While Joe Romm and Mark Serreze bloviate about the current Arctic sea ice being “lowest in history”, science that doesn’t have an agenda (or paying thinktank) attached says otherwise:
“More importantly, there have been times when sea-ice cover was less extensive than at the end of the 20th century.”
From the Hockey Schtck: Paper: Current Arctic Sea Ice is More Extensive than Most of the past 9000 Years
A peer-reviewed paper published in the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences finds that Arctic sea ice extent at the end of the 20th century was more extensive than most of the past 9000 years. The paper also finds that Arctic sea ice extent was on a declining trend over the past 9000 years, but recovered beginning sometime over the past 1000 years and has been relatively stable and extensive since.
Although it seems like a day doesn’t go by without an alarmist headline or blog posting obsessing over the daily Arctic sea ice statistics (and never about Antarctic sea ice extent which reached a record high this year), this paleo-climate perspective takes all the wind out of alarmist sails. Satellite assessment of sea ice conditions is only available beginning in 1979 (around the time the global cooling scare ended), with only sparse data available prior to 1979. The alarmists at the NRDC fraudulently claim in a new video that due to “climate destruction,” Arctic sea ice reached the lowest in history in 2010 (actually the low since 1979 was in 2007 and 2010 was the 3rd or 4th lowest depending on the source). Probably wouldn’t bring in many donations if they mentioned the truth: the 21st century has some of the highest annual Arctic sea ice extents over the past 9000 years.
The figure below comes from the paper, but has been modified with the red notations and rotated clockwise. The number of months the sea ice extent is greater than 50% is shown on the y axis. Time is on the x axis starting over 9000 years ago up to the present. Warming periods are shown in gray with the Roman and Medieval warming periods (RWP/MWP) notated, a spike for the Minoan Warming Period about 5000 years ago, and two other older & unnamed warming periods. The last dot on the graph is the end of the 20th century and represents one of the highest annual sea ice extents.
Holocene fluctuations in Arctic sea-ice cover: dinocyst-based reconstructions for the eastern Chukchi Sea Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, 45: 1377-1397
Authors: J.L. McKay, A. de Vernal, C. Hillaire-Marcel, C. Not, L. Polyak, and D. Darby
Abstract: Cores from site HLY0501-05 on the Alaskan margin in the eastern Chukchi Sea were analyzed for their geochemical (organic carbon, d13Corg, Corg/N, and CaCO3) and palynological (dinocyst, pollen, and spores) content to document oceanographic changes during the Holocene. The chronology of the cores was established from 210Pb dating of near- surface sediments and 14C dating of bivalve shells. The sediments span the last 9000 years, possibly more, but with a gap between the base of the trigger core and top of the piston core. Sedimentation rates are very high (*156 cm/ka), allowing analyses with a decadal to centennial resolution. The data suggest a shift from a dominantly terrigenous to marine input from the early to late Holocene. Dinocyst assemblages are characterized by relatively high concentrations (600–7200 cysts/cm3) and high species diversity, allowing the use of the modern analogue technique for the reconstruction of sea-ice cover, summer temperature, and salinity. Results indicate a decrease in sea-ice cover and a corresponding, albeit much smaller, increase in summer sea-surface temperature over the past 9000 years. Superimposed on these long-term trends are millennial-scale fluctuations characterized by periods of low sea-ice and high sea-surface temperature and salinity that appear quasi-cyclic with a frequency of about one every 2500–3000 years. The results of this study clearly show that sea-ice cover in the western Arctic Ocean has varied throughout the Holocene. More importantly, there have been times when sea-ice cover was less extensive than at the end of the 20th century.
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| Arctic summer sea surface temperatures are also currently lower than much of the past 9000 years |
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the map re-drawn by the Turk Piri Reis in 1513 with a mostly ice free artic has been of interest to me for many years.
http://www.world-mysteries.com/sar_1.htm
But history has no place in computer models that first assert that CO2 causes warming and forcings of A, B and C where
A is “the world is going to end VERY soon.”
B is “the world is going to end FAIRLY soon.”
C is “the world is going to end somewhat soon.”
I for one am not worried that global warming is going to be swept under the rug in a few years, I think the bigger worry is that these same scientists are going to keep their jobs over the next 10 years and start spouting off about global cooling because of “human influences” and politicians will jump on that band-wagon like the opportunists they are.
We need to throw these bums out now before they continue on their tenured track and continue to spout off on this non-sense with no understanding of the systems.
Can someone respond to Jim Pettit’s comment because that is really disturbing and does NOT build confidence in the skeptic position.
“we are cooking the planet” wial, at 4:22 pm
Funny, pathetic, sad – all at the same time.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Jim Pettit, 4:28 pm
Jim,
In many publications it is expected that a paper begin with a summary of relevant literature. The purpose is to show editors, reviewers, and readers that you have knowledge of the topic about which you write. This does not indicate that you believe everything you have cited. In fact, many research efforts and the papers subsequently published have as their goal to upend previously well accepted notions. Moral: The “few snippets” you quote are not relevant to the findings of the research.
Cliff says: at 5:19 pm
“Has the climate warmed this fast in the past?”
Because you don’t say how fast you think it has warmed, your question is impossible to answer. I don’t think the temperature data are accurate enough to prove that Earth has warmed any in the last 50 years. Go back to the little ice age, read of all the well documented events, look at the paintings done then, and so. Earth warmed following that time. Once you have digested that history you will be hard pressed to cite anything in the last 50 years that is comparable.
Cliff says:
“I don’t get what’s so comforting about instances when things were warmer millions or thousands of years ago. Why do we want to force a return to those conditions? And what about the rate of change? Has the climate warmed this fast in the past?”
1. It is not intended to be ‘comforting.’ It shows that natural variability is sufficient to fully explain the current climate without the unnecessary addition of a trace gas, less than 3% of which is contributed by human activity.
2. There is no credible way for humans to “force” the planet’s temperature one way or another, despite the mistaken presumption that the Earth’s temperature can be tweaked until it is just right.
3. Yes, the planet has warmed “this fast” in the past — and by much more than the current fraction of a degree over a century and a half. In addition to warming faster, it has also gotten cold faster, and by a much greater magnitude.
Nothing is occurring now that has not happened repeatedly prior to the industrial revolution. The scientific method requires any hypothesis to be falsifiable and testable. The AGW hypothesis fails on both counts, therefore it does not fit the definition of science. It is simply an unverified conjecture.
Ed Forbes says: at 4:27 pm
“the map re-drawn by the Turk Piri Reis in 1513 with a mostly ice free artic ”
I went to that link. The map does not include the (artic) Arctic Ocean, rather the “northern coast of Antarctica” is the area in question. I note that the web site is titled World Mysteries. Any ideas?
Cliff : “Can someone respond to Jim Pettit’s comment because that is really disturbing and does NOT build confidence in the skeptic position.”
My feeling is, it’s ok. There are bound to be comments and quotes in all directions here, because they are allowed thanks to Anthony’s proper approach.
Regarding the quotes from the paper, they include “The current reduction in Arctic ice cover started in the late 19th century, consistent with the rapidly warming climate” and “…sea ice has continued its rapid decline, since the AO returned to a more neutral state in the late 1990s, suggesting that anthropogenic warming of surface air temperatures is playing a role in the loss (Overland and Wang 2005)“.
1. “late 19th century” is surely too early for AGW to have played a role.
2. They have not themselves investigated the effect of anthropogenic warming, they cite someone else’s paper. So this paper (McKay et al) doesn’t actually have anything to add specific to AGW.
Relax, let information come from any angle, then cut the crap and see what’s left. From this paper we get (a) ice loss happening recently, (b) ice loss also happening at a time when there was no AGW, (3) current ice levels above the levels of 9k years ago. Where’s the problem?
Regarding the other paper cited, “unexplainable by any of the known natural variabilities“. Maybe they missed one? The PDO or the sun perhaps?
Cliff – Warm times are so preferable to cold it isn’t funny. And if the solar physicists are right (Livinston and Penn, McCracken, etc) we are heading for a few decades of cold.
Smokey,
Smokey says:
September 23, 2010 at 6:00 pm
Cliff says:
“1. It is not intended to be ‘comforting.’ It shows that natural variability is sufficient to fully explain the current climate without the unnecessary addition of a trace gas, less than 3% of which is contributed by human activity.”
I don’t see how that logically follows. The fact that the climate has warmed in the past without manmade GHGs does not mean it’s not happening now.
“2. There is no credible way for humans to “force” the planet’s temperature one way or another, despite the mistaken presumption that the Earth’s temperature can be tweaked until it is just right.”
Aren’t the physics of what GHGs do well understood? Haven’t temperatures been higher in the past when CO2 was naturally higher? Is it possible to explain current CO2 levels without manmade sources. The last question I honestly don’t know while the first two are rhetorical of course but you get my point.
“3. Yes, the planet has warmed “this fast” in the past — and by much more than the current fraction of a degree over a century and a half. In addition to warming faster, it has also gotten cold faster, and by a much greater magnitude.”
OK thanks for that info. But what folks are worried about is not the last fraction of a degree but obviously the much larger increases projected by the mainstream climate scientists (rightly or wrongly).
The bottom line is we don’t want temperatures that are much higher, regardless of whether they existed 200 million years ago. So the whole question comes down to manmade versus natural variability. And the mere existence of higher temperatures (or colder ones) in the past does not answer that question.
Nothing is occurring now that has not happened repeatedly prior to the industrial revolution. The scientific method requires any hypothesis to be falsifiable and testable. The AGW hypothesis fails on both counts, therefore it does not fit the definition of science. It is simply an unverified conjecture.
Please ignore the last paragraph of my last post, which was a portion of the post I was responding to.
Smokey, about that last paragraph –
“Nothing is occurring now that has not happened repeatedly prior to the industrial revolution. The scientific method requires any hypothesis to be falsifiable and testable. The AGW hypothesis fails on both counts, therefore it does not fit the definition of science. It is simply an unverified conjecture”
Couldn’t one falsify AGW by showing that the warming since the industrial revolution is not attributable to manmade GHGs? Also, it seems that AGW is testable by seeing whether temperatures rise significantly more over the next several decades instead of the cooling that a number of folks here a confident is coming. That test may take a while but it’s a test.
[snip. Accusing our host of dishonesty is not acceptable nor true. Based on that I am deleting your post. Anthony had nothing to do with this. But keep in mind that you are a guest here, and I will delete comments impugning his integrity. ~db stealey, moderator.]
Yes, the planet has warmed “this fast” in the past — and by much more than the current fraction of a degree over a century and a half.
And please tell the readers what happened to the creatures that were living on this planet at the time. They can also look it up themselves under “extinction events”.
A peer-reviewed paper published in the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences finds that Arctic sea ice extent at the end of the 20th century was more extensive than most of the past 9000 years.
I actually only see just now how backwards this is. Again, this is what the paper says: “More importantly, there have been times when sea-ice cover was less extensive than at the end of the 20th century.”
So, there were times throughout the Holocene when the sea-ice cover was smaller than at the end of the 20th century (mind you, they aren’t even saying ‘beginning of the 21st century’, but that’s a detail). In other words, this happened a few times. The quote from the Hockey Schtick implies that the sea-ice cover was smaller than at the end of the 20th century most of the time in the past 9000 years (which would be impossible, but that’s a detail too).
Do you see how they twisted that sentence? And that’s the basis of this whole post [snip. Strike two. ~dbs, mod.]
db stealey, with ‘these people are lying’ I mean the folks at Hockey Schtick. The title of this post should be changed immediately, before more people get misguided into thinking the sea ice cover was smaller for most of the past 9000 years. They completely twisted that sentence to mean the exact opposite.
Yo, Gunther:
The Hockey Schtick simply repeated verbatim what the journal reported, as was clearly stated in the article:
Natural variability completely explains the Earth’s climate, without having to resort to a deus ex machina explanation in the form of a harmless and beneficial trace gas.
Jim Pettit writes,
“After reading many of the “Aha! Gotcha!” comments from the contrarians here, I have to naturally wonder whether many–or even any–of them actually read the paper.”
Looks like close to zero, no skeptics here! A few other notes about the paper, added to Jim’s:
This is not mainly about the Arctic as a whole, but reports on data from a the eastern Chuckchi Sea.
The authors are cautious about their data, noting possible problems and that some findings run opposite to what has been found in other parts of the Arctic. For example,
“The difference between the top of the sequence and the ‘‘modern’’ hydrography might well be due to the fact that the top of the trigger core represents a longer time interval than that of the limited numbers of hydrographic measurements, which were made between 1954 and 2001. If both the observed and reconstructed time series are correct, then the last part of the 20th century must have been particularly
cold compared with the mid- to late Holocene in the Chukchi Sea, which is opposite to what is seen in the eastern Arctic and northern Baffin Bay”
Note that their reference period for “modern” sea ice and hydrographic conditions is 1954-2001.
The final sentence of their paper makes clear the different time scales they are comparing: millennial-scale changes appear larger than those in the second half of the 20th century.
“It is important to note that the amplitude of these millennial-scale changes in sea-surface conditions far exceed those observed at the end of the 20th century.”
But the second half of the 20th century, and changes taking place over thousands of years, are not what WUWT and many others have been writing about in this season.
I doubt that the paper’s authors would agree with the tabloid-style treatment their research received here. It would be wonderful if they could pop in themselves, and comment.
So this marks the 4th article from older peer reviewed papers (or another climate science website in one case), this one from 2008, telling us that things were different in the past due to natural variability.
All four posted right around the time when the annual Arctic sea ice extent minimum occurs, purely a random coincidence, I’m quite sure.
However, we live in the present, so I would suggest we deal with the present, and likely future outcomes due to AGW.
Or someone will have to come up with a convincing argument that current Arctic sea ice extent/area/volume declines can be fully explained and modeled using natural climate variability alone.
I’m waiting desperately for such a paper to be published in the well respected peer reviewed climate science literature.
Gneiss says:
“But the second half of the 20th century, and changes taking place over thousands of years, are not what WUWT and many others have been writing about in this season.”
Correctomundo. It is the alarmist contingent — not scientific skeptics — who have been arm-waving over natural climate change.
If CO2 is the cause of climate change, then produce testable, empirical evidence to support your hypothesis.
Günther Kirschbaum says:
September 23, 2010 at 7:40 pm
db stealey, with ‘these people are lying’ I mean the folks at Hockey Schtick. The title of this post should be changed immediately, before more people get misguided into thinking the sea ice cover was smaller for most of the past 9000 years.
=========================================
Umm…you can go back and refer to the analysis of the graph. Graphs don’t lie.
Go back and check it:
“The figure below comes from the paper, but has been modified with the red notations and rotated clockwise. The number of months the sea ice extent is greater than 50% is shown on the y axis. Time is on the x axis starting over 9000 years ago up to the present. Warming periods are shown in gray with the Roman and Medieval warming periods (RWP/MWP) notated, a spike for the Minoan Warming Period about 5000 years ago, and two other older & unnamed warming periods. The last dot on the graph is the end of the 20th century and represents one of the highest annual sea ice extents.”
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Well OK….if you are Michael Mann, graphs DO lie because they are spliced. But you know what I mean.
arctic sea ice need not be in phase with planetary temperature, nor with NH mid-latitude temperatures. It is known that Russian Pomor fur-hunters and traders navigated russian arctics up to eastern Siberia and Kolyma until mid-17th century, the lowest pint of LIA. Yes, they had egg-shaped boats that could escape being trapped between closing ice, but the fact that at least some seaway existed is indeed interesting.
No, Smokey, the sentence you quote is their words. The people at Hockey Schtick say the paper says that during most of the past 9000 years the Arctic sea ice extent was smaller than at the end of the 20th century.
But the paper doesn’t say that. It says the exact opposite. It says there have been times when the Arctic sea-ice cover was less extensive than at the end of the 20th century. Not most of the time, but a few times.
Not in the whole Arctic, but in the western Arctic (based on cores in the eastern Chukchi Sea). They even say: “This is in direct contrast to the eastern Arctic where sea-ice cover was substantially reduced during the early to mid-Holocene and has increased over the last 3000 years”.
Note too that they say ‘at the end of the 20th century’. The situation in the first decade of the 21st century is radically different from the end of the 20th century. The title of this WUWT blog post even says ‘current Arctic sea ice’. That is simply not what the paper states. Not at all.
—
The people at Hockey Schtick twisted that sentence, there is no doubt about it. And given the name of their site and the fact that generally they have problems with proxy temperature reconstructions, I’m inclined to conclude that they did it on purpose, probably because they want to divert attention from the fact that there was no recovery in the Arctic this year. Why else would they cite a paper from 2008?
And thus it is imperative that the title of this WUWT blog post gets changed asap, or else the person who wrote it might look guilty by proxy of spreading the same disinformation as the people at the Hockey Schtick blog.
Change it into “Surprise: Arctic sea ice extent has been lower than at the end of the 20th century.” Or whatever, but don’t leave it as is.
I run in 5,000 year old “hills” in a state park on the coastal plain of the U.S.A. Except the hills are actually an ancient sea boundary.
Minoan Warm Period?
OMG OMG…..the sky is falling the sky is falling…the ice is melting the ice is melting.
[I think Chicken Little would, if he were alive today, would be diagnosed with Low T Syndrome for sure].
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Cliff says:
“Couldn’t one falsify AGW by showing that the warming since the industrial revolution is not attributable to manmade GHGs? Also, it seems that AGW is testable by seeing whether temperatures rise significantly more over the next several decades instead of the cooling that a number of folks here a confident is coming. That test may take a while but it’s a test.”
Your first question has the scientific method backward. The purveyors of the CO2=CAGW hypothesis have the burden of showing that it explains reality better than the null hypothesis: No one has falsified the hypothesis that the observed temperatures changes are the result of natural variability.
Catastrophic AGW is a conjecture lacking empirical, testable evidence to support it. And because the climate null hypothesis has not been falsified, according to the scientific method it is the accepted hypothesis.
You are on the right track when you say: “…it seems that AGW is testable by seeing whether temperatures rise significantly more over the next several decades instead of the cooling that a number of folks here a confident is coming. That test may take a while but it’s a test.”
I agree. Let’s stop panicking, and test AGW over the next several decades. But of course that won’t happen, because this issue is about money, not science.