Opposite Behaviors? Arctic Sea Ice Shrinks, Antarctic Grows
September 2012 witnessed two opposite records concerning sea ice. Two weeks after the Arctic Ocean’s ice cap experienced an all-time summertime low for the satellite era (left), Antarctic sea ice reached a record winter maximum extent (right). But sea ice in the Arctic has melted at a much faster rate than it has expanded in the Southern Ocean, as can be seen in this image by comparing the 2012 sea ice levels with the yellow outline, which in the Arctic image represents average sea ice minimum extent from 1979 through 2010 and in the Antarctic image shows the median sea ice extent in September from 1979 to 2000. Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio and NASA Earth Observatory/ Jesse Allen
The steady and dramatic decline in the sea ice cover of the Arctic Ocean over the last three decades has become a focus of media and public attention. At the opposite end of the Earth, however, something more complex is happening.
A new NASA study shows that from 1978 to 2010 the total extent of sea ice surrounding Antarctica in the Southern Ocean grew by roughly 6,600 square miles every year, an area larger than the state of Connecticut. And previous research by the same authors indicates that this rate of increase has recently accelerated, up from an average rate of almost 4,300 square miles per year from 1978 to 2006.
“There’s been an overall increase in the sea ice cover in the Antarctic, which is the opposite of what is happening in the Arctic,” said lead author Claire Parkinson, a climate scientist with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. “However, this growth rate is not nearly as large as the decrease in the Arctic.”
The Earth’s poles have very different geographies. The Arctic Ocean is surrounded by North America, Greenland and Eurasia. These large landmasses trap most of the sea ice, which builds up and retreats with each yearly freeze-and-melt cycle. But a large fraction of the older, thicker Arctic sea ice has disappeared over the last three decades. The shrinking summer ice cover has exposed dark ocean water that absorbs sunlight and warms up, leading to more ice loss.
On the opposite side of the planet, Antarctica is a continent circled by open waters that let sea ice expand during the winter but also offer less shelter during the melt season. Most of the Southern Ocean’s frozen cover grows and retreats every year, leading to little perennial sea ice in Antarctica.
Using passive-microwave data from NASA’s Nimbus 7 satellite and several Department of Defense meteorological satellites, Parkinson and colleague Don Cavalieri showed that sea ice changes were not uniform around Antarctica. Most of the growth from 1978 to 2010 occurred in the Ross Sea, which gained a little under 5,300 square miles of sea ice per year, with more modest increases in the Weddell Sea and Indian Ocean. At the same time, the region of the Bellingshausen and Amundsen Seas lost an average of about 3,200 square miles of ice every year.
› View larger The ice covering the Bellingshausen Sea, off the coast of Antarctica, as seen from a NASA Operation IceBridge flight on Oct. 13, 2012. Credit: NASA/Michael Studinger
Parkinson and Cavalieri said that the mixed pattern of ice growth and ice loss around the Southern Ocean could be due to changes in atmospheric circulation. Recent research points at the depleted ozone layer over Antarctica as a possible culprit. Ozone absorbs solar energy, so a lower concentration of this molecule can lead to a cooling of the stratosphere (the layer between six and 30 miles above the Earth’s surface) over Antarctica. At the same time, the temperate latitudes have been warming, and the differential in temperatures has strengthened the circumpolar winds flowing over the Ross Ice Shelf.
“Winds off the Ross Ice Shelf are getting stronger and stronger, and that causes the sea ice to be pushed off the coast, which generates areas of open water, polynyas,” said Josefino Comiso, a senior scientist at NASA Goddard. “The larger the coastal polynya, the more ice it produces, because in polynyas the water is in direct contact with the very cold winter atmosphere and rapidly freezes.” As the wind keeps blowing, the ice expands further to the north.
This year’s winter Antarctic sea ice maximum extent, reached two weeks after the Arctic Ocean’s ice cap experienced an all-time summertime low, was a record high for the satellite era of 7.49 million square miles, about 193,000 square miles more than its average maximum extent for the last three decades.
The Antarctic minimum extents, which are reached in the midst of the Antarctic summer, in February, have also slightly increased to 1.33 million square miles in 2012, or around 251,000 square miles more than the average minimum extent since 1979.
The numbers for the southernmost ocean, however, pale in comparison with the rates at which the Arctic has been losing sea ice – the extent of the ice cover of the Arctic Ocean in September 2012 was 1.32 million square miles below the average September extent from 1979 to 2000. The lost ice area is equivalent to roughly two Alaskas.
Parkinson said that the fact that some areas of the Southern Ocean are cooling and producing more sea ice does not disprove a warming climate.
“Climate does not change uniformly: The Earth is very large and the expectation definitely would be that there would be different changes in different regions of the world,” Parkinson said. “That’s true even if overall the system is warming.” Another recent NASA study showed that Antarctic sea ice slightly thinned from 2003 to 2008, but increases in the extent of the ice balanced the loss in thickness and led to an overall volume gain.
The new research, which used laser altimetry data from the Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat), was the first to estimate sea ice thickness for the entire Southern Ocean from space.
Records of Antarctic sea ice thickness are much patchier than those of the Arctic, due to the logistical challenges of taking regular measurements in the fierce and frigid waters around Antarctica. The field data collection is mostly limited to research icebreakers that generally only travel there during spring and summer – so the sole means to get large-scale thickness measurements is from space.
“We have a good handle of the extent of the Antarctic sea ice, but the thickness has been the missing piece to monitor the sea ice mass balance,” said Thorsten Markus, one of the authors of the study and Project Scientist for ICESat-2, a satellite mission designed to replace the now defunct ICESat. ICESat-2 is scheduled to launch in 2016. “The extent can be greater, but if the sea ice gets thinner, the volume could stay the same.”
Maria-José Viñas
NASA’s Earth Science News Team
“richardscourtney says:
October 25, 2012 at 10:14 am
Gary Lance:
Your post addressed to me at October 25, 2012 at 8:57 am contains your usual twaddle which I do not deign to answer and it poses this question to which I am responding.
You have to ask yourself and others a question. Why are you bothering to discuss sea ice? I discuss it and analyze it, because it involves a very dynamic process that people glimpsing at a chart don’t see.
No, I don’t have to ask any question which you demand. Especially when you say you are asking the question because you “see” something which you cannot describe or define and you admit that others don’t see it.
Instead, I choose to ask you to justify your ignorant and unfounded assertions concerning Arctic ice loss. Therefore, I yet again ask you the questions (concerning your assertions) which you have so steadfastly refused to answer on the earlier Arctic ice thread.
For convenience of any who have not seen them, I copy the questions here. They are
1.
Please educate me on how “an ice free arctic … will be the most pivotal event related to the Earth that man has ever witnessed”.
This will be more “pivotal” than the exit from Africa, than the end of the last glaciation, than the invention of agriculture, and than the industrial revolution? How?
2.
You tell me, “The areas that will benefit from that change are not well populated and the areas who will be losers are well populated.”
Why is such a coincidence likely? And why will people not move if it happens?
Gary Lance, you made the assertions. Explain them, please. I have waited your answers for a long time.
Richard”
That word you was beyond your mind’s ability to grasp. Your only interest in sea ice is to post bull about your agenda and you show it by your lack of knowledge on the subject.
You can troll away forever and I’m not answering your questions again. I’m not playing that game where a question is answered, you don’t like the answer and keep asking the question.
If you have something to say about a subject dealing with climate then say it and if you troll, you aren’t worth of getting a response. I’ve been around that game of trolling by repeating the same questions before. Keep it up and you won’t get the time of day!
“agfosterjr says:
October 25, 2012 at 10:24 am
Gary Lance says:
October 24, 2012 at 1:45 pm
“Sunlight in the Arctic at the height of summer is only 3% of normal sunlight as it comes in at a low angle and through a greater distance of atmosphere (the W/m^2 is down 97%). Any heating of the water will be near the surface and will be rapidly lost to evaporative cooling.”
[adjacent paragraph:]
“The North Pole gets more sunlight at the height of summer than the equator. Hint: It’s getting it 24 hours per day.”
=====================================================================
So, it gets “only 3% of normal sunlight” while at the same time getting “more sunlight at the height of summer than the equator”! I’m not sure 24 hours is long enough to accomplish this unless equatorial days are just a few minutes long. The latter of his two claims is correct, and thoroughly contradicts his first claim–one wonders where he came up with this nonsense, but the humorous thing is he doesn’t grasp the contradiction.
Then he says to me: “You don’t know the difference between sea ice and an iceberg.” Well maybe Capt. Cook didn’t either; sure, icebergs 500 miles long are seen all the time.
And of course Kadaka is right: during the Cretaceous the continents were a whole lot different, which apparently Gary Lance has only just learned.
Stick around, Gary, and we will separate you from the likes of those who believe global warming is at fault for the melting runway at Wilkins. –AGF”
Let’s start off with something simple so you don’t get confused! I quoted someone saying that 3% of normal sunlight nonsense. The way to measure the sunlight is to use a square at noon and measure the area it projects. Since the sun isn’t directly above, it will project a rectangle with an area showing how the sunlight is spread over a surface. Common sense would tell someone it isn’t 3 %. It is a fact that the pole receives more sunlight at and around the beginning of it’s summer than the equator. If someone can’t handle that fact, then who cares! We all know the Earth is still flat to some people.
If ice in an ocean is 10 or 12 feet tall then the 10% rule applies and that can’t be sea ice, because sea ice never gets that thick. Ice shelves can be like skyscapers, so they make large icebergs. If you see pictures of flat areas in the arctic and tall ice here and there, there is a lot of ice under that tall area.
“And of course Kadaka is right: during the Cretaceous the continents were a whole lot different, which apparently Gary Lance has only just learned.”
Kadaka was talking about the Eocene and we both agreed the continents were basically as they are today in position. You get a zero on that test.
I already said I thought it was Rossby waves at Wilkins and they were first indentified in ’39.
“D Böehm says:
October 25, 2012 at 10:27 am
Gary Lance,
Still thread bombing, I see. You really need to get a life. You’re making no headway convincing anyone here, despite your incessant posting of alarmist talking points 24/7.”
You assume I am trying to convince you. I could care less about what you think now or will ever think.
Gary Lance:
At October 25, 2012 at 11:07 am you write:
You have NOT answered the questions.
You cannot cite where you have answered the questions because you have not.
You cannot copy your answers to the questions to here because you have not answered them.
You are the very worst kind of troll. You write nonsense, assert to having expertise you can only dream about, post rubbish and object when called to justify the rubbish you have posted.
I told you I would “hold your feet to the fire” about this. And I am doing it.
Answer the questions.
Richard
“agfosterjr says:
October 25, 2012 at 11:00 am
Some ancient maps seem to indicate the extent of the southern ice during the LIA. Here’s one:
http://www.gracegalleries.com/images/WOR/WOR159.jpg
Here’s another:
http://www.gracegalleries.com/images/WOR/WOR158.jpg
The Terra Australlis Incognita shrunk first through the voyages of exploration and second through receding ice. There’s not much left to shrink. –AGF”
Are you talking about ancient maps putting land they hadn’t discovered at the bottom of the Earth, because they believe it had to have land? When they discovered Austrailia, they thought it was the southern lands, until they realized it wasn’t big enough. The southern lands on ancient maps are based on the belief of order in their universe. They believed such a large area had to have land and they just made it up based on myth.
Gary Lance says:
“You assume I am trying to convince you.”
You could easily convince me, if you had any empirical evidence. But you do not.
And in case you haven’t noticed, you are not convincing anyone here of anything.
“D Böehm says:
October 25, 2012 at 11:44 am
Gary Lance says:
“You assume I am trying to convince you.”
You could easily convince me, if you had any empirical evidence. But you do not.
And in case you haven’t noticed, you are not convincing anyone here of anything.”
Figure where you are! Not too many people with an interest in science would come here to talk to you or the people who agree with you.
Can you think of a subject in climate science and show the world how much you know?
Gary Lance says:
“Figure where you are!”
I know exactly where I am: commenting on the internet’s “Best Science” site, which has more than 130 million unique views in only 5 years, and close to a million reader comments. None of the alarmist blogs come anywhere close to those numbers. They are just thinly-trafficked, censoring echo chambers that spoon-feed credulous believers like you their one-sided climate propaganda.
Here, anyone is free to comment. And if you haven’t noticed, your alarmist beliefs are not getting any traction despite your incessant thread bombing.
Friends:
I copy another comedic gem from Gary Lance in case anybody missed it.
At October 25, 2012 at 11:58 am Gary Lance asked
Richard
Gary Lance says:
October 25, 2012 at 11:32 am
===============================
Then you should learn to put your quotation marks in the right place and otherwise quit speaking through your nether orifice: “The arctic wouldn’t be ice free throughout the year immediately after becoming ice free, but the alligator fossils in Alaska tell a different story about it won’t be ice free year round and the continents were basically as they are today.” Your science is as bad as your grammar. And of course, you lied.
And this: “The southern lands on ancient maps are based on the belief of order in their universe. They believed such a large area had to have land and they just made it up based on myth.”
You are confusing three stages of thought: the Ptolemaic, the Magellanic, and the premodern. This map shows the middle stage:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/Typusor.jpg
and is to be contrasted with the later maps I posted which limit their depictions to actual observations. It’s too bad you can’t tell the difference, but it’s clear your cartography is no better than your paleontology. I’m sure you can keep farting indefinitely at this perfume exhibition.
–AGF
agfosterjr says:
October 25, 2012 at 12:54 pm
I quoted the person and the person has a name in the quote.
When was the first official siting of Antarctica and did they make a map?
Is it too hard to believe it was put on ancient maps because they believed land belongs there? They thought the land should be much bigger than Antarctica is and Antarctica is 1.3 times the size of Europe.
Figure it out, if you can’t stick with the subject of climate change, you aren’t worth being in a discussion with me! I’m here to discuss a subject and not the person.
Gary Lance says:
October 24, 2012 at 1:45 pm
“higley7 says:
October 24, 2012 at 7:28 am
“shrinking summer ice cover has exposed dark ocean water that absorbs sunlight and warms up, leading to more ice loss.”
Sunlight in the Arctic at the height of summer is only 3% of normal sunlight as it comes in at a low angle and through a greater distance of atmosphere (the W/m^2 is down 97%). Any heating of the water will be near the surface and will be rapidly lost to evaporative cooling.”
Since you are going to claim you are right, because you didn’t use my post, do you see the quotes, agfosterjr says:?
Friends:
Again, I copy from the comedic source which keeps on giving. In case anybody missed it, at October 25, 2012 at 1:30 pm Gary Lance said to agfosterjr
Richard
Gary Lance says:
October 25, 2012 at 1:36 pm
When a new paragraph continues a quotation, it is customary to put quote marks at the beginning of the subsequent paragraph, not at the end of the previous one.
“When was the first official siting of Antarctica and did they make a map?” The Terra Australis was gradually discovered from top down (north to south), and as the ice receded they realized the early perimeters were transitory and landless. A couple of centuries followed where the maps showed an empty southern ocean, until better ships and receding ice allowed the discovery of terra firma. We’re here to help.
–AGF
agfosterjr says:
October 25, 2012 at 2:26 pm
I’m not going to edit someone’s quotes. higley7 quoted someone and didn’t identify them.
I haven’t found anything describing the format for html code on this site. Is it [ or <? I know it's used and using it is much better than using quotes, but we can't preview a post here. My guess is it's [, because YouTube is used and I've never seen YouTube use <. I don't recall seeing images ever being posted in comments, but they would be helpful.
"We’re here to help."
Is spreading misinformation helping someone? It's real simple and a known fact that the Cartographers who made the early maps just drew something to represent Terra Australis to fill the void of the empty ocean in areas that weren't explored. Austrailia was thought to be Terra Australis when it was found and that's how it received it's name. When they discovered it was too small, they drew another Terra Australis to fill in the map.
If you want to help someone, don't feed them misinformation. It's like a habit around here. There is no shame in not knowing something, but it is a shame to not know and spread that lack of knowledge to others. What I told you about Terra Australis isn't an opinion, it's a fact.
[ The triangle brackets are used. Mod]
From Gary Lance on October 25, 2012 at 11:32 am:
When the Hell did that happen? I referenced a study “which looked at temperatures during the early Eocene period 52 to 53 million years ago”. You could read the relevant section of the Wikipedia Eocene entry and know how different they were.
Come on now, India hadn’t even collided with Asia yet! Basically as they are today? Are you kidding?
Gary Lance:
At October 25, 2012 at 3:30 pm you ask
No! It is not! Please stop it.
Richard
From Gary Lance on October 25, 2012 at 3:30 pm:
For formatting and HTML codes, head to the top of any page and click on “Test” in the toolbar. That’s the page for the formatting primer with a test posting section to try stuff out.
WordPress-dot-com accounts don’t have Preview as an option. But individuals can have their own Preview button by installing CA Assistant, which also provides formatting help.
Ordinary commenters can’t post images, which is a good thing. WUWT doesn’t have control of the images at remote links, so if they approve an image today, the image might be changed to something objectionable in the future.
Hope that helps, as we’re here to help.
“kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
October 25, 2012 at 3:49 pm
From Gary Lance on October 25, 2012 at 11:32 am:
Kadaka was talking about the Eocene and we both agreed the continents were basically as they are today in position.
When the Hell did that happen? I referenced a study “which looked at temperatures during the early Eocene period 52 to 53 million years ago”. You could read the relevant section of the Wikipedia Eocene entry and know how different they were.
Come on now, India hadn’t even collided with Asia yet! Basically as they are today? Are you kidding?”
You agreed they were basically in the same location and I pointed out Austrailia and New Zealand just broke away just broke away and South America was still preventing a circumpolar current. I pointed out there was a circum-equatorial current then and showed the major changes that would happen later to make our modern Earth.
You were talking alligators, mentioned 50 MA and it was quoted. I know India started colliding with Eurasia in 70 MA and was kicking by 50 MA, removing CO2, because of weathering new material. Once the CO2 dropped to a certain level, Hothouse Earth ended. Hothouse Earth is 22 degrees C Earth, which for some reason the temperature maxes out, probably because of clouds preventing sunlight.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himalayas
20 million years X 15 cm per year = 300 million cm = 3 million meters = 3 thousand kilometers.
India was 3,000 kilometer past colliding with Eurasia, so obviously mountains and volcanos had formed.
Now, what were you saying about 50 MA and India “hadn’t even collided with Asia yet?”
Can anyone explain to me why the huge area 5degree plus anomaly hot spots which then disperse from areas that otherwise would be colder than the norm is of no interest to climate scientists. To me as an engineer I would think this is the most significant difference between the Arctic and Antarctic? But then I suppose engineers get bogged down in details like that which are below the Titanic intellects of the climate scientists who find their AGW theory totally unsinkable.
AMSRE_SSTAn_M on NASA’s site shows these hot spots up pretty clearly.
Being fair to some climate scientists I did find this put forward as an area for investigation in 2002 and again in 2009 but both of these papers showing the temperature changes were too regional to be caused by a global phenomena seem to have disappeared without trace from the web.
Gary Lance says:
October 25, 2012 at 5:41 pm
“kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
You agreed they were basically in the same location and I pointed out Austrailia and New Zealand just broke away just broke away and South America was still preventing a circumpolar current. I pointed out there was a circum-equatorial current then and showed the major changes that would happen later to make our modern Earth.
You were talking alligators, mentioned 50 MA and it was quoted. I know India started colliding with Eurasia in 70 MA and was kicking by 50 MA, removing CO2, because of weathering new material. Once the CO2 dropped to a certain level, Hothouse Earth ended. Hothouse Earth is 22 degrees C Earth, which for some reason the temperature maxes out, probably because of clouds preventing sunlight.
No. CO2 had no role in reducing temperatures 50 MYa, in fact never has had any role in temperatures on earth, going all the way back to the Huronian ice age with 10-50% atmospheric CO2 during the deepest and longest snowball earth ice age. Where was runaway CAGW then?
Climate scientists instinctively genuflect toward CO2 in accounting for any climate change, but the end of “hothouse earth” was due to the formation of the southern circumpolar current around Antarctica, as has been well explained here previously by Bill Illis. This alone reduced earth’s atmospheric temperature by 2-3 C and ushered in our current glacial epoch. It is wholly uinnecessary – as always – to invoke CO2 at all.
The arrival of the “India ferry” at Eurasia caused cooling in other ways also, including by formation of the elevated Himalaya mountain range.
CO2 is basically the “spare prick at the wedding” as far as climate and global temperatures are concerned.
Gary Lance says:
October 25, 2012 at 8:04 am
“phlogiston says:
The problem with using extent or area is the amount of sea ice can decline, while the extent or area doesn’t. Sea ice that is 5 meters thick and 100% across an area is counted the same as sea ice 1 meter thick and 15% across an area for 5 days when considering extent. In 5 days that sea ice can move a good distance and if the areas are small enough, none of the original sea ice may be left in that area. NSIDC extent data comes from DOD NIC data. NIC data is designed to be analyzed daily and over cautiously to give navigation information to our Navy. As such the data is biased towards sea ice existing, when it might not be and that is done for safety reasons. Sea ice that is white can easily be identified, but sea ice with melt water on top can look like the ocean. The NIC has to devote it’s resources for the next day and isn’t concerned about correcting past data. The NIC has no interest besides daily safety for the Navy. I know this for a fact, because I’ve spoken with people who have done that work. The data sets are turned over to the NSIDC, who has an academic reason to determine if it’s sea ice or not. DMI analyzes the data at 30% concentration and I believe they use a 3 day running average. CT area tries to measure the area that is sea ice. PIOMAS tries to estimate sea ice volume.
However if we are talking about year-on-year trends, then much of the systematic error introduced by differences of method and emphasis will come out in the wash. So something more than a systematic error is needed to account for year-to-year trends, such as the one since 2007 of increased Arctic sea ice maxima.
In general you are clearly very well informed about mechanisms of the recent undeniable Arctic ice decline, no doubt this is your professional field. However it is your implicit assertion that what has been observed over the last 2-3 decades must continue indefinitely, that is really in question. How can you be so sure that these observed changes are not a cyclical phenomenon? An inductive argument that “the GCM models programmed around CO2 AGW predict it” does not really cut it, this inevitably includes an element of circular argument.
David Cage says:
October 26, 2012 at 12:21 am
Can anyone explain to me why the huge area 5degree plus anomaly hot spots which then disperse from areas that otherwise would be colder than the norm is of no interest to climate scientists. To me as an engineer I would think this is the most significant difference between the Arctic and Antarctic? But then I suppose engineers get bogged down in details like that which are below the Titanic intellects of the climate scientists who find their AGW theory totally unsinkable.
AMSRE_SSTAn_M on NASA’s site shows these hot spots up pretty clearly.
Being fair to some climate scientists I did find this put forward as an area for investigation in 2002 and again in 2009 but both of these papers showing the temperature changes were too regional to be caused by a global phenomena seem to have disappeared without trace from the web.
What makes you think it isn’t of interest, but climate requires long term and not short term deviations? We don’t have base stations to monitor weather all over the Earth and for something to be an anomaly. It requires land base stations during the base period, which are usually 30 years. Base stations are on land with a 5 degree grid and they need to reflect the data in that area. A 5 by 5 degree area is large and often has many different features with unique weather data.
That’s just land base and the oceans need monitoring too.
You need a base period to show anomalies and we don’t have the ability to set a base period for the futrure for some of our planet and it’s a significant some. The climate is changing faster than the ability to monitor what is, let alone what was.
Why did you bring it up?
Gary Lance says:
October 25, 2012 at 3:30 pm
“Is spreading misinformation helping someone? It’s real simple and a known fact that the Cartographers who made the early maps just drew something to represent Terra Australis to fill the void of the empty ocean in areas that weren’t explored. Austrailia was thought to be Terra Australis when it was found and that’s how it received it’s name. When they discovered it was too small, they drew another Terra Australis to fill in the map.”
====================================================
A typical warmist: zero honesty and zero intellect.
I wrote: “Some ancient maps seem to indicate the extent of the southern ice during the LIA. Here’s one:
http://www.gracegalleries.com/images/WOR/WOR159.jpg
Here’s another:
http://www.gracegalleries.com/images/WOR/WOR158.jpg”
If you had taken the trouble to examine the maps you would see the southern shore is intermittent just as the observations are intermittent–just like I said. Too hard to understand.? And like I said, there was a period of more than a century where they gave up on such transitory depictions and showed the the southern ocean as empty–long after Magellan but before the circumnavigation of Australia. Those who know not and know not that they know not–and lie and lie and lie–there’s no way they can be educated. Just keep on fartin’. –AGF
phlogiston says:
October 26, 2012 at 3:17 am
Gary Lance says:
October 25, 2012 at 5:41 pm
“You agreed they were basically in the same location and I pointed out Austrailia and New Zealand just broke away just broke away and South America was still preventing a circumpolar current. I pointed out there was a circum-equatorial current then and showed the major changes that would happen later to make our modern Earth.
You were talking alligators, mentioned 50 MA and it was quoted. I know India started colliding with Eurasia in 70 MA and was kicking by 50 MA, removing CO2, because of weathering new material. Once the CO2 dropped to a certain level, Hothouse Earth ended. Hothouse Earth is 22 degrees C Earth, which for some reason the temperature maxes out, probably because of clouds preventing sunlight.”
No. CO2 had no role in reducing temperatures 50 MYa, in fact never has had any role in temperatures on earth, going all the way back to the Huronian ice age with 10-50% atmospheric CO2 during the deepest and longest snowball earth ice age. Where was runaway CAGW then?
Climate scientists instinctively genuflect toward CO2 in accounting for any climate change, but the end of “hothouse earth” was due to the formation of the southern circumpolar current around Antarctica, as has been well explained here previously by Bill Illis. This alone reduced earth’s atmospheric temperature by 2-3 C and ushered in our current glacial epoch. It is wholly uinnecessary – as always – to invoke CO2 at all.
The arrival of the “India ferry” at Eurasia caused cooling in other ways also, including by formation of the elevated Himalaya mountain range.
CO2 is basically the “spare prick at the wedding” as far as climate and global temperatures are concerned.
Note: I edited out “kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:, because he didn’t say that and I did. If you are going to copy and edit a post, do it in a way where it doesn’t change the meaning.
If you want to believe a fantasy that changes in CO2 don’t change temperature, then Climate Scientists are the least of your worries. You have entered the realm of the Phsycical Sciences and mentioned Snowball Earth, so the logic is simple: If Snowball Earth existed, only a greenhouse gas could stop it’s existence. The sun was too weak back then and the condition existed for tens of millions of years. If greenhouse gases didn’t change it, what did and don’t say water, because you have ruled it out? Methane doesn’t last long enough in the atmosphere and is converted to CO2.
Your problem isn’t with a Climate Scientist, your problem is with all real scientists. Only a buildup of CO2 can end a Snowball Earth. The evidence shows an increase in oxygen after Snowball Earth, so where did the oxygen come from if it wasn’t CO2?
It isn’t Climate Scientists who consider CO2 a major force in a planets climate, it’s all Scientists.