By Steve Goddard
In 2007, Dr. Hansen boldly declared
“…defying government gag orders. Hansen told Reuters, quote, “The reason so much (of the Arctic ice) went suddenly is that it is hitting a tipping point that we have been warning about for the past few years.”
and Mark Serreze placed the blame squarely on CO2.
“…the effects of greenhouse warming are now coming through loud and clear.”
So let’s see how the greenhouse gas induced tipping point is working out. By this date in 1990, there was already a large hole in the ice in the Laptev Sea (upper right, near Siberia.) Watch the video:
Generated from UIUC maps.
Solar radiation in the Arctic is very close to it’s peak by May 25, so there was a lot of solar energy being absorbed through the ice in the Arctic ocean by this date in 1990.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/EnergyBalance/images/annual_solar_insolation.png
Sea ice concentration is considerably higher now than it was on this date 20 years ago.
Generated from UIUC maps.
This means higher albedo (reflectance) and less absorption of solar energy. Note in the insolation graph above, that by the end of July the amount of sunshine in the Arctic begins to drop off very quickly.
You can see in the JAXA graph above that the 2007 divergence occurred in late July after Arctic insolation was already shutting down, essentially nullifying the Arctic albedo feedback argument. The Arctic minimum comes too late in the summer to have a significant impact on the radiation budget, due to the very low angle sun at that time. In fact, CERES has measured that during September 2008, the Arctic net radiation balance was strongly negative. The open water loses heat to the atmosphere (because it is not insulated by ice) meaning that declining ice cover is probably a negative feedback, not a positive one. NASA’s Earth Observatory explains:
This map (below) of net radiation (incoming sunlight minus reflected light and outgoing heat) shows global energy imbalances in September 2008, the month of an equinox. Areas around the equator absorbed about 200 watts per square meter more on average (orange and red) than they reflected or radiated. Areas near the poles reflected and/or radiated about 200 more watts per square meter (green and blue) than they absorbed. Mid-latitudes were roughly in balance. (NASA map by Robert Simmon, based on CERES data.)
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/EnergyBalance/images/ceres_net_radiation_200809.jpg
Looks like the Arctic is less tipped than it was 20 years ago. It is a shame that Dr. Hansen feels like he is gagged, when he has such important information needed to save the planet.
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“Sea ice concentration is considerably higher now than it was on this date 20 years ago.”
I imagine if you integrated the total heat of fusion between the two, the differences would be even higher because the 1990 ice looks much thinner.
Perhaps an even better measure would be total heat transfer flux versus total heat of fusion. The former would include air temps, wind speed, and solar insolation. You could then compare your model to real data and be able to make predictions.
Imagine you were back in 2006, and looking at that graph with the newly-minted “lowest extent in recorded data for this date” territory being produced as you watched. How very scary! From late April, all the way through July or so… record-setting low extents “for this date”.
Surely, this must imply ominous things for the minimum extent that will happen for that you. Why, that minimum is sure to be staggeringly low. I wonder how it will turn out?
Oh wait, I’m in the future too… so I know now how it turned out. That “lowest extent in recorded data for this date” turned out to have no predictive value whatsoever for how the minimum would turn out, or for that matter what the recovery leg would look like and the subsequent maximum, and therefore no reasonable predictions about ‘spirals’ can be made from something like this.
There is substantial jitter year-over-year with measurements that are this artificially crude. The graph should make that abundantly clear. I see these sorts of ‘records’ as “interesting” in much the same way that horoscopes, tea-leaf patterns or the I Ching are interesting.
We’ll know more about what happens this year after it has happened. Until then, continued plots of this nature will almost certainly create new excursions into ‘record breaking’ areas, if only because of the nature of how little data has been gathered so far in such a jittery process.
Argh! “for that you.” should be “for that year.”
May 25, 2010 at 10:22 pm
How come that “effects of greenhouse warming” were not able to beat historical temperature records in Arctic so far?
http://climexp.knmi.nl/data/icrutem3_hadsst2_0-360E_70-90N_na.png
Not speaking about the starting decline. Hide the decline! HIDE THE DECLINE!
__________________________________________________________________________
GEE, is that little hook at the end of the graph the “tipping point”???…if so it is a travesty it is not headed up instead of down.
For some of you who may actually have the time and inclination to play with some atmospheric and ocean radiative transfer models yourself. Try:
http://snowdog.larc.nasa.gov/jin/rtset.html
And to play with albedo, windspeed, longitude, etc, try:
http://snowdog.larc.nasa.gov/jin/albedofind.html
As you play with the above models (which have proven quite accurate by the way) you’ll see there is a lot more to SW absorption by the oceans than simply longitude.
REPLY: “playing” with models is what got us all into this mess. -A
This article has a graph showing Reflectivity of smooth water at 20 C (refractive index=1.333)” for those asking about the reflection of infrared light by water. The article also states “water is usually considered to have a very low albedo in spite of its high reflectivity at high angles of incident light.” That statement seems to indicate that steve was correct polar light, coming in at a “high angle” is going to get reflected and not absorbed. As indicated by the statement “Although the reflectivity of water is very low at low and medium angles of incident light, it increases tremendously at high angles of incident light such as occur on the illuminated side of the Earth near the terminator (early morning, late afternoon and near the poles)”
The article is here: http://www.answers.com/topic/albedo
Anthony said:
“REPLY: And clear windy days in the Arctic are likely to be the exception, not the norm. This document (a class synopsis) at http://www.uccs.edu/~faculty/chuber/ges100/Chapt4-McK9.doc
From Carole Huber of the University of Colorado says in section 6C agrees with what Steve says
C. Latitudinal Radiation Balance (Figs 4-23 and 4-24)
1. energy surplus in low latitudes, from 28oN to 33oS
2. energy deficit in latitudes poleward of 28oN and 33oS
Section 7c says:
1) in water turbulent mixing and ocean currents (convection) disperse heat more broadly and deeply
So the question is then, on a clear windy day, does the wavy turbulent water gain more heat than it loses? Given the mass transport (spray, which increases radiative surface area) from wind and constant mixing, it would seem not.
The wave to greater insolation effect you propose certainly exists sometimes, dependent on weather, but is small in the overall radiation balance.
_____________
Certainly some ideas of merit here, however many more variables are also to be considered, such as the fact of the type of cloud cover there is, as LW backradiation increases on days with stratus cloud cover etc.
Also, in general, I went into some detail on the effect of waves and SW absorption simply because I felt under a bit of attack from certain posters who seemed to riducle the idea that waves could affect albedo, and hence the absorption of SW radiation.
In sum, it still seems that an open arctic ocean certainly absorbs more SW radiation that some might imagine simply by looking at it from only a time of year or longitudinal basis, as there are many more factors at work, which one can play with for hours (if you’re really bored) here:
http://snowdog.larc.nasa.gov/jin/rtset.html
Gail Combs says:
May 26, 2010 at 9:22 am
The Corporation OWNS your information.
Yes, private for-profit corporations pretty much have written the laws to protect themselves and their profits. Look at the way RCA stole FM radio from Prof. Armstrong and drove him to suicide:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Howard_Armstrong
(another Columbia professor, BTW).
However, NASA is not a private for-profit corporation.
Trying to muzzle a high-profile NASA scientist and Columbia Professor, while at scientific conferences, has a high political cost in the self-proclaimed “Leader of the Free World”.
It was an interesting story – snippets below:
Compare to Alan Carlin, low level economist in the EPA, speaking out on FOX News and in the media against what he thinks is incorrect science being used by the Obama Administration:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvBEvwCrwUg
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/25/science/earth/25epa.html?pagewanted=all
I guess his resume was in order 🙂
For readers interested in arctic sea ice extent during the 1950s and early 1960s, NSIDC has a product online at their data section called “Environmental Working Group Joint US-Russian Arctic Sea Ice Atlas” which shows schematic maps of extent.
Anu said in reply to me;
“The satellite data for the Arctic ice in the early 1970′s shows that it was even “historically higher”, then.”
Thank you for the genuinely interesting link concerning commencement of satellite coverage of ice from December 1972. This satellite only operated for three years until 1976 and had two major limitations in calculating ice, which is why satellite recording is said to begin from 1979. We can agree however that the 1970’s generally were a period of high ice, as this coincided with the global cooling scare-much more widely believed then than many like to accept today.
As for anecdotal evidence being inferior to computer models (which even the IPCC admit are unreliable) here are a series of links demonstrating that ‘abnormality’ is the norm as far as sea ice melt is concerned
The start of Satellite measuring in 1979 coincided with peak ice, following a extended cooling period, which is why arctic scientists always speak of subsequent decline; History suggests you should look at a much longer time scale than thirty years which will put the modern era into its proper context..
Link 1 Ice extent maximum- Depends if you are talking winter or summer but ‘decline’ starts around 1979 from a high point.
http://geology.com/articles/northwest-passage.shtml
Link 2 This also shows the same;
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.area.jpg
Link 3 The IPCC report confirms this p351/2 figures 4.8 4.9 4.10
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter4.pdf
Link 4 The concerns over global cooling in the 70’s did have some basis in fact. There were a series of low temperatures in many arctic areas during the 1960’s and 70’s which ice would have corresponded to by growing.
http://www.greenworldtrust.org.uk/Science/Scientific/Arctic.htm
Link 5 From the CIA further confirmation of the cold period during this time.
http://www.climatemonitor.it/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/1974.pdf
As the IPCC show, the start of the satellite period therefore roughly coincided with a period of peak ice-so it is not at all surprising that as part of its natural cycle it should subsequently decline.
Link 6: The IPCC are not very good at their historic reconstructions and generally view actual observations as ‘anecdotal.’ They seem to believe that history did not start before 1979. My article examines the arctic melting in the period 1810-1860 -see notes at bottom of article with additional references.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/20/historic-variation-in-arctic-ice/#comments
Link 7: The next two links are good studies showing the arctic melting from the 1920’s to 1940’s; The first shows a warm period during the 1930s and 1940s with temperatures as high as those of today ftp://ftp.whoi.edu/pub/users/mtimmermans/ArcticSymposiumTalks/Smolyanitsky.pdf
Link 8: The second link illustrates reduced sea ice extent during this period, which only later returned to the high levels measured at the start of the latest retreating cycle in 1979 (when satellite measurements started).
http://meteo.lcd.lu/globalwarming/Chylek/greenland_warming.html
Link 9: The melting in the period 1920-1940 is very well documented.
Expeditions to the arctic to view the melting ice became the equivalent of todays celebrity jaunts to the area. The most famous were those mounted by Bob Bartlett on the Morrissey. I have carried extracts from his diary before-amongst the observation are a description of a mile wide face of a glacier falling in to the sea. There are pathe news reels of his voyages dating from the era, as well as books on the subject. Here is a bibliography of material relating to him. The diaries are of particlar interest.
http://www.nlpubliclibraries.ca/nlcollection/pdf/guides/NL_Collection_Guide_11.pdf
Link 10 Bernaerts, A. (2007). Can the “Big Warming” at Spitsbergen from 1918 to 1940 be explained? PACON 2007 Proceedings 325-337.
http://www.arctic-heats-up.com/pdf/Submitted_conference_paper.pdf
Link 11 This shows a variety of arctic warming events over the last 150 years
http://www.examiner.com/x-32936-Seminole-County-Environmental-News-Examiner~y2010m3d2-Arctic-Ocean-is-warming-icebergs-growing-scarcer-reports-Washington-Post
Link 12: We have got this far citing instances of warming and not even mentioned the Vikings 1000 years ago…instead let’s look at another Arctic culture that thrived 1000 years before the Vikings;
From the Eskimo Times Monday, Mar. 17, 1941
“The corner of Alaska nearest Siberia was probably man’s first threshold to the Western Hemisphere. So for years archeologists have dug there for a clue to America’s prehistoric past. Until last year, all the finds were obviously Eskimo. Then Anthropologists Froelich G. Rainey of the University of Alaska and two collaborators struck the remains of a town, of inciedible size and mysterious culture. Last week in Natural History Professor Rainey, still somewhat amazed, described this lost Arctic city.
It lies at Ipiutak on Point Hope, a bleak sandspit in the Arctic Ocean, where no trees and little grass survive endless gales at 30° below zero. But where houses lay more than 2,000 years ago, underlying refuse makes grass and moss grow greener. The scientists could easily discern traces of long avenues and hundreds of dwelling sites. A mile long, a quarter-mile wide, this ruined city was perhaps as big as any in Alaska today (biggest: Juneau, pop. 5,700).
On the Arctic coast today an Eskimo village of even 250 folk can catch scarcely enough seals, whales, caribou to live on. What these ancient Alaskans ate is all the more puzzling because they seem to have lacked such Arctic weapons as the Eskimo harpoon.
Yet they had enough leisure to make many purely artistic objects, some of no recognizable use. Their carvings are vaguely akin to Eskimo work but so sophisticated and elaborate as to indicate a relation with some centre of advanced culture — perhaps Japan or southern Siberia —certainly older than the Aztec or Mayan.
This link leads to the Academy of science report of the same year regarding the Ipiutak culture described above
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1078291
Link 13 This from the late John Daly has numerous references to previous periods of arctic warming.
http://www.john-daly.com/polar/arctic.htm
Link 14: This link shows various historic maps which again show that modern ice melt is the norm, not the exception. One of Greenland shows it as two separated islands and was cited by a polar French expedition which asserted that there is an ice cap joining what it is actually two islands. This extraordinary claim is backed up by observations from an 1820 Greenland expedition whereby locals remarked on folk lore which said the same thing. (see reference in Link 6)
http://www.nymapsociety.org/FEATURES/TRAGER.HTM
Link 15
We seem to have known more about dispersal of ice by wind and currents 150 years ago than we do now, factors which have a profound efect on extent, area, and melting. Many books date from the scientific expeditions mounted since 1820 that examined the ‘unprecdented ice melt in the arctic reported to the Royal Sociery. This book dates from 1870
http://www.archive.org/stream/arcticgeographye00roya#page/28/mode/2up
Certain of us seem reluctant to learn the lessons of history-in this case that there are periods of melting and refreeze of the Arctic area that appear to follow a roughly 60/70 year cycle. The early satellite records coincided with one of the High spots of Arctic ice following a long cool period and we may or may not be at the low point in the cycle-that will become clearer over the next five years.
Whatever the alarmists may believe, at present our modern era is not displaying any climate characteristics that have not been experienced in past ages of humanity.
tonyb
drunkenson says:
May 26, 2010 at 2:45 am
“A pedant is someone who interferes with small words”
I wonder if it is a syndrom? And the name for it would then be … what?
This AGW hysteria might be known (in 2035) as Munch-Hansen syndrom.
I avoided the s at the end. Not sure whether it would be
Munch-Hansen’s or
Munch-Hansens syndrom.
hehe.
Anu says:
May 26, 2010 at 9:02 am
tonyb says:
May 26, 2010 at 12:23 am
It melted abnormally in the period 1915 to 1940
It melted abnormally in the period 1820 to 1860 (see my article here)
It melted abnormally in the period 1700-1740
It melted abnormally in the 1400′s.
It melted extremely abnormally around 1000 AD (the Vikings) and 1000 years before that (The Ipiatuk).
Did it ever disappear entirely in the summer melt during these times ?
No?
Then if it does this century, that would be “extremely abnormal”, would you agree ?
___________________________________________________________________________
Yes it probably melted around 1000 AD – the Vikings
Here are the Greenland temperatures: Greenland Ice Core Data
Please note, during the time when the vikings (Norse) were in Greenland, Greenland was a full 2C warmer than today. If everyone is bleating “It’s Melting” today then during the period 986 to 1121, when we know the Norse were sailing in that area to hunt whale, seal and polar bears, it would have to have been ice free during the summer. If it was not ice free, at that much higher temperature, then what the heck are the believers in AGW so worried about? (Sorry R. Gates you can not have it both ways – frozen for the vikings and melted for the future) Either that 2C is critical and means an Ice free Arctic during the time of the Norse occupation of Greenland or it is not critical and the Arctic is safe “from a death spiral”
And yes the Norse were all over the Arctic including on an island in the Arctic circle.
“…The settlers found that the area to the north of the Western Settlement, called the Nordseta, was good for hunting, fishing and gathering driftwood. A stone inscribed with runes has been found telling that in 1333, three Greenlanders wintered on the island of Kingigtorssuaq just below 73 degrees north. There is also evidence of voyages to the Canadian arctic. Two cairns have been discovered in Jones Sound above 76 degrees North and two more have been found on Washington Irving Island at 79 degrees north….” http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehistory/vikings/Greenland.html
Washington Irving Island is at the entrance to Dobbin Bay, eastern Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada See the map and notice this area is well within the arctic circle and not that far from the north pole.
How the heck did they build a rock cairn on an island without sailing to it while it was warm enough to dig those rocks out of the ground, in other words while the sea was not frozen. Ellesmere Island is about 1000 km or 600 miles from the north pole (measured on the computer screen)
R. Gates says:
May 26, 2010 at 7:15 am
You are not a dull person, I’ll give you that.
As for current anomalises:
Arctic = -1.010
Antarctic = 0.799
Global = -0.211
The Teeter-Totter of Icy Anomalies.
Vincent says:
May 26, 2010 at 1:11 am
I see now. So whereas a trend would go straight down, a death spiral goes up and down.
It’s <- called milking the audience.
Has anyone ever considered that reduced Arctic sea ice may be the driver and increased temperatures are the result? How would we know?
I decided on a name for this polar bear – Triumph, the insult comic polar bear.
Triumph says… “Yes, Mr. Hansen your point that the Arctic is nearing a melt tipping point is a most excellent one – for me to poop on!”
—-
True but alarmists are alarmingly good at wiggling their way out from under the facts. Faced with the facts concerning past climate they predictably will turn to the rate at which those climates changed. As information becomes available to ascertain that today’s rate is comparably unremarkable they turn to ocean pH. When caught trying to explain how CO2 can lower ocean pH when CO2 being released from the warming oceans was part of their positive feedback argument, they turn to plant life transpiration being reduced by more CO2 as a ‘new’ positive feedback or that the MWP obviously didn’t happen in the southern hemisphere because no one wrote about it back then or it’s back to some ‘new’ worse news about disease or…. there’s just no end to their weasel ways.
People like Hansen just keep making one unproven claim after the next that are parroted by their shills in MSM leaving us to try to rebuff them in blogs like this one, (that progressive thugs would love to muzzle if they could).
So I think it’s time to encourage a permanent Anthony Watts spot on Fox News to counter the statements of political hacks like Hansen in the same media that they get to bathe in. My suggestion for a name is “Time for Climate Clarity” by Anthony Watts.
???
Richard M
NSIDC reports that warm autumn air temperatures in the Arctic are often due to heat released from seawater as it freezes.
Vincent, Reur May 26, 2010 at 1:08 am
Some visible light which is NOT reflected by the skin is in fact absorbed via dermal molecular excitation from photons, and is thus converted to HEAT, which is sensed by the nerve endings. (in addition to the solar near IR/near IR, a higher percentage of which is NOT reflected, but some is absorbed by the atmospheric GHG’s on the way in)
Gail Combs says:
May 26, 2010 at 11:08 am
I am sure you are referring to Page 446 of the IPCC 4AR which has the following text, “ Ice core records show that atmospheric CO2 varied in the range 180 to 300 ppm over the glacial-interglacial cycles of the last 650kyr…”
Don’t be so sure of yourself.
I was referring to “pre-industrial” CO2 level of 280 ppm – but “pre” in this context means 8 to 20 centuries, not 650,000 years or 550 million years. Technically, since the formation of the Earth (or since the Big Bang
theory) up until 1750 or so has been “pre-industrial”, but for the purposes of CO2 doubling and climate response, a few centuries suffices.The value given by IPCC 2001, page 185, is 280 ± 10 ppm.
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/pns/current_ghg.html
CO2: Pre-1750 tropospheric concentration: 280
Concentrations in parts per million (ppm)
The Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC) is the primary climate-change data and information analysis center of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). CDIAC is located at DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and includes the World Data Center for Atmospheric Trace Gases.
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2005/s2412.htm
Scientific measurements of levels of CO2 contained in cylinders of ice, called ice cores, indicate that the pre-industrial carbon dioxide level was 278 ppm. That level did not vary more than 7 ppm during the 800 years between 1000 and 1800 A.D.
Although the Miocene (23 to 5.3 million years ago) is “pre-industrial”, the CO2 caused global warming will be wrt the 280 ppm of the last 1000 years.
Paleoclimatologists study these long-ago climates, but since the data on continent locations, sea levels, atmospheric compositions, exact solar TSI, biosphere, volcanic eruptions and meteorite impacts, for example, are very poor, it is hard to plug these “initial conditions” into the GCM’s of today to see how the climate evolved, back then.
That’s not to say it hasn’t been attempted:
http://www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2005/permian.shtml
Again, the main problem is lack of detailed starting conditions for these climatic models, which, with the satellites and Argo floats and Arctic airplane flights and data stations on every continent, is much better in the last century.
Note that for the Permian modelling, the Sun itself is much dimmer 251 million years ago (about 2.5% dimmer).
Does Dr. James Hansen make reckless extrapolations way beyond existing data or without any data at all? Sure.
Is the summer sea ice disappearing because of some mysterious “tipping point”? Probably not.
It doesn’t require a tipping point. All it takes is a slowly increasing arctic temperature decade after decade. The September 21 ice edge will slowly creep farther north every decade until most of the Canadian and Greenland northern shoreline is melt zone and then the wind or current will push the remaining ice into melt zones and bye bye summer ice.
At the rate the ice is disappearing, it will be totally melted by around 2040. (A reckless extrapolation of course.) Fortunately, it always comes back when the lights go out after the equinox.
Hansen predicted that at the latest within 10 years from now the road that is visible from his office (adjascent to the Hudson River) will be under water. If it is not he will either be retired or dead and will probably refuse to answer questions from the media. Oops! Sorry, from the sceptics. ;o)
R. Gates says:
May 25, 2010 at 4:43 pm
I don’t really care what the arctic does.
What would the impact be if the whole thing went away?
Nothing.
And if it did go away, what evidence is there that mankind had anything do to with it?
@Gail Combs says:
May 26, 2010 at 2:36 pm
What about the one Christopher Monckton got flack for quoting, the Chinese Navy sailing round an ice free Arctic in 1421; http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/pseudosc/1421.htm
I am in no doubt that there was an extremely hot N.H summer that year, no ice at all may be a bit of artistic licence though.
@Vincent says:
May 26, 2010 at 1:08 am
” Can you explain why it is that IR feels warm on your skin but radiation in the visible spectrum only would not feel warm? What is it about IR that it can do this but visible can’t?”
Have you ever held a torch against closed fingers and seen them glow red? I.R. and some visible red penetrates into the flesh, the rest of the visible spectrum and U.V. gets relflected, or absorbed into the skin, and re-emitted as light and radiation, varying depending on your skin colour. Dark skin absorbs and radiates heat faster.
Mike says: The heat would not have been in the water to radiate out if the ice had been there. The amount of energy radiating out of the dark ocean is less than the amount that would be reflected and radiated back by the white ice.
Sorry, but no. At the ICCC there was a very interesting presentation ( I can look up the reference if I need to, but it was in one of the Science Tracks, I think Track 1) that showed that the Pacific heats up, then over 18 years, that heat slowly propagates north until it hits Alaska and enters the Arctic Ocean. That heat radiating from the Arctic is from 18 year old Pacific water heating. So, mark your calendar. Peak Heat was 1998 or so, add 18, that’s 2016. From that time onward, the Arctic starts freezing up very very hard. You have at most 6 more years of panic over arctic ice, then we head back to severe cold arctic conditions.
BTW, that will also be when Polar Bears start dying (now they are thriving and increasing in numbers due to the greater ease of catching seals through the holes in the ice). Also note, the Polar Bears in the San Diego Zoo have no problems with the heat and don’t do any ‘fasting’ in the summer… These guys are just a white and more aquatic version of the Grizz, and have no problem eating warm things in warm weather. If you do not believe that, please rub bacon on yourself and go for a stroll on the edge of Polar Bear country…