Open Thread – AGU Week

Is this an unusual amount of sea ice formimg off the east coast of Greenland?http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/satellite/index.uk.php

I wonder if it might be the beginning of something…http://www.reportingclimatescience.com/news-stories/article/little-ice-age-simulated-by-climate-model.html

Hottest spring on record for Australia:
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/season/aus/summary.shtml
December 8, 2013 at 2:45 pm

del cowsill
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

climateace says:
December 8, 2013 at 4:47 pm
Hottest spring on record for Australia:
>>>>>
See, the roos are causing GW. There was no KGW before the roos started it, QED
(Okay, maybe the koalas are involved also, but the roos should be gathered up and sent to England. Poetic justice.)

curiousnc,
This is a very common play, it’s an application of the precautionary principle. In the end this argument doesnt hold water because the cost of insurance is approximately worth the extinction of the human race. Whatever we do is going to affect the environment, whether it be adding artificial nitrates, CO2, raw heat energy, water, or whatever.
The pollutant di hydrogen nitride is present in voluminous amount due to man, but there are no protests about this potent GHG.
So what to do, firstly we look at the effects, what would happen if it hypòthetically did get warmer. Well we know from experience that life gets nicer, day time temperature maximums are lower, minimums are higher, and things become more tropical. Life and species abound, there is more food and free water. Conversely as it gets colder, ecosystems contract, extinctions occur, death Increases from limited food supplies.
Ask your friends this, In the little ice age when CO2 was supposedly ideal at 270 PPM 1/2 the population of preindustrial Europe died from cold, disease and famine. Since then is has become warmer CO2 fertilisation has incresed food yeild by maybe 15%, Western Europe and North america have become world powers on the back of reliable food and water supplies, instead of struggling to avoid famine as during the LIA, sure, during the LIA you could go skating for free on the Thames, but thinking about it, when would your friends prefer to live, during the cold depths of the LIA with little prospect of living beyond 40, or now?
A fall in the average temperature of the world by just 0.8 degrees would put us right back in the LIA, Europe is on the knife edge of it being too cold to feed their populations, less than 1 degree C away. now ask what would they like to do, warm the earth, or cool it, which direction lies most safety,
Mind you, if we did end up back in a LIA then for us in the equatorial regions life would be good, imagine the exports to wor torn Europe, and North america, now unable to feed themselves from nicer parts of the world. BTW what would your friends think the political situation might be in a world where New York is under a glacier?
In which climate direction lies safety, what is the precautionary principle telling you now?

The EPA’s ethanol mandate proposal is open for public comment.. A lot of pro-ethanol voices are trying to convince the EPA to retract their reduced mandate levels. I encourage all citizens concerned about this boondoggle “green” energy source to leave knowledgable comments about keeping the reduced mandates. I have more information about the proposal and the comments here:
http://www.postlibertarian.com/2013/12/help-make-sure-the-government-moves-ethanol-regulation-in-the-right-direction-for-once/

Lee
[Hottest spring on record for Australia:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I guess it depends on where you live. We had our fires going. Now in December we are merely rugged up, in Upper Great Southern, Western Australia.]
How you have experience d the hottest spring on record in Australia does depend on where you live.
The fact of its existence does not.