From the “no matter what happens it is climate change” department. So, according to this, when the Arctic loses ice it is due to climate change ‘global warming’ when the Antarctic gains ice it is due to ‘climate change’ and is just as bad. WUWT readers may recall that a few years ago NASA concluded that wind patterns were a major factor in Arctic sea ice loss, pushing the mobile sea ice further south where it melted. Here’s their press release form 2007. Now from the British Antarctic Survey and NASA JPL comes a similar but opposite conclusion for the Antarctic.
I’ve downloaded the time lapse and converted it to YouTube for everybody’s benefit since all the folks at BAS offer is an FTP link with this press release that few will visit. See the video I inserted below.
Why Antarctic sea ice cover has increased under the effects of climate change
The first direct evidence that marked changes to Antarctic sea ice drift have occurred over the last 20 years, in response to changing winds, is published this week in the journal Nature Geoscience. Scientists from NERC’s British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena California explain why, unlike the dramatic losses reported in the Arctic, the Antarctic sea ice cover has increased under the effects of climate change (they neglected to mention natural variation here – Anthony).
Maps created by JPL using over 5 million individual daily ice motion measurements captured over a period of 19 years by four US Defense Meteorological satellites show, for the first time, the long-term changes in sea ice drift around Antarctica.
Lead author, Dr Paul Holland of BAS says: “Until now these changes in ice drift were only speculated upon, using computer models of Antarctic winds. This study of direct satellite observations shows the complexity of climate change. The total Antarctic sea-ice cover is increasing slowly, but individual regions are actually experiencing much larger gains and losses that are almost offsetting each other overall. We now know that these regional changes are caused by changes in the winds, which in turn affect the ice cover through changes in both ice drift and air temperature. The changes in ice drift also suggest large changes in the ocean surrounding Antarctica, which is very sensitive to the cold and salty water produced by sea-ice growth.”
“Sea ice is constantly on the move; around Antarctica the ice is blown away from the continent by strong northward winds. Since 1992 this ice drift has changed. In some areas the export of ice away from Antarctica has doubled, while in others it has decreased significantly.”
Sea ice plays a key role in the global environment – reflecting heat from the sun and providing a habitat for marine life. At both poles sea ice cover is at its minimum during late summer. However, during the winter freeze in Antarctica this ice cover expands to an area roughly twice the size of Europe. Ranging in thickness from less than a metre to several metres, the ice insulates the warm ocean from the frigid atmosphere above.
The new research also helps explain why observed changes in the amount of sea-ice cover are so different in the two Polar Regions. The Arctic has experienced dramatic ice losses in recent decades while the overall ice extent in the Antarctic has increased slightly. However, this small Antarctic increase is actually the result of much larger regional increases and decreases, which are now shown to be caused by wind-driven changes. In places, increased northward winds have caused the sea-ice cover to expand outwards from Antarctica. The Arctic Ocean is surrounded by land, so changed winds cannot cause Arctic ice to expand in the same way.
Dr Ron Kwok, JPL says, “The Antarctic sea ice cover interacts with the global climate system very differently than that of the Arctic, and these results highlight the sensitivity of the Antarctic ice coverage to changes in the strength of the winds around the continent.”
There has been contrasting climate change observed across the Antarctic in recent decades. The Antarctic Peninsula has warmed as much as anywhere in the Southern Hemisphere, while East Antarctica has shown little change or even a small cooling around the coast. The new research improves understanding of present and future climate change. It is important to distinguish between the Antarctic Ice Sheet – glacial ice – which is losing volume, and Antarctic sea ice – frozen seawater – which is expanding.
This research was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
The paper ‘Wind-driven trends in Antarctic sea ice motion’ by Paul R. Holland of British Antarctic Survey and Ron Kwok of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California, USA is published in Nature Geoscience this week.
Issued by British Antarctic Survey
h/t to WUWT reader “Forrest”
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“Monty” must not be reading/understanding the responses to him/her. If he did, he’d immediately be squashed, dry up & blow away in the wind. (h/t to Clint Eastwood)
Mr Richard Courtney claims that “Nobody says; “AGW cannot be happening because Antarctic sea ice is increasing”.
Well here are some posters on this thread who claim precisely that:
Focoloco: “If the ice grows it is due to AGW. If the ice is reduced it is because of AGW”
Jeremy: “If you cannot see that more sea ice and a colder Antarctic is illogical in the context of “Global Warming’ then I suggest that nothing will convince you”.
MathrewW: “wind is responsible for more ice and wind is responsible for less ice. As an alarmist, you can cover yourself with either choice when it fits your template”.
Jimbo: “Remind me, weren’t both poles supposed to warm due to CAGW because of co2?”.
No doubt there are others.
And then D Boehm comes up with the marvellous: “AGW is not testable or measurable at this point. There is no verifiable cause and effect. AGW is a conjecture based on radiative physics — but AGW is not the same thing as radiative physics. There is too much we do not know. And the planet has been deconstructing the AGW conjecture for the past sixteen years. I think the planet is telling us something. It is certainly causing great consternation among AGW true believers”.
Which is so evidence-free as to be worthless(and wrong).
So as I said earlier….climate science is complicated. The fact that almost nobody here at WUWT understands it is not my problem. Science (and politics?) has left you lot behind.
I will leave the final word to Paul Holland. He’s one of the people who wrote the paper (ie did the hard work that none of you are capable or prepared to do). He says:
“Our study of direct satellite observations shows the complexity of climate change. The Arctic is losing sea ice five times faster than the Antarctic is gaining it, so, on average, the Earth is losing sea ice very quickly. There is no inconsistency between our results and global warming.”
If you disagree with him then write a rebuttal!
Monty says:
My argument with those at WUWT is that they tend to have a very superficial view of what science means.
You have demonstrated that you are not capable of such assessments. Perhaps you should stop pretending.
It seems to me that it is incredibly naieve to say: AGW cannot be happening because Antarctic sea ice is increasing.
Sweetheart, the people that claim that AGW exists also claim (on the same basis) that the existance of AGW neccesitates shrinking polar ice. At both poles. It ain’t happening. The theory fails to match observations. The theory is wrong. Accepting that the theory is wrong, and seeking a new theory, is how science works. Hanging on to the failed theory in the face of contradictory information is how religion works.
This is unbelievably simplistic. There are lots of reasons why sea ice in the Antarctic could increase and be caused by AGW at the same time that Arctic sea ice is decreasing and this be caused by AGW.
None of those reasons are part of the AGW theory. Nor are those things components of the 20 or so models that all alledge to embody that theory. If the theory and the models contained those components, they would predict the observed growth Antarctic ice. They dont. The theory and the models based on it are wrong.
Childish assertions by lots of people here along the lines of ‘how can AGW be causing Arctic ice reduction and Antarctic ice increase’ just shows that most posters here have a low level of interatction with how science works.
You are scientifically illiterate. You have no means to assess the level of interation that others have with how science works, as you have no familiarity with it yourself.
If WUWT wants to be taken seriously then it needs to submit some analysis to the peer-reviewed litearture.
As stated above, “peer review literature” does not have the relationship to science that you think it does. To the contrary, “peer review literature” is anathema to science when it is used as you do. If you want to chastise someone for unscientific belief, find a suitably shiny surface and address that guy.
Still waiting “Monty”…
And as if by magic, the next poster says exactly what Mr Courtney says no-one says: JJ “Sweetheart, the people that claim that AGW exists also claim (on the same basis) that the existance of AGW neccesitates shrinking polar ice. At both poles. It ain’t happening”.
And thus Monty drags his red herring across the trail, hoping to avoid answering questions.
Thanks, JJ, for exposing Monty as a true scientific illiterate.
Monty:
My post addressed to you at November 13, 2012 at 4:58 am concluded saying
Your reply to that at November 13, 2012 at 9:12 am consists solely of erroneous nonsense which demonstrates your need to learn. Indeed, it begins by quoting several sarcastic comments which you quote as being real because you lack sufficient knowledge to understand that they were extracting the urine.
I shall not waste time bothering to try to help you further. You are pleased to live in your arrogance based on your ignorance, and your posts are fooling nobody except perhaps yourself.
Richard
D Boehm says:
November 13, 2012 at 10:38 am
You know D Boehm, what I think is even more alarming is that I think “Monty” may actually be employed by the climate industry as a “scientist”. Then again, if I derived my income from a job where it was my duty to alarm and scare people about the
weatherclimate, I suppose I’d act like “Monty” too…Monty:
This post is NOT an attempt to help you. It is a demand for you to apologise for your post at November 13, 2012 at 10:34 am which says in full
NO!
How dare you!?
JJ’s comment is completely consistent with what I said; i.e. I said
JJK saying
“the people that claim that AGW exists also claim (on the same basis) that the existance of AGW neccesitates shrinking polar ice. At both poles. It ain’t happening”
is THE SAME as my having said
“the increase to Antarctic sea ice is the opposite of a prediction from the AGW hypothesis”.
You, sir, are despicable. Apologise.
Richard
Monty,
The basic science shows the oceans warmed by decreasing low cloud albedo. What has that got to do with AGW when the change in wind pattern could have easily been caused by this?
Historically it has been known the the poles behave in reverse of each other. Again what is the difference between that natural behavior and a short 20 year change. There is no difference to D/O cycles or bonds events, except much less dramatic version. This paper is just an assumption that can’t be distinguished between natural climate or not.
A 20 year change in wind patterns mean nothing until it can be shown it has never happened naturally before. The hypothesis early on was that sea ice would decrease at both side of the poles. This would happen despite increased snowfall due to warming. Now it is apparent that this is not happening and what ever happens in future is now down to this. This is not science, but awful spinning of conjecture that has no theory because all changes support it.
“This would happen despite increased snowfall due to warming.”
Note – mean south pole only for this.
Monty says:
And as if by magic, the next poster says exactly what Mr Courtney says no-one says:
Huh. Previously, I had only asserted that you were scientifically illiterate. Thanks for providing the basis for upping the ante to just plain illiterate as well.
Any other deficiencies that you’d like to demonstrate? Apart from intransigence, that is. I’d guess that we are all willing to stipulate to that.
While you ponder that, you might return to some of the issues that you have left unaddressed. Such as the fact that the IPCC says:
Sea ice is projected to shrink in both the Arctic and Antarctic under all SRES scenarios.
You disagree with that prediction, claiming to know “lots of reasons why sea ice in the Antarctic could increase and be caused by AGW at the same time that Arctic sea ice is decreasing and this be caused by AGW”. You think the IPCC and the modelers they rely on are wrong. We agree with you. Seems like your beef is with them. Climate change is complicated – go explain it to them.
Don’t be afraid. They will be enthralled by your ‘warming = cooling’ theories. Really. They love that $#!^. You could be the next James Hansen. You have all of the qualifications…
It would appear that JJ (and no doubt others) have misunderstood what ‘AGW’ theory (whatever that means) is. All it says is that adding GHG like C02 to the atmosphere must have a warming effect. This is what we see, along with natural variability. This warming is expected to have an impact on the cryosphere (which is what we see). In some places on earth warming will lead to increased atmospheric water vapor (Clausius Clapeyron) and some ice masses will temporarily add mass as snowfall exceeds ablation. This is what we see. We know that the Arctic is warming (expected from models since the 1970s) and we know that Antarctica should also warm (this is also happening….Antarctic Peninsular is warming fast, and Steig et al 2009 showed WAIS also warming). The exact implications of this are still unclear and there is an enormous amount that we still don’t know about ice sheet dynamics (and processes have to be parameterized in GCMs without a full understanding of their physics). This means that models are (of course) imperfect. I have written peer-reviewed papers about model uncertainty and the implications of this so I know that they are never going to capture the full variability in the climate system.
An analogy: we know that smoking causes lung cancer but our predictive knowledge is very poor of which smokers are most at risk and when exactly they will die of lung cancer, and how fast it spreads etc. This does not mean that we can’t base policy on this….and we do which is why minors are not allowed to smoke.
So all this fake bluster about the fact that we don’t know everything about the climate system is just nonsense. To hear Mr Courtney going on about this you’d almost think that he was an expert! Except, we know of course that he isn’t.
Monty, you say that ‘science is counter-intuitive’…could you give us an example to illustrate that?
Well, I guess I was correct – Monty IS employed by the climate industry. Thought so…
“Antarctic Peninsular is warming fast, and Steig et al 2009 showed WAIS also warming…”
I believe Steig et al. 2009 has been debunked. See here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/08/rcs-dr-eric-steig-boreholes-himself-on-antarctica/
Moreover the recent warming of the Antarctic peninsula is NOT unprecedented. See here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19348427
Look I even used the corrupt BBC as a source!
Monty:
Your post at November 13, 2012 at 11:57 am makes an ad hom of me but fails to provide the needed apology.
I expect you to post it now.
Richard
Monty says:
It would appear that JJ (and no doubt others) have misunderstood what ‘AGW’ theory (whatever that means) is. .
You cannot know that I misunderstand it, if you don’t know what it means. Let us add “illogical” to the various and sundry illiteracies that you suffer from.
All it says is that adding GHG like C02 to the atmosphere must have a warming effect.
Sorry, sweetie. AGW theory is much more than that. And you well know it.
This warming is expected to have an impact on the cryosphere (which is what we see).
No, that is not what we see. What is expected is, once again:
Sea ice is projected to shrink in both the Arctic and Antarctic under all SRES scenarios.
That is not what we see. That occupies but one slot on a long list of expected things that are not seen. If you want to claim to have a coherent theory of climate, you are going to have to make a suite of specific predictions that actually happen. Else you are just handwaving.
Friends:
The anonymous and scientifically illiterate troll posting as Monty says at the start of his/her/their/its post at November 13, 2012 at 11:57 am
So,
his/her/their/its first sentence admits to not knowing what AGW theory “means”
but
his/her/their/its second sentence defines what AGW theory is.
The dichotomy is typical of this troll who clearly knows nothing about anything on which he/she/they/it chooses to pontificate.
This behaviour suggests the troll is a representative of SkS.
Richard
“All it says is that adding GHG like C02 to the atmosphere must have a warming effect.”
The alarmists add collective ideas to show their unsupported views by going further than this. These further ideas are also part of the theory (I mean conjecture) and they are the most important part of the debate. They decide whether this is alarmist nonsense or have some support. These additional parts show that this very basic idea quoted do not support that there will be a big rise in future global temperatures. Therefore just this very basic theory is not good enough to dictate what people should do. A policy is not needed whatsoever only based on the very basic idea. Therefore the alarmist theory is more than just this quote, as it requires water vapor feedback etc. Water vapor has decreased globally for decades, despite your spin that it has increased in some areas. (this is really for any casuals that look on here and think that was really the debate)
What has this got to do with a 20-year change in wind pattern? If your arguing about this and quoting stuff like in this post it adds nothing to the more complex issues.
P.s. Wow 2 percent of Antarctica was warming fast, must spread that over the rest of the continent to really make that look bad, oh wait.
Mr Courtney. I didn’t make an ad hom of you…..I am lead to believe that in the past you or others have tried to pass you off as an expert with a doctorate when discussing climate change and energy matters. In other words, suggesting that you are an expert. It now seems that you don’t in fact have a doctorate, (nor any peer-reviewed publications in climate science) and you aren’t an ‘expert’ in climate science. Is this not a fair assessment of the situation?
Monty says:
“It now seems that you don’t in fact have a doctorate, (nor any peer-reviewed publications in climate science) and you aren’t an ‘expert’ in climate science. Is this not a fair assessment of the situation?”
No. Monty is making a habit of being wrong.
Monty, do your homework and fact-checking before you spout off.
Dear Monty, this is from Weather Zone Australia. Today
Cold and frosty morning for SA, VIC and TAS
Rob Sharpe, Tuesday November 13, 2012 – 10:18 EDT
Temperatures plummeted this morning in Australia’s southeast, leading to frost forming on the ground at a crucial time for farmers.
Westmere in Victoria’s South West fell to one degree this morning, its coldest November morning in three years. Late spring is a bad time of year for frost as it causes damage to winter crops in their maturing stage.
South Australia had frost forming near Keith and Roseworthy, dropping to one and two degrees respectively.
Light frost also formed over inland parts of Tasmania this morning near Launceston and Smithton, both recording their coldest November morning in four years.
All that ‘counter intuitive’ warming must be spreading out from Antarctica eh?
Does “Monty” have a Ph.D.? I do, and have worked for over 20 years in computational fluid dynamics, and have published in the Journal of Computational Physics. Where has “Monty” published? Since “Monty” works in the climate industry (or worse for a government agency that takes taxpayer money for climate “research”), does “Monty” have a vested interest in scaring lay people about the climate? (a rhetorical question, I know…)
D Boehm. Are you confirming that Richard Courtney does in fact have a doctorate then? And also peer-reviewed publications in climate science?
Monty says:
Mr Courtney. I didn’t make an ad hom of you….
Yeah, ya did. Then you denied it. And then ya did it again.
Ad hom, ad hoc, ad verecundiam. My, what a complete understanding of “what science means” you have.