Guest essay by Eric Worrall
In the wake of his failed 2016 “ice free” prediction, Dr. Peter Wadhams has spoken up, claiming most scientists are frightened to speak up about the climate crisis – though he admits his confidence in predicting exact dates has taken a dive.
Dahr Jamail | Arctic Expert on Sea Ice: We Could “Reach Zero” Within Two Years
Arctic sea ice is in big trouble.
This is bad news for multiple reasons, the primary one being that Arctic sea ice helps keep the polar regions cool along with working to moderate the entire global climate.
“Sea ice has a bright surface; 80 percent of the sunlight that strikes it is reflected back into space,” explains the National Snow and Ice Data Center’s website. “As sea ice melts in the summer, it exposes the dark ocean surface. Instead of reflecting 80 percent of the sunlight, the ocean absorbs 90 percent of the sunlight. The oceans heat up, and Arctic temperatures rise further.”
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Truthout: Numerous people have predicted the vanishing of the Arctic sea ice in summer, including a US Navy study that predicted it by this summer, but they’ve all been too early in their predictions. Why do you feel confident about predicting that summer Arctic sea ice will disappear in either 2017 or 2018 at the latest?
Dr. Peter Wadhams: I don’t feel confident — it’s simply that this is the trend shown by the sea ice volume in recent years, and since that volume is now quite small, it ought to reach zero within one to two more years. But, of course, something could happen to change that.
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We have reported quite extensively on the threat of increasing amounts of methane being released as permafrost melts. Why should people be concerned about methane releases in the Arctic, and the fact that these are increasing?
We have modeled what would happen if the rate of emission increased radically to be equivalent to a 50-gigaton pulse (predicted by the Russian scientists who work on offshore methane). It would give a 0.6C boost to global warming immediately — which is a very large figure.
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You have been outspoken and frank about how rapidly the situation is changing in the Arctic. Why do you suppose more scientists aren’t being as outspoken in their alarm and concern over what is happening there and what it means to the planet?
Career considerations: If they speak out, they fear that it will upset their promotion prospects, so they keep their heads down.
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Any final thoughts you’d like to leave with our readers?
As a final point, sea ice retreat from the Greenland Sea has prevented the formation of chimneys — deep cylinders through which surface water sinks to great depths. This slows the thermohaline circulation [the movement of seawater in a pattern of flow dependent on variations in temperature, which give rise to changes in salt content and hence in density], which will result in cooling — or slower warming — of the Northwestern Atlantic coastline (e.g. Britain) and faster warming of the tropical Atlantic (e.g. more intense hurricanes).
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If I’ve understood correctly, we can now expect sea ice to melt away in 2 years (maybe), an imminent 0.6c spike from methane, and a potentially severe drop in Northern temperatures thanks to interruption of the Thermohaline circulation, the “Day after Tomorrow” scenario.
Settled science, anyone?
When the sun comes in at less than 20 degree angle the water reflects as much or more than old, sooty ice.
You beat me to it. Above 60 degrees latitude, the solar flux density (w/m^^2) is less than half the equatorial value and, given the much smaller area presented to the Sun, far fewer total watts is received at the poles. Therefore, this man’s thesis is wrong, the polar regions are inconsequential in the Earth’s energy budget on the incoming side. Why do they think the poles are frozen, fer crying our loud?
Did you correct for the slightly greater distance radiation must travel to reach ground level through the atmosphere?
I have been talking about this surface reflection for years but there seems little data and even less interest in evaluating it, so such categoric statements about what the degree of the effect is are unwarranted.
@ur momisugly Greg Goodman
Here is a photograph of the water surface reflection of “light” iffen you are interested in evaluating what the degree of the effect is.
Whether it is artificial generated “light reflection” or natural Solar generated “light reflection” ….. makes no difference ….. regardless of the intensity of said radiation.
Well, then let him reflect on these images of the actual Arctic “24 hours of sunlight”. Notice how strongly the “open ocean water” reflects what little solar energy actually penetrates the atmosphere in EVERY image. (Now, also recognize that higher winds are associated with storm clouds, often with blowing ice or blizzard conditions, and so a higher sea state means more solar energy is absorbed in the ocean surface, but less solar energy can get through the clouds to be absorbed into the ocean. )
https://www.google.com/search?q=pin+drive+stud&biw=1108&bih=688&tbm=isch&imgil=BXd14fgkKhGjoM%253A%253BhYJqBJYy232jyM%253Bhttps%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.alibaba.com%25252Fproduct-detail%25252FDrive-Stud-Slinger-Pin-Drive-Coupling_60378898650.html&source=iu&pf=m&fir=BXd14fgkKhGjoM%253A%252ChYJqBJYy232jyM%252C_&usg=__HllrMkp4ti5Uwu85i_4Bs6Uj0zc%3D&ved=0ahUKEwin1euZz9DPAhWkPZoKHb38ARYQyjcIKQ&ei=pLz7V6fzNaT76AS9-YewAQ#tbm=isch&q=arctic+midnight+sun+&imgrc=jF8biX17aDiDlM%3A
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&ved=0ahUKEwjyloax0tDPAhWDKCwKHdBMDhUQjRwIBw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fen.islamtoday.net%2Fartshow-384-3955.htm&bvm=bv.135258522,d.bGs&psig=AFQjCNHySsj3rHu4tS55mDpIRB1xL_0mfw&ust=1476202834914870&cad=rjt
http://en.islamtoday.net/artshow-384-3955.htm
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&ved=0ahUKEwif4OPs0tDPAhULWCwKHeYCBAcQjRwIBw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.alaska-in-pictures.com%2Fmidnight-sun-1103-pictures.htm&bvm=bv.135258522,d.bGs&psig=AFQjCNHySsj3rHu4tS55mDpIRB1xL_0mfw&ust=1476202834914870&cad=rjt
http://www.alaska-in-pictures.com/midnight-sun-1103-pictures.htm
[dupes removed. .mod]
The reflectances of water and ice overlap. Plus ice is an insulator, so open water radiates more heat at night than ice. There will always be ice at the poles.
Prediction gives us the only validation of science, not consensus or models or headlines. If Wadhams can’t predict, he has no science and should be selling hamburgers.
I certainly wouldn’t trust any of his hamburgers.
A barker at a traveling circus?
jorgekafkazar
“Prediction gives us the only validation of science, not consensus or models or headlines. If Wadhams can’t predict, he has no science and should be selling hamburgers.”
Those that continue to interview and publish this mans rantings as if he has a shred of credibility remaining should also find something productive to do with their lives as should those that continue to approve the funding of this guys excursions to the Arctic.
BTW prediction isn’t the “only” validation. Being able to reproduce results in experimentation or calculations is also a corner stone of science.
That was my fist thought, and was going to say it but you beat me to it…
How much money has this man wasted on so called research including expensive trips to the Arctic? More importantly, he has misled the world into believing that the arctic is nearing its end, and in so doing has led the believers to spend unbelievable amounts of money in order to stop it. Someone should point out the falseness of his research findings to his employers asking them to stop wasting research money on a man who consistently gets it wrong, and should not be referred to as a climate scientist..
“Someone should point out the falseness of his research findings to his employers asking them to stop wasting research money on a man who consistently gets it wrong, and should not be referred to as a climate scientist..”
His employers, the funding politicians, want those false results as those ‘scientific’ results are used to justify the political actions gaining more power and more taxes.
It is now becoming apparent that a man who consistently gets it wrong is eminently suitable to be a climate ‘scientist’. Especially if he can do so bringing in more funding for his university and department.
Do you know why you were wrong? If not, then why do you think you are right now?
That is called science.
You are something by a different name.
“Read more: http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/37686-arctic-expert-on-sea-ice-we-could-reach-zero-within-two-years” No thanks, I haven’t had breakfast yet and could not stand any more of these wacky Peter Wadham ravings so early in the day. He needs another hobby.
“No thanks, I haven’t had enough beer yet and could not stand any more of these wacky Peter Wadham ravings while sober.”
🙂
Scientists are afraid to speak up on the issue. That much is true. But the reason has more to do with likely loss of funding and perhaps jobs if they tell the truth about the fact that this panic is unsupportable on the basis of the data.
Exactly! Can he show a single instance where anyone was disciplined or disadvantaged by making excessive or even nonsense claims about the hazards or consequences of projected climate change? What a hack!
He is correct. If you speak out by making ridiculous, ill-founded predictions that will be validated / disproved before the end of your career, it is likely to impact your reputation.
Even alarmist scientist are running a mile from Wadham’s unscientific nonsense and calling it “bollocks”.
On the contrary, if anyone made a mid term project that works, they would earn respect.
Since no one has sufficient understanding to predict even a few years ahead most just make hand waving claims for periods so far away that they will be in a rocking chair or a wooden box before they ever get tested.
Isn’t he the nutcase who was claiming that his fellow alarmists were being assassinated?
“afraid to speak”
Didn’t he once claim that his fellow alarmists were being assassinated?
Sorry about the double post, I’ve been getting messages about server updates when I try to post all morning.
Or likely the reason they fear speaking up is that too many sceptics keep poking big huge holes in whatever they have to say. It’s one thing to speak without interruption or criticism, it’s entirely different looking down the barrel of eminently qualified sceptics rebuttals.
Wadhams should at least entertain the possibility he was wrong all along. He seems to have a history of persistence in making bad predictions.
It is the way of the left. The idea is never wrong, merely the execution. Thus you double down on failure every single time.
That is the way of a religion when its prophecies fail. Scientists love to see predictions fail because then they have learned something. Religious loons only go back to their book of religious teaching and make the same old prophecy but just give it a new date. Miller in the 1850s was the classic recently, but he was hardly unique. Seems the rapture is a bit delayed, we just have to interpret the Bible some more.
As for these arctic ice loons, have they truly never heard of enthalpy? The buoy data shows a decrease in ocean enthalpy in the arctic with the rollover of the AMO. Ice cover itself can be a function of a lot of other things on a yearly or so basis, but in the long run, when you lose enthalpy, you eventually freeze up.
That’s right and there are many examples to prove it.
Yeah, ShrNfr, temperature is a lousy measure of heat balance. It’s like trying to tell whether a city’s population is rising or falling by counting cars on the beltway.
Most “the end of the world is nigh” claims get recalibrated every time the world fails to end. They never realise they were wrong about the world ending, they just miscalculated the date.
Niburu is still lurking just out of sight ….
Aren’t there Biblical passages which state rather plainly that no one “knows the day or the hour” of the Second Coming of Christ (save God, of course), and that it will come like “a thief in the night”, completely unexpected?
Doesn’t stop your average cult leader from trying, I guess.
I once talked with a gentleman who when I mentioned that verse to him replied; The Bible says you won’t know the hour or the day, but it says nothing about the month or the week.
Literalists drive me crazy.
..Well, at least he is consistent !! LOL
It seems almost as if Wadhams is suffering from a kind of gambler’s fallacy – “Surely this time when I make my prediction, it will come out the way I say.”
” But, of course, something could happen to change that.” ??
So he admits they actually have no idea about what direction our climate will take in the next 5 or 10 years ! ! Settled Science….?? Obviously not !
All he is doing with that comment is preying for a major volcano so he can say : ” well of course it would have disappeared, except for this unforeseen event which changes everything”.
The “something could happen” has already happened, the rate of melting has reduced since 2007, the date of minimum is drifting earlier, the accelerating melting on which all the dramatic claims were based is no longer accelerating, it is slowing.
Only looney-tunes likes Wadhams keep banging on as though post 2007 data tells us nothing new.
If he preys on volcanoes, then I for one don’t want to mess with him.
As he girded himself against the noxious, sulfurous fumes that belched from the chasm in preparation for descent into the bowels of the mountain where mighty pressure and unimaginable heat made rock run in syrupy rivers, Bob paused to consider the unlikely series of events that had led him to become the Great God Vulcan’s proctologist. — Stan Hunter Kranc, State College, PA
Less sea ice means that more heat escapes from the oceans, and therefore into outer space, ie global cooling.
Wadhams confuses minimum ice extent in September, with “summer”. By Sep, very little solar energy is entering Arctic seas.
This process is actually a very good example of how the Earth is perfectly able of regulating its temperature.
After all, it has gone through many episodes, even in recent millenium, when the Arctic was much warmer than now. There was no “runaway warming” then, and there won’t be now.
Re: “Wadhams confuses minimum ice extent in September, with “summer” – until Sep 21st, it is summer.
OK, then by that definition autumn begins with a six-month polar night at the North Pole. Not much albedo related warming expected there then, but the open sea in polar night surely dissipates a lot of energy.
Exactly.
What is important is the amount of ice between May and July. Say about 6 weeks either side of the summer solstice.
This coincides with when daylight hours are the longest and the angle of incidence is highest as opposed to the scenario when the sun simply grazes the surface and is largely reflected irrespective of ice conditions.
Yes “something could happen to change that ” . Yes like another goofy prediction from Wadham in about 2 years time .
Does guy teach people science ?
Do people pay him to pretend to do so?
Ouch! Aieee, even.
Fair questions, I think.
Whatever he teaches or practices, it isn’t science.
It is great to see this because TUCRADIO had his talk from Milano, Italy on this morning and it was full of so many references to ‘models’ and how the Arctic will soon be free of ice in the Summer. In the lecture he did sprinkle how the global temperature hasn’t risen for 10 years. Hello! What about 18? or maybe more! Anyway: kudos.
I have been listening to these “boy cries wolf” predictions for years and years now. They are always wrong.
But let us play devil’s advocate for a moment. If all the ice at the north pole melted one summer, so what? What would that do? Would it be the first time in billions of years? Would the Russians sneak over the poles and attack us by coming down the middle of Canada? Would we not have ice for ice cream in the deep summertime? What?
What would be so darned bad about an ice free north pole in the summertime?
Nothing would be wrong. Especially if you were to put Gore on an ice floe beforehand.
He could monitor the polar bears.
Well, it’d surely mean layoffs in the icebreaker biz . .
@ur momisugly JohnKnight, That makes me wonder if the Russians have an “in” they are building bigger and stronger Icebreakers as we speak. (And even “renting” them out to cruise lines).
Well, the German icebreaker, the Polarstern, is up there now at 87°N mashing up the ice just to make sure it doesn’t stick together to firmly.
Join the calls for a 10 year moratorium on icebreakers in the Arctic north of 82°N under any circumstances.
The new cold war ; )
But think of all those cuddly polar bears. They might get wet with no ice floes to sit on while they wait for seals to jump to be eaten.
I’m with Mark on this one……I can’t figure out why I should care
Latitude October 9, 2016 at 4:49 pm
“I’m with Mark on this one……I can’t figure out why I should care”
Why care,, why you should care? Because there are vast amounts of minerals, Oil and gas deposits in the arctic and if the ice melted anyone, I mean just anyone could go and mine it or pump it out… it ,,it would upset the balance of nature, mankind in its rightful place as prey rather then the the alpha predator, totally against the intent of Gaia (Gaea) it must be stopped,,
Do I need a tag?
Hmm, or for Dr. Peter Wadhams; “Here’s your sign”
michael
And it would likely be ice free for only a few weeks. And, of course, by ice free we mean less than 1 million sq. km. It will be interesting to watch the sea ice and the NH temperatures (as well as global) over the next 10-30 years to see what happens if and when the AMO starts going negative and especially if the PDO goes partially into phase with the AMO.
Now, recognize that even “1 million square kilometers of “ice free” Arctic Ocean” actually represents the ENTIRE region between 90 north and 85 degrees north latitude. (Figuring a curved cap centered on the north pole of area 1.0 Mkm^2.)
In fact, you need 9.0 Mkm^2 sea ice to even get past 75 degrees north latiude.
I think specifying a specific year when the ice caps would disappear was always a stupid idea. I am sure it was an attempt to show how serious the problem was. Even so, if the cap was getting smaller every year they could at least claim climate warming was on-going. but when it starts to grow larger, that would seem totally contrary to all their predictions. How do you explain that? I would think from this point on any evidence suggesting the earth is cooling off would become a death nail in their claim. Their projections did not leave any room for delays or reversals.
Yes, but we really need to see Arctic ice area increase over the next 5 to 20 years to make good that point.
Presently, the data set is too short to enable any firm conclusions to be drawn.
Yes, I wonder if they will just keep claiming that the warming is causing cooling via polar vortex “weirding” and slowing the thermohaline circulation, and witches? Or will they just go back to the old version where coal and aerosols and pollution are causing the planet to cool, possibly into an ice age, (oh wait, no one ever said that – will be pretty funny if they try to bring that back and will have to go re-edit the Wiki pages) and we have to get rid of all fossil fuels due to global cooling. Sadly, I predict the MSM would mostly just go along with it, we would now have global cooling “de-niers”, one major and several minor political parties invoking CAGC and they can go through another 30 year half-cycle, this time with cooling alarmism.
I am an experimentalist myself, so I will keep watching the evidence. I don’t know if it will cool slightly or keep warming a bit. I do think that, at least so far, it looks as though the more drastic predictions of warming don’t seem to be materializing. And I think the next 30 years will be quite enlightening, one way or another. After all, you need to go through a complete cycle with modern satellites and measurements to really have a good picture.
Ever notice how the vast majority of these people look like they’ve been just released from some insane asylum?
Unpleasant to read coments like this – that’s how amarmists talk about skeptics. Frankly, we’re better than that,
Not unpleasant at all, Javert; my comment is accurate. What’s REALLY unpleasant is the number and incendiary level of actual threats and lies that alarmists direct toward those of us who call a spade a spade in both climate science and the deplorable behavior of alarmists.
Wadhams notably didn’t suggest that other scientists were afraid to back him up lest they die mysteriously. IIRC, a year or so ago he suggested that he feared death after some other alarmists had inexplicably died. (A case for Loony Lew.)
And don’t forget this article from the UK Telegraph July 25, 2015
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/globalwarming/11762680/Three-scientists-investigating-melting-Arctic-ice-may-have-been-assassinated-professor-claims.html
The UK Telegraph also looked at Wadhams’ failed sea ice predictions on Oct 8, 2016. Other UK Professors are distancing themselves from Peter Wadhams.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/10/07/experts-said-arctic-sea-ice-would-melt-entirely-by-september-201/
Instead of short term bold predictions, Prof Andrew Shepard of University College London points to the consensus belief that Arctic sea ice will disappear in the coming decades.
https://manicbeancounter.com/2016/10/09/failed-arctic-sea-ice-predictions-illustrates-degenerating-climatology/
I haven’t seen your blog before. Quite interesting. I attempted to leave a comment on one of your political threads but I do not think that it was successfully posted. I commented:
I agree with David Davies that Brexit means.
There is much debate whether the referendum vote means a hard Brexit. Obviously it does for the reason cited by David Davies. We have voted to leave the EU, and this means out of all the various institutions that make up the EU, eg., out of the single market, out of the common agricultural policy, out of the common fisheries policy etc.
One cannot leave/get off the train by keeping one foot in the carriage. We have voted to leave the train and that means getting out of the carriage.
One can also see from the way that Remainers framed the debate that they too considered that voting out inevitably means a hard Brexit and out of the single market. Their project fear was based upon a hard Brexit.
At no time did Remainers suggest that a vote out of the EU would mean that the UK would still be part of the single market, and therefore there should be no economic problems, nothing would change economically even if the public was to vote out. At no time did Remainers suggest that there would be no down turn in the stock market, house prices, employment, no need for any emergency budget since economically there would be no change in our relationship with Europe because we would still be part of the single market. As I say, project fear was based entirely upon the consequence of the national vote to leave the EU meant that the UK would have a hard Brexit.
Democracy is at a junction. If the political class will not act on the vote and seek to curtail it by a soft Brexit it will further demonstrate that there is no government by the people for the people, but instead government by the elitist few for the benefit of the elitist few.
Politicians need to be very careful, or they will quickly lose even more trust and will be seen to be an irrelevance.
Hi Richard.
Thanks for the kind comments about my blog. You comment there was caught in moderation.
“It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”
― Yogi Berra
It’s getting harder to make predictions about the past. Who knows what it will turn out to be once NOAA, NASA, EPA have fiddled with it?
A fungible past is a standard socialist/communist tactic. The past is whatever we say it is in order to fit the unchangeable future.
Oh, here we go. It’s only the left/liberals/communists who rewrite history. Yeah, of course.
The victor gets to write history, independent of where he fits on your naive black/white polarisation of politics.
Do you have examples Greg?
In the wake of Peter Wadham’s (and Paul Ehrlich’s, James Hanson’s, Tim Flannery’s
et Big Al’s ) failed climate predictions, these failed predictions should be confined to
the dust bin of history – errata, along with the illuminaries who made them.
“…I don’t feel confident — it’s simply that this is the trend shown by the sea ice volume in recent years, and since that volume is now quite small, it ought to reach zero within one to two more years…”
No, the trend should not hit zero.
I believe zero arctic sea ice is an asymptote, and can never be reached, which is why Wadhams uses 1M sq Km as a proxy for “ice free”, but even 1M may not be reachable even under the worst-case prediction for this century and beyond.
I should have said arctic sea ice extent is asymptotic towards zero.
“Settled science, anyone?”
Vanishingly settled. Scientism in flux, in service to a cause. And a paycheck.
His comments about the Thermohaline ocean circulation and the agreenland sea clearly indicates he doesn’t even understand how this important issue works so I think one can just ignore this space cadet from now on.
Oh course he’s certain that the Arctic will be ice free in 2 or 3 years. And if need be be in another 2 or 3 after that. The math is very specific how how much heat is retained and the models show catastrophic events as far as the eye can see, but somehow the date on the Arctic melting is … We Were Too Early…
Any day now a hurricane will hit … and if not this this year then next or the year after that… we are in real trouble here folks ! I mean the Arctic.
“Why do you suppose more scientists aren’t being as outspoken in their alarm and concern over what is happening there and what it means to the planet?”
Um, probably because the science/evidence doesn’t support your position. So, they don’t think it’s true.
Peter may be suffering from various diseases related to aging such as Alzheimer, Dementia, Diabetes, and many blood related ailments and their debilitate effects on human organs such as the brain.
Very sad.
As a fully paid-up Type II diabetic, I resemble that remark. Actually,it could be construed as a fairly juvenile piece of Ad Hommery of the genre so beloved of the Church of Climate and therefore unbecoming of this blog.
+1
Is that a “selfie” of Wadham? ( he looks a bit out of “something” but that must be his cheap cell phone I guess) If so, I wonder what’s on the “whiteboard” behind him, I tried figuring some of it out, but couldn’t make hide or hair out of it. Oh, I get it now, those are his theories about Arctic Ice
This obsession with a few days of low ice extent is facinating.
Particularly as “ice free” apparently means anything less than 1,000,000 sq. km.
Remember the new measurement of Arctic sea ice.
1 Wadham = 1 million km²
IPCC consistently uses the term “nearly ice free” but that is not dramatic enough for some so they call it ice free, which is dishonest and inaccurate.
It’s probably a freeze frame from a video or interview he recorded on a lap top. Fish-eye lens effect.
An odd appearance which is well matched to his odd claims.
@ur momisugly asybot… +1 on the whiteboard.
The Waldham predictions fail are quite clear. With a downward trend ultimately the sea ice extent will be negative. Since this is not possible, the trend is not real, namely time and ice are independent variables, so the trend has no statistical meaning. Trends only work on dependent variables. But, time does not make ice, so they are not dependent. Waldham doesn’t understand basic statistics, and it shows. His time-climate predictions have no statistical meaning. Therefore, there is no point listening to him. He does not have the capacity to understand that the basic principle of his predictions of time-ice is false. Although, if we do make negative ice (anti-ice) that will be something interesting to study. It would seem that if ice and anti-ice meet, it could exterminate climate, or something like that.
Negative ice should be steam, no? 🙂
I love your narrative.
The whiteboard behind him may reflect the chaos in his head . . . .
This is categorically untrue. This supposed positive feedback effect is incompatible with the data which shows that rate of ice loss has SLOWED since 2007 not increased.
FAILED HYPOTHESIS , try again.
The quote about 90% of the sunlight being absorbed in an iceless arctic shows that he lacks even basic scientific understanding of optics geometry. Most here know that as the angle of incidence increases (like the suns rays as you go poleward) the greater is the amount of light reflected back out into space (more of the vertically polarized portion WILL go into the ocean but the horizontally polarized reflected portion reduces greatly after latitude 75 degrees. This is, of course, on top of the greatly reduced insolation per square metre as we go poleward. The warming of the ocean by insolation is small indeed. Warm air blowing up into the arctic and warm water under the ice does the job – not insolation.