Now we start the slow slide into the Arctic Ice Minimum, likely sometime in September.
It is important to point out that there’s a lot of ice up there, and as illustrated by the images below, the losses at ICEmax are at the periphery, not at the core.
click to enlarge
What I find curious is the fact that NSDIC’s opening statement (below) in the press release has these words: “Arctic sea ice extent” but if you look at the NSIDC provided plot above, you’ll note that they include normal lines (in orange) for areas that are outside of the Arctic circle. While perhaps a small point, it does speak to accuracy in reporting. For example, I really don’t see how sea ice off the north coast of Newfoundland can be considered “Arctic” when it doesn’t even come close to being within the Arctic Circle.
[Update: Dr. Walt Meier of NSIDC in an email agrees that the orange boundaries are “somewhat arbitrary” and has agreed to explore a “what if” question for me. I hope to have a plot from him using Arctic circle as a boundary in a couple of weeks to see if there is any significant difference – Anthony]
It’s also important to note that this NSDIC claim only represents data from a 30 year satellite record, not the all time ice record, which is spotty and incomplete. From historical anecdotes, it appears the Arctic has gone through periods of reduced ice in the past. While NSIDC claims the maximum to be a tie with the 2006-2007 period on their plot (see their press release below), I’ll point out that NANSEN’s plot, using the same SSMI sensor platform, shows it nowhere near the 2007 value at present, though there was an intersection in the month of February:
In fact, NSIDC claims the maximum was reached on March 7th, but as we see in the NANSEN plot above, the ice continues to grow as late as 3/23 when that plot was produced. This discrepancy between two organizations that use the SSMI data is curious. However, the JAXA AMSRE data does seem to support NSIDC’s claim.
More live plots are available on the WUWT Sea Ice Page
======================================================================
Here’s NSIDC’s announcement:
Annual maximum ice extent reached
Arctic sea ice extent appeared to reach its maximum extent for the year on March 7, marking the beginning of the melt season. This year’s maximum tied for the lowest in the satellite record. NSIDC will release a detailed analysis of 2010 to 2011 winter sea ice conditions during the second week of April.
Figure 1. Arctic sea ice extent on March 7 was 14.64 million square kilometers (5.65 million square miles). The orange line shows the 1979 to 2000 median extent for that day. The black cross indicates the geographic North Pole. Sea Ice Index data. About the data.
—Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center
Overview of conditions
On March 7, 2011, Arctic sea ice likely reached its maximum extent for the year, at 14.64 million square kilometers (5.65 million square miles). The maximum extent was 1.2 million square kilometers (471,000 square miles) below the 1979 to 2000 average of 15.86 million square kilometers (6.12 million square miles), and equal (within 0.1%) to 2006 for the lowest maximum extent in the satellite record.
Figure 2. The graph above shows daily Arctic sea ice extent as of March 22, 2011, along with daily ice extents for 2006, which had the previous lowest maximum extent, and 2007, the year with the lowest minimum extent in September. Light blue indicates 2011, green shows 2007, light green shows 2006, and dark gray shows the 1979 to 2000 average. The gray area around the average line shows the two standard deviation range of the data. Sea Ice Index data.
—Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center
Conditions in context
As of March 22, ice extent has declined for five straight days. However there is still a chance that the ice extent could expand again. Sea ice extent in February and March tends to be quite variable, because ice near the edge is thin and often quite dispersed. The thin ice is highly sensitive to weather, moving or melting quickly in response to changing winds and temperatures, and it often oscillates near the maximum extent for several days or weeks, as it has done this year.
Since the start of the satellite record in 1979, the maximum Arctic sea ice extent has occurred as early as February 18 and as late as March 31, with an average date of March 6.
Jer0me says:
March 24, 2011 at 2:56 pm
Gerald Machnee says:
March 24, 2011 at 2:33 pm
Top Gear did not go to the geographic North Pole – They went to the magnetic pole.
From there, there will pretty much always be ice all the way to the actual pole, so they could just as easily have reached that. The point was made that there is, in fact, plenty of ice. So much ice that you can drive all the way to the pole (either one). And it was made very, very, well!
There certainly wouldn’t be ice all the way to the N Pole, there are many leads opening up at that time of year. They almost sank through thin ice as it was.
Arctic maximum ice extent reached – NANSEN data disagrees with NSIDC’s on the claim of a tie with 2006-2007
And as far as NH sea ice area is concerned Cryosphere Today shows this year’s maximum to be the lowest in the satellite data (previously 2006)
Smokey says:
March 25, 2011 at 6:46 pm
Mike,
You keep linking to the same old debunked Skeptical Pseudo-Science post. You’re starting to sound just like Winston Smith, Orwell’s protagonist, who wonders if the State might declare “two plus two equals five” as a fact; he ponders whether, if everybody believes in it, does that make it true?
The models confidently predicted the tropospheric hot spot: the “Fingerprint of Anthropogenic Global Warming.” Even though the models have since been debunked in Prof McKittrick’s peer reviewed paper… maybe they’re really true anyway, because everybody believes in them. Right, Winston?☺
How bizarre.
What is bizarre is that you claim that the following Skeptical Science piece on the tropospheric hot spot has been debunked, and that the graphs you present shows that. However you don’t deal with the main point made by NASA and quoted in the piece.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/tropospheric-hot-spot-advanced.htm
Although on seasonal and annual scales, some radiosonde records are in relatively good agreement with theoretical and modeling expectations, on decadal timescales, they show less warming or even cooling of the upper troposphere. However, the tropics, especially at higher altitudes, are a notorious problem area for most if not all of the older radiosonde networks. And attempts to stitch together longer records from multiple networks (and integrate them with newer satellite records) have introduced problems as well. There have been many attempts to quantify and remove these biases (e.g. Randel 2006, Sherwood 2008). Although these attempts have managed to reconcile the observational data with theoretical and model expectations within overlapping uncertainty intervals, the real world behavior of the troposphere is still unclear (Bengtsson 2009, Thorne 2010).
http://www.skepticalscience.com/tropospheric-hot-spot-intermediate.htm
What does the full body of evidence tell us? We have satellite data plus weather balloon measurements of temperature and wind strength. The three satellite records from UAH, RSS and UWA give varied results. UAH show tropospheric trends less than surface warming, RSS are roughly the same and UWA show a hot spot. The difference between the three is how they adjust for effects like decaying satellite orbits. The conclusion from the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (co-authored by UAH’s John Christy) is the most likely explanation for the discrepancy between model and satellite observations is measurement uncertainty.
http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/sap/sap1-1/finalreport/sap1-1-final-execsum.pdf
I am as skeptical of solar/AO causes as I am of CO2/AO causes. Mechanism folks. Without that, you are just wriggle matching. The Sun is a relative constant external source made to vary down here as it courses through a highly variable and energetic Earth system. The temperature/pressure gradient of Earth, combined with the rotational atmospheric drag, combined with Jet Stream behavior, combined with trade winds, combined with thunder storms, etc, provide ample energy to drive both weather and longer term weather pattern variation.
Phil
The point I was trying to make is that the sea ice concentration in the polar sea is far higher this year than in 2007. I am not making any claims about increased ice volume (I had enough of the PIOMASS v PIPS arguments last year) I am simply observing that, to put it simply, there is a greater ice to open water ratio this year despite a reduced overall extent.
When you consider the ice extent, it is calculated using 15% coverage or greater of ice. Looking closely at the two pictures at the top you will see that the vast mass of ice within the current boundary is considerably more concentrated now. The areas where there is low concentration are where the ice meets the north Atlantic. So I would suggest we will see a rapid drop in ice extent initially as this marginal low concentration ice melts, but this will be followed by a much slower decline when the melt edge reaches the more concentrated ice.
I consider the arguments of ice extent to be misleading because of the 15% figure. Let’s face it, if I saw a patch of ocean with 15% ice cover I would think of it as open water with some bits of ice floating on it. Ice in this concentration is far more susceptible to wind and currents, and of course has water all around it so will melt quicker (the smaller the chunks of ice, the quicker they will disappear).
Think of it another way. Assume the central area of polar ice is around 90%. Split it up into chunks and spread them out so that the concentration is 15% – six times the extent of the original but the same quantity of ice. Which version is likely to melt quicker, even without consideration of varying SST?
richcar that 1225 says:
March 25, 2011 at 11:27 am
Mr Gates,
As you know Steve Goddard is documenting the ice buildup from pip2s:
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2011/03/25/huge-increase-in-thick-ice-over-the-last-three-years/
The buildup correlates with the negative NAO:
http://ioc3.unesco.org/oopc/state_of_the_ocean/atm/nao.php
I think it is interesting that the negative NAO and estimate sea ice volume buildup in the 1960′s was also associated with a decline in solar sunspot number. It is looking more and more like arctic sea ice volume and arctic ocean heat content are controlled by a top down solar forcing that determines the NAM phase.
____
I put 0% credence in anything related to PIPS2.0, and close to 0% credence in things that Steve Goddard says. Last year about this time he began his months long rant about PIPS2.0 here on WUWT (some of you will recall that) and I insisted (along with some PhD experts from the NSIDC) that I wouldn’t put a a lot of stock in the PIPS2.0 MODEL data, but none the less, Steve continued on. Steve forecast a summer minimum last year (based on his beloved PIPS2.0 model data) of 5.5 million sq. km. I forecast a 4.5 million sq. km. minimum extent. I was considerably closer, and Steve promised me a mea culpa if that happened. It was never forthcoming, so I put little stock in either Steve or his beloved PIPS2.0.
@george E. Smith says:
March 25, 2011 at 4:32 pm
George, we are talking about sea ice in this blog, not land ice. I realize it’s a confusion that many have; icebergs are often thought of as sea ice when in fact, they are not. It doesn’t help of course that the media sometimes shows pictures of icebergs when they are doing a sea ice story. But just to be clear, sea ice forms when the ocean freezes.
@Pamela Gray says:
March 25, 2011 at 4:57 pm
Julienne, if you see a correlation in the 60′s between ice-related atmospheric conditions and solar SSN, all you have to do is match historical SSN and their proxies along with historical Arctic atmospheric conditions and ice extent/area proxies to see if there is also a match. Granted, it would be mostly proxies but I’m betting you won’t find a solid correlation. But then I always go with the null hypothesis. Habit.
Pamela, I have no idea how what you are talking about in any way refers to my comments regarding the impact the extreme negative NAO phase of winter 2009/2010 had on the sea ice cover. And how we need to be careful in linking any atmospheric index to what we expect to happen to the ice cover, because these indices do not explain the location of the SLP anomalies, nor do they explain all of the SLP variability.
Richar, I suggest doing a correlation between the DJF NAO and the September ice extent.
For the NAO data go here: http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/pna/norm.nao.monthly.b5001.current.ascii.table
For the sea ice data go here: ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02135/
FYI…the correlation is 0.03 from 1979 to 2010.
The AO has a slightly better correlation of -0.1, which may be expected since the AO is a better representation for the Arctic than the NAO is, but it’s still not much.
But…we can go back a little further in time using the Had1SST data that tries to incorporate previous observations from ships, aircraft and earlier satellites. From this data set we can go back to about 1953 with some reliability.
If we do that, we see a stronger correlation emerge of -0.37 from 1953-2010 between
the DJF NAO index and the September ice extent. That’s still only a small % of the variability explained.
savethesharks is right: R Gates’ constant refrain is that CO2 is the cause of declining Arctic ice. Gates recently stated that the ≈40% rise in CO2 is the cause of Arctic ice decline. Not a partial cause; the cause.
Now we have Dr Julienne Stroeve’s multiple explanations for the decline in half a dozen detailed posts. Not once does she ever mention CO2 as even a minor, peripheral factor. In fact, every cause she has identified is based on natural variability.
The UN- and government-promoted story that CO2 is a major problem has diverted many billions of dollars toward finding evidence that CO2 causes global harm. But no such evidence has come from that enormous waste of taxpayer money. There is no sign whatever of runaway global warming. The planet has been both hotter and colder than the current very mild 0.7°C rise many times over the Holocene, and there is no testable, empirical evidence showing that “carbon” had anything to do with it.
Carbon dioxide is a harmless trace gas. It is necessary for life and beneficial to the biosphere. There is no evidence that CO2 is causing any global problems, and it is certainly not the cause of the current cyclical decline in Arctic ice. The only evidence available shows that more CO2 is a net benefit, resulting in increased agricultural production.
The entire “carbon” scare is based on the evidence-free belief that CO2 is a global problem. After wasting more than $80 billion trying to support that failed conjecture, it is time for honest people to admit that it has been shown to be baseless.
Aside from a few notable exceptions, where are the ethical scientists who will stand up and say, “Due to the complete lack of evidence, it looks like we were wrong about CO2 causing runaway global warming.”
CO2 is the stated basis for Cap & Trade, for carbon footprints, for carbon credits, and for everything “carbon” related. Now that CO2 as the cause of runaway global warming has been debunked, the only honest course of action is for ethical scientists to call for an immediate end to the government’s demonizing of “carbon”. The carbon scare has burned through far too much money, and there is no scientific basis to throw more good money after bad.
Smokey says:
March 26, 2011 at 10:20 am
savethesharks is right: R Gates’ constant refrain is that CO2 is the cause of declining Arctic ice. Gates recently stated that the ≈40% rise in CO2 is the cause of Arctic ice decline. Not a partial cause; the cause.
_____
I have no problem with the general tenet that the 40% increase in CO2 since the 1700’s plays a significant role in the current multi-decadal decline in Arctic Sea ice. I’ve never said that there might not be other natural factors involved, both currently and certainly during past fluctuations. It gets very difficult to start to dissect out positive-feedback or arctic warming amplification related causes from such as dynamical system. The only way to know for certain what the effects of the 40% rise in CO2 has had on Arctic sea ice is to have a second “control” earth, identical in every way except where CO2 was held in the 280 ppm range since the 1700’s. You’d then have to compare that control with the earth we have now, with CO2 approaching 400 ppm. If they were identical in every way, except for the CO2 change, and the control earth saw no major changes in the sea ice (or only natural variations) and we have the decline we see now, then we’d know it was CO2 that was the initial cause (and we could also see follow-on positive feedback related effects).
Now then, we don’t happen to have such a “control earth” but we do have several virtual ones, commonly known as Global Climate Models. These are far from perfect of course, and can’t really get at the deterministic chaos involved in the real earth systems, but they can indicate general trends. They show, nearly universally, that the 40% increase in CO2 since the 1700’s along with related positive feedback effects will lead to a decrease in arctic sea ice with the an eventual seasonally ice-free arctic sometime this century. To show how off these models can be, none of them predicted the sharp decline in arctic sea ice of 2007, as the curve downward to an ice-free arctic is far more steep than any models. To me, this miss shows that the models can spot trends, but not necessarily the slope or degree of those trends. This goes back to the deterministic chaos of the complex climate system. The sharp downward decline beginning in 2007 had many proximate “weather related” causes, but again, you’d need a control earth to see if the 40% rise in CO2 since the 1700’s was the actual root cause.
So yes, I do put at least a 75% probability that the 40% increase in CO2 since the 1700’s is the root cause of the current decline in Arctic sea ice. I would suspect the majority of experts in the field would agree with this general statement, though they might even put their own probability higher than my modest 75%. If some don’t agree with this general statement, I would welcome their perspectives and reasons why and take it as an opportunity to learn.
Peter Plail says:
March 26, 2011 at 8:41 am
Phil
The point I was trying to make is that the sea ice concentration in the polar sea is far higher this year than in 2007. I am not making any claims about increased ice volume (I had enough of the PIOMASS v PIPS arguments last year) I am simply observing that, to put it simply, there is a greater ice to open water ratio this year despite a reduced overall extent.
I’m not sure what you base that on but it doesn’t seem right.
This year the ice area is lower: 12.82 vs 12.94 in 2007 (CT today’s date).
According to JAXA the extents are virtually identical.
If anything the ratio of ice to open water is therefore slightly lower
Ice to open water= 12.82/(13.73-12.82) = 14.3 (2011)
12.94/(13.73-12.94) = 16.4 (2007)
It’s easy to be fooled by those low resolution comparator images in CT, try comparing these:
http://www.iup.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsredata/asi_daygrid_swath/l1a/n6250/_2007/mar/asi-n6250-20070326-v5_nic.png
http://www.iup.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsredata/asi_daygrid_swath/l1a/n6250/2011/mar/asi-n6250-20110326-v5_nic.png
Regarding the SI unit for temperature, the kelvin, it does denote the absolute temperature but the unit may also be used for an interval:
from the NIST SI site:
“Thus temperature intervals or temperature differences may be expressed in either the degree Celsius or the kelvin using the same numerical value.
Example: The difference in temperature between the freezing point of gallium and the triple point of water is Δt = 29.7546 °C = ΔT = 29.7546 K.”
Julienne, I was referring to your solar comment. You seemed to suggest that a top-down solar driver is at work. How so? If you think there is a connection there, it would make sense to see if this sea ice volume observation stands up to other solar historical sunspot number decline. A one time observation is a very fragile case indeed.
You said:
“I think it is interesting that the negative NAO and estimate sea ice volume buildup in the 1960′s was also associated with a decline in solar sunspot number. It is looking more and more like arctic sea ice volume and arctic ocean heat content are controlled by a top down solar forcing that determines the NAM phase.”
R. Gates says:
March 25, 2011 at 10:31 pm
ClimateForAll says:
March 25, 2011 at 5:38 pm
“Make me wonder if JAXA got some huge grant that gave them to opportunity to add a human touch to their data.”
___
This statement is nonsense.
From a powerpoint regarding JAXA mission statement here :
Looking at this one update report from JAXA, lays a pretty good foundation for my assumption.
JAXA has an agenda. In their mission to supply data products, one of their aims is to make predictions, in regards to climate change. To quote once again a part of what I read, was this: ‘Attributing environmental change to particular cause for effective measure of adaptation and reduction.’
I am skeptical of any scientific service that proclaims to acknowledge that part of its service is to attribute cause to environmental change using climate models. Especially if that service is using models to suggest that carbon as a trigger for rise in temperature or wator vapor or any other atmospheric attribute.
It has been a well known fact that some scientists have a better chance at receiving grants, if their mission is ‘green’.
I don’t think that the grants that JAXA is receiving now would be as much or as with such proliferation, during a time with such economical depression, if their mission statement didn’t include climate change.
Mind you that this is just my opinion.
My main concern is that the data from AMSRE might somehow be altered, with some certain preconceived understanding of causative effects.
I would place more trust in a service that didn’t choose a side in debate that isn’t settled.
Thats all I am saying.
If thats nonsense…..
So be it.
“R. Gates says:
March 26, 2011 at 11:09 am
So yes, I do put at least a 75% probability that the 40% increase in CO2 since the 1700′s is the root cause of the current decline in Arctic sea ice….If some don’t agree with this general statement, I would welcome their perspectives and reasons why and take it as an opportunity to learn.”
If a 40% increase in CO2 has such a huge effect in the north, then why does it not have the same effect in the south? Water vapor is extremely low in both places so it cannot overshadow the effect of CO2. I think the ice in the north is more under the influence of warm ocean currents from underneath and not from the greenhouse effect due to more CO2.
P.S. Thank you for Phil. says:
March 26, 2011 at 12:15 pm
Werner Brozek says:
March 26, 2011 at 7:32 pm
If a 40% increase in CO2 has such a huge effect in the north, then why does it not have the same effect in the south?
____
If you’re as smart as I think you are, I’m sure you really know the answer to this, but in the off chance that you’re not, and for others education I would suggest you read:
http://nsidc.org/seaice/characteristics/difference.html
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/SeaIce/page4.php
http://www.discoveringantarctica.org.uk/alevel_2_1.html
The short of it is- the arctic and antarctic, other then being at the extremes of the earth, are about as different as they could be in terms of their weather and climate dynamics. The Arctic has always been shown to warm earliest and more severely than the Antarctic in all GCM’s, and for very good reasons (as discussed in the links above).
The 40% increase in CO2 is not having an affect in the Antarctic because this region is hardly influenced by the ocean and shows the true influence of how changing greenhouses gases affects it’s atmosphere without the intereference of the ocean. The ocean is what is warming the Arctic from underneath via the North Atlantic current and the atmopshere there has hardly no affect like it’s Southern Sister.
@Pamela Gray says:
March 26, 2011 at 5:19 pm
Julienne, I was referring to your solar comment. You seemed to suggest that a top-down solar driver is at work. How so? If you think there is a connection there, it would make sense to see if this sea ice volume observation stands up to other solar historical sunspot number decline. A one time observation is a very fragile case indeed.
You said:
“I think it is interesting that the negative NAO and estimate sea ice volume buildup in the 1960′s was also associated with a decline in solar sunspot number. It is looking more and more like arctic sea ice volume and arctic ocean heat content are controlled by a top down solar forcing that determines the NAM phase.”
Pamela, that was not my comment. That was from Richar that 1225.
What natural cycle can account for the warmest water in 2,000 years moving into the Arctic? Re:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/01/28/us-climate-arctic-idUSTRE70P6TE20110128
RGates,
Why is this warming not detected in Greenland around this time? Just a different part of the Arctic and one area doesn’t mean all regions follows. If it was so warm compared, why didn’t it have much influence on the Greenland ice cap? Why was it so warm 2000 years ago and try to blame it on humans now?
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/ngrip2004/fig2.jpg
Another issue is the claim that the NAO and AO trends are caused by CO2. This is simply false where the original idea came from them both becoming increasingly poistive during the 1980’s and the 1990’s (either no so much in one of the decades), so it was blamed on human CO2.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/pna/nao.timeseries.gif
Shown above, the NAO has inceasingly become negtive again and the reason for this cyclic behaviour has nothing to do with CO2.
While below, the AO become increasingly positive during the 1990’s it has become more negative once again. Again this cyclic behaviour has nothing to do with CO2, with there being some other factor driving it.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/month.ao.gif
Matt G says:
March 27, 2011 at 1:32 pm
Another issue is the claim that the NAO and AO trends are caused by CO2. This is simply false where the original idea came from them both becoming increasingly poistive during the 1980′s and the 1990′s (either no so much in one of the decades), so it was blamed on human CO2.
_____
You have provided an excellent example of yet one more logical fallacy that certain AGW skeptics seem to want to hang on to. Just because there are natural cycles, does not in any way mean that those natural cycles can’t be altered or changed in character by the addition of an external forcing. Your heart can go on beating for many years in a very regular pattern, and if I inject adrenalin into your system, I can change the nature and character of your heartbeat. In geological terms, the 40% increase in CO2 represents an injection in the earth’s system– something not seen for at least 800,000 years. The only real issue is how sensitive is the earth’s climate to this injection, which continues to this day? Certainly the NAO, AO, PDO, AMO, and all the other natural ocean cycles have a natural rhythm they’ve established over many thousands and tens of thousands of years. For at least 800,000, through many glacial and interglacial periods they’ve carried out this rhythm with CO2 in a range of 180 to 280 ppm. Now there’s been a human caused spike in a geologically short period of time in CO2 to nearly 400 ppm. How sensitive is the earth to this increase? That’s the central question of all AGW research.
“R. Gates says:
March 26, 2011 at 9:37 pm
The short of it is- the arctic and antarctic, other then being at the extremes of the earth, are about as different as they could be in terms of their weather and climate dynamics.”
I have no problem with everything that it says in those three articles. Virtually everything in there could have been written 200 years ago if scientists had studied it then. The basic topography is one thing. But I do not see a unique CO2 signature in it. CO2 has increased in both places, yet only one shows much warming. That leads me to believe something else is going on that has nothing to do with CO2. See: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/warming_aerosols.html
“Though greenhouse gases are invariably at the center of discussions about global climate change, new NASA research suggests that much of the atmospheric warming observed in the Arctic since 1976 may be due to changes in tiny airborne particles called aerosols….(B)lack carbon emissions have steadily risen, largely because of increasing emissions from Asia….The Arctic region has seen its surface air temperatures increase by 1.5 C (2.7 F) since the mid-1970s. In the Antarctic, where aerosols play less of a role, the surface air temperature has increased about 0.35 C (0.6 F). That makes sense, Shindell explained, because of the Arctic’s proximity to North America and Europe.”
R. Gates says:
March 27, 2011 at 2:31 pm
I don’t agree, the cycle I have shown you for both AO and NAO is following as it should and I have even predicted in the past that this would occur. There is no evidence that CO2 has changed it any different from the natural cycle. This is where you have gone wrong, blaming something on that can’t even be demonstrated. I would have agreed with you if it was demonstrated that it has altered the cycle, but on the data shown it hasn’t. Remember CO2 was suppose to cause the increased positive phase for both and yet there no evidence it has modified the negative phase. The negative is still as great as any during the data.
p.s. Cycles can change and natural factors can alter them too, but so far difficult to see any change in the data provided apart from random noise.
Sorry, I just can’t help myself.
Forgive me now for this minor rant.
Co2 statistical figures that I’m seeing atm here in the comments is
making me laugh.
70% of 40% of this and that from here or there doin this or that.
It’s freaking hilarious.
Let me inject this.
Some statistical analysis suggests that 3% of current Co2 levels comprises mans contribution to current Co2 levels. That would put man made Co2 at 11.71 ppm.
Thats less than 12 parts per million. 12 of 1,000,000 parts.
And supposedly, over the next 100 years, with some rise, maybe, in Co2 levels will rise global temperatures by a half of a degree….+/- .5
Another scientific analysis also suggests that Co2 rises or falls, some 80-230 years, following temperature.
If there is any validity to this, one could hypothesize that if global temperatures were high in the 30’s, then given a 80 year window, Co2 could just be rising from that theory and have absolutely nothing to do with current man-made Co2 at all.
Now regarding ‘black’ carbon, either man-made or from forest fires or vulcanized, has been attributed to decreasing temperatures, through blanketing the atmosphere with aerosols, that trap vapor and block ultra violet rays from entering the atmosphere.
Now, if I dare, other factors may, may, play a key role in lowering temperatures.
Increased CGR’s, reduction in helio-illuminosity and noctilucent clouds may play a key part in global temperatures.
What I am saying is this…
The science isn’t settled. And the more someone entrenches themselves in figures that are vague and/or misleading only drives and even larger wedge in the debate.
If we are truly here to uncover the facts of climate, I suggest we unshackle ourselves from acting as if we know anything at all and look at all the possibilities.
Otherwise, whats the point of it all.
Vanity?
Pride?
Political?
Hubris?
Take your pick.