More modeling madness projecting the future, but the actual data for the past 30 years says otherwise, with a positive trend. Regular commenter Julienne Stroeve of NSIDC is one of the co-authors, so perhaps she’ll weigh in here. The article says “They selected the five models that most closely reproduced changes in actual Antarctic sea ice cover during the 20th century.” But given what we’ve seen recently about preselection of data in Gergis et al, I wonder if this isn’t another case of the “screening fallacy“.
From NCAR: Emperor penguins threatened by Antarctic sea ice loss
BOULDER—A decline in the population of emperor penguins appears likely this century as climate change reduces the extent of Antarctic sea ice, according to a detailed projection published this week.
The study, led by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), with co-authors from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and other organizations, focuses on a much-observed colony of emperor penguins in Terre Adélie, Antarctica. The authors conclude that the number of breeding pairs may fall by about 80 percent by 2100.
“The projected decreases in sea ice may fundamentally alter the Antarctic environment in ways that threaten this population of penguins,” says NCAR scientist Marika Holland, a co-author of the study.
The study uses a set of sophistical computer simulations of climate as well as a statistical model of penguin demographics. Building on previous work, it examines how the sea ice may vary at key times during the year such as during egg laying, incubation, rearing chicks, and non- breeding season, as well as the potential influence of sea ice concentrations on males and females.
The authors stress that their projections contain large uncertainties, because of the difficulties in projecting both climate change and the response of penguins. However, almost all of their computer simulations pointed to a significant decline in the colony at Terre Adélie, a coastal region of Antarctica where French scientists have conducted penguin observations for more than 50 years.
“Our best projections show roughly 500 to 600 breeding pairs remaining by the year 2100,” says lead author Stéphanie Jenouvrier, a WHOI biologist. “Today, the population size is around 3,000 breeding pairs.”
She noted that another penguin population, the Dion Islets penguin colony close to the West Antarctic Peninsula, has disappeared, possibly because of a decline in Antarctic sea ice.
The new research represents a major collaboration between biologists and climate scientists to assess the potential impacts of climate change on a much-studied species.
Published this week in the journal Global Change Biology, the study was funded in part by the National Science Foundation, NCAR’s sponsor. Other funders include WHOI; the French National Agency for Research (ANR) program on biodiversity; the ANR REMIGE program (Behavioral and Demographic Responses of Indian Ocean Marine Top Predators to Global Environmental Changes); the Zone Research Workshop for the Antarctic and Subantarctic Environment (ZATA); the Paul Emilie Victor Institute (IPEV); Alexander von Humboldt Foundation; Marie-Curie European Fellowship; and the U.S. Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences visiting fellowship.
Vulnerable emperors of the ice
At nearly four feet tall, emperors are the largest species of penguin. They are vulnerable to changes in sea ice, where they breed and raise their young almost exclusively. If that ice breaks up and disappears early in the breeding season, massive breeding failure may occur, Jenouvrier says.
Disappearing sea ice may also affect the penguins’ food sources. They feed primarily on fish, squid, and krill, a shrimplike animal that feeds on zooplankton and phytoplankton that grow on the underside of ice. If the ice goes, Jenouvrier says, so too will the plankton, causing a ripple effect through the food web that may starve the various species that penguins rely on as prey.
To project how the extent of sea ice in the region will change this century, Holland and another co-author, Julienne Stroeve, a sea ice specialist from the National Snow and Ice Data Center, evaluated 20 of the world’s leading computer-based climate models. They selected the five models that most closely reproduced changes in actual Antarctic sea ice cover during the 20th century.
“When a computer simulation performs well in reproducing past climate conditions, that suggests its projections of future climate conditions are more reliable,” Holland says.
The team evaluated simulations from each of the 20 climate models. The simulations were based on a scenario of moderate growth in greenhouse gas emissions during this century. The moderate growth scenario portrays future reliance by society on a combination of greenhouse-gas emitting fossil fuels as well as renewable energy sources.
The simulations showed a decline in sea ice coverage across a large region by Terre Adélie at key times in the penguin breeding cycle, although they differed in the details.
Jenouvrier used the output from the climate models to determine how changes in temperature and sea ice might affect the emperor penguin population at Terre Adélie, studying such details as how the sea ice was likely to vary during breeding season and how it could affect chicks, breeding pairs, and non-breeding adults. She found that if global temperatures continue to rise at their current rate—causing sea ice in the region to shrink—penguin population numbers most likely will diminish slowly until about 2040, after which they would decline at a much steeper rate as sea ice coverage drops below a usable threshold.
The authors say that more research is needed to determine whether emperor penguins may be able to adapt to changing conditions or disperse to regions where the sea ice is more habitable.
Human reliance on the Antarctic
Rising temperature in the Antarctic isn’t just a penguin problem, according to Hal Caswell, a senior mathematical biologist at WHOI and collaborator on the study. As sea ice coverage continues to shrink, the resulting changes in the Antarctic marine environment will affect other species, and may affect humans as well.
“We rely on the functioning of those ecosystems,” he says. “We eat fish that come from the Antarctic. We rely on nutrient cycles that involve species in the oceans all over the world. Understanding the effects of climate change on predators at the top of marine food chains—like emperor penguins—is in our best interest, because it helps us understand ecosystems that provide important services to us.”
Also co-authoring the study were Christophe Barbraud and Henri Weimerskirch of the Centre d’Etudes Biologiques de Chizé, in France, and Mark Serreze of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in the United States.
About the article
Title: Effects of climate change on an emperor penguin population: analysis of coupled demographic and climate models
Authors: Stéphanie Jenouvrier, Marika Holland, Julienne Stroeve, Christophe Barbraud, Henri Weimerskirch, Mark Serreze, and Hal Caswell
Journal: Global Change Biology
Update
The article appears to be available here.
h/t to commenter Michael R
If you are interested, paper here: http://premium.fileden.com/premium/2012/6/20/3318419/gcb2744.pdf
She found that if global temperatures continue to rise at their current rate
And exactly what is that rate and which data set is being used? On all data sets below, the different times for a slope that is flat for all practical purposes range from 10 years and 8 months to 15 years and 7 months. Following is the longest period of time (above 10 years) where each of the data sets is more or less flat. (For any positive slope, the exponent is no larger than 10^-5, except UAH which was 0.00103655 per year or 0.10/century, so while it is not significant, it could be questioned whether it can be considered to be flat.)
1. RSS: since November 1996 or 15 years, 7 months (goes to May)
2. HadCrut3: since January 1997 or 15 years, 3 months (goes to March)
3. GISS: since May 2001 or 11 years, 1 month (goes to May)
4. UAH: since October 2001 or 10 years, 8 months (goes to May)
5. Combination of the above 4: since October 2000 or 11 years, 6 months (goes to March)
6. Sea surface temperatures: since January 1997 or 15 years, 4 months (goes to April)
7. Hadcrut4: since December 2000 or 11 years, 6 months (goes to May using GISS. See below.)
See the graph below to show it all for #1 to #6.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1997/trend/plot/gistemp/from:2001.33/trend/plot/rss/from:1996.83/trend/plot/wti/from:2000.75/trend/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1997/trend/plot/uah/from:2001.75/trend
For #7: Hadcrut4 only goes to December 2010 so what I did was get the slope of GISS from December 2000 to the end of December 2010. Then I got the slope of GISS from December 2000 to the present. The DIFFERENCE in slope was that the slope was 0.0046 lower for the total period. The positive slope for Hadcrut4 was 0.0041 from December 2000. So IF Hadcrut4 were totally up to date, and IF it then were to trend like GISS, I conclude it would show no slope for at least 11 years and 6 months going back to December 2000. (By the way, doing the same thing with Hadcrut3 gives the same end result, but GISS comes out much sooner each month.) See:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2000/to/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2000.9/trend/plot/gistemp/from:2000/plot/gistemp/from:2000.9/to:2011/trend/plot/gistemp/from:2000.9/trend
That’s a photo of the executive of my wine club.
Before the internet nobody looked at daily or even monthly graphs of temperature, ice extent etc because nobody noticed any changes in climate. Methinks that currently most of the AGW comes at looking at too many graphs
benfrommo says:
June 20, 2012 at 4:10 pm
Penguins aren’t the only poopers on the planet, but it is hard to match some of the bull that comes out of Boulder.
Jim Steele says:
June 20, 2012 at 2:40 pm
‘Sounds fishy, at best, and I hope they’ll be pressed on this point. Generally speaking, I think that there’s far too much tagging and other handling of creatures under study. Such human intrusion is bound to have effects on the animal, even if such is not readily apparent to the humans. Where it can be measured, it may be covered up, as we see.
Well, as long as they had Mark “death spiral” Serreze of the NSIDC along, then they have someone who can make accurate ice projections.
Projections like this:
“…My thinking on this is that 2030 is not an unreasonable date to be thinking of…” BBC news, 12 Dec 2007
“…There is this thin first-year ice even at the North Pole at the moment,” says Serreze. “This raises the spectre – the possibility that you could become ice free at the North Pole this year.” …” ABC News site, 27 Apr, 2008.
And about that second “projection” (Serreze: “…to set the record straight, I never made a “prediction”), there’s more to the “story”.
Yes, Serreze said we might have “an ice free north pole”, but the claim is, had anyone bothered to read the original story, they’d know that Serreze was simply talking about the physical North Pole – and not using “north pole” to refer to the entire Arctic being ice free!
So we’ll have a hole where the North Pole was, but the rest of the Arctic is safe till 2030.
They’d better put up barriers. Wouldn’t want anyone to fall in the ice-hole.
I note that Julienne Stroeve is
hiding outmissing in action. Her position seems to be that CO2 congregates in the Arctic, allowing Antarctic ice to grow.On another note, California decides to spend its Cap&Tax income on non-climate related expenditures:
http://www.thepiratescove.us/2012/06/18/shocker-california-looks-to-use-cap-and-trade-revenue-for-non-climate-purposes
A projection derived from a model created [from] assumptions and other guesses.
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) … that should be HOEY as in garbage.
As I’ve said before the “all models” graph for SLR shows that Antarctica will have increasing ice accumulation for the next 300 years. i.e the effect will be negative for SLR.
http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/364/1844/1709/F4.expansion.html
I pointed out to Julienne on another thread that existing climate models have know issues, e.g.:
“Many atmospheric general circulation models (GCMs) and chemistry–climate models (CCMs) are not able to reproduce the observed polar stratospheric winds in simulations of the late 20th century. Specifically, the polar vortices break down too late and peak wind speeds are higher than in the ERA-40 reanalysis. Insufficient planetary wave driving during the October–November period delays the breakup of the southern hemisphere (SH) polar vortex in versions 1 (V1) and 2 (V2) of the Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS) chemistry–climate model, and is likely the cause of the delayed breakup in other CCMs with similarly weak October-November wave driving.”
“In the V1 model, the delayed breakup of the Antarctic vortex biases temperature, circulation and trace gas concentrations in the polar stratosphere in spring. The V2 model behaves similarly (despite major model upgrades from V1), though the magnitudes of the anomalous effects on springtime dynamics are smaller.”
“Clearly, if CCMs cannot duplicate the observed response of the polar stratosphere to late 20th century climate forcings, their ability to simulate the polar vortices in future may be poor.”
http://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2009/EGU2009-651.pdf
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2010JGRD..11507105H
“It is unclear how much confidence can be put into the model projections of the vortices given that the models typically only have moderate resolution and that the climatological structure of the vortices in the models depends on the tuning of gravity wave parameterizations.
Given the above outstanding issues, there is need for continued research in the dynamics of the vortices and their representation in global models.”
http://www.columbia.edu/~lmp/paps/waugh+polvani-PlumbFestVolume-2010.pdf
It is really simple folks. Take 20 climate models or a 1000. They all have the same (wrong) assumption that CO2 is the primary driver of climate. Take the 5 best of any number of them and you still have that assumption and that assumption will cause sea ice to decline.
The real question is: how long have Emperor penguins been around? Did they survive the end of the last ice age? If so, than I think they will be alright even if the sea ice were to decline a little more…don’t you? Now…may I have a hundred grand to add a lot of big words and publish this far more intelligent, accurate and scientific statement in a journal?
How about the National Science Foundation, WHOI; the French National Agency for Research (ANR) program on biodiversity; the ANR REMIGE program (Behavioral and Demographic Responses of Indian Ocean Marine Top Predators to Global Environmental Changes); the Zone Research Workshop for the Antarctic and Subantarctic Environment (ZATA); the Paul Emilie Victor Institute (IPEV); Alexander von Humboldt Foundation; Marie-Curie European Fellowship; and the U.S. Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences visiting fellowship.
ANYONE?
Just The Facts,
Julienne Stroeve has both front feet in the grant trough. She uses her unquestioned attractiveness for her own self-serving ends. Certainly her pal reviewed papers are rigor-free, predicated on computer models. I almost can’t blame her for the trade-off between attractiveness and her brand of scientology. But when her feet are held to the fire of the scientific method, she either hides out, or changes the subject.
Smokey says:June 20, 2012 at 8:12 pm
I don’t know, between her and Walt, I see a certain receptivity that I don’t see in many of their colleagues. Sure they have to play the game, especially working for Serreze, but deep down, I think they are good scientists.
Just The Facts,
Maybe I’m just frustrated because Julienne keeps dodging my repeatedly asked question.
Either human emissions control the climate, or they do not. I say not, due to a complete lack of evidence. But Julienne will not say, because it would mean providing solid, verifiable, testable evidence to support her runaway global warming beliefs.
So maybe I should go easy on her, since she’s just a girl and all. The scientific method is for us guys, right? Therefore, Julienne is exempt. Got it.
You can’t blame these guys when your whole scientific field is a joke and you are taught that the only true data you can use for your papers is models…well you get crap like this.
The scary part is when it starts to infect other parts of main stream teaching, I fell sorry for stats the way these charltans are going that has to be the next logical infestation by ‘The Cause’.
RIP science and maths, welcome to modelled consensus science and maths.
Andrew says:
June 20, 2012 at 5:17 pm
That chimes with my own theory. PCs make it far to easy to produce rubbish, particularly graphs of tortured statistics. I think we should go back to producing graphs using ruler, pencil and graph paper. The work involved would make people far more rigorous and selective in what they produce.
All film I have seen of Emperor Penguins show the breeding and hatching taking place a few miles inland not on the sea ice. This does not equate with what has been stated above.
John Marshall: the films have deceived you. Except for 2 colonies, all Emperors breed on flat fast-ice that usually melts each year. Fast-ice is fastened to the shore or ice bergs as opposed to pack ice that is in constant motion. Although graceful divers the Emperor is a bumbling land walker and the shore line of Antarctica almost impassable with steep and rocky sides due to ancient glaciation and punctuated with insurmountable towering ice shelves where active glaciers meet the sea. The reason they breed through the dead of winter is to fully exploit the fast ice season.They walk 20 to 100 km to reach fast ice closest to shore which is the last ice to break up in the spring and least likely to be disturbed by drifting pack ice that will break off chunks of fast ice during the winter. There is only one, and very successful, land breeding colony, the Taylor Colony. There was also a very small colony breeding on land or ice on Dion Island just off the western Antarctic peninsula, but it is now abandoned. Perhaps you confuse the Emperor with the Adelie Penguins, the other ice-dependent penguin, which only breeds on land and breeds much later. If the Adelie needs to walk more than a few km’s to dry land they abandon the breeding sites. The largest lost of Adelie Penguins on the Antarctic Peninsula was not due to lack of ice, but due to winds that compressed the ice against the shore making their walk too long.
Jimbo says:
June 20, 2012 at 11:09 am
I am wildly speculating here but wouldn’t declining sea ice reduce the distance they have to walk to get to the ocean therefore reducing the likelihood of stress and deaths along the way? Would this not help to INCREASE their populations? Just speculating.
================
It’s likely that they are nesting on a site that was at some time much nearer the ocean, I read that speculated before – critters have long genetic memories for sites and trails it seems and keep to paths carved out by their ancestors thousands of years ago.
In Kenya a while back we stopped and watched a zebra crossing of thousands of them over a vast plain, in single file! Some wildebeests had joined them on the migration and there were several places where a few interrupted the line, also keeping to the single file. One couldn’t help but put them in a different landscape imagining a deer trail through forest.
Over night, I occasionally drifted into thought about all of these research papers getting the pal review shove into the limelight. They certainly can’t be just premature research findings slipping through the so called science nets, can they?
Just why would such obvious dreck get published? Oh, it is certainly possible and very likely that one grant was ending so there is a need to move on. That is, get another grant (tub of untracked money to us plebians). I was sort of satisfied thinking that was the basic reason Julienne’s motivation here.
But why such a rush of bad science getting the pal review kiss of free publicity?
Reading the new posts in an older thread and all of the references to AR4 and WG1, one poster mentioned the green propaganda IPCC inclusions, himalaya’s glacier and Amazon’s gates that were masqueraded as real science. (Thank you David!).
A light popped on! This research paper (Those poor poor penguins) looks and reads exactly like the pitiful drivel published by the big green money sucking monsters called (mistakenly) conservation organizations.
This pal reviewed penguin dross is an attempt to legitimize green propaganda papers so they can be front an center in the next IPCC AR. “Peer Review” claim the CAGW fundamentalists and “Ye shall be saved… right after you give us all of your money, cease your useless waste of resources on higher standards, and start walking for transport.” “Oh, don’t forget we also require immunity from prosecution and we govern forever unquestioned”. “Oh yeah, baby!”. “We CAGW faithful will become the new royal blood!”. “That and we certainly need never fear a burning world from our deity CO2”. (cue in the sinister laughter track now and fade).
I sure wish I could add an /sarc to that insight. Verbalizing the CAGW fantasies is a definite /sarc. Perhaps even the frequent references to the pal review of the paper also gets a /sarc as I could be mistaken and I do not have proof. How else could this paper get through an sincere review? well, OK, I’ll slide a /sarc across the table for Julienne’s motives and review process.
Time will tell the truth though and I look forward to that day.
Jimbo says:
June 20, 2012 at 11:09 am
I am wildly speculating here but wouldn’t declining sea ice reduce the distance they have to walk to get to the ocean therefore reducing the likelihood of stress and deaths along the way? Would this not help to INCREASE their populations? Just speculating.
Yes indeed. A 2009 paper by Massom titled “Fast ice distribution in Adélie Land, East Antarctica: interannual variability and implications for emperor penguins Aptenodytes forsteri” examined fast ice breakouts that shortened their walk from 100 km to about 60 km. This was a study on the same population that the models used to suggest coming extinction and one BarBraud co-authored both papers. They wrote, “Successful penguin breeding seasons in 1993, 1998 and 1999 ([number of fledged chicks in late November / number of breeding pairs] >75% success) coincided with lower-than-average fast ice extents and persistently short distances to nearest open water (foraging grounds), and corresponded to a strong positive phase of the Southern Annular Mode. Poor breeding seasons in 1992, 1994 and 1995 (success <15%) coincided with average to slightly higher-than-average ice extents and persistently long distances to foraging grounds. Poor-to-moderate breeding years (success ~40 to 50%), e.g. 1996 and 1997, occurred with above-average ice extents combined with fairly long distances from breeding to foraging grounds during the chick nurturing season. The overall correlation between breeding success and distance was high (r2 = 0.89)"
Computer modeling of emperor penguin numbers in Antarctica shows a worse-than-we-thought decline. However observations (counting penguins from satellite photos) shows that there are twice as many penguins than previously known –
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/47045043/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/satellite-view-helps-double-emperor-penguin-population/#.T-ODgrVYzoE
So … which do we believe?
Gary Pearse says:
June 20, 2012 at 3:22 pm
“They selected the five models that most closely reproduced changes in actual Antarctic sea ice cover during the 20th century.”
Too much selection of data and models. Recently, McIntyre blogged about the longest, most detailed proxy for temp over several thousand years that never gets used: the Law Dome ice core. It was deliberately rejected by Gergis, et all in their recent study (whose publication was cancelled when McIntyre pointed out unrelated terminal statistics gaffes in it) and by every other charter of the millennial temperature record because it doesn’t support their biases.
“I fought the Law and the .. Law (Dome) won”