While everyone seems to be watching the Arctic extent with intense interest, it’s bipolar twin continues to make enough ice to keep the global sea ice balance near normal. These images from Cryosphere today provide the details. You won’t see any mention of this in the media. Google News returns no stories about Antarctic Sea Ice Extent.
Here’s the graph, see for yourself.
Here’s global sea ice:
click image to enlarge
DirkH says:
Can you name me one nondeterministic effect in the macroscopic world?
I’m not R.Gates’s advocat, but have you heard about a stochastic process?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stochastic_process
Gail Combs says:
July 4, 2010 at 8:01 am
Yes Gail, I ‘know’ why this is being discussed. Some people are hysterical or stirring hysteria in others. I was asking in real terms what the impact would be, not how political types with agendas want to use a ‘crisis’ to achieve their ends.
I just wanted one of those types to explain why it would be bad to have the arctic sea ice disappear. They can’t, as we can see from the next response…
BTW, thank you.
Jim Macdonald says:
July 4, 2010 at 8:24 am
Jack Simmons-
I know nothing would happen, except good things, which I have listed earlier.
Oh to be sure, they might be some negatives, but the benefits would far out weigh the drawbacks.
I’m just annoying the alarmists is all.
R. Gates says:
July 4, 2010 at 10:29 am
Jack Simmons says:
No, my NFL receiver is just going to sleep…
And you still haven’t answered my question. Go back and look at my question.
Roy UK said: (about R. Gates)
“Why do you look at the short term trend in the Antarctic but do not allow others to look at short term trends with regard to the Arctic?”
__________
Roy, I use the longest term reliable data that I have access to, and for both the Arctic and Antarctic it is the same source:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/
Which we all know so well. I truly have no agenda but to know the scientific truth of what is happening, both to the polar regions, but to the planet as a whole. Being a chaotic, yet determinstic system, both the weather and climate are only predictable within a narrow range, but that range is different for both. As I stated in Steve G’s Weather vs Climate posting, I look at weather as ripples in a much larger ocean of bigger waves, with the bigger waves being the climate. Sometimes, for example, a small ripple could have a peak in the valley of a much larger wave, and visa versa. This larger ocean of “the climate” has many influences, from solar output to Milankovitch cycles and also includes the level of GHG’s in the atmosphere. Since the industrial revolution, the increase in CO2 has been (geologically speaking) very rapid. Chaos theory would seem to indicate the small nudges in a system otherwise in general equalibrium could send the system into a whole new and unpredictable state– in search of a whole new “attractor” or point of equalibrium. Changes curently happening in Arctic sea ice could be signs of that the equalibrium of the Earth’s climate system are being “tipped” into a new state. In short, we know the weather changes in the short term, but it appears that is might be possible that the climate does as well when those “tipping points” are reached when a chaotic system is sent toward a whole new attractor or point of equalibrium.
tonyb says:
July 4, 2010 at 11:49 am
R Gates
I am continually surprised as to why you firmly believe the very limited 30 year Satellite record should be seen as clear evidence of a substantially changing climate. By so doing you ignore the plethora of records we have stretching back into the far distance that illustrates that what we are seeing now is merely the latest manifestation of Arctic warming.
____________
I have no doubt that there have been periods of warming in the Arctic in the past but nothing that would seem to show that we have had a completely ice free Arctic. If I’m in error in this, please give me the references.
I’ve state for many months here on WUWT with that, that I am a 75% believer in AGW theory, but reserve 25% for being skeptical. If the Arctic Sea ice were to turn around (over a period of years and even decades) then I would definitely lean away from thinking that AGW theory has it right. However, if the trends continue, we’ll see an ice free Arctic in my lifetime (though I may be 70 or 80 when it happens!). Again, this hasn’t happened in recorded human history, so why wouldn’t I think it would be a very unique situation that a scientifc minded person would look for a cause of?
Villabolo, the guy who strangely writes in the third person [“VILLABOLO in eternal exasperation says…”] makes a big deal out of trends.
That is misdirection; there are always trends. In everything. That is how the Universe is constructed.
The real question is: are the trends/cycles/fluctuations caused by the ≈3% of total CO2 emitted as a result of human industrial activity?
Dr Roy Spencer’s hypothesis states that what we observe is not caused by human activity, and that the climate is entirely explained by natural variability.
It is a testable hypothesis. Unlike the CO2=CAGW conjecture, it makes verifiable predictions. And it explains reality much better than any alarmist scare.
Falsify it, if you can. Otherwise accept it, if you’re rational.
R Gates
There was a thread on this very subject not long ago. Here it is.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/10/21/researchers-find-arctic-may-have-had-less-ice-6-7000-years-ago/
There has been regular melting of the ice to a greater or lesser degree that we can trace back to the last ice age. The Ipiatuk and then the Norse periods showed probably the greatest warming since then, although (shorter) periods in the 1500’s and 1700’s were also of note.
The age of which I wrote concerning the 1820’s and the one of which Dr Bernaerts wrote concerning the 1920’s were probably less warm than during the Ipiatuk and Norse but were certainly no less warm than today.
A 30 year satellite record is a blink of an eye on which to base a trend. I intend also to live to 100 so I can see who is right 🙂
tonyb
R. Gates says: July 4, 2010 at 11:03 am
“You must therefore consider the information coming from the NSIDC to be desperate spin and obfuscation since it formed the bulk of my answer. This would explain your general perspective, such that nothing we gave you that didn’t support your perspective would satisfy you, and you would think even the NSIDC is up no good. I would think Dr. Stroeve, who comes here occasionally might be a bit insulted by that.”
My comment in terms your “desperate spin and obfuscation” was in reference to many of your prior posts, but not necessarily your most recent post, as I had not read it before I wrote the “desperate spin and obfuscation” comment. I did see your response before I hit submit, but I read first sentence of the background, i.e. red herrings, etc. and figured that I needed a shower and a drink before I dealt with it. I address you most recent comment below.
R. Gates says: July 4, 2010 at 10:12 am
“I’m going to answer this question, but let me first give a bit a background:
The idea that the Antarctic should repsond exactly as the Arctic does if AGW is in fact happening is a red-herring argument. ”
Agreed, then why are posing this red-herring argument? I have not read a claim on WUWT that “Antarctic should respond exactly as the Arctic” nor even that they should respond in a similar manner. The point we considering is whether they are interrelated, such that what occurs at one pole can have a significant impact on the other and vice versa.
“The only thing they share in common is that they are at the extremes of our planet, but beyond that, as I’ve stated so many times, they are completely different in their dynamics. It is only a casusal observer who might grasp onto the notion that “the polar ice ice caps are SUPPOSED to melt” if AGW is true, etc. and therefore it must not be true This notion is simpleminded at best and is a prime example of how a very little knowledge is a dangerous thing.”
Inconsequential filler.
“In my last post, I have an excelllent example of scientific research that gave reasons why Antarctic sea ice might actually increase under the effects of AGW. This research is based on modeling. I would however, like to refer to the experts, and let them give a far more eloquent answer to the Arctic vs Antarctic differences. From the NSIDC:
“Wintertime Antarctic sea ice is increasing at a small rate and with substantial natural year-to-year variability in the time series. While Antarctic sea ice reached a near-record-high annual minimum in March 2008, this does not indicate a significant long-term trend. To borrow an analogy from sports, one high day, month, or even year of sea ice is no more significant than one early-season win would be in predicting whether the hometown team will win the Super Bowl ten seasons from now.”
We are not talking about “one high day, month, or even year of sea ice” we are talking about an Antarctic Sea Ice Extent and Area uptrend since 1980:
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/s_plot_hires.png
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.antarctic.png
“Another important point is that the increase in Antarctic sea ice extent is not surprising to climate scientists. When scientists refer to global warming, they don’t mean warming will occur everywhere on the planet at the same rate. In some places, temporary cooling may even occur. Antarctica is an example of regional cooling. Even our earliest climate models projected that Antarctica would be much slower in responding to rising greenhouse gas concentrations than the Arctic. In large part, this reflects the nature of the ocean structure in Antarctica, in which water warmed at the surface quickly mixes downward, making it harder to melt ice.”
Seems like desperate spin and obfuscation to me. The whole cold means warm meme is a sorry construct of intellectual dishonesty and cognitive dissonance. Climate models will project whatever you want them to, ice however tends not to be so cooperative…
“In terms of sea ice, climate model projections of Antarctic sea ice extent are in reasonable agreement with the observations to date. It also appears that atmospheric greenhouse gases, as well as the loss of ozone, have acted to increase the winds around Antarctica. Perhaps counter intuitively, this has further protected the Antarctic from warming and has fostered more ice growth.”
We are in agreement that there appears to be an “increase the winds around Antarctica” and that “this has further protected the Antarctic from warming and has fostered more ice growth.” However, attributing this to “atmospheric greenhouse gases, as well as the loss of ozone” seems like little more then flimsy guesswork by Warmist study manufacturers like Jinlun Zhang and Jianli Chen.
“The one region of Antarctica that is strongly warming is the Antarctic Peninsula, which juts out into the Atlantic Ocean and is thus less protected by the altered wind pattern. The Antarctic Peninsula is experiencing ice shelf collapse and strongly reduced sea ice.”
More desperate spin and obfuscation. Highlighting a tiny and inconsequential part of a huge continent, in order to be able to include the terms, “ice shelf collapse and strongly reduced sea ice.” Simple diversionary tactics, which likely only work on the faithful…
“Finally, even if wintertime Antarctic sea ice were to increase or decrease significantly in the future, it would not have a huge impact on the climate system. This is because during the Antarctic winter energy from the sun is at its weakest point; its ability or inability to reflect the sun’s energy back into space has little affect on regulating the planet’s temperature.”
The question isn’t whether an increase or decease in Antarctic sea ice would have a huge impact on the climate system. Rather the question is whether sea ice, Antarctic, Arctic or Global offers an accurate “proxy” for Earth’s temperature and temperatures trend.
“So, the though I think this question is wrongly thought out”
How can one wrongly think out a question?
“your question as to which represents a more accurate “proxy” for Earth’s temperature and temperatures trend (the Arctic or the Antarctic), the answer would of course be…both.”
R.Gates, I think you are right. It is silly to look at just the Antarctic or Arctic sea ice in isolation, as they are both part of the same dynamic global climate system.
Thus as Anthony pointed out, this Global Sea Ice Area chart might offer us our best view of Earth’s temperature trend:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg
“As referenced in the above article from the NSIDC, it was not unexpected that the Arctic year-to-year SEA ICE would decline, while the Antarctic would grow slightly.”
I wonder why the National Snow and Ice Data Center doesn’t offer a Global Sea Ice Extent chart on their website:
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/
On the right, under “About the Sea Ice Index” there is a drop down to see Arctic and Antarctic trends, but no Global trend. Why?
“However, when talking about the continental glacial ice, that is an entirely different matter, as it should show long term melting and decline in the Antarctic and Greenland.”
Diversion and obfuscation, lets leave glaciers and Greenland for another discussion.
“But for the common layperson of course, they think of “ice caps melting” and not only do they not understand the differences between the Arctic sea ice and Antarctic sea ice and what the experts say (reference the above link) but they can’t understand or know about the differences between the continental ice in the Antarctic and the sea ice…each of which may behave quite differently under AGW scenarios, and indeed, appears to be.”
I think you underestimate the common layperson. I think that the vast majority of people can understand the basic concepts here. If Earth was experiencing runaway catastrophic global warming, one would anticipate a decrease in Global Sea Ice Area, which clearly isn’t happening…
Smokey said:
“The real question is: are the trends/cycles/fluctuations caused by the ≈3% of total CO2 emitted as a result of human industrial activity?”
______
This is the kind of inaccuracy that really really irks me. If the pre-industrial level of CO2 was appoximately 270-280 ppm and had been fairly steady at that level for the past 10,000 years (verified through many different techniques) and now since that time, or coincident to the start of the industrial revolution they have risen to approximately 390 ppm, that would mean that far more than 3% has been the result of human industrial activity. More like ten times as much, or around 30%.
Falsifiy if you can, otherwise accept it, if you’re rational.
Vincent says:
July 4, 2010 at 5:30 am
[–SNIP–]
“Doubling in just 7 years indicates, that in just 10 doublings, there will be a 1024 fold increase. That is no longer a trickle. Assuming that the same 7 year period is taken into account this increase will take 70 years.”
“Very amusing. What physical process do you propose that leads to Greenland ice disappearing at a geometric rate? The rate of melting is proportional to the quantity of heat supplied. For your scenario to be true, the amount of heat would have to double every seven years. Do you have a citation for that?”
VILLABOLO RESPONDS:
As far as the first doubling is concerned, that was based on the measurements taken by the GRACE satellites that have been in operation since 2002. Apparently you don’t want to believe that the quantity of heat between 2002 and 2009 has increased but you know what? It is irrelevant.
The obvious reason being, if you were to think about it, that even if the level of heat were to hold steady, it would take time for it to melt the ice. I’m sorry if you missed such an obvious fact but most things in Nature have a time lag.
A boulder dislodged from a mountain top will not fall to the valley floor instantaneously, but rather take some time. An Ice cube placed on a hot sidewalk may melt fast but it won’t turn into a puddle of water in a millionth of a second. It too takes a certain amount of time. Same thing with Greenland melting assuming no further heat input.
One needs to factor in both Time and Space (i.e. physical effects)
As for the crude doubling guesstimate I gave, it was for speaking purposes only. The actual rate of increase is likely to be worse for several reasons which, based on how you’ve responded, you neither understand nor care to admit. Reasons such as thermal lag; increased CO2 emissions; feedback loops from Methane out gassing of the melting permafrost and the increased heat absorption of an open ocean; etc..
**********************************************************************
[–SNIP–]
“b) It [Antarctica] has cold ocean currents that go around it in a manner similar to refrigerator coils. This enhances its frigidity.”
“It’s always amusing the way alarmists come up with the “reason” that parts of the world aren’t behaving according to their beliefs. In this case it’s due to enhanced “frigidity”! Nice one.”
Vincent, if you can’t understand why different geographic features such as having 10 times the bulk of something, and the effects of ocean currents, can cause a difference then you can’t give a meaningful rebuttal to anything.
***********************************************************************
“c) Temperatures are more concentrated in the Arctic region, including Greenland, than in Antarctica.”
“Confused or what! What, in your opinion, are concentrated temperatures? Is that measured in degrees per meter square?”
Ahhhh, errrr . . . Let’s see. How about Global Warming effecting the Arctic regions out of proportion to the rest of the world?
Just the Facts said:
“If Earth was experiencing runaway catastrophic global warming, one would anticipate a decrease in Global Sea Ice Area, which clearly isn’t happening…”
_____________
I gave a very long post on this earlier today. Essentially, look at this graph of Global Sea ice:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg
If take the intergral of the anomaly of global sea ice (plot the the area below or above the line) since 2001 you’ll see there is indeed a negative global anomaly. The reason for this is simple– Arctic sea ice has had a larger and more continual negative anomaly than the Antarctic has had a positive one. So before you say there is no trend in Global Sea ice, study the charts.
R. Gates says:
“Falsifiy if you can, otherwise accept it, if you’re rational.”
Falsified. And by the IPCC, no less. The human contribution to total CO2 is only about 3%. Another nail in the coffin of the CAGW conjecture.
Sincerely yours,
~ Mr Rational
tonyb says:
July 4, 2010 at 9:54 am
Thanks. I think the only references at this point is http://wattsupwiththat.com/tips-notes-to-wuwt-6/#comment-403453 and http://wattsupwiththat.com/tips-notes-to-wuwt-6/#comment-408692
The better starting point is http://home.comcast.net/~ewerme/wuwt/ , my Guide to WUWT. The category stuff is new, and comes from having to revamp my code to handle the “new style web” pages. While I was at it, everything goes through a database now, making the category stuff easy to do.
It’s attracted Anthony’s attention (before I got the category stuff going), once he gets settled state-side again (I figure that could take a month!) I’ll pester him about access to the inner sanctum or what ever makes sense.
Jack Simmons says:
July 4, 2010 at 6:56 am
What has not been discussed or explained, as far as I know, is who cares?
I have asked this question several times and no one seems to know the answer.
If all the arctic sea ice were to melt next week, would it make any difference?
***********************************************************************
VILLABOLO REPEATS FOR THE UMPTEENTH TIME:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/25/the-trend/#comment-418293
“Just ask and ye shall receive”, but Jack, you have to keep your eyes open!
A propos of nothing: Warmists – do they suffer from social anosognosia?
Smokey says:
July 4, 2010 at 1:52 pm
R. Gates says:
“Falsifiy if you can, otherwise accept it, if you’re rational.”
Falsified. And by the IPCC, no less. The human contribution to total CO2 is only about 3%. Another nail in the coffin of the CAGW conjecture.
Sincerely yours,
~ Mr Rational
_______
Uh, Mr. Rational, you are confusing the total addition to the atmosphere for a short period versus the total CUMMULATIVE addition since the start of the industrial revolution. We’ve gone from 270-280 ppm to 390 ppm, and that difference is the cummulative addition from human caused activities.
“and since the climate is a chaotic system, the smallest of factors, so I’m told, could take the system out of equalibrium and create unforseen and unpredictable effects”
Gates, since the fact is that the climate is extremely chaotic, that just will not happen.
No one knows how or why, if we did, we would be able to predict future climate, which we most certainly can not.
Everything else is just a bunch of paranoid hand wringing…………
“We’ve gone from 270-280 ppm to 390 ppm, and that difference is the cummulative addition from human caused activities.”
Gates, here you go again…
Using parts per million, tons, billions of tons, sure does sound impressive and scary, doesn’t it?
But ‘climate’ does not care how many ppm’s, tons, pounds, jar fulls……..
Climate only cares about the percentage, and the percentage is so small even you couldn’t find it.
Bad reading comprehension as usual, Gates. But I understand how cognitive dissonance works: you see what you want to see, even when it’s not there. Fortunately, skeptics are largely immune from CD because we simply ask questions, such as: do you have any testable, empirical evidence showing how much warming, if any, is attributable to human CO2 emissions?
Well? Do you? If so, you will be the first one to show real world evidence. That will also settle the climate sensitivity question, and put you on the short list for the now worthless Nobel prize.
I had referred specifically to the IPCC’s stated figures, nothing more. Their figures show that for every 34 molecules of CO2 emitted in total every year, *one* molecule is of human origin [actually, less than one]. If you want to discuss CUMMULATIVE [sic] additions instead, fine. I might even agree, even though that hypothesis is still being debated by others.
Finally, your constant carping about what we have to do to save the world loses sight of the fact that the rest of the world’s countries are not going to hobble their own economies in order to keep the U.S. eco-wacko contingent happy. Here’s the proof.
Unless all countries agree to reduce CO2 equally, then it makes no sense for the U.S. to commit national suicide over a harmless and beneficial trace gas that has been up to twenty times higher in the past with no ill effects. The people who propose that are from the ranks of the insane.
The insiders like John Kerry who are pushing Cap & Trade are lying through their teeth. They want C&T for the immense transfer of wealth from ordinary citizens into the government’s pockets. They certainly know, as we scientific skeptics do, that if the U.S. unilaterally reduces CO2, it will make no noticeable difference.
The problem is the crowd of deluded folks who believe we should drastically reduce our standard of living in order to slow emissions of a completely harmless trace gas, when the rest of the world will not go along.
Happy 4th of July.
latitude says:
July 4, 2010 at 2:22 pm
“No one knows how or why, if we did, we would be able to predict future climate, which we most certainly can not.”
VILLABOLO:
I think that statement is more psychologically based than factually or logically based.
There are many disciplines dealing with chaotic elements that do pretty well in figuring some things outs. It seems that some do not want to acknowledge that Climate can be, within reason, predicted well enough to reach certain conclusions.
R. Gates says:
July 4, 2010 at 2:20 pm
“Uh, Mr. Rational, you are confusing the total addition to the atmosphere for a short period versus the total CUMMULATIVE addition since the start of the industrial revolution. We’ve gone from 270-280 ppm to 390 ppm, and that difference is the cummulative addition from human caused activities.”
It’s a change. Therefore, according to you, it is anthropogenic, all 100 percent of it. Can you provide a citation that will back up that unsubstantiated assertion?
villabolo says:
July 4, 2010 at 2:59 pm
“[…]I think that statement is more psychologically based than factually or logically based.
There are many disciplines dealing with chaotic elements that do pretty well in figuring some things outs. It seems that some do not want to acknowledge that Climate can be, within reason, predicted well enough to reach certain conclusions”
I think that statement is more psychologically based than factually or logically based.
There are many disciplines dealing with chaotic elements that do pretty well in figuring some things outs. It seems that some do not want to acknowledge that the current breed of Climate models fall short in this respect.
latitude says:
July 4, 2010 at 2:22 pm
“and since the climate is a chaotic system, the smallest of factors, so I’m told, could take the system out of equalibrium and create unforseen and unpredictable effects”
Gates, since the fact is that the climate is extremely chaotic, that just will not happen.
No one knows how or why, if we did, we would be able to predict future climate, which we most certainly can not.
Everything else is just a bunch of paranoid hand wringing…………
___________
I think you are confusing chaotic with random. Chaotic systems seek equalibrium or an attractor, and while they are dynamic, they don’t behave in random ways. Everything that happens to the climate happens for a very specifc large set of reasons, i.e. they are deterministic (unless you believe in magic). But most salient to the AGW discussion is how sensitive is the climate to the additional forcings from human created green house gases– that is, how much will it change for a given input. Because the climate is chaotic, it means there is some unpredictable and deterministic point (but not random) at which the climate will jump to seek a new equalibrium point. I’ve seen many posts looking at CO2 increase from a completely linear perspective. This is simply not accurate. The recent (2000) beginnings of the Arctic Dipole Anomaly (completely unpredictable and chaotic) is good example. This positive feedback event seems to be increasing the temperatures and wind patterns in the Arctic. AGW models did not predict it, but that doesn’t mean that it is not related to AGW, and if fact, in retrospect, most likely is. Chaotic systems behave in non-linear ways, jumping unpredictably, but deterministicly to new states. It is possible that other surprizes are ahead.
“Climate can be, within reason, predicted well enough to reach certain conclusions.”
Villa, what makes you say or think that when none of the big boys have gotten it right yet? What is actually amazing about it, is that they continue to make fools of themselves by making predictions. Seems that they would have all learned that lesson already.
This one we will have to disagree on. Predictions on chaotic systems are nothing more than a guess – coin toss. Getting one guess correct out of two guesses is just the odds.
Sorry Dirk! the sugar rush from eating Oreos got me again!
I apologize, I didn’t go up far enough to see your name….
….I’m going for milk now
Smokey said: (to R. Gates)
“Finally, your constant carping about what we have to do to save the world…”
________________
Please give me one single post that I made here on WUWT about what we have to do to save the world. Just one…
You are confusing a believer in AGW theory with an “alarmist” or one of the other pet names AGW skeptics have for those who think it likely that AGW theory is correct. Or perhaps you’re not confusing anything, but would simply like to lump me into some convenient category to minimize your own cognitive dissonance so as to prevent you from coming to terms that there can be those who know the science well enough and believe AGW is likely occurring, but aren’t wild-eyed “alarmists” or doom-sayers.