University of Exeter [See my update at the end. -w.]
Arctic sea ice cannot “quickly bounce back” if climate change causes it to melt, new research suggests.
A team of scientists led by the University of Exeter used the shells of quahog clams, which can live for hundreds of years, and climate models to discover how Arctic sea ice has changed over the last 1,000 years.
They found sea ice coverage shifts over timescales of decades to centuries – so shrinking ice cannot be expected to return rapidly if climate change is slowed or reversed.
The study examined whether past ice changes north of Iceland were “forced” (caused by events such as volcanic eruptions and variations in the sun’s output) or “unforced” (part of a natural pattern).
At least a third of past variation was found to be “forced” – showing the climate system is “very sensitive” to such driving factors, according to lead author Dr Paul Halloran, of the University of Exeter.
“There is increasing evidence that many aspects of our changing climate aren’t caused by natural variation, but are instead ‘forced’ by certain events,” he said.
“Our study shows the large effect that climate drivers can have on Arctic sea ice, even when those drivers are weak as is the case with volcanic eruptions or solar changes.
“Today, the climate driver isn’t weak volcanic or solar changes – it’s human activity, and we are now massively forcing the system.”
Co-author of the study Professor Ian Hall, from Cardiff University, said: “Our results suggest that climate models are able to correctly reproduce the long-term pattern of sea ice change.
“This gives us increased confidence in what climate models are telling us about current and future sea ice loss.”
When there is lots of sea ice, some of this drifts southwards and, by releasing fresh water, can slow the North Atlantic Ocean circulation, otherwise known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC).
The AMOC brings warm water from the tropics towards the Arctic, so slowing it down cools this region and allows sea ice to grow further.
So, with less ice the AMOC can bring in more warm water – a so-called “positive feedback” where climate change drives further warming and sea ice loss.
Quahog clams are thought to be the longest-living non-colonial animal on Earth, and their shells produce growth rings which can be examined to measure past environmental changes.
Dr Halloran is part of the Global Systems Institute, which brings together experts from a wide range of fields to find solutions to global challenges.
The new study is part of a project including Cardiff University, the Met Office and an international team working on climate model simulations of the last millennium. The work was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council.
###
The paper, published in the journal Scientific Reports, is entitled: “Natural drivers of multidecadal Arctic sea ice variability over the last millennium.”
[UPDATE] I suspect Charles won’t complain if I add today’s situation …
Best to all,
w.
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They lost me at “We used cLIEmate Models…”
Even better is that just like the Gore Effect, this probably means Arctic ice will rebound almost immediately !!
Exactly my thoughts. I love this kind of prediction. God (or Mother Nature) seems to have a sense of humor about them – and usually just the opposite happens. They predict “no snow” and they get plastered. Gotta love it.
God has a sense of humour, he makes idiots get positions as “top scientists”. It’s his revenge on science for trying to destroy faith based religion.
What he means is “internal variation” not “natural.
So by redefining natural events as “forcings” all natural variation proves changes were “forced”. This is just more semantic tricks to prop up a failing scientific hypothesis.
Arctic sea minimum increased by 65% in ONE YEAR from 2012 to 2013. You say it can’t “bounce back” but it did. Observations, not models.
Climate models failed to predict or explain the rapid decline from 1997 to 2007 and equally fail to explain why it is still at the same level it was in 2007 despite “run away melting”, “death spirals” and the “climate crisis”.
But never mind we’ll continue running the same models to produce more spurious “scientific” claims. Hey it’s publish or perish out here !
Precisely my immediate thoughts on reading the paper/diatribe.
That’s why I call it Glow Bull Warming.
Models have been banned from F1 racing so I would have thought they would be more ‘woke’
Not even climate models, they used a one-off of a one-off, which means they used faith
Yep, I only got as far as the second paragraph. To be fair, University of Exeter is a good clue to it being bollox.
Yep! And this…
At least a third of past variation was found to be “forced”…
Found how? Fake CO2 models? What a load of garbage.
There will be no advancement of climate science until we rid it of these CO2 superstitions, and their devotees.
Is the University of Exeter a parody university?
OK, Turn your main breakers to OFF, all climate scientists, politicians and greenies.
“Bouncing back” to what ideal temperature? We are continually waiting for that “ideal” temperature number.
It’s 42.
Form tree rings to clam shell… rings?
They live HUNDREDS of years? Nanosecond in geological time.
When one looks at the world through manmade-global warming glasses, everything is a cause or a victim. It’s that simple. Also, it always has to be bad news.
Okay, can they show us proof that the changes they noted in the growth rings of the clams were caused by particular changes in climate?
Did they verify every single line of code in the models used was fit for purpose?
Good questions ray, what did you find?
Classic.
RS
The onus of proof is on the claimant:
“the weight of evidence for an extraordinary claim must be proportioned to its strangeness”
~ Laplace
“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”
Popularised by Carl Sagan
Redge;
“Extraordinary clams require extraordinary evidence”
Rising waters make clams happy:
“the fuller version of the phrase, now rarely heard – ‘as happy as a clam at high water’. High tide is when clams are free from the attentions of predators; surely the happiest of times in the bivalve mollusc world. The phrase originated in the north-eastern states of the USA in the early 19th century.”
https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/as-happy-as-a-clam.html
Loydo, in the end we only found
“Today, the climate driver isn’t weak volcanic or solar changes – it’s human activity, and we are now massively forcing the system.”
So why doesn’t Dr. Paul Halloran, of the University of Exeter, REVERSE “our” forcing – opening Red Sea via Suez Channel to Mediterranean and Golf of Mexico to Pacific via Panama Channel.
What too have we overwhelming done to “our” Planet. What’s he awaiting of “us”.
OTOH – long before man walked on Earth the Americas were separated, proto Mare-Nostra and pre Indian Ocean were connected by the Thetis.
– explaining please, Dr. Paul Halloran, of the University of Exeter.
____________________________________
Sure you’ll find new complex questions to solved simple solutions. Loydo.
Another “conclusive” research piece fitted to the presupposition and vaguely referencing a mysterious natural equilibrium that only humans can destroy.
In the matter of whether changes in sea ice are “forced”, the source of the forcing should not be limited to the atmosphere given that the Arctic sea floor is geologically active.
Pls see
https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/07/01/arctic/
https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/10/04/svalbard/
https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/11/21/chukchi-sea-2019/
Thanks for the links, Chaamjamal.
You’re welcome, sir.
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover.uk.php Arctic sea ice extent is highest in 5 years.
https://nsidc.org/data/masie/ As of today the Chukchi sea is iced over completely.
“highest in 5 years”
Yet still below the 2σ variation.
Still about average based on when ice readings were stared in 1979. AVERAGE!
Have not learned much in your 57 years, even with all that hitch hiking!
No, still very much near the top of the last 10,000 years
Time is not measured by your attention span, Loy-doh !!
Tell that to Alan.
Lydo, the satellites were not launched in 1979. ( Are you daft to not know this, as you have been told this many times.) The sea ice was much lower about 6 years prior. 1979 was peak sea ice.
Loydo, if you were half as smart as your mother told you, you would be able to figure out for yourself that the two sentences do not contradict each other.
The trick of starting the graph of Arctic ice extent in 1979 to exaggerate the loss has been exposed many, many times, both on WUWT and by Tony Heller. You’ve been busted, Loydo.
Loydo can’t be busted…he is a we are all going to die meme.
The trick was to launch a satellite.
Classic Loydo evasion.
The satellite data goes back to 1973-74 Loudo.
So why start the graph at 1979? Phail, would you care to explain this to Loudo?
Gator,
If I could hazard a guess, Satellite records may go back to 1974 but 5 year smoothing can only go back to 1979
Smoothing is not needed. Sounds like an alarmist perversion diversion.
Facts are facts, and we have data back to before 1974. Starting the graph at 1979 is cherry picking, and dishonest.
Inconvenient truths for alarmists.
Yet still below the 2σ? So where do you get the expectation that sea ice would not change over any arbitrary 40 year period? Are you a climate change deeniyer ??
Loydo,
I’ve often wondered why TQM and 6 Sigma use 6σ as a key to improving quality in manufacturing but for sea ice and other climate measurements use 2σ / 4σ. You got any explanation for the differences
This is climate science, we have loser standards.
Loydo: The trick was to launch a satellite.
No, the trick was to start the graph at the end of a cooling period when ice extent was at a maximum, as you well know.
We only have solid data going back 40 years. We also know that 40 years ago was the coldest period since the end of the Little Ice Age.
PS, having arctic ice continue to grow puts the kibosh on the claims that arctic ice has entered a death spiral that your side keeps dragging out.
Loydo, what is the time range for your two-sigma basis? Geologic evidence points that there was no summer ice pack during the Holocene optimum. That broadens your two-sigma range a bit. We need enough data to make an informed decision. Even 100 years of data is not long enough to be able to predict any trends in the climate. There are too many variables that we don’t have a good value for, as well as variables we don’t even know yet.
There is a rich and varied smorgasbord of forcings to choose between, to fit any and every observed climate change. And then proclaim sensitivity and carbon doom.
Did it warm? The warm forcing menu:
CO2
methane
CFCs
ozone
Fart gas
El Niño
Soot
Land use changes
Etc…
Did it cool? The cool forcing menu:
Cloud
Volcanoes
SO2
Particles
Ocean upwelling
Albedo
Increasing vegetation (trees etc)
Land use changes
Etc…
Forgot the sun ☀️ doh!
Forced by the Sun: FIFY
Apparently solar activity doesn’t count as natural.
I don’t know about arctic sea ice “bouncing” back.
There’s no land mass in the arctic. All the sea ice is floating
in the sea. If it melts, the sea level will DROP!!!
Jphn, you might want to re-take high school science. If floating ice melts, it has no impact on water levels.
MarkW, you are very brave (or …) to say what you just said!!!
You just made a real boo-boo!
Really John. Try this experiement. Put an ice cube in a glass and fill the glass with water up to the brim. As the ice melts, watch the water level. Is it overflowing the brim, Is it still at the brim, or is it now below the brim? (hint: it’ll be the middle of those three options). Go on, try the experiment and see for yourself, or remain in ignorance your choice.
MarkW, fill a glass with water and drop a few pieces of ice cubes until
the water reaches the rim. Wait until the ice melts and watch what happens to the water level in the glass.
Jose, what will happen is exactly what MarkW said would happen (no impact to water levels), so why are you addressing the ice in glass of water experiment to him? Perhaps you need to try the experiment yourself so you can see what happens.
link to the original paper
As usual, the original paper is not nearly as brain dead as the press release.
The original paper hints at an ice free arctic during the Medieval Warm Period (MWP). The MWP was relatively prosperous. There is no evidence for the kind of cataclysmic weather events prophesied by the alarmists, quite the opposite. Warmer is richer. link
An ice free arctic is not a disaster. It’s happened before and humanity prospered. The disaster is when we get cold periods like the Little Ice Age (LIA) with plenty of arctic ice.
You and your facts. Where’s the climate catastrophe?
An ice free arctic just means easier access to all the resources up there.
Indeed, even without the resources, just the opening of shipping lanes alone would make it a net benefit for humanity.
I don’t have a link however, many new species of coral have been discovered on the Great Barrier Reef here in Australia. So much for stories about it being 95% dead last year.
more of a matter of better ID and some dna abilities? the chap on abc still managed to get in bits are bleached badly/dead due to agw of course carefully omitting how LITTLE that is, of course
Three words killed the study: human activity and models.
The reason they went with climate models is that every time the researchers tried to interview one of the research subjects, they would just clam up.
This study was fraught with such difficulties. The researchers had to shell out a lot more than they had budgeted.
HR best response, you’re the winner no one else is even close.
Maybe taxpayers should assert their shellfish interests and stop funding such nonsense!
We should defund all those tax supported Marxist Indoctrination Centers formerly known as Universities.
The paper was published in the journal Advances in Clamatology.
“Arctic sea ice cannot “quickly bounce back” if climate change causes it to melt, new research suggests.”
Methinks me smells a climate model, sez me, reading that opening paragraph. On top of an iffy proxy proposed by an industry that considers multiple model runs to be “research.” If you have a relationship based on temperatures to the fourth power, there can be tons of bouncing back, and no number of clam shells will stop it, especially in an area characterized by varying volcanic activity.
According to NSIDC, Arctic sea ice extent on day 20 is above every year in the last decade except 2013 and 2010
Also above 2005 and 2006
Coming from a low level ice has recovered during this winter.
The clam claim is hard to melt.
This is actually not that surprising and says nothing about global warming. The winter maximum has hardly changed at all in the satellite era, only the summer minimum has declined.
Which is not surprising since those areas of the Arctic that melt in the summer are well below freezing in the winter, and pretty much always will be, given the total absence of the sun in winter.
And of course only areas that melt can refreeze!
Agreed
The product of a computer model run is not evidence…..it is just a quantitative prediction which then needs to be confirmed or refuted by measurements and data obtained in the real world, not just in cyberspace.
Too many climate “scientists” do not like to adhere to the scientific method. It produces too many inconvenient results for their grant-seeking and adulation-seeking projects. Cyberspace is a so much more friendly environment for them.
Experiment limited to computer runs is to real science what blow-up dolls are to a real girlfriend.
Qua hog wash.
Ha ! Exeter University, formerly the school of mines, and not so long ago the fall back for those whose results fell well short of what was expected.
Now of course its quite a respected seat of learning, possibly even quite twee. Indeed when compared to the hundreds of technical colleges that morphed into universities in relatively recent times, it may well be not so bad. And it certainly wont hurt their application list to get headlines with studies like this one, as most of the potential intake will be totally on board the Planetary Emergency bandwagon 🙂
I believe that at one stage the boasted as having the highest number of IPCC members of any university in the world. I could be wrong though
Certainly swilling hard on the climate trough.
Almost seems then as if its competing with that other ‘Renowned’ institution in East Anglia 🙂
Quahog clams are the new bristlecone pine.
What “forced” the anomalously high extents in the late 1970s. and the Little Ice Age?
Why was there so much more Arctic sea ice than for nearly all of the previous 9,500 years ?
Volcanoes are “forcing” climatic change! Ban or tax volcanoes!
Not sure why the Arctic ice is considered a measure of anything except variability.
We know it waxes and wanes. In the 1950 submarines were surfacing at the North pole, now not so much.
I am surprised they keep taking about it whan Al Gore said it should be gone by now. They seem to want to provide an entree into the long and ever growing list of failed climate predictions. Same goes for the periodic “Ship of Fools” adventures. Imagine the bellowing from the rooftops if they ever get one right vs the quiet mumbling and foot shuffling when they have to be rescued from the ice.
“In the 1950 submarines were surfacing at the North pole, now not so much.”
Well they did have to break through 2″ of ice, now you don’t need a sub.
No. They need an icebreaker to run over the ice first.
There are a great many photos of Russian, Royal Navy and American submarines surfaced in clear water at the North pole over the years).
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/04/26/ice-at-the-north-pole-in-1958-not-so-thick/
This is the American nuclear submarine – USS Skate (SSN-578) surfaced in clear water at the North Pole 17th March 1959
Yes I know. I was being funny! Loydo’s comment was stupid.
I wonder if Loydo’s kool-aid has frozen over?
It’s the USS Skate but not at the N Pole in March 1959 (it was dark and snowy then and no clear water).
The audacity of nature to indulge variability, perturbations, and chaos, life, is now characterized as a first-order forcing. Gaia, how dare you!
What happened to Alex?
2014
Italian Adventurer Alex Bellini Plans To Live On An Iceberg Until . . . It Melts!
He was probably taken in as a “climate refugee” after the berg floated south.
Apparently, it was still in planning in 2015.
https://www.redbull.com/gb-en/this-man-plans-to-live-a-full-year-on-an-iceberg
Don’t know what happened after and not enough interest to look.
a semi-quick google finds many reference to his planning to do it in 2015, a few reference to his planning to do it in 2018 (“In 2018, for the first time ever, a man will live on an iceberg…”) and *ZERO* references to him ever doing it.
So, before the industrial revolution would seem to be the place to study natural variability (actually before 1950 would do, but let them have their goalpost move). If they didnt find that arctic ice extent going back to the Holocene temperature and sea level highstand was less and less, then the problem as usual with the study is gross bias, a serious ineptude with statistics seemingly peculiar to climate science, or, horror of horrors a deliberate manipulation to get what has become a clisci cliché, a ‘robust’ result.
Ice extent during the LIA was most certainly the greatest of the last 8 or 9 thousand years. Their underestimate of natural variation at a “third” of the the time covered by the study is a red flag. They seem to have gotten a surprise and having to admit a “third of the variation as natural was how they rescued the study.
How did they handle the main cycle of the entire Holocene itself? It would have been the elephant that actually overwhelmed most cycles however caused. 5000 – 8000 years ago open water of a major extent washed and built the driftwood littered sandy beaches on the north coast of Greenland!