a 50-Mb PDF):
http://people.iarc.uaf.edu/~sakasofu/little_ice_age.php
kwik says:
May 4, 2010 at 2:49 pm
Anu,
you seem to think Jim Hansen knows his climate science.
I hope he wont start pushing the idea that CO2 will cause a new ice age.
I dont think anyone will buy it this time;
http://www.moonbattery.com/archives/2007/09/global_warmer_h.html
Yes, I heard of this story two years ago when it was first debunked.
Try to keep up – the links are old now. Here’s what I copied from IBD two years ago:
http://www.investors.com/editorial/editorialcontent.asp?secid=1501&status=article&id=275267681833290
Here’s the Washington Post article the intern at The Washington Times (the Rev. Sun Myun Moon’s vanity newspaper) dug up:
http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/washingtonpost_historical/access/144703752.html?dids=144703752:144703752&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS
Dr. Hansen was not a co-author, he did not agree with the results, and there is no indication he even *knew* what Dr. Rasool’s was going to use his code for – Dr. Hansen was still working on Venus at this time (he did not write his first paper on Earth’s climate until 1976). It is common for researchers to use software developed by others at the same University – this does not make the software developers ‘co-researchers’.
If Osama bin Laden used Microsoft Word to write letters to his supporters, does that make Bill Gates a co-terrorist ?
Here’s more info on the Dr. Rasool paper that The Washington Times dug up, and IBD parroted, because it included that mention of Dr. Hansen:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080101072141AAUf90w
Here’s Dr. Hansen explaining the code that Dr. Rasool used:
I bet you feel foolish now.
Smokey says:
May 4, 2010 at 4:14 pm
I’m glad to see you respect professors from my alma mater, MIT.
Why not listen to Professor Prinn, TEPCO Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry, and Director of the Center for Global Change Science, and the co-Director of the Joint Program on Science & Policy of Global Change? One of Prof. Lindzen’s overachieving faculty colleagues at Atmospheres, Oceans, and Climate:
http://eapsweb.mit.edu/people/topic.asp?Topic=PAOC
Do you think Lindzen is the only one at MIT that knows how to do science ?
Care to hear about the work of a dozen more colleagues of Dr. Lindzen ? Why do you think Lindzen is the only one ever quoted by people like you ?
Anu says:
“Do you think Lindzen is the only one at MIT that knows how to do science?”
It seems that way, doesn’t it? Considering the “warming of 5.2 degrees Celsius by 2100” horse manure being shoveled by his ankle-biters.
Anu
So the MIT study clams 7C warming in the next 90 years, after 0C warming during the last 15 years and 0.6C warming during the last 120 years. Hopefully you are a little embarrassed by your alma mater?
Smokey says:
Wow, that would be better than 2C cooling. More moisture in the atmosphere, plants growing better because of temp and CO2 levels, we could sure feed a lot more people. May 10-15 Billion. Nothing to worry about, really.
Robert E. Phelan says:
May 4, 2010 at 3:41 pm
What does 200 ppm have to do with anything? Do you think we’re going to get to 200ppm anytime soon? Do you know what the ppms were 150 years ago when there were only 1 billion people on the planet compared to nearly 7 billion today?
Are you up to speed on the latest CO2 research regarding plants? Do you know that too much CO2 also kills plants?
But more importantly, where do you get the idea that CO2 levels are going to drop to 200 ppm where plants will be negatively affected?
stevengoddard says:
May 4, 2010 at 8:52 am
Would raising taxes 20,000 years ago have stopped the ice sheet from melting?
No, and I sure am glad that during the “Coming Ice Age” scare cooler heads prevailed.
The only heating of the planet going on right now is the feverish itch to conduct Frankenstein Monster experiments on the Climate based on the whim of idiots armed with straight-edge pencil lines. And, of course, all the sweaty greed that comes with the high-pressure sales pitch. They want to trade CO2 into another economic bubble.
From jeff brown on May 4, 2010 at 9:55 pm:
From the Wikipedia(!) Carbon Dioxide article, “Agricultural and biological applications” section:
First part, a drop by a factor less than two can kill green plants. March 2010 atmospheric CO2 concentration was 389.44 ppm (according to the World Climate Widget), half of that is 194.72 ppm, and the mentioned amount was “a factor less than two”. So 200 ppm sounds about right.
BTW, that was just confirmation of the “plant death” number.
Second and main part, in greenhouses they are running up the concentrations very high to kill animal life without harming plants, over that duration of exposure. Here 1% was mentioned for killing certain bugs in greenhouses. Now let’s check out the “Toxicity” section:
Healthy adults are “rated” for only 5000 ppm over 8 hours, while plants can handle twice that much for “several” hours. Interesting. Let’s look at the next piece of that section:
For some reason, you’re talking about how too much CO2 can kill plants. Yet green plants can tolerate about 25 times the current atmospheric concentration, for at least several hours. Humans can adapt to higher CO2 levels, with 50 times the current atmospheric concentration suggested for closed air spaces.
I think it’s a given that we won’t be seeing atmospheric CO2 levels high enough that plant death from too much CO2 will ever be an issue, barring sudden planetary catastrophes that wipe out all biological conversion of CO2 to something else thus levels from natural sources like volcanoes would be allowed to rise practically unchecked, and in that case we and all the plants will be dead anyway.
So why mention it?
jeff brown says:
May 4, 2010 at 9:55 pm
Gee, Jeff, you’re reading an awful lot in to a simple comment.
#
Roger Knights says:
May 4, 2010 at 5:56 pm
@Ulric Lyons:
“The 60-year PDO cycle I cited is a simplification. It does not occur in regular 60-year cycles, and other oceanic multi-decadal cycles play a role as well. My impression from comments here is that the PDO has entered a cool phase (one in which La Nina events outnumber El Ninos).
Here’s the link (which I’m sure you’re familiar with) to some background on the subject: Dr. Syun-Ichi Akasofu’s paper, “Two Natural Components of Recent Climate Change,” here (as a 50-Mb PDF):
http://people.iarc.uaf.edu/~sakasofu/little_ice_age.php”
Roger, I don`t buy the 60yr cycle, as I have already explained, I consider it an illusion, a misinterpetation of temperature history, due to outliers, exceptionally warm or cold years/seasons that are completely contrary to the particular phase of the cycle at the time, causing distractions. Just look at the magnitude of these exceptions, they of greater magnitude than the cycle itself. The 60yr cycle makes no sense historically, globally or locally, it doesn`t work backwards, period.
Its simple, if you want a reliable Climate Change Index, well use the Arctic, you can see the cycle lengths far clearer there, its a really good thermometer.
What about integrating other KNOWN cycles (big up rbateman), for example the 17yr coronal hole cycle that is clearly visible in weather, precipitation, tree rings, the life cycle of the Cicada, and that produces the strongest monthly temperature string on CET? Flood/drought cycles of 18yrs that coincide with peaks of world temperature?
We clearly are dealing with a number of cycles that may be factorised and identified,
but need to be re-synthesized to effectively reproduce or hidcast past observations,
and hence predict with any certainty.
Surely a London cabbie could appreciate that.
“Anu says:
May 4, 2010 at 12:42 pm”
“nedhead says:
May 4, 2010 at 2:29 pm”
Ignore, deny, repeat, repeat, repeat. QED
Ulric Lyons says:
May 5, 2010 at 4:23 am
What about integrating other KNOWN cycles (big up rbateman), for example the 17yr coronal hole cycle that is clearly visible in weather, precipitation, tree rings, the life cycle of the Cicada,
Really, care to explain how that works?
#
Phil. says:
May 5, 2010 at 7:34 am
Ulric Lyons says:
May 5, 2010 at 4:23 am
“What about integrating other KNOWN cycles (big up rbateman), for example the 17yr coronal hole cycle that is clearly visible in weather, precipitation, tree rings, the life cycle of the Cicada,
Really, care to explain how that works?”
Curiously, short term solar activity, such as incresed solar wind velocity from coronal holes for example, will return to cause a positive temperature feature in the same month, every 17yrs. A number of 17yr years strings can be found in the same, and other months. This creates a repeating pattern of weather types in the seasons of certain years, and a different pattern in other years. Changes of temperature, relative to the seasons, cause a direct effect on precipitation. Heat in summer creates dryness, while a temperature drop in the summer causes a jump in rainfall. This first bit I got from Erl Happ. I then worked for myself that the inverse of this occurs in winter, when cold is dry, but a rise in temperature in winter will cause a precipitation event.
The Equinoxes are more complicated.
The Cicada are working with a temperature/rainfall pattern that returns fairly reliably every 17yrs in certain years. Typically 12 out the 17 possible years are more ideal for their needs, the number of brood years.
Other monthly strings have noted by many people, such as the 23yr string. Look at every 23rd November going back from 2009 for example, on CET or any other N.H temperature series.
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
May 5, 2010 at 1:47 am
Some recent tree mortality numbers:
in the southwestern US, more than 12,000 square km have seen increased mortality rates, killing 40-97% of trees in some sights in less than 3 years [Breshears et al., 2005; McDowell et al., 2008]. This die-off was more severe than mortality events of the 1950s.
in western Canada, millions of trees across 130,000 sq-km of pine forest died in 6 years [Kurz et al., 2008]. Reports of extensive tree mortality have been reported in Africa, Asia, Australi, Europe and South America [Allen et al., 2010].
Most of the above are insect-driven mortality that is related to increased drought conditions and warmer temperatures. Note that models under increased GHGs predict large changes in temperatures and precipitation across the globe (with the largest uncertainties in the precipitation).
Besides the insect-driven mortality, over the past few decades old forests of the western US have shown doubled tree mortality rates (probably related to temperature increases, see van Mantgem et al., 2009). Long-term data from pan-Amazonian forest surveys recently documents effects from a severe drought in 2005, with reduced growth and increased tree mortality driving a marked shift in forest carbon balance [Phillips et al., 2009].
Studies are currently focusing on the mechanisms causing these large tree die-outs. It is unclear if starvation occurs from reduced photosynthesis or a water-stress-induced inability to use stored carbon. Increased temperatures enhance the proliferation of tree-pests which also kill the trees.
With large forest die-outs, the impact of forests as a carbon sink can change. Right now, terrestrial ecosystems absorb 33% of anthropogenic carbon emissions during the 1990s [Bonan, 2008]. It could be that this sink is going to change. For example, in British Columbia, beetle outbreaks reduced the carbon sink by 270 megatons over 20 years. This even reversed the carbon sequestration gains of the previous 20 years across millions of hectares of forest [Kurz et al., 2008]. Chapin et al., 2008 suggest that CO2 released following forest die-out could easily exceed carbon sequestration enhancements from elevated CO2 promoting forest growth.
It is way more complicated than what you found in Wikepedia…
Re: jeff brown on May 5, 2010 at 1:28 pm
This does happen, but still…
So to recap:
You say “Do you know that too much CO2 also kills plants?”
I respond by showing how atmospheric concentrations are unlikely to reach levels where the plants need to worry about it.
Your next post, you’re talking about forest die-offs, which have naturally happened for many millenia, and how they can be related to bug infestations, higher temps, and drought conditions, all of which have occurred naturally for many millenia.
Thus I will conclude we are in general agreement that the plants have nothing to worry about concerning elevated atmospheric CO2 levels.
Now that was a productive discussion! It’s been nice talking with you.
Looks like the Arctic sea ice is taking a sharp turn downwards. The idea of a recovery that has been floating around this blog site might not hold up for much longer…
Ulric Lyons says:
May 5, 2010 at 11:21 am
#
Phil. says:
May 5, 2010 at 7:34 am
Ulric Lyons says:
May 5, 2010 at 4:23 am
“What about integrating other KNOWN cycles (big up rbateman), for example the 17yr coronal hole cycle that is clearly visible in weather, precipitation, tree rings, the life cycle of the Cicada,
Really, care to explain how that works?”
Curiously, short term solar activity, such as incresed solar wind velocity from coronal holes for example, will return to cause a positive temperature feature in the same month, every 17yrs. A number of 17yr years strings can be found in the same, and other months. This creates a repeating pattern of weather types in the seasons of certain years, and a different pattern in other years. Changes of temperature, relative to the seasons, cause a direct effect on precipitation……
The Cicada are working with a temperature/rainfall pattern that returns fairly reliably every 17yrs in certain years. Typically 12 out the 17 possible years are more ideal for their needs, the number of brood years.
So why does it effect those cicadas on the East coast (Brood X) differently from those in upper NY state (Brood VII) so that they’re three years out of sync? And why doesn’t it effect the cicadas in the southern states (Brood XIX) at all since they have a 13 year cycle?
Cicada broods hatch based on a Fibonacci number of years. It has to do with avoiding predators. You could even look it up. ☺