Image Credit – Wood For Trees and Werner Brozek
From the Investor’s Business Daily:
The global warming alarmists repeat the line endlessly. They claim that there is a consensus among scientists that man is causing climate change. Fact is, they’re not even close.
Yes, many climate scientists believe that emissions of greenhouse gases are heating the earth. Of course there are some who don’t.
But when confining the question to geoscientists and engineers, it turns out that only 36% believe that human activities are causing Earth’s climate to warm.
This is the finding of the peer-reviewed paper “Science or Science Fiction? Professionals’ Discursive Construction of Climate Change” and this group is categorized as the “Comply with Kyoto” cohort.
Members of this group, not unexpectedly, “express the strong belief that climate change is happening, that it is not a normal cycle of nature, and humans are the main or central cause.”
Academics Lianne M. Lefsrud of the University of Alberta and Renate E. Meyer of Vienna University of Economics and Business, and the Copenhagen Business School, came upon that number through a survey of 1,077 professional engineers and geoscientists. Read More At IBD
The study, Science or Science Fiction? Professionals’ Discursive Construction of Climate Change, by Lianne M. Lefsrud and Renate E. Meyer can be found here.
A couple interesting quotes within:
“Third, we show that the consensus of IPCC experts meets a much larger, and again heterogenous, sceptical group of experts in the relevant industries and organizations (at least in Alberta) than is generally assumed. We find that climate science scepticism is not limited to the scientifically illiterate (per Hoffman, 2011a), but well ensconced within this group of professional experts with scientific training – who work as leaders or advisors to management in governmental, nongovernmental, and corporate organizations.”
…
“The vast majority of these professional experts believe that the climate is changing; it is the cause, the severity and the urgency of the problem, and the need to take action, especially the efficacy of regulation, that is at issue.”
The Investors Business Daily Article goes on to note that:
If the alarmists are getting only limited cooperation from man, they are getting even less from nature itself. Arctic sea ice, which sent the green shirts into a lather when it hit a record low in the summer of 2012, has “with a few weeks of growth still to occur … blown away the previous record for ice gain this winter.”
“This is only the third winter in history,” when more than 10 million square kilometers of new ice has formed in the Arctic, Real Science reported on Tuesday, using data from Arctic Climate Research at the University of Illinois.
At the same time, the Antarctic “is now approaching 450 days of uninterrupted above normal ice area,” says the skeptical website Watts Up With That, which, also using University of Illinois Arctic Climate Research data, notes that “the last time the Antarctic sea ice was below normal” was Nov. 22, 2011.
MieScatter says: February 18, 2013 at 1:18 am
Hey justthefacts, have you seen these facts?
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/heat_content2000m.png
Yes, I consider it highly suspect. If you look at the measurement location data that the graph is based on (and use the top left arrow to page from present to 1955);
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/OC5/3M_HEAT/showfig.pl?navigation=t_dd_20122012_1_back_99
you’ll see that coverage doesn’t become sort of adequate until this century when, “Argo deployments began in 2000 and by November 2007 the array is 100% complete.”
http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/
If you use the up and down arrows on the prior measurement location data map to go shallower and deeper in the ocean you’ll see that coverage gets much worse with depth.
Furthermore, they are still sorting out how to accurately measure heat content using Argo, per the changes that were made to the heat content graph last year;
ftp://ftp.nodc.noaa.gov/pub/data.nodc/woa/DATA_ANALYSIS/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/PDF/heat_content_differences.pdf
Their findings included;
Also, the abstract for Levitus;
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2012GL051106/abstract
states that:
i.e. rewriting/recreating the past, and in the paper;
http://data.nodc.noaa.gov/woa/PUBLICATIONS/grlheat12.pdf
if you look at Figure 1 on page 2, you’ll see that, even at present, the data coverage down to 2000m is less than 50%. Furthermore, when you take into account that data coverage for 700m is almost a 100%, it means that data coverage below 700m is quite low.
Point being that our historical record of ocean heat content is highly suspect and our current measurement capabilities are reasonably suspect, thus estimates of historical ocean heat content down to 2000m and back to 1955 are highly suspect.
David… it is not a strategy. In the blogs of club alarmist i argue nay.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/01/25/norwegian_co2_warming_shocker/
And one of my favourite links…when poking the fire;
http://www.skepticalscience.com/
After ten years of this sport i am leaning on the warming side, but not ready to sing along with chicken little, just yet.
am ready to;
* map the Earth’s geodesic every six months
* use GPS to measure any tilting of the continental margins
* measure the surface temperature of the oceans, globally and dynamically, as well as the surface temperature of the continents
* investigate fanatically all species die offs
* measure the radiative output of the Sun as well as the spectrum of radiation dynamically
* measure the energy flux from the Earth into space
* measure the incidence of radio nucleotides in/on glaciers
This could go on and on. I do periodic searches but find only ads and proprietary articles or shamefully biased articles with speculation and press releases of research intent (with no follow up, even after years) with much speculation…sign of the times i guess as science unravels as commodity
I must say that this blog is wonderful, Great comeback links i have enjoyed reading. No selective censorship to craft the threads; very cool and sadly rare.
peace out
Kajajuk says: @ur momisugly February 17, 2013 at 8:30 pm
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Milankovitch cycles ~ there was a bit of a problem with them but it was resolved by Gerald Roe and well before that by Nigel Calder who knew in 1974 ” the right quantity that should be compared with the insolation – i.e. the sunshine near the Arctic circle – is not the ice volume itself but its time derivative.” That has been pretty much accepted by all parties.
Greenland GISP2 Ice Core Graph – 10,000 years
Nir Shaviv associate professor at the Racah Institute of Physics puts forth more possible factors. In Carbon Dioxide or Solar Forcing? near the bottom he show this graph fig 5
The “SKY” experiment demonstrates link between cosmic rays and condensation nuclei!…. This link implies that a large fraction of the 20th century global warming can be explained through increased solar activity (which reduced the cosmic ray flux reaching Earth).
He has a lot more work listed under Personal Research
And from WUWT Cosmic rays linked to rapid mid-latitude cloud changes
E.M. Smith looked at another possible factor Why Weather has a 60 year Lunar beat
Bob Tisdale has done a lot of work on ENSO showing the oceans cause a stepwise increase in temperatures link
Willis Eschenbach even took his stuff from WUWT and published a peer reviewed paper on The Thunderstorm Thermostat Hypothesis
What most people forget is the actual IPCC mandate is NOT to figure out what factors drive the climate but to come up with data to hang the rap for “Catastrophic Climate Changes” on humans.
I explain the political reason why here.
Hi HenryP
There is a trend of increasing sea ice coverage in Antarctica;
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=79369
I found your link hard to follow. And one more…
http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Antarctic_Sea_Ice_Reaches_New_Maximum_Extent_999.html
I am trying to find an article i came across that states that the Arctic sea ice varies between 2 and 10 million square kilometers, but i cannot find it…
http://www.grida.no/graphicslib/detail/maps-of-average-sea-ice-extent-in-the-arctic-summer-september-and-winter-march-and-in-the-antarctic-summer-february-and-winter-september_1167
Closest i could find, but it is dated
beng says:
February 18, 2013 at 8:49 am
“You apparently have no idea of what rapid-change really is.”
Right. Take the Arctic sea ice. Alarmists imagine that in some ancient time (The Golden Age) ice began growing from the center of the Arctic Circle (or thereabouts), that the ice accumulated volume over the millenia and produced plateaus and bumpiness, and that nothing changed until global warming caused melt from the edges toward the center because the thinner ice is on the edges. That is the Myth of the Arctic sea ice that Alarmists work from. However, it is the very denial of a scientific approach to understanding Arctic sea ice or anything.
There are myriad forces that cause Arctic sea ice to change. We saw just last year that a storm can rearrange Arctic sea ice in quite profound ways. There is a considerable body of knowledge about the effects of winds and ocean cycles on Arctic sea ice. A scientific approach would have us research those natural processes and it would caution us that we will know diddly about sea ice until we have some profound knowledge of some processes. Profound knowledge of nature always requires well confirmed physical hypotheses whose confirmation is the result of years of exhausting empirical research. To cite the records of two satellites that together yield ten years of data as establishing some truth about Arctic sea ice is to buy into the myth wholeheartedly.
MieScatter says:
February 18, 2013 at 1:18 am
Hey justthefacts, have you seen these facts?
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/heat_content2000m.png
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
No but I have seen this article by By Nir Shaviv on his paper accepted in the Journal of Geophysical Research.
D. Patterson says:
February 18, 2013 at 7:11 am
Very well said. Very important point. The Alarmist myth makers will howl and scream but we must hold their feet to the fire.
Hi beng,
[snip . . as requested . . mod]
“But it is area not volume that is material to albedo, and a thin layer of ice is just as effective as a thick layer of ice for preventing heat loss interchange form ocean to atmosphere.”
really? when a thin layer is easily broekn up by normal arctic cyclones that previously did nothing to thicker ice? It pays to think the whole problem through.
{you are spamming the thread so I am removing your previous identical posts . . mod]
Please indulge me with one more attempt to get the blockquotes correct. thanks.
I criticized this post by saying…
“Ben D. says:
February 17, 2013 at 7:51 pm
Mr Mosher,….Inconvenient Ice Study: Less ice in the Arctic Ocean 6000-7000 years ago.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/08/inconvenient-ice-study-less-ice-in-the-arctic-ocean-6000-7000-years-ago/”
##################
1. The study covers the area north of Greenland
2. The operative word in the study is MAY
3. In the warmer past of the Holocene its not at all unexpected that ice would be less.
4. It has nothing whatsoever to do with
a) the potential hazards of ice loss
b) GHGs effect on global temperature
So, yes there may have been less Ice in the past, as I have noted on several ocassions. And Yes Skeptics generally accept this studies hook line and sinker because they like the answer.
But the answer even if true has nothing whatsoever to do with the future of the arctic as we warm the planet to Holocene levels and beyond. Yes a warmer globe leads to less Ice. Although many here deny that.. And then after denying it they point to Holocene studies where a warmer world did cause less Ice. Go figure.
kajajuk
I do periodic searches but find only ads and proprietary articles or shamefully biased articles
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I suggest you go through the extensive resources on this site under the resource tab. You’ll find direct access to all the data that you claim you cannot find there.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/resources/
There is a great piece over on Mike Smith’s Meteorological Musings blog spot about the lack of availability of computer space available for the weather forcasters at NASA and NOAA, because the computers are clogged up with modeling projects about Global Warming. This is one of the reasons the European forcasts are so much more reliable on storm forcasting. Another example of how disasterous and costly this whole folley has been
Latitude says:
February 17, 2013 at 2:49 pm
Steven Mosher says:
February 17, 2013 at 1:23 pm
“but the summer ice is on a downtrend.”
======
well yeah, when you start measuring at the coldest winter…
seals, whales, polar bears, birds, etc are all increasing in numbers….they think that’s a good thing
Who decided what was “normal” for Arctic ice in the first place?
#########################
1. Summer Ice is on a downtrend, you agree.
2. Pick a different start date. go back to early records.. map based and not as accurate as
current records and you will find that the decline is long term. There is no evidence otherwise.
3. Increasing numbers of animals.. yes. who gives a rats ass about animals. not me. Your stupid arguments against positions I don’t hold are amusing. If you want to run away and argue against some polar bear lover go right ahead. I’m not one who cares about that issue.
4. Who said anything about normal? One could define “normal’ however you like by merely
picking a time period and normalizing. That’s not the point. Whether or not there has been more or less ice is not the point. The point is summer ice is declining. There are many causes. Among those causes is a warmer planet. Adding GHGs will cause more warming. A good guesser would suggest that the future will have less ice, not more. The question is
A) is that safe?
B) are we certain beyond all doubt that it is safe
C) Can we do anything about it
D) Should we?
It makes sense to argue about whether there is anything we should do. You may think there is nothing we should do or can do. That does mean you have to make foolish arguments about the facts of ice decline or the facts of why ice melts. It also means you dont have to make strawman arguments about animals I dont emantion and I dont care about.
Steven Mosher says:
February 18, 2013 at 10:35 am
“really? when a thin layer is easily broekn up by normal arctic cyclones that previously did nothing to thicker ice? It pays to think the whole problem through.”
Careful. You seem to be saying that arctic cyclones have no impact on thicker ice. Also, you seem to be saying that you have a definitive science and history of arctic cyclones.
Also, one way that thinner ice comes to resemble thick ice is through the action of arctic cyclones. The ice gets mangled into piles.
[dude . . you are drunk . .come back tomorrow . . mod]
[snip . . i mean it, go home . . mod]
before i start on my reading list i would like to say very emphatically,
I care greatly for the natural world; when the animals start to higher ground, i am on their tails.
So to speak. Then sit upon the hill and watch the show along the coast unfold.
I did seem like a really long deep quake???
blossoming wildlife would be marvelous,
perhaps it is time for sustainable cities toward the 60th,
and a UN “vatican” on Ross Island, Antartica
HenryP says:
February 18, 2013 at 9:28 am
This is only the third winter in history,” when more than 10 million square kilometers of new ice has formed in the Arctic, Real Science reported on Tuesday, using data from Arctic Climate Research at the University of Illinois.
Immediately following the first summer when the sea ice area dropped below 2.5 million square kilometers. Do you think there might be a connection?
URL for the actual paper: http://oss.sagepub.com/content/33/11/1477.full (as I posted to tips & notes on the 14th :{ )
Hmm … “”This is only the third winter in history,” when more than 10 million square kilometers of new ice has formed in the Arctic, ….” has to be interpreted by looking at the amount of open water at the beginning of freezeup.
The more open water, the more new ice – because every fall air temperature goes below the freezing point all over the Arctic Ocean.
So 2012’s record new ice results from 2012’s record low ice extent.
(Open water comes from summer melt and from piling up of ice by currents and wind.)
Sounds like a meaningless statistic, not ammunition for either alarmists or skeptics.
Kajajuk says:
Can you provide links for these please. (unless I missed a “sarc” tag)
“* tree lines on all continents are advancing northwards; hmmmm
* polar bears seem to be dying of starvation and drowning to death; hmmmm, that”s weird
* lakes in Russia boiling off methane
, birds are changing their migration or not migrating,
virus’ and molds scourging wildlife all about…
* seems to be an increase in water redistribution all over the place”
The authors of the original study, Lianne Lefsrud and Renate Meyer, have published a comment at Forbes indicating that James Taylor (the author of Forbes blog linked by IBD and a member of The Heartland Institute) got it almost entirely wrong. For example, from the Lefsrud and Meyer’s comment:
“First and foremost, our study is not a representative survey. Although our data set is large and diverse enough for our research questions, it cannot be used for generalizations such as “respondents believe …” or “scientists don’t believe …””
and
“In addition, even within the confines of our non-representative data set, the interpretation that a majority of the respondents believe that nature is the primary cause of global warming is simply not correct. To the contrary: the majority believes that humans do have their hands in climate change, even if many of them believe that humans are not the only cause.”
(link to the author’s comment: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2013/02/13/peer-reviewed-survey-finds-majority-of-scientists-skeptical-of-global-warming-crisis/?commentId=comment_blogAndPostId/blog/comment/1363-1219-5279)
When I looked into the survey further, it became clear that Taylor had distorted the study even more than the Lefsrud and Meyer had indicated: only members of the Alberta Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta (APEGA) had been surveyed, APEGA membership is dominated by employees and regulators of Alberta’s petroleum industry, and 84% of survey respondents were engineers, not scientists. Taylor neglected to mention any of these points, each of which casts doubt upon his claims, especially his claim that the study is in any way representative of scientists in general.
Given such significant errors, Taylor should issue a correction or even a retraction, yet he has failed to do so. Instead, he has republished his original post at least once since being corrected by the authors of the study whose research and conclusions he distorted.
D. Patterson says:
February 18, 2013 at 7:11 am
Increased greenhouse gas concentrations will cause the air to trap more solar radiation. This is especially prominent in the arctic summer, when the sun shines most of the time. During the arctic winter, when there is little to no sunlight, there will be little to no solar heat to trap. Any increase in winter temperatures, which would lead to decreased winter ice, would have to come from air or water currents. How does increased heat transport from these stack up against trapped heat? You’ll need to address this before you can have any confidence in your conclusions.
Antarctica is a different, more complicated case. The climate there is strongly influenced by the circumpolar current. which is currently (um, now) very strong. This is thought to be warming some parts of Antarctica and cooling others. There is also some thought that this is driven by stratospheric cooling, given the loss of ozone in the ozone hole.
This seems to lead to increased formation of sea ice, which freezes each winter and melts, almost completely, each summer. (Note, parenthetically, that winter sea ice will have very little impact in terms of any ice-albedo feedback.) Antarctic land ice, on the other hand, seems to have been diminishing for about all of the time we’ve observed it. This ice won’t contribute to an albedo feedback any time soon, but does contribute to sea level rise.
The Antarctic situation is quite interesting, but given its complexity, you might want to wait until you have the Artic process straight before tackling it.
Brian Angliss says:
Taylor had distorted the study even more than the Lefsrud and Meyer had indicated: only members of the Alberta Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta (APEGA) had been surveyed, APEGA membership is dominated by employees and regulators of Alberta’s petroleum industry, and 84% of survey respondents were engineers, not scientists. Taylor neglected to mention any of these points…
If engineers were surveyed, and 84% of respondents were engineers, what’s the problem?
Also, engineers can be classified as scientists — but not all scientists are engineers.
There is nothing wrong with James Taylor’s article.