Guest Post by Jeff Condon
Tamino has his crowd all whipped up about sea ice. He has done two posts now declaring how stupid I, Anthony Watts, and by association, all of you, are. Sorry folks, it was a drive-by incident! For him, I’m not enough of a believer and for others, I’m too much. Is it is a good sign when you get it from all angles? Either way, he has made deliberately erroneous claims in an attempt to discredit this blog, and WUWT, which I suppose means we have struck a nerve.
The first thing I would like to clarify is my opinion on sea ice in general. Like many readers here, I have read a large number of papers on the topic, unlike most, I have also taken the time to download and plot satellite Sea Ice data, replicated the trends and examined sea ice on a regional basis. With help, I have identified evidence of minor trend inducing error and will soon be looking at how the online satellite data is knitted together during transitions. From all of these many hours of time, I’m completely unconvinced that man made global warming is causing very much of the observed sea ice decline. I’m also willing to be wrong but the literature appears to support that a substantial portion of the Northern hemisphere decline is caused by a weather pattern change in the Arctic.
This opinion is reasonably standard in the mainstream although it is often mixed with the claim that warming weakened the ice and allowed it to flow out of the polar region. The possibility that warming or weather are primary causes of the declining sea ice creates a need for disaggregation. Of course the two are not necessarily mutually exclusive so there is a lot of room for some combination of a variety of factors to be the cause. We also know that something the believers often conveniently forget is that not all warming is CO2 based.
So with all of that said, I don’t think that the effect man is having on the globe is detectable in the ice trend. Detectable being statistically differentiable. That is very different from whether a trend can be detected or whether a trend is caused by natural warming. In his recent two posts, Tamino (aka Dr. Grant Foster) mixes everything together in what has been a successful attempt to whip up his followers. Unlike the Air Vent and WUWT, his crowd is comprised primarily of non-technical readers who often jump at any statement they can find with literally zero understanding of why or what they are attacking.
So, if you have a region like the Arctic, where sea ice is often, but not always, multi-year and that ice is being affected by being either pushed out of the region and melting, simply warming and melting or some combination, and you want to understand the trend in ice levels for the globe caused by surface temperature warming, then disambiguation of the effects is necessary. Therefore measuring ice which melts completely and re-forms annually should provide a cleaner temperature signal than a region reacting to something else.
To that end I made the plot below from gigabytes of satellite data which identified 72 degrees North Latitude as the line where multi-year ice is nearly non-existent. Layman Lurker confirmed this latitude independently (and with less effort) before I finished. Now “nearly non-existent” is different from “completely non-existent” but not by much (see how that works!). Engineers and scientists often approximate things but some in Tamino’s crowd show their inexperience and called this as an error despite having no evidence.
So I then added up all of the single year sea ice south of 72 North latitude in the Northern and Southern hemisphere, plotted all of it including the pole-hole part left out, and referred to it as global single year ice. Unfortunately, the global ice didn’t have enough trend for Tamino (wasn’t quite 95% significant) and he completely wigged. (“Wigged”, is a psychiatric term used to describe the reaction of believers when they discover something is unhelpful to the “cause”. ) What he did to “fight back” was misrepresent the work and show a ridiculous annual refreeze plot in the North region implying that somehow that is equivalent. That was Grant Fosters trick on his readers, who were unwilling or unable to point out the deception. Several of them fell for it completely and their acerbic comments went uncorrected by Grant.
The north pole is a trapped region which freezes “nearly” completely every year. As multi-year ice vanishes, there is an increase in available open sea area and single year ice area naturally increases. Therefore if you want to isolate the effect of temperature on sea ice from weather effects on North polar ice, it is counterproductive to include anything from that region.
I have spent about an hour and a half now processing the data to see how well each region correlates to UAH NH temperatures. I took the entire NH temperature and correlated it to Northern hemisphere sea ice South of 72 degrees North latitude and sea ice North of 72 degrees. Of course, since we are using ICE, it is preferable to use only ice and temperatures from months where northern ice is present. I chose Jan – September from the video but it was pretty arbitrary. An estimate again! OMG.
Correlation of ice area to NH temperature:
South of 72 – 0.692
North of 72 – 0.593
So sea ice south of 72 correlated better to the NH temperature than that North of 72. It appears that the ice I’ve chosen is a better indicator of NH temp than ice north of that point. Of course it covers a lot more land mass than the other ice but it again confirms that the satellite sensors are measuring a real warming and the high correlation (for climate science) indicates that warming is having an impact on ice melt. It also confirms that the disaggregation of the data may not be worthless after all.
Lets see what Tamino’s crowd had to say about our collective stupidity-for daring to plot data:
“What Condon’s essay really illustrates is how fake skeptics fool themselves into thinking they have real evidence.”
“It’s my opinion that people like Jeff Condon are actually enemies of liberty.”
“It’s simple bootstrapping – it’s deliberate misinformation.”
“I cannot read much of Watts and other deniers – because too quickly I realize I am arguing with idiots. “
“Thanks very much for exposing this breathtaking piece of idiocy.”
“Every time I think I’ve finally become cynical enough to no longer be surprised by denier lies, something like this comes along and proves me wrong.”
“Watts’ comment was obvious. After all, he’s paid to say he’s not concerned. “
“This is typical of deniers. You start with the answer you want and then torture the data until you get enough evidence to believe it.”
“There is absolutely nothing justifiable from a scientific perspective in the ways Condon slices and dices the data”
“Cherry picking data to come to a conclusion the you already believed to be true, is the prime example of being a denier and not an honest skeptic.”
“Jeff Condon is anti-innovation, pure and simple.”
“Jeff is a moron.”
“Jeff got as close to the poles as he could without people noticing he was egregiously cheating.”
And that all is from the FIRST post. Tamino, who I believe realized his trick made him look bad, put up another post quickly attacking an older piece where I dared point out that sea ice level reached ‘average’.
oh my……
And around the believers went again.
Related articles
- How Fake Skeptics Fool Themselves (tamino.wordpress.com)
- Tamino Misses The Point And Attempts To Distract His Readers (wattsupwiththat.com)
- Sea Ice News Volume 3 #1 – The “Arctic Institute” pwns itself (wattsupwiththat.com)
- WUWT Sea Ice Page
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For the record, here’s what the sea ice looks like today – Anthony
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I’m curious to see how the atmosphere might respond to a return of higher levels of Arctic sea ice.
Amongst all the other dynamics, an decrease in sea ice leads to an increase of heat escaping from the ocean. A certain amount of the Arctic increase in temperatures is due to the decrease in sea ice.
When dynamics allow for an increase in sea ice, a certain amount of decrease in Arctic temperatures is to follow. The axis of multi-year ice has been pushed against the Canadian island coasts. When this area rotates about the Arctic an increase in sea ice seems likely.
I see Tamino’s ranting over decreasing NH sea ice as much a red herring as his ranting over increasing temps. No rational skeptic that I know denies the loss of sea ice nor the warming trend we’ve seen up through the 90’s. Most skeptics I know (myself included) acknowledge there is a human component to climate change. What I am skeptical about is the attribution of all warming to human activity and more particularly to C02, the notion that it is all catastrophic, strong positive feedbacks amplify it to a +6C climate sensitivity, models trump reality, and natural constituents of climate are completely swamped by the human component. I’m also skeptical about everything bad under the sun being exaggerated and attributed to global warming (er, climate change (er. climate disruption)) or whatever it’s going to be called next week.
When alarmists stop with their mass hysteria over every extreme weather event, shrinking shrimp in a heated lab bowl, hyper focusing on CO2 as the only environmental concern, ignoring rational solutions to whatever comes of climate change (natural or otherwise), start sharing the grant money to study the broader scope of climate, and are willing to discuss environmental challenges (natural or otherwise) without calling anyone who doesn’t agree with their hysteria an idiot, then I’ll start taking them more seriously.
At this time of year, why should Arctic sea ice matter at all? There’s very little sunlight during the winter months, so the ice albedo effect will be minimal.
And then there’s the issue that almost NOBODY lives in the high arctic, so we might as well be talking about Mars. It simply has no relevenance to humanity.
Shouldn’t the response to Tamino always include a picture of the Skate and a NW passage shipwreck?
Dear Dr. Grant Foster,
I don’t care much for your analysis, but I love your sunglasses
What’s this “UAH NH temp to 82 lon?” Is this an average value? What is a lon? And “sea ice are is inverted and scaled?” Is it or are it?
Sea ice is pretty hard to measure, especially before there were satellites. Remember in 2007 when the BBC reported 2013 was the year for ice free arctic? http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7139797.stm
Wasn’t it Tamino that support the idea the arctic tipping point has been reached not too long ago also?
Why nobody cares about antarctic ice? is it because is not melting?
Jeff, I loved your animated plots and something struck me.
There is an internal control in the temporal domain in you images. There are a large number of lakes, which will be generally isolated from sea currents, in you image field. Many of these lake change from blue to white on a yearly basis. Just sitting on different lakes, at different latitudes, and measuring the kinetics and extent of ice formation would give you a nice handle on the heat changes between water and the atmosphere.
It would be nice to see if the rhythm of decadal changes in lake icing match the sea ice extent of not. You might be able to pull out a sea water induced ‘pulse’.
Tamino was a valiant prince, but Grant Foster masquerading as so called ‘Tamino’ is no prince of anything except perhaps of foul language and unprincipled nuisance.
Prince Tamino and Papageno ultimately intended to make the Earth a ‘heavenly kingdom’, while the above so called ‘Tamino’ predicts ‘burning Hell on the Earth’, more appropriate role (according to Mozart) would ‘The Queen of the Night’ peddling a dangerous form of obscurantism
What’s funny with the Taminos type – i.e. arctic sea ice=canary- is that they forget as we saw so clearly this winter that when colder, denser air masses are ejected from the Arctic toward the tropics, there must be an associated renewal of warm air advection toward the pole through the same corridors delineated by relief. That explains why the shape of arctic sea ice melt is often the same, melting more or less in the same zones. In fact videos of multi year sea ice from 1980 to present show this increased mobilization of sea ice leading to the reduction of multi year ice as a consequence of entering a rapid mode of atmospheric circulation.
BTW, if this renewal process was not happening on a regular basis between periods of relative stability -slow mode of circulation-, 50 y or even 100 y old multi year ice would be a common occurence. If it does not melt, it should be there. But that’s not the case.
In fact paleoclimatological studies show that during the onset of the last glaciation, the Svalbaard Islands enjoyed for a while a warmer trend that finally was stopped when the cooling reached deeper southward. A recent paper surmized that arctic sea ice was covering less extension during the LIA, a period of global cooling, confirming this character of a transitional period toward cooler times.
Does anyone promoting man made global warming believe that there will be Ice free arctic winters?
These correlations aren’t very different. Could the reason there is a better correlation south of 72 degrees just be a result of the absence of UAH temperature measurements north of 82 degrees?
I went to Fosters Bulldust blog once – didn’t see anything remotely approaching rational debate or science – and left. I vowed not to return!
An interesting read of your work Jeff – but would be much better without the references to Tamino and his muppets! (Just remember, arguing with idiots is pointless – it only brings you down to their level – it doesn’t raise them up to yours!)
I Make HankH words my own words!!!
A note of caution about reading in correlation to the trends in the Sea Ice Vs. Temperature plot: Any affine function can be made to look like any other affine function by biasing and scaling. Since an affine function is definitionally a bias and a scale term, it’s actually trivial. So, if anyone looking at that plot thinks the functions actually track pretty closely, that is an illusion. The best that can be said is that they are trending in the same direction. But, there is no relationship established, and the odds of trending in the same direction are 50/50.
I think I would avoid scaling and putting these quantities on the same plot like this. It suggests a consilience which is not necessarily real.
I like the Artcic Sea Ice extent that the NSADC puts out, but it brings up a couple of questions:
1. Is all the data for the period of 1979-2000 (their averaging period) available?
If so, could someone plot all the years from that period that were ABOVE the average?
They only seem to be concerned with 2007 on.
2. Why doesn’t someone use an updated averaging period (1989-2010), and compare the last two years to that?
If the trend is all that they’re concerned about, then any 30-year period (which drives their average) would do.
They’re probably afraid that the later averaging period would lower their average, and put the 2011 and 2012 closer to the average (thereby lowering the scare).
Someone should try THAT, and really watch the screaming start…
“his readers, who were unwilling or unable to point out the deception”
It could also be that Grant Foster, aka Tamino, just refused to let any comment through moderation which showed him wrong. That’s exactly what he did to me on his ‘Oh Pleeze’ post when I pointed out his failure to even put trends on Goodridge plots, when he claimed that Goodridge’s statements about trends were wrong.
It showed me that Foster’s mind was closed to anything he didn’t agree with. It’s just an echo chamber there, like at RC. Also, since this Grant Foster publishes peer-reviewed papers, it makes me wonder what quality of science you could expect from someone who behaves that.
“Dear Dr. Grant Foster,
I don’t care much for your analysis, but I love your sunglasses.”
Ah yes, you must be referring to the Foster Grant brand of sunglasses.
I see a remark from “Jackstraw” mentioning Dr. Grant Foster in a silly reference to cheap sunglasses. However, it does beg a question I’ve had for some time…
Just what *are* “Tamino’s” degrees in, and from where? Does anyone besides Grant Foster know?
Tamino sounds like a nut based on his comments but I don’t know much about him.
“it again confirms that the satellite sensors are measuring a real warming and the high correlation (for climate science) indicates that warming is having an impact on ice melt.”
I like the approach you took. Yet, SST and Air temperature below the point where sea ice forms seems to indicate the impact on Arctic sea ice due to temperature.
What difference does it make if the “warming” is below the threshold where sea ice forms? Instead of January to September, shouldn’t it be post-maximum (or the point where sea ice should begin melting) to minimum sea ice area to signal temperatures role?
I’m with Kev-in-UK – arguing with idiots is not a sensible tactic, plus I am reminded of a jingle we were taught as very young children when we first encountered nasty people who consider denigration of those they don’t agree with as ‘clever’…
“Sticks and stones may break my bones
But names can never hurt me”
The alarmists never mention the soot and occasional volcanic ash factors in regards to Arctic ice extent.
They also never wish to consider salinity, which can vary significantly from place to place in the Arctic. The Arctic ice lies on a thin layer of relatively fresh water – this layer is in constant interaction with the denser more saline sea water beneath.
For the scientifically challenged, such as a typical CAGW believer, fresh water freezes at lower temperatures than more saline water. So whenever there is an upwhelling of saline water (for the CAGW believer, these are called currents), then less “sea water” freezes.
The Arctic Ocean, unlike all other oceans, is enclosed and has lower levels of salinity. In fact – wait for this CAGW faithful – if the Arctic Ocean was as saline as the rest of the world’s oceans it would almost certainly be ice free every summer.
Just another couple of inconvenient facts which won’t be included in the IPCC’s next fantasy report on climate.
“There’s very little sunlight during the winter months, so the ice albedo effect will be minimal.”
There is a big albedo difference between sea ice and sea water.
There is a lesser but still significant albedo difference between first year ice and multi-year ice.
As multi-year ice sheds more and more of the salt content, it becomes more reflective.
So, even without being ice free during summer, the recent decades have left the Arctic with a
less reflective surface.
But part of the sea ice loss is -dynamic- and -not- the result of warming.
When ( not if ) that dynamic returns to sea ice accumulation, there will be some reversion to the mean ( cooling and increased alebdo ).
Makes me wanna see what happens.
I like your comments and analysis. I noticed some years ago that sea ice may be more affected by sea currents, surface winds, gyres, the atmospheric vortices, and the positions of the highs and lows around the northern hemisphere that can redirect the jet stream for months at a time.
The weather where I live in Alberta is greatly affected by lows out in Pacific – sometimes those nasties out in the Gulf of Alaska, and sometimes it is the Pineapple express coming in hard over Oregon and Washington state meeting an arctic high. But this could all be calledis weather. Although, like you, I have seen what appears to be a longer term trend in polar vortices and other factors at both ends of the planet – which ties in to ozone and all sorts of other things. It is why I hate the focus on “THE one variable” in climate models.
Seems to me, the more we know, the more we know we don’t know much.