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
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Post modern climate experts will be remembered as the meta psychologists of the beginning of the XX century but spending your tax money in virtual ectoplasmatic formations generated by previous computer models and by aplying esoteric equations from a well known astrophysicist who came from the realm of the twilight zone..
Buffoon says:
July 2, 2010 at 10:02 am
Steve,
“You keep referring to this 0°C number, which of course is a magical number, but I’m curious what the actual melting temperature is for ice (by zone) in the antarctic? Can’t sit in the middle of all that salt for zillions of centuries and not pick a little bit up, can it?”
While I don’t believe Wikipedia is authoritative, it’ll suffice for this question, because of the generality of the answer. Sea water freezing point is defined by the salinity, so it varies. But it only varies in a couple of degrees F. I believe the coldest liquid form of H2O found naturally occurring was at 27 F. However, if you’re referring to the Antarctic continent, then you’re talking about fresh water which again, freezes at 0 degrees C.(slightly dependent on elevation or gasp, pressure.)
@Curious Yellow says:
‘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.’
The obvious response might be, where in antarctica is your house situated?
Another obvious response might be, do you heat your house at all during winter? If so, Where do you think that heat goes? And what do you think happens with the ice when it is heated from two sides at once?
And actually the snow on the shadow side of a house also melts, faster the thicker the snow cover is due to stuff like pressure, insolation, and heating the roof from the inside, it’s just not as obvious.
I would propose a contest like American Idol, it could be something like American Green Idiot. Candidates in the millions and counting:
Calculate Your Carbon Footprint
http://green.yahoo.com/calculator
Phil,
Have you crawled or walked 8 miles lately? Missed a runway by 8 miles? 8 miles is huge when put into the appropriate perspective.
Foley says: “Wikipedia, ouch. Now there is an authoritatively legitimate peer reviewed consensus source of real science periodically corrected 10% of the time by 50% of users. Not…”
Yeah, I laugh every time a troll comes on here and thinks he’s going to blow away the post by referring to something in Wankapedia. It’s like trying to refute Galileo by citing a Papal bull.
0C is the freezing point of fresh water
0F is the lowest you can depress the freezing point of water by adding salt to it
stevengoddard says:
July 2, 2010 at 10:18 am
Phil,
The mass balance site is located 8 miles away from the web cam. The ice has not broken up there yet. Is that difficult to understand?
The break up prediction which you based your post on referred to the NARL which is not at the former site of the mass balance measurements. Is that so difficult to understand?
stevengoddard says:
July 2, 2010 at 10:41 am
Phil,
AMSU covers almost all of Antarctica
But UAH to which you referred does not! You should read up on how the UAH tropospheric temperatures are measured, you appear not to be up to speed despite repeated attempts to explain it to you.
stevengoddard says:
July 2, 2010 at 10:08 am
The freezing point of fresh water is 0C. That is how 0C is defined.
Not since 1954, the definition of the Celsius scale is defined as the triple point of water = 0.1ºC.
Foley says:
July 2, 2010 at 11:12 am
Phil,
Have you crawled or walked 8 miles lately?
I run or bike that much every day.
Missed a runway by 8 miles?
Only once, but in fairness it was at night and the rotating beacon was out, it only delayed me by about 10 mins.
8 miles is huge when put into the appropriate perspective.
Indeed, but it is Steve who’s out by about 4 miles!
stevengoddard says:
July 2, 2010 at 6:57 am
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?
_______________________________________________________________________
Yes, Antarctica receives a lot of solar energy. At the South Pole, an average of (pi/4)/2 * sin23.5 * (~1kW/m2) = ~157W/m2, sufficient to melt over 20m of ice a year from a temperature of -30C, or evaporate 2m/yr! Realistically, given the high albedo of 80-90% it will only manage about a tenth of that. This still means that ablation and sublimation can remove ~200mm of ice per year, which is far from insignificant.
In the absence of wind, which removes heat by ablation and sublimation, the ice would melt at the surface during the summer, to a depth ~1m. Remember that the day is six months long.
It does your case and your reputation no good to keep repeating the “ice does not melt below freezing” fallacy. Ice is lost through ablation, sublimation and glacial flow at temperatures far below freezing; and the magnitude of these effects is comparable with that of precipition (snow) and deposition (frost) or, at equilibrium, equal. However cold it is, these losses are still temperature dependent. If the temperature rises, they will in general increase. Now, you are very likely correct in thinking that in a warmer, wetter climate, precipitation and deposition will increase more than ablation and sublimation, and that there will therefore be a net ice gain. But this is by no means a foregone conclusion. Depending on the details of the weather patterns, the opposite could be true. Or both could be true, at different phases of the PDO or El Nino, etc.
Whatever the loss mechanisms, the quantity of ice in the Antarctic is so huge that no plausible climate shift could seriously deplete it on timescales less than tens of thousands of years, so the more apocalyptic scenarios are clearly bunk; but this does not exclude less drastic but still significant changes.
Enneagram says:
July 2, 2010 at 10:57 am
Post modern climate experts will be remembered as the meta psychologists of the beginning of the XX century but spending your tax money in virtual ectoplasmatic formations generated by previous computer models and by aplying esoteric equations from a well known astrophysicist who came from the realm of the twilight zone..
____________
This is fairly funny…completely wrong…but funny.
Phil. says:
July 2, 2010 at 11:32 am
“Not since 1954, the definition of the Celsius scale is defined as the triple point of water = 0.1ºC.”
While we’re nitpicking, I believe that’s 0.01 C. But then, the difference is so slight, that its hardly worth mentioning.
Now that the trolls have done their work for the day, I would like to see more talk about the Venus story. We have a great opportunity to simply refute an article written up about how Venus is hot “because of CO2”. Lets not let the trolls distract us with their silly comments that show they are paid undergrads getting Government funds to troll these forums.
Phil,
What is it that you are arguing about? The ice has not broken up at either the NARL site or the mass balance site. Both are several miles up the coast NE of Barrow. Do you think that your arguing about it is going to make the ice go away?
People were claiming that the ice is gone, but it isn’t. Why don’t you make a very clear statement that the ice has not broken up yet? Or is it your purpose to create confusion?
Unbelievable.
Phil,
Again, UAH reports Antarctica temperatures. You stated that they can’t do that. Your statement was incorrect. Why don’t you make a clear statement of correction?
Ben
If you replaced earth’s atmospheric composition with that of Venus (at one atmosphere pressure) Earth would be much colder than it is now. That is because of the lack of water vapour.
James,
You might want to look at supercooled water… water can be liquid at temperatures far lower than 0C/32F. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSPzMva9_CE
@Steven Goddard 9:25
“Apparently you either didn’t read the entire article or didn’t understand the part about polar amplification. Antarctica is the slowest warming place on the planet. Satellite data shows it cooling.
Try reading the entire article before writing long-winded criticisms.”
Little thin-skinned today, aren’t we?
Your response assumes too much. I read but took no issue with your remarks about polar amplification or with the warming or cooling of Antarctica. I entirely agree with you that the article in the Vancouver Sun is nonsense.
But your article has the headline: “AGW Mathematics : -30 + 5 = 0” and then you go onto write “The experts seem to be having a little difficulty with their maths.” The title is rubbish and you should correct it.
Matt says:
July 2, 2010 at 12:47 pm
James,
“You might want to look at supercooled water… water can be liquid at temperatures far lower than 0C/32F. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSPzMva9_CE”
Yeh, I’m aware of the under-cooling process, I was referring to the naturally occurring process of ice formation of H2O found in nature, close to earth’s surface, not in a lab. Sorry for the confusion.
Peter Czerna: Does WUWT need some peer review before posting? The AGW crowd will pounce on this post (quite rightly IMO).
Note that Goddard does not post his own threads – so he is reviewed prior to ‘publication.’
My theory is that WUWT is using Goddard to drive up readership.
Everyone enjoys watching a train wreck. 😀
Dear Colleagues and non colleagues,
I would like you to read my paper on the total emissivity of the carbon dioxide at: http://biocab.org/ECO2.pdf, which is related with this excellent report by Steven Goddard.
I have also stumbled upon some AGWers who thinks that cm^2/cm = cm^2.
Peter Czerna
When the world’s preeminent climate” expert” (Hansen) talks about 6-20 metres sea level rise this century, what do you think he is talking about?
Steven, you have written a serious of more than 11 posts, which are basically all based on the false assumption, that ice can not melt while recorded temperature is below 0°C.
you simply have ignored many facts about the measured temperature. regional averaging, daily averaging, location choice for thermometers and the shadow offered by the weather station allow melting of snow and ice, long before the thermometer will rise above 0°C.
most of us have experienced melting at below 0°C and extremely resilient snow in the shadow, at temperatures above 0°C.
your Barrow article was posted on the day, AFTER the landfast ice was blown away (as visible as things get!). it was based on completely false assumptions.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/26/latest-barrow-ice-breakup-on-record/
DB: You replied, “Bob, on your website (post dated July 28, 2008) you show a profile of projected warming from a doubling of CO2:
http://i33.tinypic.com/10fu8p2.jpg
While smaller than the Arctic, the southern polar region shows a warming as great as at the north pole or up at 300mb.”
That’s the output of the GISS Model E, not a plot of actual data, as I noted in the post:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2008/07/polar-amplification-and-arctic-warming.html
“But your article has the headline: “AGW Mathematics : -30 + 5 = 0″ and then you go onto write “The experts seem to be having a little difficulty with their maths.” The title is rubbish and you should correct it.”
Mr. Goddard may have had something different in mind, but I read it like this; The -30 is an average summer temp in the Antarctic interior, the 5 is the warming some doomsdayers are saying the temp may raise. 0 is the temp(or therein about for the nitpickers) necessary to achieve melt.
http://www.antarcticconnection.com/antarctic/weather/climate.shtml
“The annual average temperature is -50°C (-58°F). Winter temperatures drop quickly, then level out. Summer is short, from mid-December to mid-January, however, temperatures can reach a balmy -30°C (-22°F)! ”
I’ll repeat -30 + 5 = 0. It has to be true to achieve ice melt of the whole Antarctic……Or the entire assertion of total ice melt is rubbish, which I believe was the point of the posting. In which case, we could go back to a more traditional form of mathematics and -30 +5 would equal -25 once again. And we’d still have ice in the Antarctic and we could save some money and leave the life jackets on the shelf! For those that ran out and made the purchase, you’ll have to check the return policy of the store you bought it from………….Can one return a poor science study for our money back?