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 says:
November 13, 2012 at 11:57 am
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.
I could list at least 20 ways in which humans affect the climate and doubtless others could add to that list.
Anthropogenic Global Warming is the claimed aggregate effect of these factors.
Anthropogenic Global Warming is an unscientific term, because no matter how many AGW factors you identify, there could always be another, yet undiscovered. Thus AGW theory can never make unambiguos predictions. Thus AGW theory can never be falsified.
If you mean GHG warming or CO2 caused warming, then say so. Don’t introduce a term (AGW) whose only purpose is to obfuscate.
Folks…communicating with “Monty” = communicating with a brick wall. I’ve had enough…I’m out.
JJ: D Boehm appears to suggest that Richard Courtney does in fact have a doctorate and peer-reviewed publications in climate science. If this is true then I’m more than happy to apologize to him. However, I’m sure it isn’t true and so no apology will be required!
Frank K. Yes, I do have a PhD and have published about 60 papers in the peer-reviewed literature.
Monty has to have the ‘last word’, it’s exactly the kind of infantile behaviour we’ve come to associate with Warmists.
Monty says:
“D Boehm appears to suggest that Richard Courtney does in fact… have peer-reviewed publications in climate science. If this is true then I’m more than happy to apologize to him. However, I’m sure it isn’t true and so no apology will be required!”
Keep digging your hole, Monty. At the right time I will be happy to embarrass you.
For someone who claims to have been published so many times, you are amazingly ignorant of many basic scientific facts. But that’s life riding the climate gravy train, I reckon.
Monty says:
However, I’m sure it isn’t true and so no apology will be required!
The apology is required for the ad hominem argument. All ad hominem arguments require apology, as all are fallacious.
Was that an attempt at a non-answer? Your sentence is full of crap.
Ranging in thickness from less than a metre to several metres, the ice insulates the warm ocean from the frigid atmosphere above.
Surely you mean insulates the frigid atmosphere from the warm ocean… If you think open water doesn’t open a giant heat gate to space, keep watching what happens in the Arctic.
Lack of ice will cause ice. Can you say negative feedback?
Monty:
….So all this fake bluster… Anthony do the science etc.
Anthony addressed the most fundamental of science question viz: the lack of testable (falsifiable) hypotheses. Yet you assert he is not being scientific. Grow up; science is not simply done in pal reviewed work only.
We may not have the qualifications of the greatest witchdoctor climatologists – the best of them being Gore, Hansen and Mann – but we and Anthony surely know when science is being screwed.
Your version of science equips climatologists to go to a casino and predict that a roulette wheel is running hot or equally a share market trend is the goer simply by an observation over a limited period and belief. Yes, do go and base policy decisions on this! That’s how witchdoctors control their flock.
Argument by analogy with smokers shows how desperate you are in clutching at straws. Studies show clearly a causal relationship on statistical tests on the smoker hypothesis over years. In addition the biochemistry is reasonably well established so that we don’t need to know specific individual predictions to know the relative risks and hence can make sensible policy decisions based on empirical evidence.
WRT CAGW the only testable and falsifiable hypothesis is in the models and Hansen’s predictions in his 1987 paper – they have been proven false by the empirical evidence of over 15 years of T hiatus given that CO2 has increased.
This is not a time series as the likes of Santer would have us believe (hence his 17 year test) but a definitive physics that CO2 causes increased global T hypothesis ala Hansen et al. This is contrary to the empirical evidence of this century and much of last century and falsifies the hypothesis that CO2 will cause increased global T.
It does not need the purported 17 years to be proved wrong. One observation is usually sufficient. Give it some leeway and two such failings suggest the hypothesis has whiskers. The plethora of observations just damns the CAGW hypothesis.
I have yet to see the bulk of the religious climatology faithful addressing this failed hypothesis except to try and squirm out of facing the scientific method.
Monty,
Tried to take you seriously, even when you responded to me while failing to respond to ANY of the three issues I clearly delineated. I was prepared to walk you back through them.
But. Then you posted some more.
Your description of what AGW is,the one that ignores soot, UHI, aerosols, deforestation, changing land use, and EVERYTHING the IPCC says, just shows you to be too uneducated to be on this blog. Not stupid…just uneducated. You’ve only just begun the journey of discovery of CAGW.
In addition, your complete change of subject when responding to my observations is a transparently obvious dodging tactic to folks on this blog. Some of your arguments, such as your demand that Anthony rebut in a journal when he didn’t even criticize the science at all (yet; maybe he will, but not at the time you made your demand), suggest that you are busy fighting strawman voices in your head. I’m not even convinced you will know what a strawman is.
The list of quotes you said were saying “Precisely” that lack of warming in the Antarctic proves that AGW is false shows either a lack of reading comprehension, a lack of analytical skill, or again, strawman voices in your head.
Your statements about having a problem with this blog indicate that you have practically no knowledge of the blog. It’s obvious to everyone that you haven’t done any back-reading, yet think you know this blog inside out. Again, this is transparent to everyone here, which is why some people have suggested you do backreading. But I don’t think you will; It seems to me that you’ve decided you understand the dynamics of this blog from reading a few posts. Among other things, you have no idea at all that Anthony is published, and how hard he’s worked on various projects. Those of us that have been here awhile know how hard Anthony works…but you haven’t given us any reason to think that you work hard enough to demand that anyone else works hard. What have you accomplished? What hard work have you done? Do you run a blog like this?
Your statement that you don’t like things that some people say on the blog suggests that you’re used to heavily censored environments, where you hear only one clear message. That certainly is not what this blog is; I suggest you’d be a lot happier on RC, where your notions won’t be challenged.
Finally, your inability to come to terms with the fact that what’s happening in the Antarctic demonstrates that EVERY climate model is wrong is bizarre. It doesn’t prove that CAGW is wrong; it simply proves that the theories that have been the mainstay of CAGW cannot be correct as currently understood, since they do not match what is actually observed. This is a kind of, you know, science thing…observe reality and see whether it supports the theory. The theories are not “settled” (a phrase, btw, that if you’d been at this long, you would know that all the CAGW scientests insist that they’ve never used, it being scientifically absurd and historically unlikely; it was coined by politician Al Gore).
In short, you need to learn a lot more before you can come here and educate us. Your lack of knowledge of the UHI, soot, land use, etc. aspects of AGW cause the sort of cringe that you get when a public speaker shows up drunk. First, read all the back material here and on http://www.climateaudit.org. Then, read the last IPCC report. Then, you might have a chance at having an equal dialogue here.
RDCII
Hi All.
Still waiting for a confirmation from D Boehm concerning Richard Courtney’s qualifications and papers. Maybe Richard himself could help?
Thanks.
Monty:
I told you I would give you no further help about anything.
Clearly, you want to discuss anything except the subject of this thread which is that both polar regions are not cooling and that empirical fact demonstrates your pseudoscientific superstition of AGW is plain wrong.
You started by seeming to think this thread is about you. Now you want it to be about me.
NO! I WILL NOT PLAY YOUR SILLY GAMES!
I am willing to discuss the subject of this thread (until another of my frequent absences in some hours time) but nothing else, and certainly nothing of your choosing.
I still await your apology.
Richard
Hi Richard. From your response I guess that you don’t have a PhD, and don’t have any relevant peer-reviewed papers. So that doesn’t make you an expert. Odd then that you appeared to have allowed others in the past to describe you as Dr Richard Courtney.
Even odder that you have such strongly held views on AGW without having any obvious training or experience in the field!
Mr Courtney
Further to my last comment. This is not a game I’m playing….this is rather more serious than that. We know that WAIS and Antarctic Peninsula are warming, what we didin’t know enough about (until the new research) is how winds impact sea ice. This paper is still not the last word on this by any means, but it does represent an intriguing addition to the literature.
The reason I’m asking about your qualifications is that you pretend that you are an expert. I’m showing any ‘lurkers’ here that you are not and that you (and others) have zero credibility when it comes to pontificating about climate science. I am well aware that I am not going to change the minds of any of the regular posters here (their minds have been made up since the very start)….but to anyone who isn’t decided yet (ie is a proper skeptic), I am showing them that they shouldn’t trust WUWT.
Thanks.
Sir Monte:
Are you an expert in anything – other than repeating Gore’s lies and Hansen’s exaggerations and losing Trenberth’s missing heat and that railroad engineer’s lies about Himalayan glaciers and Mann’s “mistakes” about that one tree that cooled off the earth’s suddenly missing Medieval Warming Period? That warm period about 900 years ago that your “scientific” experts found inconvenient that WAS the subject of some 800-odd other peer-reviewed papers?
There are only positive benefits from an increase in CO2 and improved worldwide access to less expensive energy. Your much-vaunted “precautionary principle” seems to mean “Let’s definitely absolutely positively and with 100% certainty destroy the world’s economies and kill millioins through disease, early death, starvation, illness and bad food and worse crops limited by a LACK of CO2 … rather than risk an unknown AND NEVER PROVEN 1% chance of the world warming 1 degree from natural causes – that we cannot stop under ANY condition regardless of what we do.”
That you “say” something repeated by the world’s greedy politicians and government-paid “scientific shills” does NOT make “you” an expert either. It merely proves “you” are easily led by lies and emotions, not evidence or scientific logic.
RACookPE1978: so many mistakes and misunderstandings in such a short post.
Monty:
At November 14, 2012 at 3:23 am
YES! It is very, very much more serious than that.
You are an anonymous troll demanding personal information in a public forum from somebody who has no idea who you are. And you are doing it as apart of a propaganda effort to push a political agenda.
If there is reason to declare a personal interest then I do. Indeed, I have on WUWT within the past week. I notice that you have not declared your personal interest and you hide behind anonymity instead.
Except when they have a personal interest which honour and integrity demand be revealed, there is no reason for anybody to say anything about themselves in this forum and I will not establish a precedent for people being forced to do it.
Go away. You are an offensive pest.
Richard
Moderators:
My reply to Monty has gone in the ‘bin’. Please find it.
Richard
Monty says:
The reason I’m asking about your qualifications is that …
… you cannot counter what he says, and thus you are attacking him with an ad hominem argument.
I’m showing any ‘lurkers’ here that you are not and that you (and others) have zero credibility when it comes to pontificating about climate science.
Yes, that is what an ad hominem argument is. More formally:
An ad hominem (Latin for “to the man”), short for argumentum ad hominem, is an argument made personally against an opponent, instead of against the opponent’s argument. Ad hominem reasoning is normally described as an informal fallacy, more precisely an irrelevance.
That sums it up. You cannot counter the arguments made by Richard Courtney, so you attack Richard Courtney personally. You cannot answer the arguments and information presented on WUWT, so you attack WUWT. Your arguments are fallacious and irrelevant.
Lurkers will note that making fallcious and irrelevant arguments is the stock and trade of the warmist community, and “Monty” provides an excellent example of the tactic. They avoid discussing the science, because they know that CAGW is an unscientific political/religious movement. And not only do they avoid discussing the science, they are very active in trying to prevent others from discussing it as well. Thus the actions such as those of “Monty” here, who hijacks a thread with ad homs – first against Anthony, now against others – to distract people from discussing the science.
Meanwhile, the most recent IPCC scaremongering report still says this:
Sea ice is projected to shrink in both the Arctic and Antarctic under all SRES scenarios.
That is from the IPCC AR4 report, specifically the section subtitled “The scientific basis”. Yet the paper above still states that this “scientific basis” is wrong. Lurkers will probably wonder what else about the “scientific basis” is wrong. They will also likely wonder why asshats like “Monty” don’t want them to find out.
Keep up the good work, “Monty”.
Monty says:
“Hi All.
Still waiting for a confirmation from D Boehm concerning Richard Courtney’s qualifications and papers. Maybe Richard himself could help?”
First off, Richard Courtney is not a braggart, and I have never seen him bother to show that those who say he is not a published, peer reviewed climate author are wrong. I will confirm it for him:
http://multi-science.metapress.com/content/b2130335764k31j8
There is your ‘confirmation’. Richard has been heavily into climate science for a long time:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmsctech/memo/climatedata/uc0102.htm
He is a widely recognized climate authority:
http://heartland.org/richard-courtney
“Monty” is the only one here making an issue of a doctorate. For Monty’s edification, there is a medical doctor by the name of Richard Courtney, which confuses the alarmist crowd. Note that many well respected scientists, such as Prof Freeman Dyson, do not have a PhD. All a PhD means is that an individual continued going to school, learning more and more about less and less.
Now that Monty has been shown to be wrong, the stand-up thing for him to do is apologize. He could have avoided his embarrassing situation with a simple search, just as I did. Instead, he made a wrong assumption.
Now, about that apology. We’re waiting.
Very funny D Boehm. You think a paper in that well-known contrarian and non-ISI rated journal Energy and Environment counts do you? And the Heartland Organization think he’s an authority! Now, I wonder why he doesn’t publish in mainstream journals? Maybe you know the answer?
Monty,
Congrats. You have probably been useful. 🙂
When I first was interested in AGW, I was completely convinced that AGW was correct. I went to sites like RC to educate myself further, but soon realized that the comments had to be highly censored. This bothered me.
So I came to sites like this one, as an undecided lurker. There were many things that made me decide, but one of the things was voices like your own…people that come here with their minds made up, but turn out to have just enough knowledge to be dangerous to their cause, and nothing to contribute but poor logic, such as arguments from authority, ad hominems, and strawmen. That’s helped me realize how much of CAGW is run by faith instead of intelligence and knowledge.
Your demonstration here provides a valuable contrast between warmists and skeptics for anyone here who is undecided, and it’s a contrast that isn’t favorable for your cause. So, again, you’ve probably been useful. Thanks! 🙂
RDCII
Monty says:
You think a paper in that well-known contrarian and non-ISI rated journal Energy and Environment counts do you?
If what the paper says is valid, it counts. That is how science works.
Let’s see … what refutation of the facts or reasoning presented in the paper does “Monty” offer? None? Huh. Instead, he attacks the journal? That isn’t scientific reasoning.
Kind of a one-trick pony, ain’t ya “Monty”?
(Replying to my statement above. Well, sort of replying – Monty actually said nothing, and explained nothing, nor showed any reason or facts showing my summary is incorrect.)
Monty says:
November 14, 2012 at 5:09 am
RACookPE1978: so many mistakes and misunderstandings in such a short post.
I will repeat my original statement above. Perhaps the Monty will actually point out the errors he claims are present, rather than wave his press-release generalities.)
Sir Monte:
Are you an expert in anything – other than repeating Gore’s lies and Hansen’s exaggerations and losing Trenberth’s missing heat and that railroad engineer’s lies about Himalayan glaciers and Mann’s “mistakes” about that one tree that cooled off the earth’s suddenly missing Medieval Warming Period? That warm period about 900 years ago that your “scientific” experts found inconvenient that WAS the subject of some 800-odd other peer-reviewed papers?
There are only positive benefits from an increase in CO2 and improved worldwide access to less expensive energy. Your much-vaunted “precautionary principle” seems to mean “Let’s definitely absolutely positively and with 100% certainty destroy the world’s economies and kill millioins through disease, early death, starvation, illness and bad food and worse crops limited by a LACK of CO2 … rather than risk an unknown AND NEVER PROVEN 1% chance of the world warming 1 degree from natural causes – that we cannot stop under ANY condition regardless of what we do.”
That you “say” something repeated by the world’s greedy politicians and government-paid “scientific shills” does NOT make “you” an expert either. It merely proves “you” are easily led by lies and emotions, not evidence or scientific logic.
Like all religions Warmism relies on acceptance of ‘authority’. Cardinal Gore, Archbishop Hansen, the mad curate Mc Kibben, Monseigneur Suzuki etc etc. Let’s not forget that they believe in their sacred texts.
Monty is merely demonstrating his faith and obedience….and persistence!