By Steven Goddard,
From The Vancouver Sun, a survey of leading climate scientists.
“More than half the experts think there is a more than 10 per chance we’ll get five degrees C warming under that scenario,” he says. “And five degrees C is gigantic,” says Keith, noting it is enough to “knock out” the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. The meltwater would eventually raise sea level by as much as 100 metres.
The experts seem to be having a little difficulty with their maths. Temperatures have risen a whopping 0.7C over the last 120 ppm CO2 – but just for fun, let’s pretend that the next 150 ppm increase really did raise temperatures by 5C. What would that do to Antarctica? As you can see below, it would move the summer 0°C line inwards maybe 50 miles. At least 95% of the ice sheet would remain below freezing all year round. Ice does not melt below freezing. Warmer winter temperatures would mean more snow.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Antarctic_surface_temperature.png
The video below shows in green the areas of Antarctica which would move above 0C in summer with 5C warming.
Ah – but what about Polar Amplification? While the earth has warmed 0.7C, Antarctica has warmed about 0.0c. That gives us an amplifcation factor of zero.
Must be the Ozone? I’m curious how one gets to be a “climate expert.”
“Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts”
– Richard Feynman
RR Kampen says:
July 2, 2010 at 5:26 am
Comparable to temperature rises at the end of an ice age.
You can’t seriously be comparing our current climate to that at the end of an ice age. Apples to rutabagas.
Wren
What do you get if you multiply5C by 0.0?
Current levels of CO2 have a historical precedence for an Ice free Arctic at much higher temperatures, as discussed here,
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-06/uoca-acm062910.php
“A new study shows the Arctic climate system may be more sensitive to greenhouse warming than previously thought, and that current levels of Earth’s atmospheric carbon dioxide may be high enough to bring about significant, irreversible shifts in Arctic ecosystems.
Led by the University of Colorado at Boulder, the international study indicated that while the mean annual temperature on Ellesmere Island in the High Arctic during the Pliocene Epoch 2.6 to 5.3 million years ago was about 34 degrees Fahrenheit, or 19 degrees Celsius, warmer than today, CO2 levels were only slightly higher than present.
Our findings indicate that CO2 levels of approximately 400 parts per million are sufficient to produce mean annual temperatures in the High Arctic of approximately 0 degrees Celsius (32 degrees F),” Ballantyne said. “As temperatures approach 0 degrees Celsius, it becomes exceedingly difficult to maintain permanent sea and glacial ice in the Arctic. Thus current levels of CO2 in the atmosphere of approximately 390 parts per million may be approaching a tipping point for irreversible ice-free conditions in the Arctic.”
Considering CO2 levels have only really hit significantly ‘anomolous’ levels in the last 40 years, and the Arctic is well on the way to becoming summer ice free, seems that a measily 30% rise in CO2 has a pretty big influence on the geosphere.
@Bruce Cobb
‘“The risk just builds with every extra kilogram of CO2 we put in the air,” says Keith, who likens CO2 to nuclear waste.”
C02 is like nuclear waste? Amazing. Belief in CAGW/CC really does seem to be a type of mental illness.’
Aye, CDPD–Carbon Depraved Personality Disorder. Common symptoms: Grandiosity, Megalomania, Paranoid Delusional, and eventually Self incrimination.
“Ice does not melt below freezing. Warmer winter temperatures would mean more snow.”
Last time I watched a snow covered house, (temperature -4C) with ice pinnacles hanging from the gutter. The shadow side reflected that fact, but on the sun exposed side the snow had mostly melted and the pinnacles were dripping.
RR Kampen
The viscosity of ice at Antarctic temperatures is extremely high. You aren’t going to see any rapid flow of ice with a +5C change in temperature.
Much of the ice is also burying mountain ranges, and the assumption that there is a downwards slope under the ice is incorrect. Not to mention isostasy, which has formed a very deep bowl shaped depression in the mantle at the center of Antarctica.
Curious Yellow
What is the angle of the sun at the South Pole? Hint, the highest it ever gets is 23.5 degrees above the horizon. Do you think that Antarctica receives much solar energy?
Curious Yellow
Also, do you think that Antarctica is underlain by dark shingles and a central heating system? Have you ever seen icicles form at -30 to -80 C?
Fred says:
July 2, 2010 at 5:49 am
Frank K . . . You’ve nailed it.
When it looks like their Gravy Train is slowing down, or they feel the need for more time on the Fame Train, they just make up some sh*t and issue a press release to the media.
People become journalists because math & science were too difficult for them at college.
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Actually journalism is controlled by who OWNS the presses. I have seen this first hand on two occasions where the power of the nationwide press was used to spread lies and intentionally destroy an industry.
There seems to be some good news on this front though:
Transcript/Video Daniel Estulin Bilderberg Speech at EU Parliament
“..We can all congratulate ourselves in that today, Bilderberg has become the mainstay of corporate media. Not because corporate media has suddenly remembered their responsibility to us, but because we the people, have forced them into this uncomfortable position by becoming very aware that Presidents and Prime Ministers and your little shrinking Queens and Kings are puppets of powerful forces working from behind the scenes….”
Bilderberg by the way are the financial power brokers.
“..In the world of international finance, there are those who steer the events and those who react to the events. While the latter are better known, greater in numbers, and seemingly more powerful, the true power rests with the former. At the centre of the global financial system are the financial oligarchy today represented by the Bilderberg group… The idea behind each and every Bilderberg meeting is … the best way to manage the planet. In other words, the creation of a global network of giant cartels, more powerful than any nation on Earth, destined to control the necessities of life of the rest of humanity…”
Remember the dust up at Copenhagen when the “Danish text” draft agreement was leaked? “The “Danish text” hands control of the global adaptation fund to the World Bank”
You can not separate CAGW from the politics involved or the money. Actually CAGW is all about politics, “science” is just the candy coating used to disguise the poison. If it was only about science Climategate and the IPCC gates would have killed it dead by now and the media would have had a feeding frenzy that would have made the original Watergate look like an old ladies’ tea party. Instead the journalists have ignored the potential Pulitzer Prize-winning opportunities, and that takes big money and tight control.
Steve,
The mass balance probe in Barrow is no longer operational. From http://seaice.alaska.edu/gi/observatories/barrow_sealevel
“The Mass Balance Probe was recovered from the ice and is not operational anymore since 14 June 2010.”
Every indication I’ve seen shows the shorefast ice is gone. I believe it is you who is quite confused.
Steven Goddard: You wrote, “While the earth has warmed 0.7C, Antarctica has warmed about 0.0c. That gives us an amplifcation factor of zero.”
Then you show a GISTEMP Land Surface Temperature trend map (1950 to 2009) to further confirm that the “Antarctica has warmed about 0.0c.” Apparently you didn’t plot the data, because, if you had, you would not have used it as an example. GISTEMP Antarctic Land Surface Temperature anomalies (1200km smoothing) show a positive linear trend of 0.13 deg C/decade.
http://i46.tinypic.com/nb9axg.jpg
Also Polar Amplification does not apply to the high latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere. Refer to the Wikipedia discussion on Polar Ampolification. They write in the opening paragraph, “Polar amplification is defined by International Arctic Science Committee on page 23 of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment ‘Polar amplification (greater temperature increases in the Arctic compared to the earth as a whole) is a result of the collective effect of these feedbacks and other processes.'[1] It does not apply to the Antarctic, because the Southern Ocean acts as a heat sink.”
jcrabb,
An intelligent person might have concluded that the increase in temperature had nothing to do with CO2. We are currently at 400ppm, and temperatures in the high Arctic remain very cold. Do you realize how daft this is?
The movement that demands we impose policies to manage the climate by regulating CO2 is a social mania, not a science-based movement. Scientists who enable this movement in the way that this report and so many others have only serve to make the mania worse not better.
Pielke, jr. at his site shows a direct correlation between decarbonization and AGW hype.
The relationship is inverse – as the hype has increased, the rate of decarbonization has decreased.
Not one thing the AGW movement has predicted has come to pass. Not one policy the AGW movement has imposed has worked to reduce CO2. The only people who have benefited from AGW have been those who profited off of promoting it, studying it or selling AGW imposed purchases for software, programs or equipment.
David Keith is riding the wave of guilt that gripped rich oil executive in Calgary. An American, obscure researcher and as this piece of junk alarmism proves, a perfect candidate for a Canadian university to promote his own research on gullible people who feel they need to get on the bandwagon of green, sustainable… funding for self serving average scientists.
The fact this reporter cannot identified the colleagues -most IPCC members of course who else and in Canada we know well who’s funding depends on keeping the alarmism going- shows how biased, uninformative this drivel is. This is not information but advertisement.
So David Keith, mister CO2 bubble on UofC ads, whose research on wind turbine fields and climate change are among the most questionable pieces of literature out there, is preaching and selling his institute for guilt ridden retired oilmen and this newspaper obliges.
Wouldn’t less ice be a good thing? If I was trying to live there, I would want less ice.
As the article states, Keith is an engineer, not a “climate expert.” I haven’t seen “100 metres” or “knock out the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets” in any mainstream analyses of the effects of 5°C increase.
The “risk of rapid or extreme warming are larger than what you would get by reading the IPCC” reports, he says. The UN reports are used at international talks aimed at reducing global CO2 emissions.
But on the flip side, Keith says the survey also found a higher than expected chance of seeing less warming than expected.
Aaaaaah, yeeeeesssss, the old double whammy of simultaneous warming and cooling.
Curious Yellow: July 2, 2010 at 6:51 am
The shadow side reflected that fact, but on the sun exposed side the snow had mostly melted and the pinnacles were dripping.
Hmmmmmm — could the shingles on the roof possibly have been *black*?
Achab says:
July 2, 2010 at 6:00 am
“Actually I can’t see much science in this post, unless we should call science trivial math applied to complex problems.”
“More than half the experts think there is a more than 10 per chance we’ll get five degrees C warming ..”
That’s not trivial math, that’s bs statistical acrobatics. But the fact of the matter is, climate science is in essence, mathematics. Even climate science apologist Oxburgh understands the relationship between climate studies and math. “it is very surprising that research in an area that depends so heavily on statistical methods has not been carried out in close collaboration with professional statisticians.” Your “complex problems” are nothing more than math as an expression of the problems. No matter how trivial, it is of the utmost import to get it correct. So, now you are armed with knowledge, the next time you hear someone whining about melting polar caps, you know that H2O still freezes at 32 degrees F or 0 degrees C. Will you share your new found knowledge or will you remain silent quietly believing the end justifies the means and it is for the greater good?
dorlomin says:
July 2, 2010 at 6:08 am
Eemian interglacial was only 2C warmer with oceans about 7m higher.
Oh and scienceofdoom had something to say about Mr Goddards Venus theory
http://scienceofdoom.com/2010/06/12/venusian-mysteries/
But I have yet too see him respond, clearly Steve needs to teach scienceofdoom some science.
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Why should he? The debate was already pretty fierce here at WUWT in the comments on his two articles on Venus.
Paul Daniel Ash
Climate sensitivity is logarithmic. The last 120 ppm produced 0.7C warming. How does the next 150 produce 5C warming?
Bob Tisdale
UAH shows cooling in Antarctica.
Matt
The ice has broken away at the city of Barrow, but has not changed at Point Barrow where they are currently estimating breakup on July 7.
This page was updated today
http://seaice.alaska.edu/gi/observatories/barrow_breakup
Using science and math to dupe people. Everyone knows how.
Gail
Yea, anyone who believes that atmospheric composition has more effect on air temperature than does pressure, should try opening the door on their airplane at 35,000 feet.
The CO2 concentration is about the same up there. Temperatures should be about the same?
stevengoddard says:
July 2, 2010 at 6:57 am
As much as the North Pole
stevengoddard says:
July 2, 2010 at 6:59 am
You were talking about 0.0C