From Scripps Institution of Oceanography
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Research Highlight: Arctic Sea Ice Loss Likely To Be Reversible
Scenarios of a sea ice tipping point leading to a permanently ice-free Arctic Ocean were based on oversimplified arguments
New research by Till Wagner and Ian Eisenman, scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego, resolves a long-running debate over irreversible Arctic sea ice loss.
Ever since the striking record minimum Arctic sea ice extent in 2007, the ominous scenario of a sea ice tipping point has been a fixture in the public debate surrounding man-made climate change and a contingency for which Arctic-bordering countries have prepared.
For decades, scientists have been concerned about such a point of no return, beyond which sea ice loss is irreversible. This concern was supported by mathematical models of the key physical processes (known as process models) that were believed to drive sea ice changes. The process models forecasted that increased global warming would push the Arctic into an unstoppable cascade of melting that ceases only when the ocean becomes ice-free.
Implications of a permanently ice-free Arctic for the environment and for national and economic security are significant, driving deep interest in predictive capabilities in the region.
Wagner and Eisenman’s research was co-funded by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) and by the National Science Foundation. It supports the goals of the Navy’s U.S. Arctic Roadmap, which calls for an assessment of changes in the Arctic Ocean to clarify the national security challenges for future naval operations as this strategic region becomes increasingly accessible.
“The Navy has broad interest in the evolution of the Arctic,” said the ONR’s Frank Herr. “Sea ice dynamics are a critical component of the changing environmental picture. Our physical models lack important details on the processes controlling ice formation and melting, thus ONR is conducting a series of experimental efforts on sea ice, open water processes, acoustics, and circulation.”
During the past several years, scientists using global climate models (GCMs) that are more complex than process models found sea ice loss in response to rising greenhouse gases in their computer simulations is actually reversible when greenhouse levels are reduced.
“It wasn’t clear whether the simpler process models were missing an essential element, or whether GCMs were getting something wrong,” said Wagner, the lead author of the study. “And as a result, it wasn’t clear whether or not a tipping point was a real threat.”
Wagner and Eisenman resolve this discrepancy in the study in an upcoming Journal of Climate article, “How Climate Model Complexity Influences Sea Ice Stability.”
They created a model that bridged the gap between the process models and the GCMs, and they used it to determine what caused sea ice tipping points to occur in some models but not in others.
“We found that two key physical processes, which were often overlooked in previous process models, were actually essential for accurately describing whether sea ice loss is reversible,” said Eisenman, a professor of climate dynamics at Scripps Oceanography. “One relates to how heat moves from the tropics to the poles and the other is associated with the seasonal cycle. None of the relevant previous process modeling studies had included both of these factors, which led them to spuriously identify a tipping point that did not correspond to the real world.”
“Our results show that the basis for a sea ice tipping point doesn’t hold up when these additional processes are considered,” said Wagner. “In other words, no tipping point is likely to devour what’s left of the Arctic summer sea ice. So if global warming does soon melt all the Arctic sea ice, at least we can expect to get it back if we somehow manage to cool the planet back down again.”
Source: Scripps Press Release
“How Climate Model Complexity Influences Sea Ice Stability”, are they suggesting models have an effect on sea ice? Models are for climatologists to play with whi.e the real scientists are working.
Just to paraphrase:
I have written a model that does not match reality.
I have changed my model, it still does not match reality.
I am now happier.
Is this progression?
In England they were growing grapes as far north as York in the 13th Century. No industrial complexes pumping out huge quantities of CO2 then. In the 17th Century we had the start of the ‘Little Ice Age.’
Climate change is a natural process. It has nothing to do with us humans!
Exactly right. During the “warm period” which ended a few years ago, we were treated to stories of great vineyards and a thriving wine industry in Canada and North U.S.. For the last few years though, we are seeing more stories like this: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/news/ontario-wine-good-quality-but-smaller-crop-after-cold-winter-1.2716099 and this: http://www.wsbt.com/news/local/winemakers-say-cold-weather-has-hurt-grape-crop/31651096
Some day, probably in the next decade, the Canadian wine industry will be an historical anecdote, regardless what the CO2 level is.
And they’re growing grapes even further north than York these days, so what’s your point?
http://www.englishwineproducers.co.uk/vineyards/north/?ccm_paging_p=1
Not the same grapes Phil, the modern grapes have been bred to be cold tolerant.
That’s nice story Mark but vineyards exist still growing the same varieties as they did many years ago, e.g. Hamilton’s vineyard in Surrey still produces wine using the same variety that was grown there in 1740. Most medieval vineyards were associated with monasteries and the major hit to the vineyards occurred after the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII in the 1530’s. Final cessation of commercial wine production ceased following WWI, not weather related.
“Our physical models lack important details on the processes controlling ice formation and melting”
“We found that two key physical processes, which were often overlooked in previous process models,….One relates to how heat moves from the tropics to the poles and the other is associated with the seasonal cycle. None of the relevant previous process modeling studies had included both of these factors..”
Well blow me down! If the clime syndicate and its model consigliere don’t know the processes controlling ice formation and melting, forget about all the rest of the stuff! If we didn’t inform the models on how heat is moved from the tropics to the poles and what happens during the seasons, what do we know?
They didn’t know about, or include, SEASONAL CYCLE process… now they do and it is included. This leads me to wonder about the peer review process.
Does “Peer Review” mean that the reviewers (as peers) are required to be as incompetent as the authors of the original papers?
Who dresses these guys when its cold outside? Does their mom still stand at the door with their coat to make sure they take it when they leave the house?
The next models will be based upon science even a child can understand. Everyone knows that hot air rises and cold air falls. Most of the CO2 belching countries are located in the northern hemisphere, causing all the new hot air to rise to the north pole and melt ice. Then all the remaining cold air falls to the south pole and makes even more ice down there. Now some might ask, “How did so much ice end up on top in the first place?” and the answer is very simple: Geomagnetic Reversal every half a million years or so. So really, all we need the IPCC to do is to start lobbying countries to fund an effort that figures out how to induce a man-made Goemagnetic Reversal whenever we need more ice at the north pole.
Models that are of questionable value in forecasting climate are now telling us that we can reverse the disappearing ice caps if we reduce greenhouse gases. Hmmm!
Scenarios of a sea ice tipping point leading to a permanently ice-free Arctic Ocean were based on oversimplified arguments.
The argument was, “Tell everyone the arctic will be ice free soon or you lose your funding!”
All glibness aside, this illustrates the problem with the claims that computer models prove human-caused global warming. Computer models cannot prove anything. They merely forecast the outcome of the assumptions programmed into them. If the assumptions are wrong, or do not include all possible factors (as they are now admitting was the case) the results of the computer run will not match what is going on in the real world.
None of the computer models used by Al Gore’s minions accounted for variations in solar activity and no climate model can account for the volcanic activity on the floors of the world’s oceans because nobody knows how many are down there. Even on land the known volcanoes can still behave unexpectedly as the sudden activity at Calbuco in Chile and Kilauea here in Hawaii demonstrate. Every computer model uses a limited set of assumptions and the universal unprogrammed assumption that no other factors will influence the outcome!
What! They found out that when it’s cold, ice forms where there was none before! Give’em an extra fat round of money stolen from working people!
I also found out that when the ice forms there will be ice where it is actually forming…because it is cold
People throughout the model world are relieved.
The conclusions of this paper should be an eye-opener for those who put their faith in unvalidated models. Nevertheless, the title “How Climate Model Complexity Influences Sea Ice Stability” reveals the chronic confusion between model results and physical reality that permeates “climate science.” Model complexity cannot have any material influence on in situ sea-ice stability, which is independent of all modeling efforts.
Here we go again with ignorance of Arctic climate. These guys still think that Arctic warming is part of global warming by the greenhouse effect when it can be demonstrated that this is wrong. Arctic happens to be the only place in the world that is still warming but no thanks to CO2. But If you believe them CO2 must be a miraculous gas, able to zero in on the Arctic and ignore all the rest of the world. I made it clear, both in my book [1] and in my Arctic paper [2], that greenhouse warming in thArctic is forbidden by the laws of physics. Fact is, these people don’t even know that today’s Arctic warming did not start until the beginning of the twentieth century. Before it there was nothing there except a slow, linear cooling for two thousand years. But Kaufman et al., [3] who disoivered this, still insist that it was caused by a combination of “…natural variability and positive feedbacks that amplified the radiative forcing…” I told him what caused it (change of currents) but he still insisted on passing on that piece of gibberish as science. They spent four million dollars exploring Arctic lakes, with the help of volunteers to do the digging, and brought back useful data on the history of the Arctic. But having obtained the data they simply had no idea what to do with it and tried to absorb it into their global warming paradigm. Their two thousand year long Arctic temperature curve did look a lot like Mann’s hockey stick and Mann’s collaborators quickly jumped on the bandwagon and got their names added to the author list. But nothing came of it except for a listing by Joe Romm. I proved that laws of physics eliminated carbon dioxide as a cause of Arctic warming. That left a change in the pattern of North Atlantic currents as the only possible way to bring a large mass of warm water into the Arctic as quickly as their timetable required. This massive change of ocean currents obviously had to include redirecting the Gulf Stream flow into the deep Arctic. The change at the beginning of the century was at first tentative and the cold returned in mid-century for another thirty years. Warming in the first part of the century was rapid but it turned around to to cooling by 1940. This is shown in NOAAs Arctic Report Card for 2010 in my book. A new warming started in 1970 and has continued to this day. It is likely that the cool spell corresponds to a temporary return of the original flow pattern of currents. It had a distinct beginning and a distinct ending point, something that is quite impossible for carbon dioxide to create. But all that history is left out by the large number of papers about Arctic warming because they all start their observations at or after 1979. What troubled me about that mid-century cooling was the fact that what has happened in nature can happen again. It is not out of the question that another cool spell would not interrupt the present phase of warming because we have no idea what caused the original cooling in the first place. This is not the same as the tipping points they keep babbling about. It is simply something for climate science to explore because of its importance to Arctic resource development. But these guys don’t even know that there is a problem. Their problem is that they just did not do their homework and are now hung up on idiotic stuff like “…simulations of 21st century climate in an atmosphere–ocean general circulation model…” Those nodels are the models I have been requesting to be shut down. They have an unblemished record of being wrong all the time. As a result, these pseudo-scientists don’t know even the simplest things about the Arctic that they could have learnt by simply looking in my book or in my Arctic paper. One of these is tipping points: “…Ever since the striking record minimum Arctic sea ice extent in 2007, the ominous scenario of a sea ice tipping point has been a fixture in the public debate….” It has been a fixture only in their minds, not in the real world. It is explained away in my book and in the paper as well which they skipped before writhing this paper. Their “record minimum” has nothing whatsoever to do with any tipping points. It was caused by exceptional pole-ward winds that year which brought extra warm water into the Arctic Ocean via the Bering Straight. If you look at the picture of Arctic ice cover in my book you see that in 2007 there was a huge batch of open water just north of the Chuckchi Sea. It was not there the year before nor was it there the following year. At the same time the Russian side of the ocean stayed undisturbed throughout. It is safe to assume that they don’t know any more oabout the rest of the Arctic as they do about this ice melting incident. How else do you explain this babble: ” if global warming does soon melt all the Arctic sea ice, at least we can expect to get it back if we somehow manage to cool the planet back down again.”…Unfortunately people like that whose science is worthless get published in prestige journals their buddies control and showered with billions of dollars of raxpayers money by governments taken over by the global warming clique.
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[1] Arno Arrak, “What Warming? Satellite view of global temperature change” (CreateSpace, 2010), pages 27-36
[2] Arno Arrak, E&E 22(8) (2011):267-283. I offered this one to you, Anthony, when it first came out but you acted like your alter ego, the Oxford professor. I was not polite enough and did not use some idiotic cycle you thought belonged there.
[3] Kaufman et al, Science (4 September 2009)
Arno, Can you kindly comment on Mr. Shore’s review of your book:
By Joel Shore on June 3, 2011
Format: Paperback
This book is nonsense. Both major analyses of the satellite record show that lower troposphere temperatures have gone up at a similar rate to the temperature at the surface since 1979. One of these analyses is UAH, by Spencer and Christy who are both AGW (anthropogenic global warming) skeptics.
Furthermore, the statement in the blurb that says: “In 2007 we got some serious cooling while climate models using carbon dioxide theory insisted on relentless warming at the same time” is also utter nonsense. The climate models forced with steadily-increasing greenhouse gases show the same sort of ups-and-downs in average global temperature from year-to-year that we actually see. In fact, in the models it is not uncommon to have periods of, say, a decade or so when the temperature trend is zero or even a bit negative.
Clearly, the author of this book has absolutely no clue what he is talking about.
There is a mistake in the article. The lowest ice volume was in 2012 not 2007. What will happen to
Christmas if the North Pole melts???
ed
Depends on your definition of Santa Claus, I suppose.
If, in September, “all” of the Arctic sea ice melts, then (by December 24 – chose your time zone for your local region) the Arctic sea ice will have re-frozen.
Thus, if as required by tradition and the “consensus,” the world’s (Christian) presents are all delivered between 23:59 and 24:00 Christmas Eve (in each time zone of interest), then such “presents” – for each Christian household’s children of non-coal pre-requssities and satisfaction – will not have any problem being produced and distributed for all such non-coal presents as may be desired. Right?
So they have confessed the earlier models were too simplistic and have revised them. Good on Scripps.
Now if they could just have a chat with the GCM modellers and tell them how good the honesty feels we might be getting somewhere.
“How Climate Model Complexity Influences Sea Ice Stability.” It does no such thing, of course. It’s a computer program. The sea ice will be stable or not depending on physical factors in the real world, regardless of whether they’re correctly represented in the model (or even represented at all).
But I find the title telling of the confusion between model and reality which seems to be typical of the field. Surely it’s easier to type at the keyboard than actually going out where it’s unpleasantly cold to measure stuff, and you get the grant either way.
Wow! I can’t believe that they really named their paper, “How Climate Model Complexity Influences Sea Ice Complexity”.
Am I seeing things, or is this one HUGE Freudian slip straight from the depths of the environmentalist collective unconscious? Does anyone else see the revealing insight into how these folks actually think?
Here we go again … climate models … today’s God of climate science. It’s a crying shame seeing individuals with letters after their name treating climate models as science. Incredible!!!!