NASA reports in Bering Sea Teeming with Ice that “…the Bering Sea has been choking with sea ice. ”
acquired March 19, 2012 download large image (12 MB, JPEG, 6800×8800)
acquired March 19, 2012 download GeoTIFF file (95 MB, TIFF)
acquired March 19, 2012 download Google Earth file (KMZ)
For most of the winter of 2011–2012, the Bering Sea has been choking with sea ice. Though ice obviously forms there every year, the cover has been unusually extensive this season. In fact, the past several months have included the second highest ice extent in the satellite record for the Bering Sea region, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC).
The natural-color image above shows the Bering Sea and the coasts of Alaska and northeastern Siberia on March 19, 2012. The image was acquired by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite. Black lines mark the coastlines, many of which have ice shelves or frozen bays extending beyond the land borders.
NSIDC data indicate that ice extent in the Bering Sea for most of this winter has been between 20 to 30 percent above the 1979 to 2000 average. February 2012 had the highest ice extent for the area since satellite records started. As of March 16, National Weather Service forecasters noted that all of the ice cover in the Bering Sea was first year ice, much of it new and thin—which is typical in the Bering Sea
The accumulation of ice this season has largely been fueled by persistent northerly winds blowing from the Arctic Ocean across the Bering Strait. The local winter weather has been dominated by low-pressure systems—with their counterclockwise circulation—that have brought extensive moisture up from the south to coastal and interior Alaska, while sending cold winds down across the sea to the west.
Those winds pushed Arctic sea ice toward the narrow, shallow strait, where it piled up and formed an ice arch that blocked the flow. As arches fail because of wind stress, large floes of sea ice can move south into the Bering Sea. Ice also has piled up on the north side of St. Lawrence Island, near the mouth of the strait.
South of the strait and the island, those same winds push cold air and cold surface waters to lower latitudes, allowing the ice to grow farther south than usual. The widespread and persistent ice cover in the Bering Sea has posed significant problems for fisherman and for supply ships in the region. The weather driving the ice also brought extreme snowfall events to many parts of Alaska this winter.
The Bering Sea stands in stark contrast to the rest of the Arctic ice cap, where sea ice extent was below average in both January and February. Ice cover was down drastically on the Atlantic Ocean side of the Arctic, including the Kara, Barents, and Laptev Seas, where air temperatures were 4 to 8 degrees Celsius (7 to 14 degrees Fahrenheit) above the norm.
References
- NASA Earth Observatory (2012, January 22) Sea Ice off Southwestern Alaska.
- National Snow and Ice Data Center (2012, March 6) February ice extent low in the Barents Sea, high in the Bering Sea.
- National Weather Service, Anchorage Forecast Office Alaska Sea Ice Forecast. Accessed March 19, 2012.
NASA image by Rob Simmon based on data from Jeff Schmaltz, LANCE/EOSDIS MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC. Caption by Mike Carlowicz, with image interpretation by Walt Meier and Ted Scambos, National Snow and Ice Data Center.
- Instrument:
- Aqua – MODIS
==============================================================
The iceman giveth, the iceman taketh away. On the other side of the Arctic, there’s a dearth of sea ice, note the orange extent lines:
National Snow & Ice Data Center (NSIDC) – Click the pic to view at source
So while we have reached near normal levels this year so far, reaching into and staying in the ±1 standard deviation area (light gray):
We still find stories like this, for example in WaPo:
Can polar bears put climate change back on the agenda?
For various reasons, the climate crisis has disappeared from the political dialogue. This is unlikely to change in 2012, unless polar bears put it back on the agenda.
As yes, we need a cuteness campaign to save the Arctic, coming right up from an NGO near you, pay up suckas. What I found even more humorous was that Google News considers The Arctic Institute to be a credible news source:
You may recall from Sea Ice News Volume 3 number 1 and in subsequent comments its was revealed that The Arctic Institute is run out of the family apartment of founder Malte Humpert in Washington, DC and has no actual physical presence. Malte Humpert apparently didn’t like the attention.
…and then there’s this story:
2011: warmest LaNiña year and lowest Arctic sea-ice volume on record
In related news, the sea ice record may be headed for yet another adjustment:
NRL Scientists Optimize Arctic Sea Ice Data Products
Scientists from the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory Marine Geosciences Division are assisting NASA, the US Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL) and the European Space Agency (ESA) in developing more accurate monitoring and sustainable forecasting of Arctic sea ice.
The NRL team, using a specially equipped de Havilland DHC-6 Twin Otter aircraft (similar to aircraft shown), collect data to aid in the validation and calibration of data captured by the ESA Cryosat-2 satellite.
(NASA Glenn Research Center) 
Recent dramatic changes in the characteristics of the Arctic sea ice cover have sparked interest and concern from a wide range of disciplines. The demand for an improved ability to monitor and forecast changes in sea ice cover is driven by diverse and varying priorities to include socioeconomics, maritime safety and security, and resource management, as well as basic research science.
Satellites provide an important and cost effective platform for instruments designed to monitor basin-wide changes in the volume of ice cover and snow pack depths. The primary focus of NRL and NASA is to collect data to aid in the validation and calibration of these data sets to further optimize instrument suites and the development of predictive sea ice models.
“Our project takes direct aim at this issue by targeting the largest identified contributors to errors in sea ice thickness measurements from airborne and satellite-based instruments,” said Joan Gardner, NRL geologist. “Central to our work is the rare opportunity for a multi-scale approach to mapping the snow depth and sea ice thickness distribution using the most comprehensive set of in situ data collected to date.”
In March 2011, a nine kilometer-long survey line was established on the sea ice cover by CRREL and NRL near the U.S. Navy Arctic Submarine Laboratory ICEX2011 ice camp. It was strategically located to cover a wide range of ice types, including refrozen leads, deformed and un-deformed first year ice, and multiyear ice. A highly concentrated set of in situ measurements of snow depth and ice thickness were taken along the survey line.
The first of its kind ICEX survey has proved to be of great value to both NASA and NRL in terms of better understanding the capabilities of airborne and satellite based instruments to measure varying ice types. This will aid in achieving a resolution that is adequate to minimize the degree of uncertainty in models that forecast future conditions and for monitoring decadal variability.
Once the survey line was in place, NASA IceBridge — a six-year NASA mission, and largest airborne survey of Earth’s polar ice ever flown – flew a dedicated mission along the survey line, collecting data with an instrument suite that included the Airborne Topographic Mapper (ATM), a high precision, airborne scanning laser altimeter; the Digital Mapping System (DMS), a nadir viewing digital camera; and the University of Kansas ultra-wideband Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) snow radar. The IceBridge measurements were further leveraged by complementary airborne measurements taken by NRL and submarine ice draft measurements.
“We plan to use this set of data to characterize the error on the IceBridge snow depth and sea ice thickness data products as a function of ice type,” adds Gardner. “These results will also be applied to improve understanding of new sensors.” Sensors include the IceBridge snow radar, NRL radar altimeter and the European Space Agency CryoSat-2 satellite carrying a state-of-the-art Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Interferometer Radar Altimeter, or SIRAL.
Improved understanding of these measurements and their accuracies will allow scientists to develop new algorithms to incorporate this information into regional sea ice models used by the research community. The error estimates will also help tie the Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) and future ICESat-2 records together.
Remote techniques to monitor sea ice extent in all seasons are well developed – these observations reveal a dramatic decline in summer sea ice extent since 1979, when satellite records became available. Further, they indicate that the decline has been facilitated by a dramatic decrease in the extent of perennial or multiyear ice.
Combined estimates of ice thickness derived from submarine records between 1958 and 2000, and ICESat laser altimetry from 2003 to 2008, provided the longest-term record of sea ice thickness observations. These data suggest a decrease in the mean overall thickness of the sea ice over a region covering about 38 percent of the Arctic Ocean.
The ICESat satellite has been critical to meeting the goals of NASA’s Cryospheric Science Program by providing ice elevation information at continental scales with high spatial resolution. As of October 11, 2009, ICESat stopped collecting science data – increasing the urgency of continued observations during IceBridge missions. ICESat-2 is planned to launch no sooner than 2016.
This work directly addresses priorities to improve the utility of IceBridge data to estimate ice thickness and snow accumulation on Arctic sea ice. Because of its fundamental nature, the results from this research will also contribute to the priorities of improved understanding of the mechanisms controlling sea ice cover. These include quantification of the connections between sea ice, ocean and the atmosphere, and validated and improved predictive models of changes in sea ice cover, especially in the coming century, as well as, implications of these changes to the ocean, atmosphere, surrounding land areas and global system. The proposed work also addresses Arctic-related objectives of the US Navy, the Study of Environmental Arctic Change (SEARCH), and the U.S. Global Climate Change Research Program.
The Marine Geosciences Division conducts a broadly based, multidisciplinary program of scientific research and advanced technology development directed towards maritime and other national applications of geosciences, geospatial information and related technologies. Research includes investigations of basic processes within ocean basins and littoral regions. Models, sensors, techniques and systems are developed to exploit this knowledge for applications to enhance U.S. Navy and Marine Corps systems, plans and operations.
SOURCE: U.S. Naval Research Laboratory Press Release
================================================================
And finally, we have this essay from Dr. Roy Spencer:
Could Arctic Sea Ice Decline be Caused by the Arctic Oscillation?
March 22nd, 2012
While the IPCC claims that recent Arctic sea ice declines are the result of human-caused warming, there is also convincing observational evidence that natural cycles in atmospheric circulation patterns might also be involved.
And unless we know how much of the decline is natural, I maintain we cannot know how much is human-caused.
In 2002, a paper was published in the Journal of Climate entitled Response of Sea Ice to the Arctic Oscillation, where the authors (one of whom, Mike Wallace, was a co-discoverer of the AO) shows that changing wind patterns associated with the AO contributed to Arctic sea ice declines from one decade to the next: from 1979-1988 to 1989-1998.
The Arctic Oscillation involves sea level pressure patterns over the Arctic Ocean, North Atlantic, and North Pacific. Since sea ice moves around with the wind (see this movie example), sea level pressure patterns can either expose or cover various sections of the Arctic Ocean.
When there are many winters in a row with high (or low) pressure, it can affect sea ice cover on decadal time scales. Over time, ice can become more extensive and thicker, or less extensive and thinner.
There is a time lag involved in all of this, as discussed in the above paper. So, to examine the potential cumulative effect of the AO, I made the following plot of cumulative values of the winter (December-January-February) AO (actually, their departures from the long-term average) since 1900. I’ve attached a spreadsheet with the data for those interested, updated through this past winter.
Consistent with the analysis in the above-cited paper, the sea ice decline since satellite monitoring began in 1979 was during a period of persistent positive values of the AO index (note the reversed vertical scale). Since the satellite period started toward the end of a prolonged period of negative AO values, this raises the question of whether we just happened to start monitoring Arctic sea ice when it was near peak coverage.
Note that back in the 1920’s, when there were reports of declining sea ice, record warmth, and disappearing glaciers, there was similar AO behavior to the last couple of decades. Obviously, that was before humans could have influenced the climate system in any substantial way.
I won’t go into what might be causing the cyclic pattern in the AO over several decades. My only point is that there is published evidence to support the view that some (or even most?) of the ~20 year sea ice decline up until the 2007 minimum was part of a natural cycle, related to multi-decadal changes in average wind patterns.
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Lazy teen is smarter than you old timers.Got an A in environmental science to prove it. Learned from the best teachers that learned from the smartest professors and so on. That is modern science now I guess. You are wrong if you question anything. They are the smartest cause they got an “A” . How dare you question their authority! End of discussion.
And Mosher needs to fully explain the physics of CO2 (rather than just saying there is physics).
This should fully cover the quantum physics involved in let’s say a single photon of sunlight which comes in at noon on Sunday. Tell us the story about the average 44 hours the energy represented by that photon spends time in the Earth system.
The solar photon hits a rock at noon on Sunday, then what happens. The climate models should be able to fully tell the story.
Something like 1.6X10^42 solar photons start this story every day and 1.0X10^44 IR photons end the story every day flying off to space at the speed of light.
CO2 does what to those numbers.
Clearly, the Arctic air is more than cold enough to form ice every winter.
It is claimed that snow cover insulates the ice from cold and warm air slowing freezing and melting. Wind can blow the snow off and accelerate freezing or melting. Wind and currents can move the ice and water. Dust and soot can absorb sunlight to speed melting. There may be other influences.
So what does Arctic ice extent have to do with AGW?
[snip – your “slayers” sponsored CO2 theory that I’ve repeatedly told you is unwelcome here (yet you keep trying anyway) is so far off topic from sea ice that it exists in a different universe – What part of “I’m not interested in publicizing your pet theory and website here” do you not understand? Take it elsewhere. Moderators snip this stuff at will – Anthony]
Steven Mosher says:
“It is impossible to show the cause. Causes are never observed.”
Really?? Then please explain how some folks seem to know that a rise in CO2 will cause a rise in temperature…. speaking of “wrongness”. ☺
On second thought, Steven, I’ll ask Prof Richard Lindzen if CO2 is the cause [that is impossible to show], since you almost never respond to our questions. Professor Lindzen, is CO2 the cause of “”climate change”?
Prof Lindzen:
Well, there you have it. There is no need to invoke CO2. The causes of natural variability are largely due to the oceans. And according to Occam’s Razor, any extraneous entities should be discarded from the explanation, because the simplest explanation is usually the correct explanation. CO2 is an unnecessary entity when explaining tenths of a degree of temperature variability.
Steven, I sure wish you would do more than hit ‘n’ run comments. I would like to hear your explanation of why the long term temperature trend from the LIA has not accelerated, despite a ≈40% increase in CO2. Are your models wrong again??☺
Roy Spencer is selling the premise of a paper by John Michael Wallace, published in 2002, suggesting that the Arctic Oscillation was responsible for the loss of Arctic sea ice.
It turns out, in a discussion of the record low of summer Arctic sea ice in 2007, Wallace questioned the premise of his own paper.
nytimes.com/2007/10/02/science/earth/02arct.html
“Some scientists who have long doubted that a human influence could be clearly discerned in the Arctic’s changing climate now agree that the trend is hard to ascribe to anything else.
“We used to argue that a lot of the variability up to the late 1990s was induced by changes in the winds, natural changes not obviously related to global warming,” said John Michael Wallace, a scientist at the University of Washington. “But changes in the last few years make you have to question that. I’m much more open to the idea that we might have passed a point where it’s becoming essentially irreversible.””
Philip Bradley says:
March 26, 2012 at 5:52 pm
Thanks Phillip, appreciate your answer.
Steven Mosher said on March 26, 2012 at 3:06 pm:
Which 2011 minimum? University of Bremen, using the 89GHz channel of the AMSR-E instrument (on the Aqua satellite), 15% sea ice concentration, decided 2011 had a lower Arctic minimum than 2007 (graph), despite what the others said. Did you miss the press release? Granted that was so far out of line from what IARC-JAXA got from the same raw data that the AMSR-E instrument died from embarrassment a month later, but it was still a result. The U of B is temporarily providing SSMIS maps until they get the new AMSR-2 data, expected mid-2012, it’s likely they’ll put together an integrated graph and dataset after a while.
So which minimum? To what minimum percent concentration? And that’s extent, not area, right?
You did mean Arctic sea ice, not Antarctic, yes?
What is interesting about this image is that St. Paul island (part of the Pribilof Islands) can be seen surrounded by ice right at the lower center of the view. I went out to St. Paul in October of 1966 with all the water around it in liquid form. Each night we could see the lights of the Japanese fishing fleet on the horizon. It got cold and dark during the next 4 months. Soon the fleet had gone. And we could not really see how frozen the ocean had gotten until we jumped on a Reeves Aleutian plane and flew away from the place sometime in early 1967 and got this birds eye view to the horizon of a frozen ocean of ice. Salt water frozen solid. I wish I could have gotten that view over the next 10 years to see how St Paul looked each January. Perhaps the unclassified military images are available somewhere. That was cold and very other worldly. Give me warm any day.
Bernie
Hmmm, the Bering Sea ice forms initially in late Autumn in the month of November, when ‘Sea Surface Temperatures’ fall to minus 1.7 degrees Celcius. Under these low temperature conditions, salt water freezes and the cold pool formed on the lee side of St Lawrence Island Polynya, becomes an effective large ice making factory, for the Bering Sea. The resultant floating pack ice in the Bering Sea, can last until June the following year under special circumstances. In addition, due to the fact, regular severe winter storms occur every three to five days in the region, the floating pack ice is quite active and unstable, as the various forces of nature interact with one another to move it around.
It also explains why the semi annual US Navy Ice Exercise, is held in the same region, when the peak one year old floating pack ice thickness, which can vary in thickness from a very thin one centimeter freshly formed over a closing lead , up to one meter in thickness ice flow block. The peak ice thickness in the Bering Sea, is approximately one meter, in thickness and is reached in the middle of March, just before sunrise at the North Pole.
After the March Equinox, or sunrise at the North Pole, the floating pack ice in the Bering Sea, breaks up rapidly and by June Equinox, when the sun is at its highest point or zenith over the North Pole, the vast majority of the pack ice has completely melted, back into the sea from whence it came.
Smokey says:
March 26, 2012 at 4:24 pm
In this post you use the Temperature of Central England as proof that global warming we are seeing is nothing special. Can you really claim that Central England can represent the entire NH as a proxy? This doesn’t make sense to me.
The temperature in my city was 40 degrees above normal for 5 days last week breaking records by 10F. Are we entitled to claim that the entire Northern Hemisphere set such records. Give me a break.
The other graph that you use is the UAH temperature graph, claiming that it shows no sign of global warming. It is well known that the UAH graph is more sensitive to the El Nino oscillations than the thermometer record. Taking out the El Nino, solar cycle, and volcanoes which are random variations and oscillations which obscure long term trends, a clear trend of global warming emerges in all of the major temperature records:
tamino.wordpress.com/2011/12/06/the-real-global-warming-signal/
Steven Mosher says:
March 26, 2012 at 3:06 pm
Now’s a good time to make a simple over under bet.
Will the 2012 minimum be Over the 2011 minimum, or under?
Those folks who predict colder days ahead and a coming ice age should speak up.
Over or Under?
I think that the 2012 minimum will be over the 2011 minimum ,the AO in the winter before an arctic summer is not a good indicator of how much ice will melt that summer , summer 2008 had more ice than summer 2007 and 2009 had more ice than 2008.
Eric Adler says:
March 26, 2012 at 8:39 pm
Taking out the El Nino, solar cycle, and volcanoes which are random variations and oscillations which obscure long term trends, a clear trend of global warming emerges in all of the major temperature records:
tamino.wordpress.com/2011/12/06/the-real-global-warming-signal/
(I assume this is OK with you Smokey.)
Let us focus on 1996 versus 2011 on the RSS data set. Both were La Nina years. Both had low sunspot numbers. Your graph posted above only goes to 2010, however if it were to go to February 2012, then there is no way 1996 would be lower than 2012. Check out the real RSS graph below. Note that the anomaly for February 2012 is below the lowest number that was reached in 1996. (-0.12 versus -0.08) So I just do not accept this stuff about the present La Nina being the warmest La Nina. Also note that the slope is 0 going from a La Nina to a La Nina and NOT from an El Nino to a La Nina. “Unfortunately” the 2012 La Nina goes lower than the 1996 La Nina. I cannot help that.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1995/plot/rss/from:1996.9/trend
From Eric Adler on March 26, 2012 at 8:39 pm:
You tried pulling out that same stuff last year. Maybe you should have read Anthony Watts’ reply as to why that’s a non-issue.
Are you planning to keep dredging that up every year or so until it miraculously suddenly becomes significant?
I can’t wait to see how this all plays out on Deadliest Catch when the new season starts on April 10th. I looked at the high res image and it looks like St Paul Island is still completely cut off by ice. Pretty amazing winter they’re having!
Eric Adler says:
March 26, 2012 at 8:39 pm
‘The other graph that you use is the UAH temperature graph, claiming that it shows no sign of global warming. It is well known that the UAH graph is more sensitive to the El Nino oscillations than the thermometer record. Taking out the El Nino, solar cycle, and volcanoes which are random variations and oscillations which obscure long term trends, a clear trend of global warming emerges in all of the major temperature records:
tamino.wordpress.com/2011/12/06/the-real-global-warming-signal/’
With the greatest of respect, so what?
El Nino, solar cycle and volcanoes are either short-term or stochastic events. There are other climatic ‘beats’ in the centennial and millennial timescale which, forgive me for pointing out, have nothing to do with human beings either.
We have no detailed records of ice extent before 1979 and reports before that suggest anecdotally that major reductions in ice volume have happened many decades ago. This does not prove that things are solely cyclical, but it hints that we should assume that as our null hypothesis until proven otherwise.
I am of the strong opinion that nature is far more robust, vigorous, variable and self-correcting than most are prepared to countenance and the geological record says that 2012 is in no way anything but within the normal boundaries of variability.
I am also of the strong opinion that scientists have backed themselves into a corner over their unverifiable carbon dioxide hypothesis and that until that dogma is unwound, climate science will continue to be a danger, as well as a fraud, to mankind, rather than in its service.
Long-term climate variability requires scientists to collect data for generations, something completely incompatible with publishing 2 papers a year for 40 years. It would be best if that data collection were tasked to be carried out by those not requiring such short-term publications to secure their careers and livelihoods.
It is unlikely that any predictive model for solar activity will be properly tested in under 110 years, that being 10 or so solar cycles/5 Hale cycles. Retrofitting a model to past data is not predicting the future, which is the acid test for a model’s reliability.
It is unlikely that any detailed predictions of oceanic behaviour can be achieved with less than 300 years of data, that being 4 or so complete PDO/AMO cycles. Scientists witter on without adequate data. The same can be said about arctic/antarctic sea ice.
All of the following will bugger up ‘as is’ predictions markedly:
1. A major volcano eruption.
2. A freak winter with high snowfall followed by a volcanic eruption, preventing summer snow melt across a significant area.
3. Significant changes in magma emissions on the ocean floor, thereby altering oceanic temperatures.
4. A solar grand minimum.
Nowhere do scientists debate this with the public.
It’s about time they did.
Has anybody asking the locals what is happening? Well I am in the unusual position that my daughter in law comes from the Pribilof’s in the Barents Sea and she still has family there whom she keeps in touch with. Asked whether global warming is an issue the answer is a resounding NO. Some years the ice is there sometimes not.
From Eric Adler on March 26, 2012 at 8:39 pm:
For that I could call you a lying son of a female dog, but I shall charitably assume you have a severe reading impairment that prevents you from comprehending the obvious meaning of other words and sentences once you have placed your limited focus on something else, or you could have just missed it. In Smokey’s previous post he clearly said:
Smokey does not deny there has been global warming, indeed he affirmed there has been global warming. Yet you say he’s taking the UAH temperature graph and claiming it shows no sign of global warming.
Then there are Smokey’s actual words at the post you referred to, which you couldn’t have missed unless you have a really severe impairment:
Those of us with normal reading comprehension will note the UAH graph, the last link, is used when discussing there is no accelerated warming and the effect of CO₂ is small. The graph is not used by Smokey to deny global warming.
Thus what you have said is not credible. Try harder.
Mention of the Bering Strait reminds me of its importance to the ice age cycles according to a paper by Aixue Hu of NCAR that came out a couple of years ago. Although it’s the snowfall and subsequent ice sheets over the land of the northern hemisphere that is the important thing, not necessarily floating sea ice near the Bering Strait, so it isn’t directly relevant to this post…
More here:
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/01/11-02.html
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100110151325.htm
I don’t worry about the Arctic sea ice. I recall reading that ice around the globe has been contracting for quite some time. I won’t worry about ice or weather events or even global warming (CAGW or otherwise) until they start growing cotton in Greenland. Well, at least corn for fuel. Cause, until then, even silly ol’ me can understand it’s already been this warm and since we’re coming out of the LIA it should get a little warmer….it’s natural. I guess they still teach this stuff in school.
Taphonomic on March 26, 2012 at 3:40 pm
Al Gore won the Nobel PEACE prize! Not a shred of science in that.
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
March 27, 2012 at 1:19 am
“Smokey does not deny there has been global warming, indeed he affirmed there has been global warming. Yet you say he’s taking the UAH temperature graph and claiming it shows no sign of global warming.
Then there are Smokey’s actual words at the post you referred to, which you couldn’t have missed unless you have a really severe impairment:
(…) There is still no accelerated warming, thus the effect of CO2 is still too small to measure. You should really try to accept the fact that you might be wrong about the effect of CO2. It might have a much smaller effect than you think. That’s what the planet is saying. Unless you’re saying the observations are wrong, too.
Those of us with normal reading comprehension will note the UAH graph, the last link, is used when discussing there is no accelerated warming and the effect of CO₂ is small. The graph is not used by Smokey to deny global warming.
Thus what you have said is not credible. Try harder.”
I have read what he wrote more carefully than you have. You left out an important thing Smokey said before the quote that you mentioned. The context is important.
” The planet has been warming naturally since the LIA. The warming trend has not accelerated.
• Global warming since the LIA has remained within clearly defined parameters that are the same whether CO2 was 280 ppm or 392 ppm. Those parameters have not been exceeded since CO2 began to rise. THEREFORE the rise in CO2 has made no measurable difference in the rate of global warming.”
My first point was that he used the Central England temperature to claim that global warming has not accelerated since the little ice age, but that is not a reasonable proxy for global or even NH temperatures.
The UAH data since 1979 cannot show that there has been no acceleration since the little ice age. It doesn’t go back far enough. There has been acceleration in warming during the 20th century, and especially since 1970.
Walter Brozek says:
“Note that the anomaly for February 2012 is below the lowest number that was reached in 1996. (-0.12 versus -0.08) So I just do not accept this stuff about the present La Nina being the warmest La Nina. Also note that the slope is 0 going from a La Nina to a La Nina and NOT from an El Nino to a La Nina. “Unfortunately” the 2012 La Nina goes lower than the 1996 La Nina. I cannot help that.”
It is known that UAH is more sensitive to ENSO. It turns out that the 2011 La Nina is way more negative than the 1996 La Nina. These factors explain the comparison between the UAH 1996 and 2011 figures you mention.
esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei/
Rhys Jaggar says:
March 26, 2012 at 11:27 pm
“We have no detailed records of ice extent before 1979 and reports before that suggest anecdotally that major reductions in ice volume have happened many decades ago. This does not prove that things are solely cyclical, but it hints that we should assume that as our null hypothesis until proven otherwise.”
In fact ships log comments about Arctic sea ice have been used as a proxy by calibrating them with the satellite record. Here is a chart that starts at the year 1900:
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=826
I think you need to re examine your null hypothesis;
Eric Adler says:
March 27, 2012 at 6:10 am
It turns out that the 2011 La Nina is way more negative than the 1996 La Nina.
There are different ways to compare La Ninas. Also, 2011 had two La Ninas. Let us focus on the second one that impacted the February 2012 anomaly. See the following.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/ensoyears.shtml
The average of the blue numbers from September 1995 to March 1996 was 0.80.
The average of the blue numbers from September 2011 to January 2012 was 0.86. So the latest one was only marginally more negative.
Now check out the sunspot numbers for these same periods at the red graph at
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2406928/posts?page=77
I said both were low, however the 2011 had a higher number than 1995 so this more than compensates for the slightly higher La Nina.
Neither year had a big volcanic eruption. So I see no reason for the present anomaly to be above that of 1996 with all adjustments considered.