Josh brings attention to this George Monbiot piece today in the Guardian today:
Noting that: Something of an annual event… sea ice alarm.
After reading Monbiot’s essay, the cartoon will make sense:
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Griff,
A physically plausible correlation is not proof that CO2 caused the ice melt nor that Arctic melting is proof of CO2 driven global warming. The Arctic has thawed more in than the past than it has this year without help from burning fossil fuels. Instead of trying to state “proof” why don’t you try looking at the science from both sides and then maybe you will see why we are skeptical of AGW. And by both sides I don’t mean reading the “myths” on SKS.
Griff says:
Well, for the bare fact of that local warming, certainly, or the ice wouldn’t have melted. (Actually, just about everyone here accepts that there is, indeed, a tad more energy in the system than there was in our grandparents’ time, so it really isn’t that surprising.) And?
Tsk, tsk, not at all, mon vieux. To prove global warming caused by human produced CO2 IS taking place, YOU need to show conclusively HOW our tiny contribution to one trace gas in the atmosphere produces so much effect, when all the evidence suggests that our total effect on the global climate is so small as to be lost in the noise of natural variability. The onus is on you to prove the causal chain, NOT on everyone else to disprove it.
Good luck with that. You might find it instructive to check out some of the interesting links which pop up here regularly, rather than the obsessive propaganda on junk sites like SkS. Here’s an interesting one to start you thinking about the magnitude of CO2’s effects, and here’s WUWT’s own useful checklist to see how complete and detailed all those scary papers you seem to believe really are.
[PDF] Our forebears lived – and in many cases died – through climatic variations quite as great as, or greater than, anything we’re seeing. Like many other sceptics, here and elsewhere, I used to believe all that manmade apocalypse stuff, too – until I went looking for evidence to support it.
Quote: “Where does the government maintain the emergency stockpiles of food, water and medicine in your city?”
At Wal-Mart. Seriously.
Ken Nohe says:
August 28, 2012 at 9:21 pm
“The Chinese are transforming the wood into objects ready to be exported to Germany, hoping in the meantime to achieve a German lifestyle within their life time.”
I’m not sure what you’re talking about as I’m German and I have no wooden object that has been transformed in China; even though I have a few computers assembled in China.
In any case, a few days ago a poetic writing contest for alarmist essays was announced in a WUWT post. I think you might qualify. Look it up.
Mgb says:
August 29, 2012 at 2:44 am
“Ken nohe, thanks for your comment above. It is the most literate and thoughtful series of points I have ever read about this vexed topic in 15 years of following the issue. I only regret that your comment is too long for a tattoo. ”
Wrong.
http://www.tattoo-teez.com/get-longest-text-tattoos-on-your-body/word-text-tattoos-11/
Hey Griff…why is the ice trend in the Antarctic in the opposite direction, contrary to the theory you now say is proved. And as far as records are concerned, going back 130 years is hardly proof that this event is unprecedented in human history. Most skeptics believe in the natural cycle that produced the little ice age, and that we have been warming (mostly naturally) for the last 250 years. Naturally occurring lower ice extents were probable a 1,000 years ago, when vikings colonized Southern Greenland for a few hundred years.
The main ‘proof’ of your point is actually a logical fallacy: the argument from ignorance. It is the same logical fallacy that the entire IPCC argument is based on, and that we humans have used to blame witches and gods for changes in the weather for millennium. “Since we can not think of any other reason why this is happening, it must be happening because of __________!”
But skeptics can think of many other logical reasons for what we observe in the climate today and those reasons are more consistent and have less contradictions than the CO2 argument. If you can not see the other explanations, or the many contradictions and failures in the CO2 argument…then I bet you haven’t looked. It is pretty obvious to those of us who have.
Artic melting gives rise to the concept of semi-global warming or perhaps northern hemisperical warming thanks to those choozy little spheres of CO2 drifting only Northward.
Ken Nohe says:
August 28, 2012 at 9:21 pm
Westerners live in Dysneyland, literally.
Literally? I don’t – I live in the UK!
Maybe Moonbat lives in Disneyland. However, he said a while ago shortly after the Japanese tidal wave, on BBC “Newsnight”(I think) that he supported nuclear power as renewables couldn’t cut ir. To say this startled everyone else there would be putting it mildly. Perhaps he views an electricity-free future as a possible personal disaster.
The Moonbat is back……more Guardianista drivel. Enough to make one ashamed to be British.
Well, judging by this I’d bet on an average summer minimum of under 4 million km^2 for this decade, and ice free late summer before the end of the decade.
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/Sea_Ice_Extent_L.png
From his article:
Regardless of anything else, this is just plain wrong. The ocean’s albedo at high latitudes is essentially the same as newly fallen snow, and probably more than sea ice.
Jeff, you said: “The ocean’s albedo at high latitudes is essentially the same as newly fallen snow, and probably more than sea ice.”
Hmm… so I guess the people at the National Snow & Ice Data Center have got it all wrong then.
[From http://nsidc.org/cryosphere/seaice/processes/albedo.html%5D
“Sea ice has a much higher albedo compared to other earth surfaces, such as the surrounding ocean. A typical ocean albedo is approximately 0.06, while bare sea ice varies from approximately 0.5 to 0.7. […] Snow has an even higher albedo than sea ice, and so thick sea ice covered with snow reflects as much as 90 percent of the incoming solar radiation.”
If you find a good reference, you should write to the NSDIC so they can correct their figures! 🙂
I really wish we could just pack up all the CAGW believers and dump them in some nice very backward African country. I am sure the natives would be very happy to exchange places. Or better yet how about Zheleznogorsk since they are so worried about the earth frying… I understand
A really great cartoon as usual Josh.
Jeff – further to my earlier comment, to be fair, it is true that the angle of incidence has an effect on the albedo of open water. Again quoting NSIDC (http://nsidc.org/arcticmet/factors/radiation.html):
“Open water absorbs the most radiation of all arctic surfaces. With an albedo of about 0.08 [the other page said 0.06], it reflects only 8 percent of the incoming radiation. However, the variation of albedo with solar altitude is especially pronounced for the surfaces of oceans and lakes. The albedo of a water surface increases with decreasing solar altitude and approaches a mirror-like 100 percent near sunrise and sunset, or when the sun is low in the arctic sky.”
Angle of incidence is apparently just one of many factors affecting the albedo of the ocean though. See for example this 2004 paper:
http://snowdog.larc.nasa.gov/jin/Papers/jingrl04.pdf
“A parameterization of ocean surface albedo”
“Measurements at a sea platform show that the ocean surface albedo is highly variable and is sensitive to four physical parameters: solar zenith angle, wind speed, transmission by atmospheric cloud/aerosol, and ocean chlorophyll concentration.”
Highest albedo on any of the graphs of OSA (Ocean Surface Albedo) is 0.4… which is still lower than that of sea ice.
New Record in one of the coldest areas in the states of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. Guess which direction?
Record Report
000
SXUS76 KPDT 261821
RERPDT
RECORD EVENT REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE PENDLETON OR
1120 AM PDT SUN AUG 26 2012
…NEW DAILY RECORD LOW TEMPERATURES FOR AUGUST 26TH…
NOTE: STATIONS MARKED WITH * INDICATE THAT THE STATION REPORTS ONCE
PER DAY. FOR CONSISTENCY…THESE VALUES ARE CONSIDERED TO HAVE
OCCURRED ON THE DAY THE OBSERVATION WAS TAKEN BUT MAY HAVE ACTUALLY
OCCURRED (ESPECIALLY FOR MAX TEMPERATURE) ON THE PREVIOUS DAY.
STATION PREVIOUS NEW RECORDS
RECORD/YEAR RECORD BEGAN
MEACHAM, OR 33 / 1998 32 1929
Not enuf sunlight to warm the Arctic Ocean, but water is a way better radiator than ice. Open water will cool the world.