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 |
richard telford says:
September 24, 2010 at 1:57 pm
“It does not matter much for validating the proxy that it does not reach the present. ”
What matters is that there is no overlap between the proxy and actual observations. Whether the overlap reaches the present or is far in the past is irrelevant, so long as there is one. If you don’t have an overlap, you don’t have a validated proxy.
Perhaps you are saying that the proxy has previously been validated with other cores and other observations, so the lack of overlap in this particular case doesn’t matter much? If so, I would accept that, with some reservations concerning possible inaccuracies. I didn’t see anything about this in the paper, which did seem to use a graph fitting to align the proxy, but I admit it may have been hidden in the details or references I may not have studied carefully enough. I also understand and accept that you have other issues with the proxy’s “limited utility”.
Cliff,
You state: “Evidence is anything supporting a theory.” In scientific terms, that is wrong.
Really, Cliff, you need to get up to speed on this subject. I suggest reading the WUWT archives, and quit inhabiting the RealClimate, climate progress, etc., echo chambers, where you only hear one side of the debate, and where scientifically skeptical views are routinely censored out.
I provided a link showing that CAGW is an unsupported conjecture lacking testable, falsifiable evidence. By “evidence” we don’t mean any argument that could possibly support the CAGW hypothesis.
In the scientific method, evidence refers to empirical [real world], testable, falsifiable, replicable data — and the burden is entirely on the promoters of a new hypothesis, not on skeptics — who have nothing to prove.
Skeptics simply question — and the CAGW crowd lacks convincing answers. Until you get that straight in your mind you will continue to be confused about what scientific ‘evidence’ entails — and about which party has the burden of providing scientific evidence supporting their scary new hypothesis.
There is no testable, measurable evidence supporting CAGW, or tipping points, or runaway global warming; nor any measurable, quantifiable, scientific evidence showing that the <3% of CO2 attributable to human activity has any effect on temperature.
The criterion of the scientific method is its falsifiability, and refutability, and testability. Without those conditions there is no scientific method, and any so-called hypotheses lacking those requirements is no more scientific than Scientology. See Karl Popper’s explanation of the scientific method.
CO2=CAGW is not falsifiable, therefore it is not science. It is a conjecture lacking empirical evidence; a “what if” scenario. Planet Earth is not cooperating with that particular conjecture. So who are we to believe? The promoters of the deliberately scary CAGW conjecture — or planet Earth, and our lying eyes?
Finally, your assertion that “CO2 is up. CO2 warms the climate. The climate is warming” proves nothing. Postal rates are also up. Both may well be coincidental. Showing a spurious correlation is the way an un-rigorous human mind works, but it is not science. The fact that on all time scales, rises in CO2 follow rises in temperature should tell you that there are fatal assumptions in the CO2=CAGW conjecture.
Do a search of the WUWT archives for “CO2”, and do some necessary reading. It will provide valuable education on the difference between speculation and the the essential role of skepticism in the scientific method.
Or, you could go back to the comfortable echo chamber at realclimate, climate progress, etc., where the reasonable views expressed on this “Best Science” site are routinely censored out, and their handful of commenters mutually reinforce their belief that a harmless and beneficial trace gas is gonna getcha.
“And it’s warming in ways consistent with how CO2 warms the climate as I understand it (correct me if I’m wrong).”
There are a number of problems. The output from GCM’s include higher rates of warming in the tropical mid troposphere, which would result from positive water vapour feedback. This has not been observed. The CO2 theory also mandates a radiative imbalance of something like 0.85 watts per meter squared. This absolutely leads to the prediction that heat must accumulate in the oceans (it isn’t accumulating in the atmosphere). Dr. Pielke has estimated that there should be about 1 * 10^29 joules of extra ocean heat accumulated since the year 2000. Despite deploying state of the art sumbersible temperature sensors (Argo network) this heat has not yet been detected. Professor Lindzen has also done some research on the ERBE satellite data and has concluded that the radiation flows are not behaving as models predict.
The climate is not behaving at all well.
phlogiston,
“This conjecture is false – due to the operation of dynamic chaos and nonlinear behaviour, total knowledge of particles properties at time zero does not necessarily allow prediction of future behaviour.”
This is a good point. The concept that position and kinetics of particles is unkowable to an infinite precision, does not merely follow from considerations of our present technology, but is a funamental tenet of mathematics. In can be shown that there exists an infinite quantity of irrational numbers. These are numbers that cannot be expressed with infinite precision – Pi is the best known example. Positions of the majority of particles can only be described with irrational numbers – that is to say, any calculations based on them will only be approximations. The outcome of this is that it is fundamentally impossible to predict the future outcome of particles in the real world, since any errors, no matter how minute, will be magnified with each iteration of the computation.
Warming in the tropical mid-troposphere is not a function of CO2 warming, but atmospheric warming from any cause. Doesn’t matter if the driver is solar or cosmic rays or GHGs. There may be a flaw in the understanding of the moist adibiatic lapse rate, but that is not specifically to do with CO2. However, the data on which the ‘missing hotspot’ is based is problematic.
It may be that the missing heat is in the oceans deeper than sensors can reach. There was a very recent paper positing heating of the oceans between 1000 and 4000 meters. That’s about as deep as we can read at the moment, and the findings only account for a quarter of the missing heat.
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/people/gjohnson/Recent_AABW_Warming_v3.pdf
barry,
“However, you can read the paper for yourself and learn that they said the opposite was occurring (less ice) on the other side of the Arctic (Eastern Arctic) for most of the period.”
I presume that what they say is happening on the Eastern Arctic has come from other studies, since their own study was based in one area?
“it only refers to an area that is 4% (I said 10% before, mistakenly) of the entire Arctic ocean.”
Isn’t it possible to make sweeping generalisations from a small point in space? Isn’t that what Mann did with his bristlecones? And is it any different from what GISS are doing extrapolating a single temperature station over 1200km?
Vince, deal with or at least acknowledge my main point about the top article – reassure me you’ll have a straight up conversation point for point with no dancing around – and I’ll move on to your point.
barry,
“Vince, deal with or at least acknowledge my main point about the top article – ”
I assume you are making the point that because the study only looks at 4% of the arctic, it would be wrong to draw any conclusions about the other 96%. I’m not sure I agree. It has long be accepted to take proxy readings from a single area and draw conclusions for wider areas. Mann did in MBH98. This wasn’t the reason that the hockey stick was criticised. It was criticized on the statistical methods. The assumption behind this reasoning is that if the climate has altered at one point on the earths surface for a long enough period (decades? centuries?) then it is reasonable to attribute this to larger scale climate variations. I don’t see any problems with this, unless it is contradicted by other evidence. You say other studies show the opposite trends for the wider area. In that case, the methodology of these studies should be re-examined. Maybe invalid methods or assumptions were used. or the techniques have become obsolete. Given that warmer periods existed in the past, this is quite likely.
barry,
“It may be that the missing heat is in the oceans deeper than sensors can reach.”
I have a problem with this as well. In order for this heat to reach greater depths, it would have to pass by all the Argo sensor’s without being detected, like a thief in the night.
Why assume when you can read my posts?
The article at the top of this thread does misrepresents what is in the paper. Simple. No need to shift goal posts or pretend that some extrapolation from data in the Cukchi Sea was attempted. This is the thrust of the top post…
Not one mention of the area assessed (Cukchi Sea), not one mention that it covers 4% of the Arctic, no attempt to extrapolate, not one mention of the paper advising that that the Eastern Arctic sea ice cover showed opposite behaviour to that of sea ice in the Cuchki Sea over most of the Holocene.
Distortion by selective quoting. Simple.
Now you, Vince, appear to be trying trying to redeem the article with a completely false analogy of a different subject altogether.
Mann’s conclusions on Northern Hemispheric temperatures in his 98 and 99 papers were tentative and based on a range of proxy data from various locations. In order to match what was done in the top post, Mann would have needed to make absolute conclusions about the whole globe and have expressed no uncertainty or failed commented on difficulties and limitations with data.
Is it possible the arctic had less sea ice at different times over the Holocene than at present? Yes. But you can’t establish that from this paper. Nor did Mann’s early work conclude anything about global temperatures over the last millennium, and those papers of 11 and 12 years ago were qualified and called for more data and study.
3000 ARGO buoys were deployed over a few years to late 2007. Plenty of huge gaps in that time and even now. There’s no need to be so defensive. It may be that the missing heat isn’t in the deep oceans. I’m just pointing out new science that tentatively concludes there might be. It’s not definitive. There is a strange tendency to be close-minded in so-called ‘skeptical’ blogs.
Smokey,
“In the scientific method, evidence refers to empirical [real world], testable, falsifiable, replicable data — and the burden is entirely on the promoters of a new hypothesis, not on skeptics — who have nothing to prove.
But there is empirical evidence supporting AGW. Such as the empirical evidence of warming. The empirical evidence of higher GHGs. The empirical evidence showing solar is not sufficient to explain the recent warming. And the models too are empirical evidence. You feed in historical climate data and without the GHGs you don’t output the warming observed historically. This evidence may not be sufficient proof but it’s evidence that makes AGW more than unsupported conjecture.
“Skeptics simply question — and the CAGW crowd lacks convincing answers.”
Not exactly. YOU and some others haven’t been convinced. Others are, including a lot of scientists. See the NAS reports from this year that everyone loves to ignore here. That many scientists believe AGW is true doesn’t mean AGW is true. My point here is only that AGW unquestionably is a legitimate theory.
“There is no testable, measurable evidence supporting CAGW, or tipping points, or runaway global warming; nor any measurable, quantifiable, scientific evidence showing that the <3% of CO2 attributable to human activity has any effect on temperature."
Maybe not for runaway global warming. But yes there is measurable evidence that supports AGW as an explanation for the warming observed. Maybe not enough to prove it. But lack of proof does not equal lack of evidence.
"The criterion of the scientific method is its falsifiability, and refutability, and testability. . . CO2=CAGW is not falsifiable, therefore it is not science."
As I have repeated and you have not answered, AGW is falsifiable. One could show that the recent warming since the 70s is fully attributable to solar, for example. One could shown that man is not responsible for the measurable increase in CO2.
"It is a conjecture lacking empirical evidence; a “what if” scenario. Planet Earth is not cooperating with that particular conjecture. So who are we to believe? The promoters of the deliberately scary CAGW conjecture — or planet Earth, and our lying eyes?"
It looks like the planet is warming to most people. Do you have some data showing otherwise? Really, the whole question here is the cause, AGW or something else. AGW is not inconsistent with what's being observed. That doesn't mean AGW is proven, but again it's overreaching to say what is being observed is at odds with AGW.
"Finally, your assertion that “CO2 is up. CO2 warms the climate. The climate is warming” proves nothing."
Well it's not just that. It's also the absence of another suitable explanation so far. For example, solar doesn't cut it. Plus, my point here is not that AGW is PROVEN. It's that you are overstating things to say AGW is unscientific.
"The fact that on all time scales, rises in CO2 follow rises in temperature should tell you that there are fatal assumptions in the CO2=CAGW conjecture.
Not really. If higher temps lead to more CO2 release for any reason, it's quite possible for CO2 to cause an increase in temp that then results in more CO2 in the atmosphere. That alone doesn't resolve the question.
"Do a search of the WUWT archives for “CO2″, and do some necessary reading. It will provide valuable education on the difference between speculation and the the essential role of skepticism in the scientific method."
I am reading here and so far nothing is giving me much reason to doubt AGW. I'm still reading though.
"Or, you could go back to the comfortable echo chamber at realclimate, climate progress, etc.,"
Oh, yeah, it's real "comforting" to think AGW is right. I'd love to find something convincing indicating it's not. But the idea that AGW is not scientific when tons of scientists believe it – again see the NAS reports from this year — sorry that doesn't help me at all.
Smokey: “Skeptics simply question…There is no testable, measurable evidence supporting CAGW…”
The claim: “There is no testable, measurable evidence supporting CAGW” is not a question, rather an assertion supporting a particular position. Therefore, if scepticism is mere questioning, the claim is not a sceptical claim.
“Finally, your assertion that “CO2 is up. CO2 warms the climate. The climate is warming” proves nothing. Postal rates are also up. Both may well be coincidental.”
Except that CO2 is a posited causative factor, whereas postal rates=warming is merely correlative. Therefore, CO2=warming is a different, and much stronger, claim.
When evaluating evidence in science, keep in mind that correlation does not equal causation, and science seeks to establish causation.
Cliff,
“Not exactly. YOU and some others haven’t been convinced. Others are, including a lot of scientists. See the NAS reports from this year that everyone loves to ignore here.”
One of the most stubborn myths is the one that states that thousands of scientists have examined the evidence and concluded that AGW is a real problem. I often despair of the number of times, after explaining the counter evidence, when people reply along the lines; well that’s what the vast majority of scientists believe.
You quote the NAS. Others have quoted the Royal Society. Yet, again, this is not the workings of thousands of scientists examining evidence, but instead, the output of a handful of individuals who sit on the boards. The closest analogy would be an op-ed published in a scientific journal, like new scientists.
The largest and most listened to voice is the IPCC, and nowhere is the myth of thousands of climate scientists examining the evidence more prevalent. But if you look closely, you find that the overwhelming majority of scientists are researching areas that are peripheral to the main question. The IPCC is spread over three working groups – the second and third are to do with consequences (of assumed climate change) and mitigation respectively. Out of the first working group, only one chapter actually addresses the question. That single chapter references some 500 scientists. So the thousands of scientists have been narrowed down to 500. But it gets worse.
These scientists have no role in writing the chapter or in drawing the conclusions. Indeed, some of the names among the 500 include well known sceptics such as Christy and Spencer. The writing is delegated to a team of about 50 authors and lead authors, who are selected from volunteers by the IPCC comittee. I am prepared to accept that these 50 scientists believe that AGW is a problem, but there are also dozens of sceptical climate scientists who don’t believe.
But what about the endorsements from learned societies all around the world? Surely that adds weight. Other that observing that the scholars that sit on the boards of these societies have no role in climate science, I do find it strange that they can make such pronouncements. But I believe the answers can be found in psychology rather than climate science. Ideology plays a large role; as some research recently concluded, belief in AGW and disbelief have a correlation with political beliefs. I think it is reasonable to observe, that individuals with a left wing bias view AGW scepticism as being pro-capitalist to an excessive degree. Group think is also important, as people that move only among circles who hold the same beliefs will tend to echo the same beliefs.
I often ask myself the question; what work has Lord Rees, an astronomer, done in climate science to make him so certain that the IPCC is right and sceptics are wrong? The only conclusion I can reach is that Rees, being a scientist, accepts the words published by the IPCC who represent other scientists. He is effectively telling us: I am a scientists and I can tell you that the output of these other scientists that have gone through peer review and rigorous vetting to reach the IPCC, must be as robust as they say.
Well, I’m sorry. That may be the way it ought to be, or the way Lord Rees thinks it is, but I have seen enough to make me realise, it is all smoke and mirrors.
Anthony,
Thanks for posting this and I would like to respond to critical remarks (and will have an upcoming Hockey Schtick post with more details and figures from the pdf below):
1. The multiple comments that the title didn’t include everything else that was noted in the post seems unreasonable to me. Included in the post is the title of the paper and the abstract describing the exact location, states that it concerns the WESTERN Arctic, and a link to the paper itself for anyone who wants to read all the details and caveats. Would you be happy if I just made the title the entire post itself? probably not.
2. Regarding their discussion of the EASTERN Arctic, one of the same authors published the paper cited in the discussion about the Arctic bipolar behavior east vs. west which is located here:
http://gizmo.geotop.uqam.ca/devernalA/de_Vernal_et_al_AGU_CH04_2009.pdf
and which shows in Fig 6 that the “bipolar” east/west behavior began in the 1700’s way before industrialization and the graph cuts off sometime in the 1800’s. Therefore, the discussion about bipolar changes is referring to a time period BEFORE the 20th century.
also look at Fig 9 showing the WESTERN Arctic back to 16,000 Y BP.
and the abstract which states bipolar changes are not unlike those seen in the 20th century
3. Several commenters above have already pointed out that it is the DATA which clearly shows that the western Arctic sea ice extent was more extensive at the end of the 20th century than MOST (i.e. > 50%) of the past 9000 years.
4. As to the comments that ‘this is only a tiny area,’ of the Arctic, the 6 geoscientist authors thought it was ok to put in the abstract itself that this paper CLEARLY represents the variability of the WESTERN Arctic during the Holocene. Some of the same authors also wrote the paper I linked to above which uses this drilling site compared to a single site in the EASTERN Arctic to assess the bipolar nature of the Arctic (Fig 6).
Said authors also choose to state in the final sentence on the conclusion:
“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.”
[I’d like to know why western Arctic Sea Ice conditions over many many periods and FAR worse than the present didn’t cause a tipping point due to decreased albedo at any time, but much better sea ice conditions are claimed to cause a tipping point now. ]
Said authors also choose to state in the final sentences of the abstract:
“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.”
5. As to multiple comments along the lines that temperature change in the 20th century cannot be explained by natural processes, I offer the following (inspired by Joe D’Aleo and others) which shows R^2=.96 for ‘sunspot integral’+PDO+AMO vs. temp compared to R^2=.44 for CO2 vs. temp
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2010/01/climate-modeling-ocean-oscillations.html
also forgot to mention that the Eastern Arctic sea ice was less than present 6000-7000 yr ago during the Holocene “climate optimum” per this study:
http://www.newsnet5.com/dpp/weather/weather_news/study%3A-less-ice-in-the-arctic-ocean-6000-7000-years-ago
(and featured here at WUWT) which would coincide with the low extent of the western Arctic sea ice shown in the graph in this study. Thus, there may have been an “ice free Arctic” during the “climate optimum”
and sorry for the CAPS for emphasis in the last post – not shouting -just the lazy man’s bold
Barry – I agree with you that the paper ..
http://bprc.osu.edu/geo/publications/mckay_etal_CJES_08.pdf
.. says that “Cores from site HLY0501-05 on the Alaskan margin in the eastern Chukchi Sea were analyzed” and that the eastern Chukchi Sea is not representative of the whole Arctic. However, they also say that “According to sea-surface temperature estimates, the last few hundred years have been marked by cooler conditions than most of the Holocene” and that “Most of the modern analogue sites that were selected during this process are located in the Arctic (e.g., 36.4% from Beaufort Sea, 30.4% from Hudson Bay, 15.5% from eastern Arctic Ocean, and 4.8% from Bering Sea).“. In other words, the sea-surface temperature estimates were based on a much greater area than just the Chukchi Sea. That probably still leaves it open for you to argue that it did not cover the whole Arctic, but I think I’ll go with Ben D. “find an inconvenient proxy result in the Chukchi sea and suddenly its “only [4%] of the Arctic”“, and with Vince Causey.
Barry – I think I disagree with you on just about everything else. The lack of ocean heat is getting very difficult to argue against. The idea that such a large amount of heat has found somewhere else to go undetected is not absolutely disproved, but it has now reached the point IMHO that we have to accept that the evidence that there does not appear to be any such heat.
And on the troposphere “hot spot” you say “Warming in the tropical mid-troposphere is not a function of CO2 warming, but atmospheric warming from any cause. Doesn’t matter if the driver is solar or cosmic rays or GHGs.“.
Wrong. Very wrong.
1. The IPCC Report shows clearly in Figure 9.1 panel (c) that it (the hot-spot) is from “well-mixed greenhouse gases“. The other panels clearly show no hot-spot : “(a) solar forcing, (b) volcanoes, .. (d) tropospheric and stratospheric ozone changes, (e) direct sulphate aerosol forcing.“.
2. The effects of solar / cosmic ray / cloud variations, for example, would surely be primarily at the surface and in the ocean surface layer – because sunlight passes through the atmosphere with little loss and delivers virtually all of its heat to the land and ocean. If this is the main driver of climate, then in a warming phase (eg. late 20thC) the surface can be expected to warm more than the [tropical] troposphere – which is exactly what is observed.
Hockey Schtick says:
September 25, 2010 at 5:51 pm
also forgot to mention that the Eastern Arctic sea ice was less than present 6000-7000 yr ago during the Holocene “climate optimum” per this study:
(and featured here at WUWT) which would coincide with the low extent of the western Arctic sea ice shown in the graph in this study. Thus, there may have been an “ice free Arctic” during the “climate optimum”
This study looks to have been at a single site fairly close to Alaskan coast (72.6N). At 7000 years ago, graph shows about 8 months per year of ice coverage, which, being at the margin of the arctic, hardly seems to equate with “ice free Arctic”. What do you mean?
@ur momisugly HockeySchtick
Interesting update at the bottom of your post
It’s not hard to see how the story winds up being so lopsided at WUWT, but at least you corrected the omission at your site.
It’s also not difficult to see that people are fishing for the conclusions that they want, exemplified by the title of the post here and at your site. Journalism on both sides of the debate does this all the time – takes a tentative, localised finding, and turns it into a sensational distortion. Par for the course, but not terribly defensible.
The latter paper you cite above concludes thus:
It seems that you’re eager to find within the paper a conclusion that the authors think the data is too coarse and too scant to allow. Sea ice coverage may have been less than present at times throughout the Holocene. I would not be surprised to learn that there was less sea-ice in the early Holocene, just after deglaciation, when insolation was greatest over the North Pole. But none of this be concluded from the fragmentary evidence of either paper, particularly when the fragments tell different stories – and headlines and commentary suggesting step far beyond the bounds of neutral reporting. Nothing can be inferred from these patchy reconstructions about the rate of Arctic-wide sea ice decline on decadal scales, either. More study is needed.
Vince Causey says:
September 25, 2010 at 1:31 pm
==========================
Extremely well articulated!
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
@Mike Jonas
The panels do not represent equal forcing, but of the estimated forcing of each component from 1890 to 1999. Look again at 9.1, and you will see enhanced heating (brighter yellow) in the tropical troposphere area of the solar panel. The reason TT is only slightly warmer is because the forcing is not nearly as great as for GHGs. Over the same period, aerosol forcing is slightly negative, and you can see that this results in an enhanced cooling of the TT. The results are consistent in sign for each of the forcings, at greater and lesser amplitudes. That’s because the temp change at the TT is almost entirely a result of the change in adibiatic lapse rate in response to temperature change of the total atmosphere. This does not hinge on the type of forcing (as far as we know).
barry says:
September 25, 2010 at 8:48 am
There’s no need to be so defensive. It may be that the missing heat isn’t in the deep oceans. I’m just pointing out new science that tentatively concludes there might be. It’s not definitive. There is a strange tendency to be close-minded in so-called ‘skeptical’ blogs.
====================================
He is not the one being defensive, Barry. That is crystal clear. Pot/Kettle/Black.
Huh? “New Science” that “concludes” there might be missing heat in the deep oceans?
“Concludes?”
Just who is grasping for straws here?
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
barry says:
September 25, 2010 at 8:48 am
There is a strange tendency to be close-minded in so-called ‘skeptical’ blogs.
==================================
Nice projection technique, but it won’t work.
All one has to do is weigh the arguments of both sides.
Have spent a lot of time listening and reading to both sides.
There is no contest.
All one has to do is look at the logic of Mike Jonas, Vince Causey, Ben D., Smokey, and others above.
Like a surgeon’s knife, they cut through the hubris…including that of the Cliffs, Gneisses (lol), Barrys, and EFS_Juniors of the world.
[And I would say to that last group: Is that the best you can do??]
Res ipsa loquiter.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Mike J,
Addendum: Although the SPM2 figure expresses values of various forcings (GHG, solar, aerosol, ozone etc) over a time period twice as long as 9.1 – and can’t be directly compared – it can give you an idea of the sign of each in relation to the 9.1 model estimate graphs.