24 Hours of Climate Reality: Gore-a-thon – Hour 3

A new post containing a cartoon from Josh will appear every hour. At the end of the 24 hours, everything will be collated on a single page. Readers are encouraged to post skeptical arguments below, as well as offer comments on what has been seen from the Climate Reality Project so far.

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According to some, Arctic Sea Ice is THE metric by which to gauge “global warming”. There’s only one problem. The ice is keeping it’s own schedule and temperature doesn’t seem to be much of a factor.

Here’s the graph:

More importantly though, Sea Ice News: Arctic sea ice “may” have turned the corner  and it looks like only one organization reports a record low extent, while others show differently. Artic ice doesn’t appear to be as affected by temperature as one might think, there are other factors, such as wind pattern:

Peer reviewed paper – wind contributes to Arctic sea ice decline

And then there’s black soot from Asia:

“Impure as the Driven Snow Smut is a bigger problem than greenhouse gases in polar meltdown.…such dark carbon triggers melting, and may be responsible for as much as 94 percent of Arctic warming. ”

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=impure-as-the-driven-snow

And for those concerned Arctic ice may disappear, there’s this peer reviewed study:

New study suggests Arctic ‘tipping point’ may not be reached

UPDATE: There was no record low this year according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center:

In other news…Arctic sea ice has turned the corner

From NSIDC:

Arctic sea ice at minimum extent

Arctic sea ice appears to have reached its lowest extent for the year. The minimum ice extent was the second lowest in the satellite record, after 2007, and continues the decadal trend of rapidly decreasing summer sea ice.

Overview of conditions

On September 9, 2011 sea ice extent dropped to 4.33 million square kilometers (1.67 million square miles). This appears to have been the lowest extent of the year, and may mark the point when sea ice begins its cold-season cycle of growth. However, a shift in wind patterns or late season melt could still push the ice extent lower.

This year’s minimum was 160,000 square kilometers (61,800 square miles) above the 2007 record minimum extent, and 2.38 million square kilometers (919,000 square miles) below the 1979 to 2000 average minimum.

And NSIDC has avoided a new record low…yet in Gore’s CRP panel last night, the obscure University of Bremen dataset, never before touted by warmists, was trotted out as proof of another record low. Told ya so:

The answer to why such language might be used, perhaps prematurely in the face of other datasets which presently disagree, may be found in the proximity of the upcoming Climate Reality Project (aka the Gore-a-thon) on September 14-15. Al needs something to hold up as an example of gloom, since sea ice didn’t repeat the 2007 low in 2008, 2009, or 2010, and the Antarctic has not been cooperative with the melt meme at all, remaining boringly “normal” and even above normal last year.

We’ll know the answer when we see if this Bremen missive is included in Al’s upcoming presentation.

Last night in hour 1 of the CRP I noted:

Anthony Watts says:

September 14, 2011 at 5:48 pm

This use of the Bremen press release is the worst example of alarmist cherry picking ever. For years, NSIDC is the authority they tout, now they were thrown under the bus before they could even announce whether they had a record low or not so that Gore could have a talking point.

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