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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ROM says:
June 13, 2010 at 5:47 pm
Models, models, models!
I’ve dated some. It’s worse than you think. 🙁
Bill Illis
June 13, 2010 at 4:03 pm
If you did want to, and if Anthony approved, would you do a post on Arctic temps, ‘Polar Amplification’, with the paleo record, and the ‘Raw undetrended Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO)’ figures you had in your comment. You know way too much to just be a commentator.
Overland probably also thinks hot water can freeze faster than warm water.
I think the only ones NOT lying, are the geologists.. 😉
The region is warming more than twice as fast as the rest of the planet, a phenomenon known as Arctic amplification.
——
Ok, the amp’s unplugged. Why didn’t someone at NOAA tell it was still on?
Thanks, Olaf. As a geologist, I take that as a compliment. Geologists view the earth in million- and billion-year timeframes, with a wide variety of climate, and in none of those is man a factor. None. Man is merely an observer.
This is from a paper on the cutting edge of understanding. It shouldn’t be taken as gospel, no matter how confident Overland feels. Rasmus at Real Climate doesn’t, for example.
This is one of the components of the issue that should currently be taken as unsettled science. Same goes for obs on the proposed Arctic amplification. Not enough data yet.
I read it.
I laughed, fell off my chair, got back on my chair, laughed harder then fell off again.
Proving Einstein right, I hopped back on my chair, laughed and fell off once more.
Seriously though – politically, the Elites have lost contact with (A) The Public’s ire (B) Reality and (C) Consequences for lying to Us…
Their lackeys – embedded or ‘in-bed-with’ Journalists pump out absurd drama’s also immune to the ABC mentioned, as if they’ll be spared.
Finally, their techno-bable priests rattle out a prognostication a minute, also ignorant of AB & C, hopeful to get a spot in the forthcoming apocalyptic Green zone – now with 90% more Green.
They have become a thoroughly self-encapsulated Oligarchy of petulant morons fast tracking their own species to self annihilation, as some kind of mass human sacrifice to craven and false Gods. Why they don’t just prove their chops, storm Valhalla and wrestle with Odin, if they would be gods then why not?
Cos they’re full of [SNIP] and they know it.
keep an eye out for regional bargin sales of burning torches, pitchforks and kitchen knives,
could be a real money spinner during the recession.
Such a mish-mash from a climate “scientist.” He has no idea that Arctic warming is not caused by the greenhouse effect or by some magical ”Arctic amplification” but by warm currents entering the Arctic and melting ice. Peak warming occurred in the thirties. But it was interrupted from 1940 to 1960 and then resumed. By 2003 it had reached the level of the thirties and is now beyond it. What got it started in the first place was a rearrangement of the North Atlantic current system at the turn of the twentieth century that directed the Gulf Stream unto its present northerly course. Prior to that there had been a two thousand year cooling period as documented by Kaufman et al. last September. They themselves thought that carbon dioxide caused the warming but laws of physics rule it out. The Gulf Stream today enters the Arctic in a broad front between Iceland and Scandinavia and keeps the Russian Arctic ports ice free in the summer. It has melted away approximately a third of the sea ice that would exist in its absence. A smaller amount of warm water enters through the Bering Strait. Thanks to winds in 2007 more than the usual amount came through and melted a large puddle just north of the strait while the Gulf Stream side hardly changed. To get more details read “What Warming?” available from Amazon.com.
http://video.hint.no/mmt201v10/osc/?vid=55
Good Luck refuting Barber…
Reply: Uh..the “rotten ice” guy? How about this? “We saw something different than we expected from the satellite data. We had no comparable previous expedition for comparison, but we know it’s worse than we thought”. How’s that for a refutation?
Or you can read this post about Barber.
~ ctm who can break my objective moderation rule because this is my post.
The inducements of wealth, fame and power clearly motivate those who are willing to lie for advantage.
There is a great writeup of Anthony Watts’ Sydney talk on Belmont Club by Richard Fernandez.
@Wren: Mpemba effect?
It is unlikely that the Arctic can return to its previous condition…
Of course it is.
Panta rei!
Everything flows (changes). Even the old Greeks knew this. That statement will be true whatever happens. Unless nothing happens. Which in fact is very unlikely. 🙂
“analyzed projections from six computer models, including three with sophisticated sea ice physics capabilities.”
Oh dear!
I’m so impressed! A super duper computer with magic capabilities! Can I touch you?
Wren says:
June 13, 2010 at 9:07 pm
I don’t know about HOT water freezing faster than warm, but it is true that WARM water will freeze quicker than cold water.
You can do the experiment in your freezer.
You have to admit though it is a very clever trick. If reality destroys your beliefs then change the reality to suit, cults do it all the time and the political classes have become experts at it over time.
What is rather sad is how people can twist and contort their principles rather than admit their beliefs are mistaken, the fact that so money and prestige has been loaded onto scientists who have peddled the AGW myth means it will be so much harder to admit their own falibility and errors.
This whole turbo charged ‘plate tectonics’ fiasco is going to destroy a whole generation of scientists, the damage done to real science will be lasting, the utter waste of money has set science back decades with real scientists unable to do real work.
This coming winter looks like it will be the hardest in living memory and many will suffer with massive increases in energy bills in the middle of a deep recession and no money left to adapt to the new reality, we can look forward to years of long cold winters and the real suffering will commence for ordinary people . Its always the ordianary people who suffer for the utter stupidity of our ruling classes.
As an addendum to my post above, the condition is called the Mpemba effect.
Here is A LINK that explains why this happens under certain conditions.
According to the temperature datasets from CRU and UAH, the Arctic has not warmed at all for several years. And according to the CRU record, it is about as warm now as it was around 1940. So how could it become warmer faster than the rest of the world?
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.
So, warmer Arctic air (lower pressure) will cause colder Equatorial air (higher pressure) to flow northward, thus boosting cooling in the Temperate Zones?
Got it, boss.
So, now we know the *real* reason lizards are disappearing in Mexico and Africa — they’re hiding under the Equatorial snow blanket.
It’s a real shame for those of us (me as well) about to feel the consequences of the impending economic meltdown, but at least it will divert media attention from climate catastrophe and who knows, may even divert some funding away from the green mafia. Can but hope
It must be already happening……surely unprecedented! Cold loving fungus found in southern England.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8732000/8732421.stm
Overland’s bizarre conclusions are testimony of the poor state of climate “science” at NOAA.
It appears to be ambitious to draw long term conclusions from a 2 year weather pattern, especially, if previous theories are overturned.
On the other side, Overland is now only 1 step away from claiming that artic warming may cause global cooling.
When I first started work, an old bloke on the job summed up politicians, civil servants and all the types who want to spend someone elses money, in one sentence about the laws of forecasting on the toss of a coin – ‘Heads they win, tails you lose!”
James Allison:
We’d be happy to offer Overland a guest post or more, but given my attitude towards his pronouncements expressed here I may not be the best one to contact him.
Feel free and let us know the results.