“Just a few weeks ago, predictions of Arctic ice collapse were buzzing all over the internet. Some scientists were predicting that the ‘North Pole may be ice-free for first time this summer’. Others predicted that the entire ‘polar ice cap would disappear this summer’,” writes Steven Goddard in yesterday’s UK Register.
The article continues, “The Arctic melt season is nearly done for this year. The sun is now very low above the horizon and will set for the winter at the North Pole in five weeks. And none of these dire predictions have come to pass. Yet there is, however, something odd going on with the ice data…
Read more by clicking here.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado is a consistent exagerator and scare merchant. As if ice will continue to melt when the sun is just above the polar horizon and cloud cover is amongst the highest levels in the world.
Given what he had posted previously I wonder if “David” will have anything to say on this.
From Canada.com:
” ‘Unprecedented’ melt sinks hope for Arctic ice recovery
Rapid disintegration of ocean ice cover on track to set record
Randy Boswell , The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Monday, August 11, 2008
OTTAWA – The Arctic Ocean ice cover, which appeared earlier this summer to be headed for a moderate recovery after last year’s record-setting retreat, has begun disintegrating so rapidly in recent weeks that experts now say the ice loss by mid-September could exceed even 2007’s history-making meltdown”
” But recent storms in the Beaufort region “triggered steep ice losses,” he said, “and it now looks as if it will be a very close call indeed whether 2007 or 2008 is the worst year on record for ice cover over the Arctic.”
The Canadian government’s chief observers of Arctic ice conditions are expressing amazement at the state of the Beaufort Sea.
“We’ve never seen any kind of opening like this in history,” senior ice forecaster Luc Desjardins said of the Beaufort’s exceptional loss of ice this summer. “It is not only record-setting, it’s unprecedented. It doesn’t resemble anything that we’ve observed before.”
” Last year’s record melt is chiefly responsible for this year’s accelerating retreat of sea ice. So much of the thicker, multi-year ice in the Arctic was lost in 2007 that — despite a relatively cold winter — much more of the polar cap at the start of this year’s melt season consisted of thinner, weaker first-year ice that didn’t stand a chance of surviving the summer.
“It takes less solar energy to dissipate and melt that ice,” says Mr. Desjardins. “So we potentially could reach a new minimum. Time will tell if we are going to be approaching the 2007 sea-ice retreat — there still five weeks (of melting) to go.”
The persistent retreat of polar sea ice in recent years has convinced some researchers that the region is fast approaching a “tipping point” that could see nearly the entire Arctic ice-free during the summer months as early as 2013″
http://www.canada.com/topics/technology/science/story.html?id=93f9d0f6-4f11-4176-9e8a-783053479e9f&p=2
arctic sea ice might end up the second lowest result since measurement began.
this is happening, after denialists claimed that a new ice age has started, because of some cool winter months.
true story.
“.. because of some cool winter months..”
Yeah, like f’rinstance:
> “China battles “coldest winter in 100 years””
(uk.reuters.com/article/homepageCrisis/idUKPEK161570._CH_.242020080204)
> “record snow levels across Northeast America”
(www.nysun.com/new-york/global-warming-northeast-skies-through-a-snowy/74175/)
> “Record amounts of snow for parts of Canada”
(www.bbc.co.uk/weather/world/news/12042008news.shtml)
> etc.. etc.
That’s some “cool winter months”.
Kind of makes you wonder who the denialists are.
There’s no need to wonder about that Ivan. The denialists are clearly on the alarmist side of the argument. They even deny that they need evidence.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.anom.jpg
the evidence is there, for those who can see…
30 years of declining arctic ice.
confirming the global warming as laid out by all theories.
feel free to continue to ignore reality, bird.
Heavens sake, the Ming Dynasty Chinese were circumnavigating Siberia during the MWP – they have the charts to show it, as demonstrated by Gavin Menzies.
the chinese voyage is a fairytale.
it is somewhat strange that you guys are sceptic of mainstream peer reviewed climate facts but believe such nonsense without showing the slightest doubt…
sod: Arctic sea ice EXTENT has been decreasing since the 1950s.
http://i36.tinypic.com/vdpvd4.jpg
http://i37.tinypic.com/ogatd3.jpg
Source:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/SEAICE/
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/SEAICE/timeseries.1870-2007
Arctic sea ice extent is limited by North Atlantic and North Pacific Ocean currents. It will only grow so far, but it is likely to have been thicker and older in the recent past. I have found no long-term reconstructions of sea ice thickness or age.
I don’t know about the Chinese voyage, but Roald Amundsen wasn’t a fairy tale, he crossed the Northwest Passage in the early 1900’s
http://www.allthingsarctic.com/exploration/amundsen.aspx
The same goes for Royal Mounted Police Boat, St Roch, it sailed the Northwest Passage twice, first 1940-42 and a return trip in 1944 in 86 days.
http://hnsa.org/ships/stroch.htm
I think some need to get used to the fact that the Arctic oscillation causes ice minimums that happen every 40 – 50 years.
Some one also needs to explain why the Antarctic is about to break the record maximum for the second straight year.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.365.south.jpg
Hmmmm Mike C,what about this from Planet Ark:
” US: August 14, 2008
NEW YORK – Human activity and the El Nino weather pattern over the last century have warmed West Antarctica, part of the world’s coldest continent, according to a study based on four years of collecting ice core data.
The West Antarctic warmed in response to higher temperatures in the tropical Pacific, which itself has been warming due to weather patterns like a major El Nino event from 1939 to 1942 and greenhouse emissions from cars and factories, according to the study.
“An increasingly large part of the signal is becoming due to human activity,” said the study’s lead author David Schneider of the National Center for Atmospheric Research. The study appeared on Tuesday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Previous studies had showed the West Antarctic had cooled partly due to winds caused by depletion of the ozone layer.
The El Nino pattern is a periodic shift in air pressure accompanied by oceanic warming in the tropical Pacific.
Scientists are interested in whether warming will destabilize the West Antarctic ice sheet, which covers a region the size of Mexico and averages about 6,500 feet (1,980 meters) deep. If it all melted, it would raise sea levels by 8 to 16 feet (2.5 to 5 metres).
There are few historical records and little understanding of how ice sheets might react to rising temperatures due to global warming.
The study, supported by the National Science Foundation, showed the West Antarctic warned about 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit (0.9 C) over the 20th century, or slightly more than the global average of about 1.3 degrees F (0.7 C), though there was some uncertainty in the estimate.
The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change figured last year that Antarctica would not contribute to rising sea levels, and in fact predicted a growth of the big ice sheet the covers much of the continent from enhanced precipitation.
There are parts of Antarctica that are gaining snowfall and ice, Schneider said, but the overall trend for the continent is that the ice is diminishing. (For more Reuters information on the environment, see http://blogs.reuters.com/environment/) (Reporting by Timothy Gardner, editing by Chris Wilson)
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
You idiot Sod. Its not 30 years of declining sea ice. Its more than 200 years of declining sea ice. You’ve got nothing.
And its not going to last. The oceans have lost some of their energy but they accumulated a great deal during the 80’s and 90’s. When the oceans have that sort of energy and the North Atlantic Oscillation is in its appropriate phase then of course the ice will tend to melt in the summer and not accumulate all that much in the Winter.
As soon as those two don’t hold that ice will be back with a vengeance. But that the ice melts does not mean that the ocean and the planet are not cooling. The planet IS cooling and the evidence is all around you. Its probably outside your window.
This is yet another example where seeing things in terms of watts-per-square-metre and with some sort of static equilibrium model, blinds people to whats going on, robs people of any perspective to do with time and history, and generally makes idiots out of people.
We see this in economics all the time. Stupid economic models based on the concept of static-equilibrium. No time factor. Snapshot images of a firms output. No understanding of accumulating and changing capital to an industry.
In fact the alarmist view of ecology appears to be a stolen concept from classical economics. Everything in harmony so don’t interfere. Mans interference in the environment appears to be akin to bringing government interventionism into a harmonious economic market. This concept just taken holus bolus and grafted onto the natural world with man playing the role of government intervention. The natural world doesn’t even resemble this a little bit.
The alarmist view of Mother Nature also seems to be a stolen concept. They’ve got old testament Yahweh and put him in drag, changed his name to Gaia, and they imagine that we’ve broken Gaia’s covenant. So of course they suggest that Gaia will rain heavy vengeance down upon us.
But in truth Mother Nature does not resemble Yahweh in drag at all. She’s pagan. She’s not Judeo or Judeo-Christian. She’s a nazi bitch goddess who will harm you just out of caprice. She’s not vengeful she’s callous. She needs to be slapped around tamed.
Apart from some unfortunate land use habits (more to do with interventionism than Capitalism) its the standard way of things for Capitalism to improve the natural environment. Still such natural tendencies cannot explain the sheer dumb luck of CO2 emissions. Which is improving the natural world to the extent that it contributes to higher CO2 levels.
So add schneider and Birdie to the long list of antarctic shonks. Claims 1.6F of warming since 1940 but fails to mention that this is off a base of -30C. Still a damned long way before any ice melts. And the dumb turd apparently hasn’t even heard of the PDO, just tosses in a bit of El Nino bull$hit and then runs amok with his imagination on steroids. Give us a break.
And given that global temperature has not increased since 1998 and there has been even less warming in the southern hemisphere, perhaps Birdie would like to explain what is supposed to be still melting antarctic ice if it is not the f@#$%^g temperature.
this blog is attracting an absurd combination of denialist viewpoints…
it is not shrinking, it is shrinking but not a lot, it has always been shrinking, it is a cycle…
you do understand that you are all contradicting each other, don t you?
teh claim that the palnet is cooling is simply false.
the claim that CO2 production is a positive thing is false as well.
but let us assume for a moment that graeme is right (once in a lifetime, that is..).
so we assume that earth is COOLING, but mankind CO2 prodcution is (partially?) compensating that effect.
do you understand what sort of catastrophical warming we would see, if by chance it had been the other way round?!? (and as he admits, we didn t know when we started that CO2 thing..)
Look Sod you are an idiot. Lets go over it again. Its been melting for 200+ years. Are you with me so far?
Now what is it that you are having trouble with?
Look we KNOW that the planet is cooling you idiot. Before there was a global warming science fraud racket this is what was known as a FACT!!!!
Its a FACT that the planet is cooling. We have temperature records. We have argos floats. We have satelites. All sorts of things. The planet is cooling and thats what is known as a FACT.
But the planet can be cooling and the ice can still melt in the summer. This isn’t the least bit perplexing except for an idiot such as yourself.
We’ll go over it again shall we?
The oceans accumulated a lot of energy in the 80’s and 90’s and this has only recently gone into reverse. Hence when the North Atlantic Oscillation is in its current phase the ice can still melt.
Now what are you having trouble with. I can see you wrinkling that little alarmist brow of yours in a futile attempt to comprehend. But where specifically are you coming off the beam.
This is interesting because we get to see someone truly stupid trying to muddle through here.
“so we assume that earth is COOLING, but mankind CO2 prodcution is (partially?) compensating that effect.”
I didn’t say that. Because I’m not a leftist and I don’t want to be saying things for which I have no evidence. But its OBVIOUSLY a good thing if its true. If the CO2 is compensating a little bit thats clearly a good thing.
Because climate history tells us that the cold times are horrible. They are vicious. They are times with disastrous weather conditions, famines, droughts (yes cold times mean droughts and not the other way around).
So obviously if the colour of CO2 is warming even a little bit thats a good thing.
I remember the slow kids in class. Always putting their hand up “But I don’t understand”. Global warming appears to be science especially made for the stupid kids. They cannot understand real science. So we have global warming as science just for them.
Extra CO2 is good for dealing with any conditions that face us. Extra-CO2 makes the plants more resistant to drought and frost.
The planet is cooling and its not going to turn around and start warming. That would be impossible. It would be a situation of the sun acting differently than we’ve ever known it to act. It would be the case where the sun suddenly upticks to a whole new permanent level of activity.
But on the other hand that would be find too and we could deal with it. There is no problem with dealing with a sun that is too hot. We have the means to cool things. We just don’t have the means to warm things up.
“And given that global temperature has not increased since 1998 and there has been even less warming in the southern hemisphere, perhaps Birdie would like to explain what is supposed to be still melting antarctic ice if it is not the f@#$%^g temperature.”
For the love of God man. How many times do we have to go over this.
Lets go over this again shall we. The ice has been melting for 200+ years. It tends to melt when the NAO is in one phase and accumulate when it is in the other phase.
The planet is cooling NONETHELESS the oceans accumulated a great deal of energy in the 80’s and 90’s. If you cannot get this perhaps you might wish to put a chunk of ice in your bath, put the hot water on and wash some of the water down to the ice end of the bath.
The planet and the oceans are cooling but they ACCUMULATED a lot of energy during the 80’s and 90’s. Its not the instantaneous equilibrium that you stupid people imagine it to be.
Look you are just going to have to keep reading my posts until you comprehend. Just read them and read them and read them again.
I guess thats the main point here ITS NOT THE INSTANTANEOUS EQUILIBRIUM THAT YOU NUTBALLS IMAGINE IT TO BE.
That the planet is cooling does not mean that the ice will accumulate synchronised with that. Why would it?
The ice will be back soon. It comes back when the NAO changes its phase and since we will not see the same solar activity as we did in the 20th Century then the ice will be back good and strong.
“the evidence is there, for those who can see…”
Brilliant — you are an absolute genius!
You have managed to correctly predict the past 30 years. Ever since the last ‘global cooling’ scare finished ca. 1978, the earth has been warming and the polar ice cap has been shrinking. And to think that they needed a model to predict something that happened 70 years ago. Amazing.
But … umm … just one silly question.
If I look at the right hand side of the graph, I notice that 2008 produced the largest single jump UPWARDS within a single year (+2.8).
This is nothing to worry about — right? It’s just another symptom of this global warming phenomenon — as laid out by all your theories — right?
Or do we just ignore it and hope it goes away?
Sigh. Weather is not climate.
Sod:
“you do understand that you are all contradicting each other, don t you?”
No, we understand that you don’t understand context Sod.
“arctic sea ice might end up the second lowest result since measurement began.”
A. Measurement began a very short time ago.
B. Second lowest isn’t the lowest that all of you warmers have been bragging about.
“Look we KNOW that the planet is cooling you idiot.”
it is NOT cooling. look at the facts:
http://www.greenfacts.org/nl/klimaatverandering-ar4/images/figure-spm-4-p11.jpg
even without human interference, the planet would NOT be cooling significantly.
“B. Second lowest isn’t the lowest that all of you warmers have been bragging about.”
Tilo, welcome to this discussion. you fit in perfectly with this crowed!
and i knew you would be around to shout “second lowest is not lowest”.
perhaps you might think for a second and notice how stupid that is?!?
but please tell me and Bird: do you believe that the planet has been cooling for 200 years?
No you are lying. The planet is cooling. The hottest year of air temperatures was 1998. The imbedded energy in the oceans peaked around 2003 or so.
Forget Goddard they are frauds. So the planet is cooling.
You are just a bullshit-artist Sod. I checked out your graphs and they don’t go as far as when the planet finally started cooling.
The planet was warming. Now its cooling. Have you sorted that out yet? Do you know ANYONE that reckons the planet was cooling during the last 200 years? So you are wasting peoples time with your dishonesty.
The fact is that the planet is cooling.
lol, sorry, you got me all confused with all your false statements.
the earth is NOT cooling. that 1998 was the hottest year does not show that it is.
Tilo Reber will be able to tell you, that his analysis showed that it isn t cooling.
sod…..LOL! I remember you from when you used to troll CA, but then you decided to sod off. Why was that, do you remember? You won’t fare any better here, either. LOL!
No you are just full of shit. The planet is cooling. 1998 was the hottest year in terms of AIR TEMPERATURE. But thats not the best metric.
The Argos floats show that the planet is cooling. That the peak was early this century. So the planet is cooling and you are full of shit. Both the air temperature and the imbedded energy in the oceans concur that the planet is cooling whereas no data can be found to suggest that the planet is warming.
There is no getting away from the fact that the planet is cooling. It cannot be wished away since we have all the data.
It is simply beyond the powers of Tilo Reber or anyone else to rerig the data to show warming.
Birdie said…”From Canada.com:”
I’m from Canada, and our media and global warming science is the laughing stock of the world. Please don’t quote Canada.com, that right-wing bastion of Neanderthal thought.
Recently, I contacted an editor at one of the newspapers and asked why we couldn’t have more coverage of alternate views on global warming. I included a lengthy explanation with the submission. He replied that the newspaper only covered what the ‘vast majority’ of scientists believed, and that what I had written covered a minority. There you have it from one of Canada’s leading newspapers: the only thing that sells newspapers is majority opinion.
We run a computer model in Canada (GCM) that is highly controversial for it’s extreme predictions for future climate states. It is predicting at the extreme end of possible scenarios with 10 C predicted warming in places. It predicted warming in the US Gulf states to 49 C (120 F).
Pat Michaels has humourously pointed out that the Gulf of Mexico would have to be drained and blacktopped for that eventuality. Oceans moderate temperatures. Rio has highs in the low 90 F because of the phenomenon yet it is near the equator.
Modelers don’t like to be influenced by fact. Their entire world is the content of their computer programs, which reflects the content of their minds. Reality ‘is’ that content to them, with the real world regarded as a mere nuisance.
One of the colleagues of the Canadian GCM group, a meteorologists, claims on his website that his forecasts are not guaranteed. The AGW crowd insist that predicting weather and climate are two different things, but how can that be? A prediction is a prediction. One would think a weekly forecast would be much easier than one for years in advance. If the Canadian can’t guarantee a forecast of a few days, how can he predict climate where many theories are poorly understood?
In the 2001 assessment (TAR), the IPCC stated clearly that future climate states could NOT be predicted and that science was reliant on ‘probabilities’ based on ‘various’ computer models. They did not rescind that finding in the 2007 assessment, they merely omitted it. The Canadian model is one of those ‘various’ models and I’m sure its extreme predictions are factored in to many climate predictions.
Given the forecast for the Arctic archipeligo for the next 3 months, an ice melt record is very unlikely to be set!
http://www.weatheroffice.gc.ca/saisons/image_e.html?img=s234fe1t_s
It’s just more bull$hit from the global warming crackpots!
Gordon Robertson observes:
“The AGW crowd insist that predicting weather and climate are two different things, but how can that be? A prediction is a prediction. One would think a weekly forecast would be much easier than one for years in advance.”
The difference between the two is one of scope and specificity. A weather prediction will predict a specific temperature in a specific location at a specific time in the immediate future. A climate prediction, however, predicts the average temperature over a large area at some distant point in the future. My weatherman cannot predict with much certain what the precise temperature will be one month from now, but he can say with great certainty that it will be a lot colder on January 1st than on September 16th.
I often use an analogy with economics to make the point. It would be very easy to predict that the Smith family of Battle Mountain, Nevada will spend $X next month on food. They’ve been doing that every month for the last ten years. But if we want to talk about total consumption of all forms of food all over the country in 20 years’ time, that’s a completely different calculation. But we can make estimates of population growth and come up with a really good prediction for the grand total. Even then, however, we can’t predict how much the Smiths will be spending in 20 years’ time.
So weather is not climate, in the same way that one person’s spending is not the economy.
Bird, you are a serious liability to the sceptic cause. Your posts have the tone of someone who hasn’t had a bowel movement in three weeks. You take one piece of a complex truth, like the the past 200 years of warming from the LIA, and use it like a bludgeon, even on fellow sceptics.
The reconstructions of global temperature that adjust for the cooling impact of EL Chichon and Mt Pinatubo make it clear that temperature has been in plateau since at least 1992, if not 1983. The downturn in temperature since 1998 is still within the range of variation, both positive and negative, that has taken place since 1992. So it remains too insignificant to be called a cooling, just yet.
Never-the-less, this temperature plateau is totally at variance with the CO2 forcing assumptions embodied in the climate muddles. The actual rise in CO2 has not been matched by any rise in temperature.
The lower temperatures of this year have clearly put egg on the faces of the alarmists and their ice fantasies but your claim that 5 years of contrary data represents a fundamental trend is the same sort of bull$hit that the climate zombies have been dishing up.
Yes, the early evidence points to a strong possibility that we are in a cooling event but we can hardly argue that the last quarter of the 20th century was just a cyclical upturn when we have bogans like you claiming 5 years is a trend.
My advice to you is to do us all a favour. First get some roughage in your diet, take a good dump and then get yourself a blow job.
Graeme:
“It is simply beyond the powers of Tilo Reber or anyone else to rerig the data to show warming.”
I’m not showing warming Graeme. I’m showing that the trend is flat for the last 11 years. I’m missing the last couple of months, so I need to update this chart. But the result of the update will be that the trend is slightly more negative. Still, by my standard it’s currently flat.
http://reallyrealclimate.blogspot.com/2008/06/11-year-temperature-anomoly.html
I don’t know why Sod wants to use an un-updated 100 year chart. Well, actually, I do. He wants to hide what has happened in the last decade.
Ian Mott – “Bird, you are a serious liability to the sceptic cause. Your posts have the tone of someone who hasn’t had a bowel movement in three weeks. You take one piece of a complex truth, like the the past 200 years of warming from the LIA, and use it like a bludgeon, even on fellow sceptics.”
Never thought I would see the day when I would agree with you. Just goes to show miracles do happen.
There could be any number of reasons why the Artic sea ice fluctuates so much.Just change in ocean currents can be a major cause.If the world is warming,then why has the Antartic remained constant in total area of ice in the last 30yrs?Just a slight change in the tilting of the earth’s axis can affect the ocean currents in the Artic.Some 3000 NASA robots have detected a slight cooling of the oceans.
There are just too many complexities that we are not even aware of ,let alone how they interact.How can computer models effectively represent something so complex as climate when then don’t have the data,programmes,maths,physics,chemistry to represent the real world?At best they are having an educated guess.The ice core data reveals that CO2 follows heating by some 800 yrs.The reality turned out to be the reverse of conventional wisdom.Christpher Scotese discovered this via his fossils a long time ago but he was ignored.
Sixty minutes will air another scare campaign tonight showing the melting of ice in the Artic.You can bet it won’t be balanced.
Tilo – “I don’t know why Sod wants to use an un-updated 100 year chart. Well, actually, I do. He wants to hide what has happened in the last decade.”
No like all of us we would prefer you to show the whole picture rather than the selected part that shows what you want to see.
Perhaps we should cherry pick the bit from 1978 to 1988 as proof positive that global warming is happening.
“I’m not showing warming Graeme. I’m showing that the trend is flat for the last 11 years.”
It isn’t flat and you are only using one metric. Have you got Argos float data? You’d have to be blind to 1998 to claim it was flat. You would have to be taking mentally 1998 out of the picture.
Given that El Nino’s are not caused by industrial-CO2 release there is no need to be heeding alarmist calls and taking 1998 out of the picture. 1998 happened. And if your start date is 1998 there is no point pretending that on that metric, with that start date its not a cooling trend. You’d have to be deaf, dumb and blind not to see it.
Now if you want something a bit more statistically significant, if the mere fact of us cooling isn’t enough for you, well the fact is that we have been cooling for 5000 years.
And beyond that we have been cooling for 55 million years.
It all depends on your start and finish dates. Me I’m mostly talking about since 2002.
If the liars are going to keep claiming we have been warming I’ll claim that we have been cooling. Since thats just a fact.
“The reconstructions of global temperature that adjust for the cooling impact of EL Chichon and Mt Pinatubo make it clear that temperature has been in plateau since at least 1992, if not 1983. The downturn in temperature since 1998 is still within the range of variation, both positive and negative, that has taken place since 1992. So it remains too insignificant to be called a cooling, just yet.”
It may not be significant to you. But its cooling just the same. Apart from that I don’t see where you are differing from me on anything much at all. I do remember making a post in error sometime back.
Do let me know if you come up with anything that I can disagree with.
What I cannot come at is this idea that we ought to be bigoted against 1998. Like we ought to just leave that out of the picture on account of being bludgeoned to be bigoted against it by the lunatics.
Its there. Its part of the data. Its a result of solar activity. And there is no way to leave it out. There will be less of the Forbush events to add that sort of energy to the oceans if the sun is less active as the solar people tell us the sun will be.
maybe the arctic fluctuates because of heating from below.
“Jets of searingly hot water spewing up from the ocean floor have been discovered in a far-northern zone of the Arctic Ocean, Swiss-based scientists announced Monday. ”
http://www.physorg.com/news137079920.html
The link to the current Artic sea ice is:
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png
It will get close to last years minima, a minima that was 30% below the previous record. (i.e., if 2007 didnt occur, 2008 would be the lowest Arctic sea ice, by quite a margin, since whole-of-arctic observations became possible.)
As for the ARGOS claims, a few corrections are needed; 1) There is no statistically significant trend in the argos floats data, 2) Data is only since 2003, whereas we know it takes well over a decade to detect reliable trends, 3) the argos rollout only finished in 2007, so there has not been complete global coverage, particularly of the high latitudes, and 4) what we do know is that the global sea level has risen, and that there simply isn’t enough glacial ice melt to account for this, hence thermal expansion (i.e., warming) must still be occuring.
Hope this assists your understanding.
AB: “what we do know is that the global sea level has risen, and that there simply isn’t enough glacial ice melt to account for this, hence thermal expansion (i.e., warming) must still be occuring.”
You stupid twit, thermal expansion of the ocean has been going on since the last ice age and will likely go on for some time given the average temperature of the ocean is only 4.8 deg. C. vs. ~12.5 deg. C. for the surface!
AB the global sea level has risen by 12mm.The diameter of the earth is over 12.7 billion mm.Just movements in the core mantle or the earth’s crust easily account for variations as small as 12mm.With variations in the tides ,how long have they been able to accurately determine a bench mark for sea level?These changes might just be natural variations that occur over several decades.The measuring of this also has a nebulus nature.You cannot assume that warming of the oceans has caused the expansion,nor can you assume that CO2 is the culprit.
Science should dispense with the alarmist nonsense and do a lot more research.
“You stupid twit, thermal expansion of the ocean has been going on since the last ice age”
Did the ocean continue to expand during the Little Ice Age?
“It isn’t flat and you are only using one metric.”
Okay, show me your metric for the last 11 years.
“Given that El Nino’s are not caused by industrial-CO2 release there is no need to be heeding alarmist calls and taking 1998 out of the picture. 1998 happened. And if your start date is 1998 there is no point pretending that on that metric, with that start date its not a cooling trend. You’d have to be deaf, dumb and blind not to see it.”
You are truely a blabbering fool Graeme. Did you even look at the chart that I gave you. If you did, you wouldn’t be makeing the idiotic guesses about 98 that you are making. I went ahead and updated it for the last 2 month. Here it is again.
http://reallyrealclimate.blogspot.com/2008/06/11-year-temperature-anomoly.html
My statement stands. Clearly we have cooling. You want to put some proviso on it that it doesn’t live up to some statistical measure well thats fine. But you don’t want to be mealy-mouthed over the basic fact that we have cooling. When alarmists say that we have warming well we don’t. We have cooling. As your graph shows.
Most of all we don’t want to leave out 1998. Given that the warming was caused by solar activity and not by industrial-CO2 it makes no sense to disaggregate it and leave it out and say “Ho ho that was El Nino”
The link to the current Artic sea ice is:
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/AMSRE_Sea_Ice_Extent.png
Ian:
“And given that global temperature has not increased since 1998 and there has been even less warming in the southern hemisphere, perhaps Birdie would like to explain what is supposed to be still melting antarctic ice if it is not the f@#$%^g temperature.”
First, you should consider that the northern and southern hemispheres have diverged quite a bit in the last decade.
Second, you should consider that different systems have different lag times. Surface temp hasn’t risen for the last 11 years. Ocean temperatures haven’t risen for the last five. Sea levels haven’t risen for the last 3. We may have been well above the melting level of NH sea ice at the turn of the century, but the mass of sea ice we had meant that we would not reach an equilibrium for some time. In other words, we may only have reached the point in 2008 where we became cool enough, with the ocean being cool enough, to finally reverse the ice loss trend. Also much of 2007 NH ice loss was due to winds and currents.
Chris Crawford said…”A weather prediction will predict a specific temperature in a specific location at a specific time in the immediate future. A climate prediction, however, predicts the average temperature over a large area at some distant point in the future”.
Chris thanks for explanation, but I still feel that a prediction is a prediction and the weather/climate arguement comes down to the chicken/egg problem. I don’t think it’s proper to talk about a global climate or a future climate. Even the IPCC says you can’t predict future climate states, so that brings us back to computer model theory.
Separating weather from climate is like splitting hairs to me because they are both localized and widespread phenomena in a sense. The ‘weather’ aspect comes from the need for local forecasts but that does not mean a weather system is local. We use the term ‘climate’ in the general sense to mean the ambience in a region over time. Is it wet, is it dry, is it hot or cold. Naturally, hot dry climes can be very wet at times and desert regions are famed for being hot in the day and cold at night. Those local ambient conditions can be due to local conditions, or affected by large scale weather systems.
The long term trend of weather systems is climate, would you agree? The climate in a region can be influenced by the climates in adjacent regions. For example, hot warm air rises in the tropics, condenses and cool. Precipitation removes moisture from the air and that cooler, dry air falls into the desert regions adjacent to the tropics. Precipitation and temperature are signatures of weather but also of climate.
How does one go about predicting climate change? The IPCC said they can’t do it. Then they go on to say the only thing they can do is use an educated guessing system in a computer model. If they can’t do it directly that presumes they don’t know what causes climate change in the first place. So how are models going to do it when they are programmed by the very thought processes that did not know how in the first place? There are no magical properties in computers and the program is a reflection of human thought with all it’s biases and distortions.
I recommend you read the two recent books by Patrick Michaels: The Satanic Gases (2000) and Meltdown (2004). I found my copies in the local library. Don’t worry, Michaels isn’t the type who lords his dogma over the reader. He offers data and generally leaves the conclusion up to the reader. I found him to be surprisingly openminded. I was hoping he would be much more of a skeptic than what he is. 🙂
Even though he has been tarred by Greenpeace as an oil company hack, he was actually a skeptic before Western Fuels approached him. He does not deny warming or the human influence, he just doesn’t think it’s a big deal. Michaels is more concerned about the economic impact of Kyoto-type agreements than climate disaster.
There’s a difference in my mind between a scientist who is on an oil company payroll and one who is aproached by an oil company because they like his theories. Pat Michaels did not like what James Hansen was saying in the mid 1980’s, and he took him on in principle. Michaels was not working for oil interest in the beginning and his studies were based more on the temperature history. His prediction, and those of his colleagues at the University of Virginia, came from how the Earth had responded to years of rising CO2 emissions.
Hansen became the AGW guru, and Michaels the anti-guru but he has a sense of humour about it. It was after he made a name for himself as a skeptic that Western Fuels approached him, offering to sponsor his cause. Hansen based his predictions on models and was wrong. Michaels based his on temperature history and has been right, so far. So, it was never an oil company sponsored scientist hitting out at a theory that might hurt the company or his interests. It was a scientist with a different approach, whose theories appealed to oil companies.
I have fallen prey to that myself. I have never voted for a Conservative government in my life but I find myself considering it now. The Tories in Canada are the only party opposed to Kyoto. It’s a conflict of interest for me because I know their reason for the opposition is their backers in the oil industry, for whom I have no appreciation. I may be wrong, of course, maybe they really are conservative and opposed to change. By the same token, I can see an honest scientist accepting funding from an oil company, so long as he is not required to accept their dogma, and he is not required to lie for the backing.
Hansen is sponsored by the US government and his patron was Al Gore. Even though Hansen may fund his own activism, he nevertheless has the name of NASA and the salary and perks that comes with his position. It’s tough for an independent scientist to fund himself against such power. Sure, it smells of a conflict of interest but I found no bias in his books. Michaels is a scientist, first and foremost, and he knows his stuff. Even if you don’t agree with him, I think reading him would be informative. It would be a shame to miss his books because you thought he was on the payroll of the oil companies.
Anyway, Michaels explains weather/climate systems really well, and what I got was that even local weather is influenced by systems that are thousands of miles long. For example, the jet stream runs at the convergence of the cold, dry Arctic air and the moister, warm tropical air. It can stretch right across a continent.
There are a tremendous amounts of updrafts due to the cold, dry air meeting the warm, moist air, and local weather is directly influenced by that phenomena. Same for systems on the east coast of North America. Local weather in Boston, Mass., is dependent on systems that run over a thousand miles northeast out over the Atlantic from the SE states. They can tell a lot by which way the winds are blowing, from the NE or to the NE.
I don’t think it’s possible to slice off a chunk of a bigger system and call that weather.
Regarding tonights 60 Minutes, Dr David Evans was approached to contribute ( as a result of his recent excellent article in The Australian).
The reporters who interviewed him sensed that here were facts which could blow the AGW case apart, and could make for sensational television. They consulted management on the issue and requested icreasing the story from one segment to two in the programme.
Meanwhile apparently the AGW “Thought Police” leaned on Channel 9, who then directed the production team to cut it back to one segment and make it less contraversial!
Bad luck for David and bad luck for truth.
And just shows how the sinister AGW tenticles appear to have such a grip on our media.
“..who then directed the production team to cut it back to one segment and make it less contraversial!”
… and apparently to run it when it would be up against the Olympics as well.
” Climate myths: Global warming stopped in 1998
11:00 15 August 2008
NewScientist.com news service
Michael Le Page
PrintSendFeeds UK Met Office Hadley Centre datasetEnlarge NASA’s global temperature land-ocean indexEnlarge Satellite imagery of sea surface temperatures taken during January 1998 shows the strong El Nino that helped make it one of the hottest years on record. (Image: NOAA)EnlargeAdvertisement
See all the climate myths in our special feature
Even if the atmospheric temperature near the earth’s surface has become cooler recently, that doesn’t mean the planet as a whole isn’t heating up
Imagine two people standing at the South Pole, one dressed in full Antarctic gear and the other wearing not much at all. Now imagine that you’re looking through one of those infrared thermal imagers that show how hot things are. Which person will look warmest – and which will be frozen solid after a few hours?
The answer, of course, is that the near-naked person will appear hotter: but because they are losing heat fast, they will freeze long before the person dressed more appropriately for the weather.
The point is that you have to look beyond the surface to understand how a body’s temperature will change over time – and that’s as true of planets as it is of warm-blooded bipeds.
Now take a look at the two main compilations (see figures, right) of global surface temperatures, based on monthly records from weather stations around the world.
According to the dataset of the UK Met Office Hadley Centre (see figure), 1998 was the warmest year by far since records began, but since 2003 there has been slight cooling.
But according to the dataset of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (see figure), 2005 was the warmest since records began, with 1998 and 2007 tied in second place.
Tracking the heat
Why the difference? The main reason is that there are no permanent weather stations in the Arctic Ocean, the place on Earth that has been warming fastest. The Hadley record simply excludes this area, whereas the NASA version assumes its surface temperature is the same as that of the nearest land-based stations.
It is possible that the NASA approach underestimates the rate of warming in the Arctic Ocean, but for the sake of argument let’s assume that the Hadley record is the most accurate reflection of changes in global surface temperatures. Doesn’t it show that the world has cooled since the record warmth of 1998, as many claim?
Not necessarily. The Hadley record is based only on surface temperatures, so it reflects only what’s happening to the very thin layer where air meets the land and sea.
In the long term, what matters is how much heat is gained or lost by the entire planet – what climate scientists call the “top of the atmosphere” radiation budget – and falling surface temperatures do not prove that the entire planet is losing heat.
Swaddling gases
Think again about that scantily clad person at the South Pole. If they put on some clothing, they’ll appear cooler to a thermal imager, but what’s really happening is that they are losing less heat.
Similarly, if you could look at Earth through a thermal imager, it would appear slightly cooler than it did a few decades ago. The reason is that the outer atmosphere, the stratosphere, is cooler because we’ve added more “clothing” to the lower atmosphere in the form of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide.
As a result, the planet is gaining as much heat from the sun as usual but losing less heat every year as greenhouse gas levels rise (apart from the exceptional periods after major volcanic eruptions, such as El Chichon in 1982 and Pinatubo in 1991).
How do we know? Because the oceans are getting warmer.
Tricky oceans
Water stores an immense amount of heat compared with air. It takes more than 1000 times as much energy to heat a cubic metre of water by 1 degree Centigrade as it does the same volume of air. Since the 1960s, over 90% of the excess heat due to higher greenhouse gas levels has gone into the oceans, and just 3% into warming the atmosphere (see figure 5.4 in the IPCC report (PDF)).
Globally, this means that if the oceans soak up a bit more heat energy than normal, surface air temperatures can fall even though the total heat content of the planet is rising. Conversely, if the oceans soak up less heat than usual, surface temperatures will rise rapidly.
This is why surface temperatures do not necessarily rise steadily year after year, even though the planet as a whole is heating up a bit more every year. Most of the year-to-year variability in surface temperatures is due to heat sloshing back and forth between the oceans and atmosphere, rather than to the planet as a whole gaining or losing heat.
The record warmth of 1998 was not due to a sudden spurt in global warming but to a very strong El Nino (see figure, right). In normal years, trade winds keep hot water piled up on the western side of the tropical Pacific.
During an El Nino, the winds weaken and the hot water spreads out across the Pacific in a shallow layer. Its heat is transferred to the atmosphere. (During a La Nina, by contrast, as occurred during the early part of 2008, the process is reversed and upwelling cold water in the eastern Pacific soaks up heat from the atmosphere.)
A temporary fall in the heat content of the oceans at this time may have been due to the extra strong El Nino.
What next?
Since 1999, however, the heat content of the oceans has steadily increased again (despite claims to the contrary). Global warming has certainly not stopped, even if average surface temperatures really have fallen slightly as the Hadley figures suggest.
In the long term, some of the heat being soaked up by the oceans will inevitably spill back into the atmosphere, raising surface temperatures. Warmer oceans also mean rising sea levels, due to both thermal expansion and the melting of the floating ice shelves that slow down glaciers sliding off land into the sea. The West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which rests on the seabed rather than on land, is also highly vulnerable to rising sea temperatures.
Some climate scientists are predicting that surface temperatures will remain static or even fall slightly over the next few years, before warming resumes. Their predictions are based largely on the idea that changes in long-term fluctuation in ocean surface temperatures known as the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation will bring cooler sea surface temperatures.
If these predictions are right – and not all climate scientists think they are – you can expect to hear more claims from climate-change deniers about how global warming has stopped. But unless we see a simultaneous fall in both surface temperatures and ocean-heat content, claims that the “entire planet” is cooling are nonsense.
And while a big volcanic eruption could indeed trigger genuine cooling for a few years, global warming will resume again once the dust has settled.
Learn more about climate myths in our special feature
Climate Change: Want to know more about global warming: the science, impacts and political debate? Visit our continually updated special report.”
Link to the New Scientist article:
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn14527
Weather prediction seems to be 50/50 – random.
This means we do not understand what causes weather.
And no one seems to be aware of this problem?
I was very amused watching Rudderless playing “Whack-a-Mole” on 60 Minutes tonight. He was brave enough to stick the top of his head up with a couple of platitudes (“xx of the yy hottest years have been in the last zz years”), but as soon as he got a difficult follow-up question, he immediately ducked for cover with the standard “The IPCC says …”
This is interesting. Apparently Rudderless has taken a leaf out of the Great Guano’s book – this is his stock-standard answer as well. These ETS pushers are all smart enough to realise that when AGW turns to $hit and they need scapegoats, that it is the gubmint science boys who are going to take all the flak. Which, of course, will be a good start.
“Even if the atmospheric temperature near the earth’s surface has become cooler recently, that doesn’t mean the planet as a whole isn’t heating up…”
Right. But we know it isn’t heating up since we have the ocean data. So thats the end of that one.
With this evidence, can we now take polar bears off of the endangered species list?
Gordon Robertson, you present two points:
The first is that weather and climate aren’t really different. Again, the difference is scope and scale. The difference between weather and climate is analogous to the difference between the trees and the forest. It’s the small picture versus the big picture — and by “big”, I mean not just spatial but temporal. Right now we’re having a heat wave where I live, and it happens to be cooler south of us. Our weather right now is hotter than their weather, but our climate is cooler than their climate. That’s the difference.
Your second concern arises from the nature of prediction. I think you’re taking an overly black-and-white approach: either you can or you cannot predict the future. The reality is gray. You can make predictions that are more accurate, and predictions that are less accurate. We can make really good predictions for the climate in my location over the next five years. Looking ten years into the future, our predictions are not so good. Looking 50 years into the future, our predictions aren’t very reliable — but we can still make predictions and, if they’re broad enough, they can still be useful. We don’t know whether the climate in North American will be 10 degrees hotter or 8 degrees hotter, but we can be pretty sure that it will more than 3 degrees hotter and less than 15 degrees hotter. That’s a pretty broad uncertainty band, to be sure — but it’s still useful, and as the science gets better, we can narrow the uncertainty band.
Sid Reynolds is pushing the conspiracy theory:
“Meanwhile apparently the AGW “Thought Police” leaned on Channel 9″
You see how deeply ingrained conspiracy theory is in the opposition to AGW?
New Scientist is part of Al Gore’s propaganda machine
“New Scientist is part of Al Gore’s propaganda machine”
More conspiracy theory!
Not necessarily. New Scientist could just be staffed by idiots like yourself. In any case an aversion to conspiracy theory is no proof of anything. Leftists are stupid and tribal. They act AS IF they are part of a conspiracy instinctually.
“In any case an aversion to conspiracy theory is no proof of anything.”
Correct. I have been using a piece of link analysis software (similar to what the cops use to analyse major fraud cases) to analyse the linkages between all the people listed on the front page of the AR4 Synthesis Report.
The results of this analysis so far is that there is a near 0% probability that all of these people have come together as a result of any recognised process of independent selection – (which is one definition of a conspiracy). It makes a further assessment that these linkage structures are similar to those seen in the mafia.
Boy, Ivan, is THAT an example of conspiracy theory thinking!
Yes, people who work in the same fields share a lot of common links. Why is such an obvious fact of any significance?
So .. it’s all for the greater good is it?
No independent checks and balances?
No independent reviewers?
Trust us – we’re climate scientists?
Almost no other legitimate commercial or governmental endeavour would tolerate this closed community of interest organisational structure.
You AGW guys are far more dangerous than I ever suspected.
Birdie forgot to mention that solids require even more energy to heat. And the climate muddles conveniently assume that no heat is transferred to any of the solid we know as the earth’s crust. That is, both land and ocean beds.
Yet, we know that past atmospheric temperature changes leave a signature down through the soil and rock strata. And over time, this slow but consistent transfer of heat to global solids must operate to reduce any modelled cumulative atmospheric and oceanic warming.
Conversely, a single cubic metre of molten lava on the sea bed, at 1203 degrees C. will release enough heat to warm in the order of 10,000m3 of water by 0.5C.
Ivan, you ask if there are independent reviewers and independent checks and balances. Indeed there are. You seem to think that scientists are part of some huge global organization. They’re not. They are scattered all over the world in a huge variety of institutions. In other words, they’re ALL independent!
Ian, what you’re describing is part of the “heat capacity” of the earth, defined as the amount of energy necessary to increase its temperature by one degree K. Most of the heat capacity of the earth is in the oceans, not the rock, because most atmospheric heat (or coolness) penetrates only a few cms into the earth most places. The heat capacity of the earth’s oceans is about 5 * 10**24 JK**-1. Thus, if the sun were to simply disappear, the oceans of the earth would initially cool at a rate of about one ºK per year. Similarly, if the sun were suddenly to double in brightness, the oceans of the earth would increase temperature at the rate of about 1 ºK per year. This is one reason why it’s so silly to check the latest weather reports to decide whether the earth’s temperature is increasing or decreasing: the oceans smooth out the changes so that they take place more slowly than would be the case without their heat capacity.
As for the transfer of heat to the earth’s crust, the thermal gradient points in the reverse direction: heat is traveling outward from the core because of the heat being generated throughout the earth’s interior by the decay of radioactive species.
“you ask if there are independent reviewers and independent checks and balances. Indeed there are.”
Indeed there are not – and if you either can’t see this, or refuse to accept it, then you are either disingenuous or just plain dumb.
Compare the IPCC AR4 Synthesis Report authors and editors to any Superior court in a representative democracy.
Let’s first take the High Court or Supreme court. All the judges appointed to these courts would have known and worked with each other in their careers. But what are the chances that all of the judges on any superior court would agree with each other (i.e. consensus) on all significant points? It would never happen – and the headlines would scream “Stacking the Bench” if it even looked like this might be happening.
Now let’s take the IPCC. Like the legal framework, AGW is also not based on any hard-and-fast science, but rather on the interpretation of a set of observations, and the projection of this guesswork into the future based on some computer modelling. (The law, is at least based on some written words that can be subejct to interpretation.)
The IPCC and its AGW adherents seems to be quite comfortable in letting a group of so-called experts come together virtually on the say-so or recommendation of each other. There is no independent review of the people who are appointed to these positions to assess their qualifications. There is no audit or independent review of their output – if there was, there would be dissenting opinions and/or minority reports WITHIN the IPCC framework (fat chance of that). Rather, any dissent has been rigorously expunged such that you are left with this cabal of similar-thinking adherents. Much like the Politburo.
This would not be tolerated in any other field of endeavour – in fact, as soon as everyone started agreeing with each other, alarm bells would go off. Most reputable organisations have corporate governance committees in place expressly to make sure that this sort of thing can’t happen, and that there is a diversity of opinions and some degree of independence in selection processes. All except for Enron, of course.
Not so, Chris Crawford. I don’t have a link to the papers but recent studies have found clear evidence of deeply penetrating heat signatures in bedrock. So there are two heat sources for the planetary crust. One is external and travelling down while the other is internal travelling up.
It follows that a change in the intensity of the external source, either by increased inputs or by increased retention will eventually produce a new equilibrium point in the crust where the new values meet.
Those (including climate muddlers) who would have us believe that the apparent short term mass characteristics of surface solids is consistent with the long term actuality are essentially arguing that heat does not, and will not, transfer from liquids and gas to a solid. It is blatant crap.
And your continual attempts to portray scepticism as a conspiracy theory fool no-one. Evidence of fraud is not a theory, it is a fact. Get used to it.
A demonstrated reluctance to divulge source data is not a theory, it is evidence of a fundamental unwillingness to account for and substantiate one’s statements. It is evidence of an intention to be selective with the truth and a strong indicator of a willingness to actively mislead.
I could go through a whole series of primary and secondary indicators of fraud that are consistently exhibited by the IPCC in particular and the climate mafia in general. But that information would only teach the scumbags how to be better liars so readers will just have to take my word for it.
Chris,
When you say “We don’t know whether the climate in North American will be 10 degrees hotter or 8 degrees hotter, but we can be pretty sure that it will more than 3 degrees hotter and less than 15 degrees hotter”, I am, of course, assuming that you have some verifiable data that supports this assertion.
Would you be good enough to share it with everyone and provide the references?
Ivan challenges my assertion that there are independent reviewers of climate change science — and then spends the rest of his time talking about the IPCC process. I am talking about the literature upon which the IPCC bases its conclusions. That literature is most definitely created under strict protocols that insure lots of independent review and criticism. Thus, the foundations upon which the IPCC process is built are most definitely operating with independent review.
Ivan asks “what are the chances that all of the judges on any superior court would agree with each other (i.e. consensus) on all significant points?”
Indeed, they are low. But that’s because easy cases are dealt with in lower courts. The highest courts get only the real wobblers that could go either way. The IPCC has to deal with all the issues; some are very easy to achieve agreement on, and the IPCC writes those as having “high confidence”. Other issues are more controversial, and the IPCC tags those as “low confidence” statements. Your suggestion that the IPCC is some sort of monolithic bloc — well, that’s just conspiracy theory.
“The IPCC and its AGW adherents seems to be quite comfortable in letting a group of so-called experts”
Are you saying that the people writing the IPCC reports are not experts? Could you name names and reveal those persons whom you regard to be fraudulent experts?
Ian Mott rejects my assertion that heat from the surface doesn’t penetrate deep into the earth: “I don’t have a link to the papers but recent studies have found clear evidence of deeply penetrating heat signatures in bedrock.”
The trick here, perhaps, is the difference between heat and “heat signatures”. Perhaps you’re referring to something like the Oklo reactor, or some other indicator of high temperatures. In any event, I think it incumbent upon you to either produce some sort of evidence for your assertion, or at least define your terms precisely. What’s a “heat signature”?
By the way, I’m not arguing that heat cannot transfer from the surface to the interior. I’m arguing that the temperature difference between surface and subsurface is usually negative (it’s hotter down below that it is on the surface) so there’s no delta-T to drive much heat transfer. For example, for much of North America the temperature of the soil a few feet down is fairly stable at around 10ºC – 15ºC. When the surface is warmer than this, then heat moves downward. But when the surface is colder than this, heat moves upward. So in general what we see is an oscillation, with heat moving downward in the summer, but moving upward during the rest of the year.
I must say, there’s something ironic about your last two paragraphs. In the first paragraph, you write: “A demonstrated reluctance to divulge source data is … a strong indicator of a willingness to actively mislead.”
And in your next paragraph you write: “But that information would only teach the scumbags how to be better liars so readers will just have to take my word for it.” Sounds like you’re reluctant to divulge your source data. 😉
Ivan would like me to present source information on my assertion that it is likely that temperatures in North America will be warmer by between 3º and 15º. I cite IPCC AR4, Chapter 10, page 749 as well as Figure 10.8.
All bullshit, Chris. Dissembling at its finest.
“and then spends the rest of his time talking about the IPCC process.”
Of coourse I’m talking about process, you moron, simply because there is none. The rule of law and accountability runs on process – unless you’re suggesting that the IPCC and AGW is outside the rule of law?
“The highest courts get only the real wobblers”
We’re talking about the ‘real wobblers’ here – remeber the word “unequivocal”? Does it come any bigger than spending billions of dollars, closing down industries, bankrupting companies, putting people out of jobs? You don’t think there should be some process behind that ?? Process is very important – all of these disadvantaged people are going to need to be able to identify who is to be held accountable and sued for all these bad decisions that are made in the name of AGW.
“Are you saying that the people writing the IPCC reports are not experts? Could you name names and reveal those persons whom you regard to be fraudulent experts?”
“Fraudulent experts” are your words, but for starter’s there is:
> Peter Bosch – a Project Manager
> Ogunlade Davidson – a Mechanical Engineer
> William Hare – a political adviser to Greenpeace
> there are several meteorologists (i.e. weather forecasters — and remember: ‘weather isn’t climate’ – your words).
> there are a number that are indeterminates as well, either don’t have qualifications or are reluctant to publish them.
Ivan, if you continue to engage in verbal abusiveness, I shall refrain from replying to your comments. You list three names of people whom you consider to be in some way less than desirable. Not one of those names appears in IPCC AR4 Annex II “Contributors to the IPCC WGI Fourth Assessment Report”, nor do they appear in Annex III, “Reviewers of the IPCC WGI Fourth Assessment Report”. Could you specify the roles that they played in the preparation of IPCC AR4?
“Could you specify the roles that they played in the preparation of IPCC AR4?”
So — let’s ignore the substantive issues and concentrate on the side issues? Is that it?
If you go back and re-read my posts at 09:56 AM and at 01:49PM, you will notice that I said quite clearly and distinctly in both cases: “The AR4 Synthesis Report”. If you look at the front page of the AR4 Synthesis Report, you will see their names there, at the bottom.
For clarity, the Preface of the AR4 Synthesis Report says: “It draws together and integrates
for the benefit of policy makers and those from others professions, up to date policy-relevant scientific, technical and socio-economic information on climate change. This report is
intended to assist governments and other decision-makers in the public and private sector in formulating and implementing appropriate responses to the threat of human-induced climate
change.”
That is, it is the key document – the one that the decision makers are supposed to refer to. The one that, above all others, needs to be factual, precise, and squeaky-clean. As a decision-maker, having being pointed at this document, I would make it my business to establish the credentials of the authors. And, as you can see, they are indeed found to be wanting. On a decision this big, I’m supposed to take the word of a Project Manager, a Mechanical Engineer, and a political adviser to Greenpeace (plus a few weather forecasters)?
“Ivan would like me to present source information on my assertion that it is likely that temperatures in North America will be warmer by between 3º and 15º. I cite IPCC AR4, Chapter 10, page 749 as well as Figure 10.8.”
Chris – this is yet more nonsense.
If you read page 749, it says — quite clearly — at the top of the page:
“The future climate change results assessed in this chapter are based on a hierarchy of models..”
If you re-read my original question, I asked for verifiable data. Models are not verifiable data (in the same way that “weather isn’t climate”). You can’t just keep hiding behind the “AR4 says..” argument all the time.
Also – can you please point out for me where abouts in Chapter 10 the IPCC models actually predicted the cooling episode in 2007/2008 – which is acknowledged by the WMO in both Info Note 44
(www.wmo.int/pages/mediacentre/info_notes/info_44_en.html)
and the WMO Update of 24 June
(www.wmo.int/pages/prog/wcp/wcasp/enso_update_latest.html)
This should be easy. Once we’ve established that the IPCC models accurately reflect and predict what happens in the real world, getting buy-in on the longer term projections should be easy.
Uh..oh.
Bit of a model problem.
If I read WMO Update of 24 June:
(www.wmo.int/pages/prog/wcp/wcasp/enso_update_latest.html)
“While some modest return of cooling is possible over the next few weeks, the main message from prediction models and expert interpretation is that near-neutral conditions should be considered the most likely outcome for mid-year or shortly thereafter.”
Oh no! Is the WMO telling us that models are not verifiable data after all?
I wonder what impact this will have on Figure 10.8?
These guys are such lunatics that their own soothsaying becomes evidence. The computer proves itself. I don’t know why they just don’t get the computer to take the kids to school and wipe the babies butt.
“Ivan would like me to present source information on my assertion that it is likely that temperatures in North America will be warmer by between 3º and 15º. I cite IPCC AR4, Chapter 10, page 749 as well as Figure 10.8.”
My goodness. Crawford prattling on like some sort of research-grant-whore. No evidence. Just UN Soothsaying.
“Ivan, you ask if there are independent reviewers and independent checks and balances. Indeed there are. You seem to think that scientists are part of some huge global organization.”
SCIENTISTS???
Mate you are barking up the wrong tree here. This is a movement of research-grant-whores, leftist lunatics, barely reconstructed communists and neo-Malthusians, dwarves, misfits, oddballs, loony tunes and science workers. There is barely a SCIENTIST amongst them.
OK Lovelock. I’ll give you Lovelock. But Lovelock aside you couldn’t find a serious character amongst these nutballs.
“But Lovelock aside you couldn’t find a serious character amongst these nutballs.”
The part I really like is the cast of goofballs that make up the authorship of the AR4 Synthesis Report – a project manager, a mechanical engineer, a political hack from Greenpeace, and so on.
It’s a bit like coming home from visiting a specialist and your wife asks: “How did it go, dear?”
And you reply; “Well, the oncologist’s report came through, but the guys I saw were Cafeteria Manager, the Maintenance Manager and the guy who organises the annual fundraiser. They went over the oncologist’s report with me, and we kicked over a few alternatives. One is to have my foot amputated, the second is to have root canal treatment and the third is to have the our microwave and television removed – something to do with black body radiation. Can’t remember if they mentioned what sort of cancer it was – but then again, they’re the specialists and they’re paid big dollars, so they must be right.”
“Ivan, you ask if there are independent reviewers and independent checks and balances. Indeed there are.”
This is of course abject nonsense of the first order.
Read the IPCC’s “Principles” document, under the section “Participation”
(www.ipcc.ch/pdf/ipcc-principles/ipcc-principles.pdf)
7. Participation in the work of the IPCC is open to all UNEP and WMO Member countries. [i.e. a closed shop. Non-WMO/UNEP Member countries may not participate, but they can expect to have the consequences of IPCC decisions forced upon them.]
8. Invitations to participate in the sessions of the Panel and its Working Groups, Task Forces and
IPCC workshops shall be extended to Governments and other bodies by the Chairman of the IPCC. [Note: not “by the Chairman in consultation with his board of directors” — i.e. all power to the Chairman – more UN enlightenment for all of us]
9. Experts from WMO/UNEP Member countries or international, intergovernmental or nongovernmental organisations may be invited in their own right to contribute to the work of the IPCC Working Groups and Task Forces. Governments should be informed in advance of invitations extended to experts from their countries and they may nominate additional experts. [Do we know if there has ever been a ‘nongovernmental’ organisation invited to join one of the working groups].
Anybody see anything that looks remotely like a check or balance in any of this?
“You seem to think that scientists are part of some huge global organization.”
If the above doesn’t describe ‘some huge global organization’ (along the lines of the Mafia), then I struggle to think what does.
Crawford – you are a complete and utter fraud.
“You list three names of people whom you consider to be in some way less than desirable. Not one of those names appears in IPCC AR4 Annex II “Contributors to the IPCC WGI Fourth Assessment Report”, nor do they appear in Annex III, “Reviewers of the IPCC WGI Fourth Assessment Report”. Could you specify the roles that they played in the preparation of IPCC AR4?”
Chris, you are a fraud – or is it just laziness? In addition to the Synthesis Report, check out: (www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg3/ar4-wg3-annex3.pdf)
– page 827 for Peter Bosch
– page 828 for Bill Hare
Ivan, your continuing ungentlemanly behavior leads me to conclude that further discussion with you is pointless. However, I will take the time to explain a few points.
You cite the authorship of the IPCC AR4 Synthesis Report as evidence that the IPCC does not include scientific experts. You misunderstand the role of the various Working Groups. There are three Working Groups, flamboyantly labeled as Working Group I, Working Group II, and Working Group III. Working Group I has responsibility for assessing the physical basis of climate change. This is the science, analyzed and written by the scientists. I have relied exclusively upon their report for my contributions here.
Working Group II addresses climate change impacts, adaptation, and vulnerabilities. Their website says: “In its reports, Working Group II assesses the scientific, technical, environmental, economic and social aspects of the vulnerability (sensitivity and adaptability) to climate change of, and the negative and positive consequences for, ecological systems, socio-economic sectors and human health, with an emphasis on regional sectoral and cross-sectoral issues.”
Working Group III assesses the various mitigation strategies available to us. They write: “Working Group III is charged to assess available information on the science of climate change, in particular that arising from human activities. In performing its assessments the WGIII is concerned with the scientific, technical, environmental, and economic and social aspects of mitigation of climate change.”
Thus, your complaint that the WG III Synthesis Report includes non-scientists reflects a misunderstanding of its assignment.
You also seem to misunderstand the role of models. You require evidence in support of my claims regarding future temperatures. Then you object that I relied upon models for that evidence — you want actual data. The problem is, I don’t have a time machine that allows me to travel into the future to collect the data you demand. If we want to predict the future, we have to plug data from the past into a model to predict the future.
Barring some dramatic change on your part, I shall not be responding to any future comments you write.
Yeah like thats a great loss. Any twit that mistakes baseless soothsaying for evidence is just going to get in the way anyhow.
What if we just cut off all the funds? Its not like the world is going to end.
CC: “Did the ocean continue to expand during the Little Ice Age?”
Hard to say. Changes to sea level
are hard enough to properly assess today with modern satellite capabilities. But given the latest data which shows a flattening of sea level rise as sea surface temperatures have started cooling,
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/SeaLevel_TOPEX.jpg
there may have indeed been periods where it dropped within the longer term trend of increase.
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/images/1/1d/Post-Glacial_Sea_Level.png
However given trends as indicated, there is absolutely no evidence that increased CO2 levels are responsible for an increasing rate of rise in ocean levels.
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Recent_Sea_Level_Rise_png
“..leads me to conclude that further discussion with you is pointless.”
That is the usual response of people that have been caught out telling lies.
“You cite the authorship of the IPCC AR4 Synthesis Report as evidence that the IPCC does not include scientific experts.”
That’s not what I said. Let me be clear to lessen the chances that you will misrepresent my words further. The authors listed on the front of the AR4 Synthesis Report are not qualified to make the executive level summaries that are contained within the report. There. Is that clear enough for a fraud like yourself?
“Thus, your complaint that the WG III Synthesis Report includes non-scientists reflects a misunderstanding of its assignment.”
That wasn’t my complaint (although it would be valid – there are a number of non-scientists in WG3). My complaint was that you are a liar and a fraud. You asserted that the indiviudals I named were not included in either Appendix 3 or Appendix 4 of the WG documents. A quick check shows that 2 of them are. A reasonable person would call that a lie, I think.
“The problem is, I don’t have a time machine..”
Sorry. Not good enough. You admit that you do not have proof, cannot obtain proof, and don’t see the need for proof — and we just have to take your word for it, is that it?
“You also seem to misunderstand the role of models.”
Not at all. Let’s examine the WMO’s own words on the subject (noted in my previous post):
1) “While some modest return of cooling is possible over the next few weeks” Interpretation: “We are clueless as to what is happening on a week to week basis – let alone 50 years into the future”. (The giveaway is the word ‘possible’).
2: “the main message from prediction models and expert interpretation..” Interpretation #1: The WMO thinks that their models speak to them. What sort of witch-doctor religion is this? Interpretation #2: The models are completely worthless and have to be “re-interpreted” on a regular basis. Not sure which Interpretation worries me most.
3: “near-neutral conditions should be considered the most likely outcome for mid-year or shortly thereafter.” Interpretation: “We haven’t got a frigging clue. We were completely blindsided by this one, but rest assured we are busy re-working the models.” Should + likely + shortly thereafter = bullshit. Look it up on Wiki.
“I shall not be responding to any future comments you write.”
Big deal. You misrepresent and duck all the main issues anyway. What’s to be missed?
“..leads me to conclude that further discussion with you is pointless.”
Does that mean Luke will come back? Sigh.
Actually, the Arctic sea ice is NOT ‘not refusing to melt’:
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gU8J3xEhFmRPw87tPfwb-oXa5h9gD92QNA480
Oops…
Newsflash: Massive Canadian Ice Shelf Suddenly Breaks Up:
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/50087/story.htm
Arctic Melting shows severity of global warming:
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/50081/story.htm
If only this was just about winning on-line debates, and not about the planet turning into one big New Orleans, and not in a good way.
Wow folks – that’s one hell of a rowdy debate you have got going down here. I’m really pleased to see the feelings are running so high. We need this kind enthusiasm. Better than good old apathy. May I gently suggest that we take a risk based approach and try to find some common ground. Statistics and past experience suggest that I may crash my car this year. I reckon I’m not and can do my best to avoid doing so, but I’ll be taking insurance just in case. Don’t know who’s right or wrong here – but if the warmers are proved right and we’ve done nothing to prepare, that’s a hell of a risk to take? And if they are wrong and we have prepared for nothing, well, I like the idea of more time with my family, less time in a car, eating better food and an economy that’s not founded on an inevitably dwindling resource. I don’t think at the end of the year when yet again I have failied to crash my car “I wish I hadn’t taken out that insurance” C’mon what have we got to lose? Let’s just shake hands, make up and get on with the insurance policy.
lol Robsterillo