By charles the moderator
From the “No matter what happens we can attribute it to Anthropogenic Climate Change” Department.
In a story in physorg.com James Overland of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, makes a few claims which will give some of our readers pause.
While it may seem counter-intuitive, warmer Arctic climes caused by climate change influence air pressure at the North Pole, shifting wind patterns in such a way as to boost cooling over adjacent swathes of the planet.
“Cold and snowy winters will be the rule rather than the exception,” said James Overland of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Continued rapid loss of ice will be an important driver of major change in the world’s climate system in the coming years, he said at an Olso meeting of scientists reviewing research from the two-year International Polar Year 2007-2008.
The exceptionally chilly winter of 2009-2010 in temperate zones of the northern hemisphere were connected to unique physical processes in the Arctic, he said.
“The emerging impact of greenhouse gases in an important factor in the changing Arctic,” he explained in a statement.
“What was not fully recognized until now is that a combination of an unusual warm period due to natural variability, loss of sea ice reflectivity, ocean heat storage, and changing wind patterns all working together to disrupt the memory and stability of the Arctic climate system,” he said.
The region is warming more than twice as fast as the rest of the planet, a phenomenon known as Arctic amplification.
Resulting ice loss is significantly greater than earlier climate models predicted.
The polar ice cap shrank to its smallest surface since records have been kept in 2007, and early data suggests it could become even smaller this summer.
Source here. Bolding mine.
Now just over a year ago, NOAA put this out, again quoting Overland.
“The Arctic is changing faster than anticipated,” said James Overland, an oceanographer at NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory and co-author of the study, which will appear April 3 in Geophysical Research Letters. “It’s a combination of natural variability, along with warmer air and sea conditions caused by increased greenhouse gases.”
Overland and his co-author, Muyin Wang, a University of Washington research scientist with the Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean in Seattle, analyzed projections from six computer models, including three with sophisticated sea ice physics capabilities. That data was then combined with observations of summer sea ice loss in 2007 and 2008.
The area covered by summer sea ice is expected to decline from its current 4.6 million square kilometers (about 1.8 million square miles) to about 1 million square kilometers (about 390,000 square miles) – a loss approximately two-fifths the size of the continental U.S. Much of the sea ice would remain in the area north of Canada and Greenland and decrease between Alaska and Russia in the Pacific Arctic.
“The Arctic is often called the ‘Earth’s refrigerator’ because the sea ice helps cool the planet by reflecting the sun’s radiation back into space,” said Wang. “With less ice, the sun’s warmth is instead absorbed by the open water, contributing to warmer temperatures in the water and the air.”
Bolding mine. Source again here. So… while this is not a direct contradiction, it is sort of a morphing of ideas. To paraphrase the what was not fully recognized.
We used to think that a warming Arctic with melting ice would be part of a warming trend, but instead, we got a lot of snow and cold weather, so the warming Arctic kinda messed with all those, you know, patterns and stuff like that we expected like. So that snow and rain and cold and other stuff we didn’t predict or expect… you know what I’m sayin’? It was caused by, you know, the crazy mixed up stuff caused by all that melting and warming and stuff, yeah…that’s it.
or to phrase it another way:
AGW moves in mysterious ways.
But the money shot is here from the physorg.com article.
It is unlikely that the Arctic can return to its previous condition, Overland said. The changes are irreversible.
It is likely someone will remind Dr. Overland of that statement in a few years.
h/t “K”
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It seems to me that it’s worse now than what it was before it was as bad as it is now.
Please confirm that i have got that right or not or………
[REPLY – It’s definitely one for Yogi Berra. ~ Evan]
“The Arctic has a memory?”
James Overland is well aware that the Arctic is a very sensitive part of Gaia and we all know she has a memory.
Charles – do people like Overland who briefly become the centre of our collective attention ever get emailed a link to the relevant WUWT post and offered an opportunity to join the discussion?
Could be worthwhile from both sides.
This is so embarrassing, that I’m noticing that even the most dutiful trolls have abandoned this baby en masse.
If the Arctic warms twice as fast as the rest of the globe cools, well…
the Arctic wins a moot point being outvoted in area.
Back of the envelope, please: How many warming Arctics fit in the cooling N. Temperate Zone?
I’m sorry, but a theory that any observation supports is a junk theory.
A theory of global warming that is supported by evidence of warming, cooling, more storms and less storms, etc. is garbage.
Well, look at it this way.
At least they/he admitted we had a cold winter.
“The exceptionally chilly winter of 2009-2010”
Can’t even use the word “cold”…………….
Just another instalment of AGW verbal diarrhea, but I have to agree with this statement:
“It is unlikely that the Arctic can return to its previous condition, Overland said. The changes are irreversible.”
I think he is right, we are slowly going in to (using climate modellers terminology)
LIA second edition or LIA v. 2.0
INGSOC says:
June 13, 2010 at 1:31 pm
They really do think we are stupid. I am still waiting for all the supposed “principled” scientists to start jumping off the global warming dog and pony show.
I don’t trust science any more.
Please, don’t say that… Undergrowth science has existed always; nevertheless, the efforts of some people to vanish the usefulness of science have always ended in nothing and science will always be successful. These small slips will finish in a reinforcing of the real science, but true scientists must insist on revealing where the pseudoscience lies.
Jimbo asks:
Why do these people continue with their failed predictions?
Because they are paid to do so. The government employed scientist produces the scientific results that are required by the government bureaucracy.
The “scientists” in the employ of the government, AKA bureaucrats with degrees, are simply doing what ever is necessary for them to continue receiving a pay slip. The political warming bureaucrats need the scientific warming bureaucrats to produce more warming. And the scientist warmers are paid by the political warmers.
This is a far clearer cause-and-effect relationship than any pseudo-science.
“If the Arctic warms twice as fast as the rest of the globe cools, well…
the Arctic wins a moot point being outvoted in area.”
If it were happening, but it isn’t.
What I believe is happening is pretty simple. The abyssal oceans are still recovering slowly in temperature from the LIA. We are talking about a HUGE amount of water from, say, 300 meters down to the bottom. If it increases in temperature by 0.01 degrees, it releases a large amount of CO2 to the atmosphere.
The surface water is more tightly coupled to the atmosphere and surface conditions (sunlight, cloud cover, etc). The deep water has a lot of “thermal inertia”. It takes a long time to change its temperature. I believe the surface water has recovered from the LIA but I also believe that the abyssal water is still recovering.
The planet experienced the coldest period since the Younger Dryas that lasted some 300 to 400 years. I do not believe the abyssal waters can recover in only 100 to 150 years. It is still recovering, in my view, and still releasing CO2 and will for probably another 100 to 200 years if we do not go back into another cool period.
Chad Woodburn asks:
My question is, when the inevitable cycle of climate change takes us into an indisputable cooling period, how will they blame that on our CO2?
I can explain that to you, but I will have to resort to Portuguese 🙂
“The region is warming more than twice as fast as the rest of the planet, a phenomenon known as Arctic amplification.”
Especially when amplified by fresh asphalt at Svalbard airport, UHI at Alert, Barrow, and Eureka, and faulty logging of temperatures all over the place. (The missing “M’s”)
“The Arctic is often called the ‘Earth’s refrigerator’ because the sea ice helps cool the planet by reflecting the sun’s radiation back into space,” said Wang.
==============
Said Wang.
James Overland: “It’s a combination of natural variability, along with warmer air and sea conditions caused by increased greenhouse gases.”
============================
Circular reasoning in action! [And funded by the taxpayer no doubt.]
NOAA has no shame it seems, to let him talk like this.
Fire the bastard.
OH wait….I forgot. The current administration, unlike the last, is pro-science.
So whatever NOAA or NASA says….must be true.
Gimme a break.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
I just can’t wait to find out which one proves AGW theory. More snow or less snow.
Don’t you dare let them out of it! They said “no more snow” and there it sticks.
“It is unlikely that the Arctic can return to its previous condition, Overland said. The changes are irreversible.”
1) This will affect me how?
2) irreversible; sounds bad, change your vote bad ?
The believers will buy it.
We’ve had guest threads here within the past year by Hansen and a couple by the head of NSIDC. There may have been one or two more. I hope someone here will provide links.
I think this is all rather easy to figure out in terms of how heat gets up there to melt stuff. Both the Pacific and Atlantic have a slow oceanic conveyor belt that eventually gets around to the openings of the Arctic, though usually not at the same time. Coupled with AO forces, you get warm currents (and those currents warm the air as well) melting the leading edge of the ice as it flows and spreads out of Fram, or gets pushed in, and likewise at the other opening. Eventually cool waters will follow those warm waters and lead to less melting, depending on the wind of course. Occasionally the forces work together to melt a bunch of it, or do the opposite, not melt much of it at all.
Finally, I don’t see the Earth being capable of turning sharp corners or stopping on a dime. So it might take years, or even decades, to go from one coupled condition to another.
Greenhouse gas re-radiation just isn’t a major player up there.
We are living in a time when Universities, agencies, academies, etc., are giving answers politicians want to hear:
“War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength.” and of course cold is hot.
Appologies to Mr. Orwell.
Al Gore live in Manila, June 8, 2010, about when the Arctic Ocean will be ice free:
“Some say in 5 years, some say in 10 years, some say in 20 years.”
Even according to James Overland, there is just a 25% chance that the Arctic will be ice free in any September by 2028. (see abstract
Well, at least a new sea ice minimum is very unlikely for 2010 according to: Seasonal Ensemble Forcast of Arctic Sea Ice 2010.
Overland knows he has a problem… if fact the AGW house of cards is on fire and he is trying to save the furniture with inside out/right side up speculation. Clearly by what I have read in the above article he’s reading tea leaves in a cup and doesn’t have a clue what’s going on.