WITHIN the scientific community it has generally been accepted that as a continent, Antarctica, has been getting colder – or at least not warming. Those who subscribe to the general consensus that climate change is driven by manmade carbon dioxide emissions, and that the world is generally getting warmer, have claimed this is not inconsistent with their greenhouse gas theory or the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) models. They have explained that Antarctica is a general exception to the global trend because of a loss of ozone in the polar stratosphere. [1]
When communicating with the general public, however, some high profile scientists, including from the CSIRO, have been so bold as to falsely claim even the Antarctic is warming. Perhaps because they wanted to avoid appearing inconsistent or having to explain such an annoying exception to the generally accepted global warming trend over the last 100 or so years. [2]
Now the prestigious journal Nature has published an article explaining that the Antarctic has been generally warming and at about the same rate as the rest of the planet. [3] This news made the cover of the latest issue of the journal with a dramatic graphic illustration of the new reconstruction of Antarctic surface temperature trends for 1957–2006.
One of the authors of the new paper, Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, has explained that he is pleased that the previous inconvenience of a cooling trend in Antarctica can now be dismissed. Indeed he now has a paper published in the prestigous and peer-reviewed journal Nature claiming as much. But this does not necessarily make it true.
Dr Mann is famous for managing to falsely recreate past temperatures so they accord with the popular global warming consensus. Indeed Dr Mann is responsible for the infamous hockey-stick graph that suggested the medieval warm period did not exist.
In this new study Dr Mann and others have combined incomplete data from both satellites and weather stations with some complicated statistics to generate a model of climate for the continent for the period 1957-2006.
Bill Kininmonth, formerly of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, was interviewed on Australian national radio as part of a segment on the new findings. Mr Kininmonth explained that there has been no reduction in the cycle of Antarctic sea ice and that he was generally sceptical that the west Antarctic ice sheet was likely to melt – a claim made earlier in the segment by Dr Barry Brook from Adelaide University.
In apparent contravention of ABC Broadcasting principles, the comment from Mr Kininmonth has been expunged from the transcript and the podcast. [4]
It seems computer models can remove evidence of cooling and editors can remove comment from climate change sceptics – but of course the truth does not cease to exist because it is ignored.
*******************
1. Marohasy, J. Why Isn’t the Antarctic Warming as Much as the Arctic? January 20, 2006. http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2006/01/why-isnt-the-antarctic-warming-as-much-as-the-arctic/
2. Marohasy, J. Graeme Pearman Claims Antarctica is Warming. April 7, 2008.
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2008/04/graeme-pearman-claims-antarctica-is-warming-global-warming-and-the-cosmos-part-1/
3. Steig, E., D. Schneider, S. Rutherford, M. Mann, J.C. Comiso and D.T. Shindell. 2009. Warming of the Antarctic Ice-Sheet Surface Since The 1957 International Geophysical Year. Nature. Vol 457, January 22, 2009.
4. Antarctic Cooling Theory Challenged, January 22, 2009, ABC Radio National
transcript http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2008/s2471659.htm
podcast: http://www.abc.net.au/news/subscribe/amrssi.xml
Formal complaint lodged by Art Raiche to the ABC: Program: AM, Program Date: 22 January 2009, ABC Service\Network: Radio National, ABC Recipient: Audience & Consumer Affairs
Subject: post broadcast censorship
Your Comments: On AM this morning, as part of a report on a report that Antarctica was warming, the former head of Australia’s National Climate Centre, William Kininmonth, was interviewed. This occurred about 7:20 plus or minus 5 minutes. He pointed out that there was no evidence of reduction in the cycle of Antarctic sea ice and that it was only around the coastal margins that temperatures exceeded 0C during daytime for about one month of the year – the West Antarctic ice sheet has been in place for millions of years and likely to remain so. Although broadcast, this interview was expunged from the transcript and the podcast. This sort of post-broadcast censorship must surely be a violation of the ABC’s broadcast charter.
5. And for more on this topic read Marc Morano here:
Scientists, Data Challenge New Antarctic ‘Warming’ Study. ‘It is hard to make data where none exist’. Comprehensive Data Round Up Debunks New Antarctic ‘Estimate of Temperature Trends’ http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=fc7db6ad-802a-23ad-43d1-2651eb2297d6
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Proof once again, that if you want to know anything about anything traditional media is not where it’s at.
As Hans Schreuder puts it, science is simply broken. The formerly prestigious NATURE has forsaken its bond of trust and made itself corrupt. The irony most striking to me, however, is that a few disreputable apples like Mann have managed to so spoil the entire barrel that rational discourse in climate science is no longer possible. Standards out the window, cooperation gone, now it’s every man for himself, a state of emergency, animosity and chaos — all unleashed by supposedly dispassionate academics. What a horrifying mess these intellectuals have created. It’s a Mad Max movie with computer nerds acting like biker gangs.
Looking at the anomoly reconstruction of the Antarctic I am struck by the fact that although the CO2 levels across the entire continent are exactly the same the east and west Antarctic have experienced opposite temperature trends, at least acording to the panic stricken alarmists who are really grasping at straws now. How can CO2 let alone AGW be the cause when there is such a diverse result over a uniform and contiguous area.
Jen
In the interests of accuracy:
Your title TOTALLY misrepresents what the paper actually does. TOTALLY. The GCM modelling work was a secondary issue.
The authors DO NOT “remove” evidence of cooling – HOW DID the authors “remove anything”??.
So please change your inaccurate title.
Does Pearman work for CSIRO?
Why would you break long standing convention and refer to the paper by its 4th author – instead of Steig et al?
Given Morano’s comments on lack of data (in his personal opinion) – therefore why would he be able to say anything at all?
You have failed to discuss acceleration of many existing glaciers in Western Antarctica and erosion/collapse of a number of ice shelves. One might imagine a knowledgeable ABC would see Kininmonth’s pronouncements as inconsistent with these important and well reported findings.
Has Siddons read the paper – so comments like the above surely are simply pavlovian reflexual
In one of the other recent threads, i was castigated for pointing out the obvious, that temps since 1998 are not going up as predicted by AGW, becuase that date was ‘cherry picking’.
This piece of Orwellian pap is designed to hide the fact that since 1986 the trend of temps has been in fact down, not up.
Once again the AGW promo industry sets out to hide facts by torturing numbers until they give up the answer demanded of them.
But even if that one section of Antarctica is warming at about the same rate as the rest of the planet allegedly is, this still falsifies yet another pillar of AGW hype: that the polar regions are warming much faster than the ROW.
But, hey! Just wait a month or wo, and the busy AGW trolls will ‘find’ a report to ‘prove’ that a) they never said it, or
b) it really is warming up faster, now.
Global warming is dead stop trying to scare the public about Antarctica, you faggots. I feel bad for innocent schoolchildren who have to read this shit and become terrified about the future especially when the weather gets unseasonably warm in their hometowns which in m,y world is nothing but natural variation as well as the periodic meltings and breakins off of glacial ice sheets. so tell your Journal scientists to stop talking shit!
that’s right why don’t you people watch Robert DiNero’s “The Bronx Tale” and get a idea what happens TO ANY Climate change brought on by global warming. And to all the children who may read this, BOYCOTT the NATURE magazine and don’t believe a word of the scumbag scientists, it’s all a bunch of “hot air” politics.
Peace out
When will the US outlaw the torturing of data by inappropriate means?
I see this as very likely being yet another “mate’s review” rather than peer-review, and of course the now obligatory “science by press release”. Perhaps we should lump all the problems together and call it “tabloid science”.
Jennifer,
I think we have to know the reasons why Kininmonth was left out of the podcasts of AM before you can start accusing the ABC of contravening its own principles. Questions could include whether the podcasts are normally edited with people left out. In particular, were any other interviewees in other stories on that edition of AM left out in the shift from the live show to the podcasts (perhaps Art Raiche can volunteer such information)? As well, what are the shows guidelines on editing podcasts taken from live material? Finally, perhaps Kininmonth was left out because perhaps he had nothing to say……
And elsewhere above are you accusing people of deliberately lying by attributing the word ‘falsely’ to the work of Michael Mann and statements by people from the CSIRO.
Regarding cooling or warming the piece said this has been misunderstood with the transcript including this by Eric Steig, “Some of those stations have shown cooling in recent decades, including one of those in the centre of the continent at the South Pole, and that’s resulted in the popular notion that all of Antarctic is cooling”.
Jennifer this whole piece of yours comes across as a twisting of material and I have to ask is it just a geeing up the troops (as much the posts over the past week) by using the idea of supposed censorship plus cleverly using hate figure number 2, Michael Mann and also very cleverly inserting the word ‘falsely’ in key parts of your text to create an idea that a number of deliberate falsehoods have been carried out to deceive.
you have now made it clear you have absolutely no integrity at all Luke and you go hand in glove with these deceitful shonks!
If you want to discuss erosion of ice shelves I suggest you start with the active volcano under them as discovered by the expert in this area, David Vaughan, of the British Antarctic Survey. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7261171.stm
Flashback, 30/05/08: Divergent Climate Histories for East and West Antarctica Over 14 Million Years
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2008/05/divergent-climate-histories-for-east-and-west-antarctica-over-14-million-years/
My take on Steig et al: Hockey Team Plays in Antarctica
http://climateresearchnews.com/2009/01/hockey-team-plays-in-antarctica/
Luke wrote:
“The authors DO NOT “remove” evidence of cooling – HOW DID the authors “remove anything”??.
So please change your inaccurate title.”
It’s been discussed here thousands of times and you yourself have discussed this point at least hundreds of times. One can “remove” data or change an outcome by cherry picking start and end dates, for example. There are many other ways.
You know this perfectly well… you are an intelligent man. I am not asserting this has or has not been done for this particular study. I am just making the more general point that you are so blinded to a particular point of view/outcome, that your postings often consist of nothing more than propaganda.
If an anti-warming crank writes nonsense, usually they at least believe what they write. You yourself are too smart to not know that you intentionally write distortions. This makes such postings doubly contemptible. I guess for some people the end justifies the means. (sigh)
My theory — Pay more in taxes to the government, so government scientists can fake the data, and pretend to control the weather. The perfect scam. How would the ignorant people know? They sure can’t count on the news media to report the truth, nor any critical analysis of what is actually being said.
I offer as proof the last few days stories where the Antarctic is warming as proved. So Eric Stieger, and this government funded team, discovered a new statistical calculation that allowed them to in-fill a factual data gap and they found a warming trend. That’s what you call a hoax folks, not science. Note that Eric Stieger is an associate of Michale Mann, the ‘hockey stick’ hoaxer himself.
You may have noticed in all the scary news stories, the fact that this is all based on a statistical calculations, never surfaces. It depends on the ignorance of people, and the inability of people to actually read and comprehend what is being said by the science to succeed. And right now, there are a whole lot of people up to their eyeballs in freezing temperatures and butts covered in snow. Going to be interesting.
Records are falling daily, going to be a tough sled ride for the climate alarmists.
If anyone is concerned about an education revolution in Australia then it certainly isn’t our National Broadcaster the ABC which shamefully promotes a belief in climate superstition. Further, these high priest propagandists are not just looking foolish but are becoming desperate and no doubt the debate will become increasingly dirty.
Even with basic primary school understanding of the melting point of ice and some knowledge of Antarctica you wouldn’t even need to consult someone nor look at graphs. These are vast complex freezing systems that need to be understood geographically/historically and half a degree rise in global temperature in the 20thC would have no alarmist effect.
For the ABC to be promoting a taxpayer funded charlatan like Bawwy Blook as some authority i need to ask the Question ….. Would any parent encourage their children to listen/watch and believe this deceitful theology posing as science?
What I haven’t seen yet in all this is an actual figure for the amount of warming in Antarctica. Surely this is the central issue, and should be front and centre in the abstract. Instead they mention a vague number for West Antarctica, and a very vague negative for East Antarctica. Now East Antarctica is two-thirds of the continent, so it is critical to any measurement.
Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems to me that this paper is arguing that temperature change in Antarctica overall is now accepted to be less than 0.1 C per decade. As a greenhouse sceptic I am fine with this; as far as I am concerned it is more clear evidence against calamitous levels of global warming.
However, you have to wonder about the confidence of such estimates. If you look at the temperature histories of the interior stations at Amundsen-Scott and Vostok, they fluctuate by up to 3 degrees year-to-year. There is no other data spanning the full study period from the vast bulk of the Antarctic interior. Is it really possible to discern a trend measured in hundreths of a degree per decade from just 50 years of such data?
so what exactly does this temperature record mean now??
http://users.tpg.com.au/johnsay1/Stuff/temp19.jpg
taken from climate4you.com
Just copying this here:
Eric [Steig],
Let me first say that this is my own opinion and does not represent the agency I work for. I feel your study is absolutely wrong. There are very few stations in Antarctica to begin with and only a hand full with 50 years of data. Satellite data is just approaching thirty years of available information. In my experience as a day to day forecaster that has to travel and do field work in Antarctica the summer seasons have been getting colder. In the late 1980s helicopters were used to take our personnel to Williams Field from McMurdo Station due to the annual receding of the Ross Ice Shelf, but in the past few years the thaw has been limited and vehicles can continue to make the transition and drive on the ice. One climate note to pass along is December 2006 was the coldest December ever for McMurdo Station. In a synoptic perspective the cooler sea surface temperatures have kept the maritime storms farther offshore in the summer season and the colder more dense air has rolled from the South Pole to the ice shelf.
There was a paper presented at the AMS Conference in New Orleans last year noting over 70% of the continent was cooling due to the ozone hole. We launch balloons into the stratosphere and the anticyclone that develops over the South Pole has been displaced and slow to establish itself over the past five seasons. The pattern in the troposphere has reflected this trend with more maritime (warmer) air around the Antarctic Peninsula which is also where most of the automated weather stations are located for West Antarctica which will give you the average warmer readings and skew the data for all of West Antarctica.
With statistics you can make numbers go to almost any conclusion you want. It saddens me to see members of the scientific community do this for media coverage.
Sincerely,
Ross Hays
[Ross Hays works for NASA at the Columbia Balloon Facility. In that capacity he has spent much time in Antarctica.]
Via IceCap http://icecap.us/index.php
Nature has really crossed the line for acceptable scientific evidence. This is not going to help printed scientific journals in the long run, as blogs of high caliber such as climate audit ect will be considered more reliable as they are able to provide raw data for analysis and deduction.
“Contrarians have sometime grabbed on to this idea that the entire continent of Antarctica is cooling, so how could we be talking about global warming,” said study co-author Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University. “Now we can say: no, it’s not true … It is not bucking the trend.”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090121/ap_on_sc/sci_antarctica
“We can now say… “
there is something so banal in Mann’s implacable lying-by-statistics. He could have had a great career in hedge fund scamming. Instead, he is fabricating numbers for a global weather scam.
he is literally lying. Antarctica ahs been cooling for over 20 years, he knows it, but he hopes to simply fool the echo chamber he lives in.
History will be particularly cruel to the AGW promoters.
Interesting comment from Climate Audit if it’s true:
Vernon:
January 22nd, 2009 at 11:38 am
Is my reading of the article at RC correct? I asked over there and am waiting for an answer but wanted to get some input from the other side of the arguement.
Namely:
-from the 1940’s to present there is a cooling trend;
-and from the 1970’s to present there is a cooling trend;
-but from the 1960′ to present there is a warming trend.
Therefore, we can conclude that there was cooling between the 1940’s to the 1970’s since those periods are warmer that your 1960’s starting point of your trend. How is this different from the ‘deniers’ picking the beginning point to drawn a specific conclusion since this study appears to pick a starting point both before and after the one used shows a cooling trend?
Professor Brook said it had been thought Antarctica was cooling partly because of the hole in the ozone layer, which allowed the hot air out.”
{blush}
Jennifer: I actually found Mann and Steig’s comments at RealClimate to be the most revealing.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/01/state-of-antarctica-red-or-blue/
It’s in their third clarifying point. You just have to follow the links. Basically, the West Antarctic warming of the 40s was caused by the 1939/42 El Nino. Why then is the recent warming so perplexing and in need of more study? El Ninos have dominated ENSO since 1976.
My take on it is here:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/01/recent-antarctic-warming-attribution.html
Regards
The latest paper must represent heapum powerful medicine against the denialist camp – from left field (where else !) – cutting a swathe through obscurity with new analyses and combined data.
And Will whinges but as yet Dear Will we have yet to see anything but amateur pop-psychology from you.
Moving on … none of this is too surprising – there has been excellent work documenting the accelerating flow of Western Antarctic glaciers from both warming erosion of frontal buttresses and increased snowpack.
The mid-troposphere is surprising warming faster than anywhere on Earth ! http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/upload/2006/03/science-turner-2006.pdf
Major changes in the Southern Annular Mode which are “unlikely to have been caused by natural variability” http://www.clivar.org/organization/southern/MoV/gillett.ppt
The Wilkins shelf is hanging by a thread and close to shearing off … following on from Larsen A & B
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1625240/wilkins_ice_shelf_on_borrowed_time/
Nature Geoscience 1, 106 – 110 (2008)
Published online: 13 January 2008 | doi:10.1038/ngeo102
Recent Antarctic ice mass loss from radar interferometry and regional climate modelling
Eric Rignot1,2,3, Jonathan L. Bamber4, Michiel R. van den Broeke5, Curt Davis6, Yonghong Li6, Willem Jan van de Berg5 & Erik van Meijgaard7
Large uncertainties remain in the current and future contribution to sea level rise from Antarctica. Climate warming may increase snowfall in the continent’s interior1, 2, 3, but enhance glacier discharge at the coast where warmer air and ocean temperatures erode the buttressing ice shelves4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. Here, we use satellite interferometric synthetic-aperture radar observations from 1992 to 2006 covering 85% of Antarctica’s coastline to estimate the total mass flux into the ocean. We compare the mass fluxes from large drainage basin units with interior snow accumulation calculated from a regional atmospheric climate model for 1980 to 2004. In East Antarctica, small glacier losses in Wilkes Land and glacier gains at the mouths of the Filchner and Ross ice shelves combine to a near-zero loss of 4 61 Gt yr-1. In West Antarctica, widespread losses along the Bellingshausen and Amundsen seas increased the ice sheet loss by 59% in 10 years to reach 132 60 Gt yr-1 in 2006. In the Peninsula, losses increased by 140% to reach 60 46 Gt yr-1 in 2006. Losses are concentrated along narrow channels occupied by outlet glaciers and are caused by ongoing and past glacier acceleration. Changes in glacier flow therefore have a significant, if not dominant impact on ice sheet mass balance.
“Professor Brook said it had been thought Antarctica was cooling partly because of the hole in the ozone layer, which allowed the hot air out.”
{blush}
Agreed, it would be if I had said it. However, it is a misreport, plain and simple. I told the reporter that the ozone hole had increased the speed of the circumpolar westerlies, and along with an intensification of the southern annular mode, this tended to prevent warmer subtropical air from penetrating south. But somehow, this got mashed up to that cringe-worthy final line in the AAP piece. Such is the perils of working with the media on science.
You’re hanging by a fingernail luke; that Turner et al paper about troposphere warming above the Antarctic is from 2006; here is a more recent look;
http://www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/UAHMSUSPol.html
And I still don’t get how the surrounding Antarctic waters can be warming when this is happening;
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2008/2007JC004254.shtml
Luke,
“Dear Will we have yet to see anything but amateur pop-psychology from you.”
Interesting, I didn’t know you had a degree in climatology and was an expert in the field such that you could dismiss so lightly opinions contrary to your own. Feel free to forward the forum your credentials and your list of research publications. 😉
The science paper is interesting but it’s claiming an approx 2C increase in temperatures over the last 30 years. How could this be missed by all other observations?
“The data show that regional midtropospheric temperatures have increased at a
statistically significant rate of 0.5- to 0.7-Celsius per decade over the past 30 years.”
How do you reconcile that with the satellite data which does not show much of a trend, much less 2C of warming, which is huge? Is the satellite data wrong? If so, why?
Or does the satellite data showing warming after all? If both are in agreement, I don’t see a problem with accepting the evidence and this would be in line with AGW predictions, which would be impressive.
Ice shelves come and go BTW, they don’t last forever. So they are not very good proof or disproof of AGW. They are generally used as a propaganda tool in the same way that a pseudo sceptic uses a short-term trend cooling as an argument against AGW.
As for Larsen;
http://www.igsoc.org/journal/54/184/j07J086.pdf
And this late lamented image of the Antarctic;
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=6502
So you’re getting into bullying now Willy ? LOLZ …
So how come you’re not on every thread lecturing commentators about rejection of peer-reviewed science with venom, bile and abuse. This is a science argument is it? pffft !
Anyway moving right along …
Yes ice sheets may come and go – but why they’re going is the issue. You should look up some findings. And funny isn’t it – in the same region as the accelerating glaciers. Wake up mate !
What satellite data Will ? threshold test for you
Luke,
So the non-answer means you have no qualifications after all? Criticising someone for not possessing a quality you do not have yourself makes you a hypocrite doesn’t it? You’ll come across as more credible (and less childish) if you focus your criticism on things for which you are not guilty of engaging in yourself.
“So you’re getting into bullying now”
Complaining of bullying? I’m sure you’re old enough to handle a bit of criticism. Not sure I understand why you need to cry about it, though. You’re an adult, right? Arguing science, logic and rationality is tough. You’ll get used to it.
“So how come you’re not on every thread lecturing commentators about rejection of peer-reviewed science with venom, bile and abuse. This is a science argument is it”
Not sure what point you’re trying to make here. What you’re saying seems muddled to me. Perhaps you can clarify on what you think I should or should not be doing?
“What satellite data Will ?”
I’m happy to look at anything you want to offer up.
Fair enough – point accepted.
That was supposed to be a comlete transcript of everything that was broadcast. An official complaint was made to ABC Consumer Affairs who, in subsequent correspondence, have said that they are now “investigating” that complaint.
Yes Will – all very fascinating.
It’s very simple Willy – what satellite data are you talking about? YOU ! you’re making the point mate.
Luke,
“what satellite data are you talking about? YOU ! you’re making the point mate.”
Huh? You’ve pointed to an article that argues that balloon measurements show 2C of warming.
I’m asking a fair question: does this mesh with satellite data or not? I’m not arguing a case for or against cooling of the Antarctic. Not my job. I’m not a climatologist. Just trying to get to the facts. I asked you a question. Can you answer it?
Strange as this may sound to you, if I did get good evidence that multiple sources of measurement were in agreement with the 2C warming claim, I would accept that information as factual. Why wouldn’t I? (Sure, the oil cartels pay well, but the women at World Wildlife Fund are much better looking.)
Thanks.
It is very good that all the base data used in this study has been made widely-available so far.
If anyone knows where it can be found, I’d appreciate it.
I don’t know, maybe it will help to find out that suddenly, the Antarctic has been warming all along despite the actual data available so far which has shown there has been a slight cooling so far or, at least, no real warming in Antarctica.
It might help to know that the original climate model’s prediction of more warming at high latitudes was at least partially correct.
But the original theory and the original climate models said that the Arctic and the Antarctic should warm twice as fast as the global temps, or let’s say up to 0.3C per decade.
The fact that Michael Mann can only “stretch” the data up to a max. 0.1C per decade means that the climate models are way, way off.
If Michael Mann says 0.1C per decade, then the analysis to date says you can take that estimate, divide by 3, and then subtract 0.1C per decade to arrive at “reality TM”.
“reality TM”; very good Bill, sad but true.
Will Nitschke; the satellite data is in my junkscience link above; luke is ignoring it so it must have some validity.
Bill,
Accept the proposition for the moment that the temperature rise last century of nearly .7C was due to ‘natural cycles’ and not CO2. (This claim may not be true of course.)
If so we are talking about a natural rise of around .07C per decade anyway. Assuming that everything about this paper holds up under further scrutiny, then the warming that Michael Mann has found seems to confirm what one would reasonably expect…
The paper is perhaps more useful in showing that AGW theory is not predicting the opposite of what is actually happening.
Cohenite,
I’m aware of the other links offered here. I’m just interested in Luke’s reconciliation of these problems. Maybe he disagrees with the other data and can provide good reasons why he disagrees and maybe he has a good point to make…
Luke previously in this thread made some cryptic remarks about how we all need to accept the validity of peer reviewed science. Obviously nobody objects too harshly to that ideal in broad outline. My question then would be: how does one reconcile peer reviewed science when the findings are not in agreement with each other?
(And the wrong answer is: “don’t believe the science”. The right answer to my mind is: “watch how the issues evolve themselves over time.” Maybe people have other ideas.)
Will – I’m simply asking what satellite data series you’re comparing to? Is there a mid-tropospheric Antarctic data series.
Luke,
I’m not comparing to anything Luke… I’ve just asking you for your opinion. Other posters here have thrown up graphs. Do you agree with those numbers? Do you disagree? Is there a data source that you prefer to consider has higher merit?
The thing about this debate is that many people assume the other party is asking a loaded question and that the person asking the question thinks he already knows the answer and is going to spring something on them and yell “ah hah!” 🙂
Will – I’m also saying that the pavlovian response to put the boot into this paper – given most have not read it – not comprehended it’s findings – well it is reprehensible. Peer review is not everything but it’s likely to have been read by other domain experts with an eye for the issues. This process is not perfect but like democracy probably better than anything else long term. Serious critics would perform an alternative analysis.
Luke,
I can understand why there is a lot of anger and hostility associated with that paper due to the Mann association. But yes of course, the bottom line is that it has to be about the science, not the personalitie(s) involved.
Luke whined:
“You have failed to discuss acceleration of many existing glaciers in Western Antarctica and erosion/collapse of a number of ice shelves.”
And the so-called climate scientists have completely failed to discuss the high level of volcanic activity around the areas where accelerated erosion/collapse has happened. This is the same issue ignored with the galloping glaciers in Greenland you used to tout so much. Of course, the gallopers have gone back to trotting or less as the cycle of volcanism has quieted.
When you are willing to address ALL the data we may waste some time listening to your PROPAGANDA!!
Utter utter bunk kookyKat – they dragged a probe over the vent of the volcano in the Antarctic Sound and it hardly registered.
Pine Island Glacier ? what volcanism?
And you’ve summarily ignored all the atmospheric and oceanographic research in the region.
You clown !
Luke,
The problem is that Mann & co. are the ones who have ignored the atmospheric and oceanographic research in the region.
But they had a schedule to keep in getting their stage prop ready for Gore to continue bamboozle governments and other money sources.
I thought your icon was that of a pony ET, but maybe it is a troll mask?
As a non-scientist, I notice most the tone of the posts. The sceptics seem reasonable and the warmers seem…well, shrill, rude and condesending. It causes me to root for the sceptics.
Rick,
That’s irrelevant. You go for the arguments that make sense… not a personality contest….
Why is everyone ignoring the damning letter by Ross Hays that was filed by Jen here?
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2009/01/modellers-remove-evidence-of-cooling-and-editor-removes-comment-by-climate-sceptic/?cp=all#comment-81060
Hunter – what a load of drivel. Really … is that your best analysis. Will – I assume you think that makes any sense at all given you’re a pseudo-sceptic backer.
The following comment has now been added to the transcript at the Radio National website and the interview with Mr Kininmonth has, I understand, been edited back into the podcast:
“Editor’s note: Please find attached the audio of an interview with William Kininmonth that was included in the Radio National broadcast but was not included in the main program for space reasons.”
Not good enough!
Luke,
Has someone does a scientific report on volcanism on the region that can shed any light on it’s effects on the shelf? If not, then I don’t see it as anything more than speculation. And even if this was so, I fail to see how that contributes to the debate anyway… ice shelves break off eventually. That’s what they do normally… Even if the cause was global warming, this might be difficult to prove for technical reasons.
If it makes you feel any better, I rolled my eyes and felt a headache coming on when I read the post that proclaimed it was due to volcanism…. if people toss a claim into the discussion but don’t back it up with a link, it’s usually not worth paying much attention to…
Weren’t we only recently told that Antarctic cooling is consistent with GCM hindcasts?
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/02/antarctica-is-cold/
I suppose we’ll also be told that Antarctic warming is consistent with GCM hindcasts soon enough.
Volcanoes in the Antarctic: ask Air New Zealand about that.
And of course, things are a bit warm around Heard Island these days I hear. Something about local geological activity, apparently.
And while on the topic, In seem to recall learning that volcanoes tend to emit gas, lots and lots of gas. Carbon dioxide and Chlorine being towards the top of the list.
I seem to recall that Haroun Tazieff gave the subject a quick glance once.
Free chlorine was blamed for the decline of ozone over the Antarctic. The source was claimed to be a bazillion pressure pack cans and fire extinguishers. Yeah, right. This would be free chlorine stripped from gas molecules so heavy that they roll off your workbench and slide across the floor: molecules so stable that they are used to smother fires on burning aircraft (aluminium and magnesium). High school chemistry: magnesium continues to burn in a carbon dioxide atmosphere because it rips the oxygen from the carbon. BCF instantly smothers the fire. See also Halon systems in armoured vehicles.
Will
“ice shelves break off eventually. That’s what they do normally…”
Ummm what? Do you mean to say that calving is the same as disintegration?
Yes Will.
A recent volcanic eruption beneath the West Antarctic ice sheet
Hugh F. J. Corr & David G. Vaughan
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v1/n2/abs/ngeo106.html
Well well isnt this interesting
Here we have a paper that has just been published in Nature which was peer reviewed according to Nature’s policy on peer reveiw, where the reviewers are kept secret to the authors, even though what was said by them was made known to the authers.
But withing a few hours of Nature going public a leading person with knowledge of the subject, namely Ross Hay goes public and says it is a crock. Subsequent to that others come out in the various blogs, and show that it is a crock.
Does this mean that:
1. Hay wasnt one of the selected reveiwers.
2. Nature stuffed up the selection of who did the reviews, and how any amendments were handled
3. Mann and crew consistent with past behaviour probably influenced who did the review.
4. This is another example of how despite what the brotherhood and publishers say, Peer Reveiw is an unsafe way of handling the assessment science, and certainly that of a political science called AGW.
Janama
Did you even read that abstract?
“The layer depth dates the eruption at 207 BC +/- 240 year”
So an eruption around 2000 years ago is finally having an impact? Seriously how can you think this is responsible?
This whole idea that volcanism is responsible for the latest ice shelf collapses is simply stupid.
Malcolm,
“where the reviewers are kept secret to the authors, even though what was said by them was made known to the authers”
This is what normally happens.
“But withing a few hours of Nature going public a leading person with knowledge of the subject, namely Ross Hay goes public and says it is a crock. Subsequent to that others come out in the various blogs, and show that it is a crock.”
How do you know he’s a leading expert?
you are just making stuff up.
The abstract of Mann’s paper identifies “the sparseness and short duration of the observations”, meaning there isn’t much observational data to go by. These guys then try to fill in the holes using computer simulations. I would like to know how reliable their general circulation model is and how they have validated it.
One thing I notice navigatiing around the Nature website is that they seem to be pushing a bit of politics. Odd thing for a supposedly respectable journal.
NT,
Apparently you have a comprehension problem also…
“So an eruption around 2000 years ago is finally having an impact?”
The abstract clearly states:
“Ongoing volcanic heat production may have implications for contemporary ice dynamics in this glacial system.”
Unless you want to debate the meaning of the word “ongoing” ?
Janama, thanks for the link… I’d read a bit about this particular issue but hadn’t come across the link to the abstract for this research paper… would be nice if someone had a copy of the whole paper… 🙂
The caption in Fugure 1 gives an r value for the reconstruction of 0.46. People who know even a bit of statistics know that it’s more informative to quote r^2 which is 0.22. That means that 22% of the variance has been explained (and 78% hasn’t).
In Figure 2b, which is the main basis for the claim of “warming”, most of the data before 1970 is below the regression line. If this was not included it looks like the very small positive slope (ie the “warming”) would be zero or negative. That is, in that case, no warming. So is there any reason to consider not including these data? It was before the satelite era, so the method outlined in the paper using both data sets couldn’t have been applied here. So there has to be a difference in methodology over the period with a positive slope and with zero slope (ie roughly before and after 1975). Also, there were very few weather stations in the early days and there must have been problems initially setting them up.
And it seems that the whole “warming” period was only ten years, which we are told when anyone points out that global warming stopped ten years ago, is far to little to establish a trend.
Looks a very poor paper to me, even beore seeeing what Mann’s newest new statistical procedure. I assume it’s as bad as his last one.
Time will tell. I only hope that I will be alive to see the AGM hypophysis ( if it can be so dignified), debunked as the rubbish it is. Scientific method will, eventually , trimph.
yes NT – I read the abstract plus all the news reports associated with it.
Obviously you didn’t.
Will.
Think it through…
Why now? Why has the volcano had a sudden impact now? These ice shelves are not young, they were not formed in the last few centuries. Why have they suddenly become unstable where over the last 15 years many have completely collapsed. If there was a steady production of energy (which is what you expect if the volcano is dormant or not erupting), The volcano is not under the sea, so if it was providing heat to melt the ice shelves why is it still covered in ice?
It’s a silly idea.
Janama,
But you didn’t understand it. The volcano cannot be the cause of the breaking up of the ice shelves. It has erupted in the past and left ash, on the ice sheet. It didn’t cause it to collapse then. If it could cause an ice sheet to collapse, you wouldn’t find any evidence of eruptions ON the ice sheet.
As regards the ABC, Art has replied to their “space reasons” excuse with:
“Thank you for your reply, Mariella but one thing bothers me. It says that the interview was not included due to a lack of space, a very strange comment. Why is it that each program has a certain broadcast length and all of your other pod downloads have that same length? Why was it that on January 22 alone, it was found necessary to excise a complete interview?
Why is it that in the patch that has been added today, the introduction and post identification of William Kininmonth has been excised and that his credentials have been omitted? This looks like a clear case of censorship of those who disagree with the official ABC climate dogma. I hope that when the tribunal investigates this matter, it is done in an unbiased manner.
Yours sincerely
Dr. Art Raiche
Retired CSIRO chief research scientist
“Scientific method will, eventually , trimph.”
But still raising all sorts of concerns in the minds of taxpayers who have to pay for all this shonkiness, and application of standards of openess and integrity that would not be allowed to exist in most other disciplines–not even in courts of law.
I hope I live long enough to see this grabbed by the throat and brought into line with the application of an open, fully declared best practice standard, and to hell with the needs of commercial publishers, and their pretentions of claiming that it is a self regulating system.
So was Wall Street.
NT – the volcano is still active as are many volcanoes in the area. That’s why the western antarctic is warmer than the east.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7261171.stm
NT,
“Why now? Why has the volcano had a sudden impact now? These ice shelves are not young, they were not formed in the last few centuries. Why have they suddenly become unstable where over the last 15 years many have completely collapsed. If there was a steady production of energy (which is what you expect if the volcano is dormant or not erupting), The volcano is not under the sea, so if it was providing heat to melt the ice shelves why is it still covered in ice?
It’s a silly idea.”
Are you an expert in polar volcanism now? How do you know what is and isn’t a silly idea unless you have technical expertise on this topic? It’s the abstract itself (written by experts) who put this idea forward, not me. How can I possibly give your on-the-fly speculations more credence than a published research paper? Of course you could be right, and the research scientist(s) wrong, but if I have to make a rational decision, I need more to go than just a throw away remark.
Let’s sum this up. The research paper published in Nature Geoscience by experts suggests:
“Ongoing volcanic heat production may have implications for contemporary ice dynamics in this glacial system.”
You, an autonomous blog poster, with no credientials or expertise, think the idea is “silly”.
Hmmm… tough call… who is more likely to be right here?
The removal of Kinninmonth’s statement clinches it – we are truly dealing with Lysekoism – politically correct science.
All these scientific faux-pas happen when the scientifically illiterate use science to pursue a political agenda.
Incidentally I visited my old Hi Fi purveyor at their new establishement in Claremont, WA, and was told that a relative works for the WA Water. Apparently the departments scientists had an informal discussion about science etc and the general conclusion was that global warming was a scam. However, they could not say so publicly because of the threat of dismissal.
Raised my eyebrows but generally most of the untutored mob, the great unwashed, the wood-ducks, recognise it as a scam. Prescient the mob is, and right now I would not advertise my green credentials too much. Mobs tend to become ugly, especially when out of work which could be explained by the direction of scarce capital from useful activities, to government initiated climate research. We are dealing with billions of dollars per year of capital misuse.
Guess what is partly the cause of the GFC?
Over to you.
NT,
If you are supposed to be a trained geologist, then your posts here are somewhat embarassing. Submarine volcanoes might have some difficulty erupting ash, especially when their presence was only found accidentally a few years back in this location, which might be deposited onto outcropping surface ice.
If these deposits were known then there would have been a search for the source of that ash – that there wasn’t suggests there were no ash deposits in the ice which pointed to a local source.
And in any case the eruption of a submarine volcano indicates a local increase in heat flow in this part of the crust – hence the observed ice shelf collapse.
Incidentally, ice shelf collapse is effect of massive ice generation, not melting. When ice shelves and glaciers melt, they do so by recession into their headwaters. As the average temperature of Antartica is always << 0 degrees Celsius, melting does not happen.
Anyway Malcolm – Honi soit qui mal y pense !!
Will – there’s a shitload going on down there with the regional atmospheric and oceanic circulations.
What we always have here from both sides is creeping incrementalism. But really low order trivia from the pseduo-sceptics.
Lay it all out and think about likely 1st order effects.
Robert – sigh -NO NO NO !! they also used satellite imagery – the GCMs were for further validation and experimental verification . The point !
Will – right on queue – classic example of geologists myopia. Nothing that bad with the geology but why look at half the story? Notice Louis with a hand waving pronouncement simply ignores the whole literature of ice sheet mechanics. Breathtaking !
Luke,
Not a bad commentary from the chief scientific officer – shows you how bereft the government climate departments are for academic talent.
How do the authors of the paper explain the UAH MSU Polar temperature anomaly graph for the Lower Troposphere?
http://www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/UAHMSUSPol.html
It doesn’t cover al the polar region (like the central part of the Antarctica which unequivocally has cooled anyway) but it sure is an indication that the southern polar region has been warming during the satellite era..
Typo correction: I should have said “has NOT been warming”
Careful Louis, you and Art Raiche will be accused of thinking evil by the the great obsessed one , you know, Luke the Magnificent (BSc Hons).
Hypocrite.
Chris,
Maybe the MSU data are aggregating IR data and interpreted on the basis that the only IR source are gases.
As electrical currents in the atmosphore also generate IR, maybe their model is complete?
Jennifer,
I’ve just listened to the Kininmonth addition to the transcript/podcast from yesterday. The problem is that he takes a long time to say what he does and what he says cames across as obscure for the average listener wrt to Antarctica warming and its only at the end of the interview when the journalist asks him to sum up does Kininmonth say something. By then the only thing you can really use is that last comment and its too short to be useable in the context. It sounds like the journlists should’ve done the interview again explaining to Kininmonth that he needed something more concise and to the point but perhaps the journalist ran out of time. You’ve have had experience with journalists Jennifer so you should know how this goes, they make mistakes, they run out of their alloted time, they need 30 seconds and the talent gives them 65 seconds of material that is useful to you and me but nor useful to them for the time alloted in the broadcast.
As to Art Raiche saying that everything runs to an alloted time well that not quite true as live programmes and their segments can run longer, or shorter than planned and this can cock up the timing required for the subsequent podcasts or recorded playouts, so they go to work either getting rid of material that doesn’t work i.e. where people don’t have anything to so or whatever or if the piece ends up running short they might add further material.
I notice no one has answered my question as to whether Art Raiche can tell us if anybody else was dropped from the live show of yesterdays AM for the other podcasts.
Now Barry Brook has listed above how his contribution was mangled for the same piece which goes to show that its a cock up rather than a hidden agenda and again with your experience in dealing with journalists Jennifer this is something I expect you would know. So Jennifer, if you want to disprove my earlier post that you are just using this whole thing as a beat up, geeing up the troops by standing on the hill top and proclaiming bias and leading them by their collective noses in using the ABC and its mistakes as an easy target will you instead now me in making a joint complaint to the ABC about their disgraceful mangling of Barry Brook’s contribution…..
Last sentence should’ve read…
will you instead now JOIN me in making a joint complaint to the ABC about their disgraceful mangling of Barry Brook’s contribution…..
Malcolm.
one fact I am sure of, Luke is not a geologist by normal defintion. I wonder where Ron Paton is these days, one of my lecturers in geography when I was an undergrad at Macquarie.
Luke, I am a geologist myself and I support Louis’ point of view on glaciers breaking up. The popular cinematographic explanation of glacier collapse is not supported by science. This is what Cliff Ollier has to say about the simplistic view of another AGW alarmist in his paper in New Concepts in Global Tectonics Newsletter, no. 42, March, 2007:
“In a television interview in Australia on March 13, 2007, Jim Hansen claimed that a rise in temperature of a few degrees in the next few years would cause ‘collapse’ of the ice-sheets and a rise of sea level of many metres.
Hansen’s view of ice-sheet ‘collapse’ is untenable. Ice-sheets do not melt from the surface down – only at the edges. Once the edges are lost, further loss depends on the rate of flow of the ice. The rate of flow of ice does not depend on the present climate, but on the amount of ice already accumulated, and that will keep it flowing for a very long time.”
His Abstract says the following:
Glaciers, and rocks of the Earth’s crust, have a brittle zone (which breaks) above a plastic zone (which flows). The brittle zone is distinguished by crevasses (glaciers) and faults (rocks); the plastic zone by flow structures. Glaciers and ice-sheets such as Greenland and Antarctica flow essentially by creep, and are governed by laws of creep. The surface temperature has negligible effect on flow. Global warming cannot cause a “collapse” of the ice-caps. The basins of Greenland and Antarctica are, if created by isostatic response to the load of the ice pile, a result of creep in the lower crust or mantle.
I scr…. up again: I meant: The popular cinematographic explanation by AL GORE
Chris,
Given Ollier’s summary, if the ice/sea interface remains << 0 degrees Celsius, then even that explanation has problems.
Edges of ice sheets with sea-water, at T= < ~ 273 K cannot melt. Something else is going on, and this is interesting.
Louis, you’re right surface temperatures have f…-all to do with breaking up of icesheets in Antarctica. It’s creep that moves them towards the edge of the continent and eventually when they move too far into the sea their attachment to the land supported glacier becomes untenable and they break off.
Come on guys – don’t have yourselves on – you should really consult the latest work on Western Antarctic situation
eroding frontal buttresses and greater snowpack. Cut and dried ! And they are accelerating !
Nature Geoscience 1, 106 – 110 (2008)
Published online: 13 January 2008 | doi:10.1038/ngeo102
Recent Antarctic ice mass loss from radar interferometry and regional climate modelling
Eric Rignot1,2,3, Jonathan L. Bamber4, Michiel R. van den Broeke5, Curt Davis6, Yonghong Li6, Willem Jan van de Berg5 & Erik van Meijgaard7
Large uncertainties remain in the current and future contribution to sea level rise from Antarctica. Climate warming may increase snowfall in the continent’s interior1, 2, 3, but enhance glacier discharge at the coast where warmer air and ocean temperatures erode the buttressing ice shelves4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. Here, we use satellite interferometric synthetic-aperture radar observations from 1992 to 2006 covering 85% of Antarctica’s coastline to estimate the total mass flux into the ocean. We compare the mass fluxes from large drainage basin units with interior snow accumulation calculated from a regional atmospheric climate model for 1980 to 2004. In East Antarctica, small glacier losses in Wilkes Land and glacier gains at the mouths of the Filchner and Ross ice shelves combine to a near-zero loss of 4plusminus61 Gt yr-1. In West Antarctica, widespread losses along the Bellingshausen and Amundsen seas increased the ice sheet loss by 59% in 10 years to reach 132plusminus60 Gt yr-1 in 2006. In the Peninsula, losses increased by 140% to reach 60plusminus46 Gt yr-1 in 2006. Losses are concentrated along narrow channels occupied by outlet glaciers and are caused by ongoing and past glacier acceleration. Changes in glacier flow therefore have a significant, if not dominant impact on ice sheet mass balance.
Top of page
1. University of California Irvine, Earth System Science, Irvine, California 92697, USA
2. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91109, USA
3. Centro de Estudios Cientificos, Arturo Prat 514, Valdivia, Chile
4. University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1SS, UK
5. Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research (IMAU), Utrecht University, 3584 CC Utrecht, The Netherlands
6. University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, Missouri 65211, USA
7. Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI), 3732 GK De Bilt, The Netherlands
Eroding buttress papers
Thomas, R. H., Rignot, E. & Kanagaratnam, P. Force-perturbation analysis of Pine Island Glacier,
Antarctica, suggests cause for recent acceleration. Ann. Glaciol. 39, 133–138 (2004).
Scambos, T., Bohlander, J. A., Shuman, C. A. & Skvarca, P. Glacier acceleration and thinning after ice
shelf collapse in the Larsen B embayment, Antarctica. Geophys. Res. Lett. 31, L18402 (2004).
Rignot, E. et al. Accelerated ice discharge from the Antarctic Peninsula following the collapse of
Larsen B ice shelf. Geophys. Res. Lett. 31, L18401 (2004).
De Angelis, H. & Skvarca, P. Glacier surge after ice shelf collapse. Science 299, 1560–1562 (2003).
Rignot, E. et al. Recent ice loss from the Fleming and other glaciers,Wordie Bay,West Antarctic
Peninsula. Geophys. Res. Lett. 32, L07502 (2005).
Pritchard, H. & Vaughan, D.Widespread acceleration of tidewater glaciers on the Antarctic Peninsula.
J. Geophys. Res. 112 (2007) (doi:10.1029/2006JF000597).
Thomas, R. H. et al. Accelerated sea-level rise fromWest Antarctica. Science 306, 255–258 (2004).
Rignot, E. Changes in ice dynamics and mass balance of the Antarctic ice sheet. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A
364, 1637–1656 (2006).
Luke,
“Will – there’s a shitload going on down there with the regional atmospheric and oceanic circulations.”
The articles I’ve glanced over today seem to rule out regional atmospheric effects. Experts seem to be attributing the glacial movement to volcanism in the region and possibly changing ocean currents (presumably affecting the ice tip penetrating the ocean). I can’t see how you can argue this one unless you’re an expert in this subject or you can provide links to qualified experts that discuss the point of view you’re attempting to present. The experts I’ve read so far don’t seem to be saying it’s due to global warming, but don’t rule it out as a possible contributing factor either. Don’t know if there is any history of sea temperature changes over that region to be used to support the AGW contention. If such records exist and there is a history of warming in that particular region, I don’t see how one could arbitrarily rule out regional warming completely as a possibility. Lot of if’s and but’s though…
And yes it’s not about ice sheets melting from the top down – it’s about them being undermined by meltwater pouring down holes in the ice – called “moulins” – which can for periods, speed up their movement up to 4 times within days or weeks in some situations. More meltwater gives more lubricated flow.
Jeez Will – you can’t have tried hard
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/296/5569/895
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2004…/2004GL020724.shtml
Antarctica material at page 149 http://web.archive.org/web/20070219035455/http://www.amos.org.au/conf2007/AMOS07_ABSTRACTS.pdf
Will – if you’re interested in the bleeding edge
http://www.clivar.org/organization/southern/southern.php
Which part of West and East Antarctica having divergent climate histories doesn’t Luke understand?
A surprising cache of ancient plant material adds evidence for divergent climate histories of the East and West Antarctic ice sheets over the past 14 million years:
“These findings appear to be contradictory at first glance, but in fact they buttress an evolving view among scientists that the two major features of the continent, the western and eastern ice sheets, have experienced vastly different climate histories. Data from the Dry Valleys reveals an East Antarctic Ice Sheet that is high, dry, cold, and stable, at least in its central area. And the ANDRILL cores suggest a more volatile West Antarctic Ice Sheet that is subject to the changing temperatures of the sea in which it wades. “It reaffirms the fragility of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet [WAIS] and the stability of the central part of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet,” says Peter Barrett, a sedimentologist at the Victoria University of Wellington (VUW) in New Zealand, who advised the ANDRILL project.”
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/320/5880/1152
‘Gore-bull Warmer Luke will be telling us next that man’s influence started 14 million years ago.
The Steig et al paper is spinning out of control.
Luke,
‘bleeding edge’?
you are kidding, right?
Re “bleeding edge” Luke; I like the model. Anyone with half an interest should be aware similar Southern Ocean considerations have been a feature (model) in the long running Antarctic exhibition at the Hobart Museam & Art Gallery. As it could have ended at that location there are other sources
http://www.antarcticgateway.info/organisations/index.php
http://www.acecrc.org.au/
For me it’s still about visiable changes in sea level. I will be observing again over the following weeks around NZ South Isl and Tasmania
http://www.aad.gov.au/default.asp?casid=35897
Will and Louis
The volcano is not a submarine volcano. It has left tuff and ash deposits that lie WITHIN the ice shelf. It is not particularly close to the ice shelves that have collapsed. There are intact ice shelves surrounding it… There is simply not enough heat flow to cause ice shelf collapse. As the authors state it may have some impact on ice flow, but that certainly can’t be extrapolated to say that is causing the collapse of ice shelves that are distant. It is a silly idea.
Paul
“‘Gore-bull Warmer Luke will be telling us next that man’s influence started 14 million years ago.”
What a dumb thing to say, and your quote in no way implies that the WAIS has been unstable for 14 million years.
Attached is a summary of a research project by Chapman and Walsh written in Dec 2007. I could not inculde the figure but it is accurately described and it unquestionably shows no average temperature increase for the entire Antarctic continent since 1970 which agrees with the satellite data from 1979. Frankly the latest piece of contrived science fiction by Mann et al if anything proves that CO2 radiative heating is a non issue. If a CO2 increase was increaseing the surface temperature and the heating effect is completely uniform over the entire continent why is 1/3 going up and 2/3 going down when both are contiguous land areas. It is impossible for this to be the result of a uniform heating effect. Here is the attachment.
Antarctic Temperatures: 1958-2002
Chapman, W.L. and Walsh, J.E.
December 19, 2007
Source:
Journal of Climate
What was done
Monthly surface air temperatures from manned and automatic weather stations along with ship/buoy observations from the high-latitude Southern Hemisphere were used to develop a gridded database with resolution appropriate for applications ranging from spatial trend analyses to climate change impact assessments. The data came from a total of 460 locations in the Southern Hemisphere. Temperatures over land were obtained from 19 manned stations of the World Monthly Surface Station Climatology network, most of which were located in coastal areas of the Antarctic continent, plus 73 stations of the Automated Weather Station network, many of which were situated further inland. Temperatures over the sea were obtained from the International Comprehensive Ocean-Atmosphere Data repository. Of particular importance in their melding of these diverse data, the authors used correlation length scaling “to enhance information content while limiting the spatial extent of influence of the sparse data in the Antarctic region.”
What it means
The data in the figure above clearly indicate a post-1958 warming of Antarctica and much of the surrounding Southern Ocean. From approximately 1970 to the end of the record, however, temperatures of the region simply fluctuated around an anomaly mean of about 0.12°C, neither warming nor cooling over the final 32 years of the record.
This latter observation is truly amazing in light of the fact that the region of study includes the Antarctic Peninsula, which experienced phenomenal warming during this period. Nevertheless, the mean surface air temperature of the entire region changed not at all, over a period of time that saw the air’s CO2 concentration rise by approximately 47 ppm (about 15% of its 1970 value, as per the Mauna Loa CO2 record).
Clearly, the entire continent of Antarctica, together with much of the Southern Ocean that surrounds it, has been completely oblivious to the supposedly “unprecedented” radiative impetus for warming produced by anthropogenic emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases over the last three decades of the 20th century … and even a bit beyond.
Author:
Chapman, W.L. and Walsh, J.E.
Paul – thanks for the link – a useful piece of validation data for the models IMO.
Feeds directly in the typical pseudo-sceptic naivete of Barry who expects uniform AGW effects across the globe that “somehow” are expected to suddenly overwhelm existing geographic, orographic, land surface and all circulation systems to produce a “nice” uniform hedgetrimmer effect across every square inch – including Antarctica. ROTFL !
Come on – this is kindergarten level thinking …
Which is why it’s important to see if models reproduce the observations – with oceanic and circulation observations.
And the changes in SAM and so forth – are also the reason that the lower MDB is in drought and for some of the rainfall decline in SW WA. The position of the rain bearing systems has changed and is missing the continent. A small geographical change gives a major climate impact to southern Australia.
And yes NT – the volcano under the ice a few hundred years ago is geologically fascinating but irrelevant to the major issue of climate change in Antarctica.
Luke me boyo, Moulins, rouge or otherwise, have little to do with glaciers:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080417142507.htm
In Antarctica, it would be difficult for melt water to have much effect since large amounts of the base of the glaciers are below sealevel!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:AntarcticBedrock2.jpg
Yep kookers – but we’re not just talking glaciers – also various forms of ice sheets. But the point being is that ice sheets are not simply going to neatly melt – moreover disintegrate – crack – and be undermined is the mechanism …
And yes Pine Island is below sea level and it’s still accelerating its discharge – gravity finds it way ! My Nature Geoscience ref above. Simply relieve the friction at the terminus of the glacier (where it is at sea level) will speed it up.
Has anyone checked to see what the particular gyp is to do with 1957? Because from memory I thought the general claim was that the Antarctic had been cooling since about 1968. So they would have picked out 1957 for a reason.
These are truly evil bastards. And the general public doesn’t know just how cold Antarctica is and the impossibility of it being a factor in sea level.
I just bought this new fridge and I noticed that when I had the freezer side on power freeze the ice doesn’t melt nearly as quickly and even in the case of beer that is room temperature. And to top it off this is the case with ice cubes smaller than I’d ever seen before. These cubes must be at -25 degrees and you go through two beers at room temperature before you are even noticing the loss of ice. Whereas my old ice must have been at (lets say) -10 or -7 or something and you’d notice it right away. Even with the bigger cubes.
There is just an enormous amount of ice in Antarctica. And the thing is when you are talking inland and below 6 metres down then the vast majority of it (from memory) is about -60 degrees celcius. Its just so cold. With ice cubes that cold you could make it through a six-pack without noticing the ice loss. And if one of the cubes stuck to your tongue it would be an instant loss of skin. Even now the little cubes have a bit of a spooky stickiness too them.
You would have these party balloons. And of course you could pop them with a pin. If you were a real prick and you wanted to make all the children cry and some of the women scream you might pop them with a cigarette. But if you put a bit of sticky tape on the balloon and used a pin to poke a hole where the sticky tape is the balloon will just be losing air very slowly. You can do this when the balloon is untied. And if you have a really big balloon, far larger than normal size….. then with this tiny hole in the balloon you might lack the willpower or lung-power to ever be able to blow up the balloon fast enough to ever be able to pop it that way.
The Antarctic is like that. And more than anything else I would put our planets one-way cooling bias down to the Antarctic being where it is with its circumpolar current. Its always going to be a pin in the balloon of the potential for serious warming just so long as that circumpolar current is intact. Since if the planet warms under those circumstances the heat will pour into Antarctica mid-troposphere and then it will be lost in space. The extra warmth cannot pour in at lower levels then that because the circumpolar current cuts it off.
And maybe thats just a very small hole in the balloon. But its enough for us to have this one-way bias. There is simply no chance of the great bulk of the inland Antarctica ice melting while we have that circumpolar current. The day that the Southern Hemisphere gets a more out-and-back current like the Gulf-Stream is the day when speculations to do with overheating become not entirely ridiculous and not a day before that.
kuhnkat,
But AGW water is special water, because wicked people in SUV’s are behind it. Sort of like the non-existent troposphere hot spot, that is ‘splained away by magic AGW winds.
If Bush had tortured terrorists as much as Mann & co. torture numbers and truth, we really would have had a war crime problem.
BTW – I am not suggesting a catastrophic collapse of the entire Antarctic ice sheet in case pseudo-sceptic alarmists are thinking that – simply that there are atmospheric and oceanic mechanisms at play in Western Antarctica which are causing a variety of warming effects observed in the cryosphere itself. And that the climate models provide a post hoc interpretation of the observations that implicate an anthropogenic influence of both stratospheric ozone depletion and troposheric greenhouse gas increase. And that those changes also have “current” wider implications for the southern hemisphere including Australia. (Current meaning – fix the ozone hole and things may change again but not predictably as the greenhouse forcing will then be much greater (IMO !) ).
And all this hasn’t got anything to do with Al Gore, Hansen or an ETS.
The peak weighting function for the MSUlt data sits a mile below the surface of much of the Antarctic ice cap. It is this “data” which has informed most sceptic comments about Antarctic temperature.
I thought that what “informed” most sceptic comments on the temperatures in the Antarctic was:
http://data.aad.gov.au/aadc/soe/display_indicator.cfm?soe_id=1
(scroll down to the graphs that display no change)
and here
http://www.physorg.com/news148239677.html
Notice the temperature reduction recorded from satellites
and here
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.anom.south.jpg
the ice is growing.
If this is the “climate change” that Luke is getting hysterical about, he needs to get a grip.
This really is the Age of Stupid
Growing my foot – it’s close to normal and trending down ! Surely by all the norms of pseudo-sceptic analysis.
And am I hysterical – think how nutty this is – “let’s wait till the aircraft wing falls off – let’s just ignore all those early warning signs – let’s ignore the stress cracks”. Let’s ignore the growing body of evidence.
So proof for the pseudo-sceptics is a TOTAL catastrophe. Nothing less will satisfy. It’s the nutty squirrels. OMIGOD !
Yep that’s logical isn’t it? ROTFL
Bob Carter on 2ue 24/1/09 12:40pm
2UE Intro: NOAA show 115 lowest ever temperatures recorded in Northern Hemisphere and that temperatures peaked in 1998 and also the Russians are predicting a new ice age
They interviewed Professor Bob Carter in Wellington and asked re the Russian predicted Ice Age
Climate trends show 1998 warm due to an el nino year
Bob said, in geological terms a big ice ages comes around 20,000 years and so we are due for an ice age in the fairly near future (in geological terms) anywhere in the next 200,000 years.
20,000 years ago there was a fairly big ice age; also smaller ones – eg in the 14th-19th century when there was 2m of ice on theThames.
He mentioned cyclically 1000-1500 yrs and said re el nino- la nina all indications are in cooling phase
Antarctic ice is not receeding – ice reached record in recorded time – 12% above long term average
Bob said when natural change happens – (mainstream) media pick up as a global warming scare. Many scare or alarm stories in MSM
Although there has been no warming since 1998 via satellite measurements, (agreed by all main scientific bodies) there has been a 5% increase in Co2. Prior to the satellites, temperatures were recorded by weather balloons and their record show that since 1958 there has been no warming although Co2 is up by 20% in that time.
Bob signed off with a quote from Mark Twain: “Climate is what you expect and weather is what you get.”
E&OE
As Geoff Brown reported:Bob ( Carter) signed off with a quote from Mark Twain: “Climate is what you expect and weather is what you get.” So climate change is what we didnt expect.
I posted an abstract from a peer reviewed paper reference the part of the globe from 60 deg S to 90 deg S. Suddenly Luke turns this into a comment about the entire globe. The constant gross exagerations of the AGW alarmists underscore the incredible weakness of their case. If you can not debate the case as stated without childish extrapolations you have no defence of your position. Luke I think you have demonstrated countless times that you are a total airhead and a cult fanatic because you just can not stick to the point and basically you have no logical answers which is typical of the rest of your cult.
Luke – calm down will you – let’s get some real facts.
<blockquote.”This is the only area of West Antarctica that is changing really rapidly,” says Dr David Vaughan, an expert in glacial retreat at the BAS.
Julian Scott, however, thinks there may be other forces at work as well.
Much higher up the course of the glacier there is evidence of a volcano that erupted through the ice about 2,000 years ago and the whole region could be volcanically active, releasing geothermal heat to melt the base of the ice and help its slide towards the sea.
The reason does not seem to be warming in the surrounding air.
One possible culprit could be a deep ocean current that is channelled onto the continental shelf close to the mouth of the glacier. There is not much sea ice to protect it from the warm water, which seems to be undercutting the ice and lubricating its flow.
Now, though, a team of British scientists plans to attack the continent’s “weak underbelly” – the watery realms below the massive glaciers. Using a robot submarine nicknamed “Autosub”, researchers from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) hope to explore this previously inaccessible part of the glacier, to discover what is happening.
The unmanned submarine, seven metres long and painted bright yellow, will use sophisticated sonar scanners to map out the underside of the ice, while measuring changes in water temperature, pressure and salt content beneath the glacier.
“We believe that something about the ocean around where the glacier ice moves from being grounded to floating has changed, and this is driving the thinning and accelerating ice flow,” explains Dr Adrian Jenkins, who is leading the BAS research. “But we really have very little idea of what is actually going on beneath the ice, as we have not been able to see through it – it is more than a kilometre thick in places. The only way is to send in our instruments to get measurements.”
The submarine, which has a maximum range of 248 miles and is powered by 5,000 ordinary D-cell batteries, will navigate its way for 40 miles underneath the glacier ice, until it reaches the point where the ice meets the land – a journey that will take 20 hours.
Using its sonar, the Autosub will pick its way through the water, while creating a three-dimensional map that the scientists can later use to determine the areas most prone to melting.
The submarine will follow a pre-programmed course, but can find its way around any obstacles.
the ice shelf already is sitting on the ocean so if it breaks off the sea level will not change!
luke; the expression Quixotic does not do your efforts justice; the Steig paper is manure, statistically, empirically and morally; Antarctica is expanding; the West is geologically and climatically distinct from the remaining 95% of the ice-mass; I’ve given you the Thoma et al paper from 2008 dealing with CDW variation as a result of natural wind variation [which Steig disavows] and the Worby et al paper on expanding sea-ice; the Davis et al paper dealing with East Antarctica expansion; the Thomas et al paper dealing with the doubling of snow accumulation in the Western Antarctica [!] since 1850; you have the satellite temps showing no down trend; personal testimony from Ross Hays, a colleaque of Steig rebutting the paper; BoM data showing no downward trend at any of the data sites and still you persist; what are they paying you? At least you had the decency to link to the Schmidt paper asserting that Antarctic cooling was consistent with AGW; can you imagine Schmidt and Mann remonstrating with each other now?
Schmidt: you fool, I’d convinced everyone that Southern cooling was consistent with AGW; and now you go and spoil the whole thing by proving [sic] that there is warming there!
Mann: no worries; I’ll just jig up some stats which prove that both warming and cooling are consistent with AGW.
Luke said………”Comment from: Luke January 24th, 2009 at 11:55 am
[Growing my foot – it’s close to normal and trending down ! Surely by all the norms of pseudo-sceptic analysis.
And am I hysterical – think how nutty this is – “let’s wait till the aircraft wing falls off – let’s just ignore all those early warning signs – let’s ignore the stress cracks”. Let’s ignore the growing body of evidence.
So proof for the pseudo-sceptics is a TOTAL catastrophe. Nothing less will satisfy. It’s the nutty squirrels. OMIGOD !
Yep that’s logical isn’t it? ROTFL”]
—————————————————————————————————————
…….. Well, I might point out the fact that you are not on an aeroplane…. The Earth doesn’t need wings to stay up and the climate isn’t driven by CO2….
But of course if you do have comprehensive empirical evidence the CO2 drives climate significantly. By all means, present that and we’ll land this sucker now…..
… But until then, you can play in your imaginary plane…. But leave me and my livelihood out of it. 😉
Re:’ Seeing Heard is believing in global warming’ Sydney Morning Herald January 16 2009.
The report of a 1.3 degree of warming on Heard Island ( SMH 16 Jan.) and the retreat of glaciers would indeed be a very worrying portent of global warming if it were typical of the whole earth. Also, even the most pessimistic reports of global warming do not suggest the earth has warmed by over one degree in recent years.
Could there be possibly some other reason for the rise in temperature on Heard? Oh yes, perhaps that’s it: in the same article it refers to the island as; ‘volcanic Heard’ and later states that ‘volcanic activity had doubled (nearby) McDonald Island’s size … over a few years’.
But then, who would give a grant for the study of the localised warming effects of volcanic activity ?
David Harrison,
2 Parkland Place, Thornleigh, NSW 2120
Tel. 02 9945 1539
Cohenite your comments border on imbecilic. Your ability to discount an entire literature is amazing. David already told you about UAH over the south pole. Listen up ! As for increased snowpack – just what you’d expect ! And it was not Antarctica cooling at all – it was about “little change”. The current analysis doesn’t disturb that much hence my original comments about 100 ago or was it another thread.
J Hansford – your livelihood is already in it … with the zillions paid in farm support on drought due to this issue. Called tax ! Movement of rainfall systems – southern circulation systems – you know …
The sea ice IS NOT expanding- it’s declining … after every other comment we’ve ever heard on here about satellite trends you WOULD HAVE TO conclude its declining. Otherwise dudes all your previous rants are inconsistent.
Apart from that – about the level of stupidity you’d expect on here. Inability to read. Inability to weigh up different scales of issue.
Regardless Barry Moore – expecting a uniform effect is silly.
You are wrong Luke – the Antarctic sea ice is expanding at 1.1% per decade according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.
Now why would it do that if it were warming?
luke; you must admit the data is mixed; even an imbecile can see that;
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080421111622.htm
Also, what problems with the satellites were you talking about?
Here is an image of all the temp data sites for Antarctica;
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/MAPANTARTICA.jpg
Here is the record for number one;
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/South_Pole_temps.jpg
No 15;
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/Vostok_Temps.jpg
What has Mann based his interpolations on?
I should also mention that our absent friend, Steve Short, has done some recent calculations and estimates the CO2 divergence between the nth and sth hemispheres will produce a CO2 imbalance of 100ppm in favour of the nth hemisphere by 2100; with that sort of dichotomy what is powering the alleged heating of the Antarctic?
Janama – well as the blog knows you can’t trust these govt science worker agencies – the trend is currently decreasing sharply and the long term trend is not statistically significant from zero.
David said above and has reminded us again that the MSU data are far from perfect and that at the southern polar region the weighting function used to analyse tropospheric temperature data puts the data surface under the ice ^*@(*E^$(*E@^ !!! WTF !!! David never bluffs so I’m tending to believe him Perhaps why RSS don’t give values for the poles ?? Which was my original question to Will N – now get it?
Cohers – perhaps you need a full climate model. Like I said to Barry Moore about assuming “even” effects everywhere. Might the aerosol loading and and land surface albebo factors be a tad different for both hemispheres? mmmmm perhaps so?
But I will agree that the issue is complex – which is why we might all be looking for some results from the Sydney CLIVAR/CliC/SCAR Southern Ocean Region Implementation Panel 5th meeting.
http://www.clivar.org/organization/southern/SOP5_meet.php
http://www.clivar.org/organization/southern/CISM_Workshop_Report.pdf (if you have some appreciation for science involved in ice sheet dynamics)
Cohers – “What has Mann based his interpolations on?” – well there’s a fair bit in it – use of AVHRR data as well as AWS and long term stations. Have sent you the methods so you can give us a full dissertation on where the authors are wrong.
re. David Harrison
“’ Seeing Heard is believing in global warming’ Sydney Morning Herald January 16 2009.”
I saw this reported on a news service, ABC or SBS and was amazed that a ‘scientist’ would sully their reputation with such garbage. Incredible!
wrong again Luke! what are you stubborn or something?
http://www.climate4you.com/images/SeaIceNHandSHlastMonthSince1979.gif
here’s the temp for the Antarctic
http://www.climate4you.com/images/MSU%20UAH%20ArcticAndAntarctic%
Janama – but it’s trending down – look at the last value. (dude this is the sort of logic you guys use all the time). And the slope of the regression isn’t significantly different to zero. So ho hum.
Your last link is a dud – But looky here.
http://www.climate4you.com/images/MSU%20UAH%20ArcticAndAntarctic%20MonthlyTempSince1979%20With37monthRunningAverage.gif
There’s no trend in the Antarctic data using the approved Marohasy/McLean running mean method. I’m just using your methods Janama. In any case the data analysis is trifling compared to the Steif paper. i.e. it’s not very good.
Poor Jeremy C, his challenge never stood a chance. No response, he’ll be waiting till hell freezes over ( perhaps again, it maybe cyclic, must check with Carter)! Jeremy wrote “So Jennifer, if you want to disprove my earlier post that you are just using this whole thing as a beat up, geeing up the troops by standing on the hill top and proclaiming bias and leading them by their collective noses in using the ABC and its mistakes as an easy target will you instead now join me in making a joint complaint to the ABC about their disgraceful mangling of Barry Brook’s contribution…..”. Jeremy will have to lower his expectations if he is expecting lead stories to about the search for the truth. And when you see some of the evidence-free contributions Jennifer provokes from her troops, it must deep down be disheartening for her too. All the evidence is that this is guerilla warfare mate, skimishes, misinformation, shoot the messengers (Nature, the authors, CSIRO, ABC, Barry Brook, random,). If you are up against a tangled web, Byzantine like, you cant unravel the warp and the weave of a master spinner. Then again dont give up. But I did get a laugh at seeing satellite data (proclaimed by Jennifer as telling the story reliably and all on its own, her own pet petard) being part of the plot.
Keep cackling bazza, the men in white coats will be around soon.
luke, you are incorrigible; it is evident that Mann has abused the primary data from Will’s link which I will repeat;
http://data.aad.gov.au/aadc/soe/display_indicator.cfm?soe_id=1
And from my examples at 7.29PM above.
In addition, Mann’s statistical analysis [sic] is excoriated by davidc at 5.04pm above. Davidc’s conclusion that Mann’s manipulations disguise a slight positive trend correlates with the actual trend from the satellite. There is a slight warming trend between 1993-2003 but what was that about cherry-picking again?
Yes, sorry luke, the above was written before I received the full data; I shall duly immerse myself.
That message was truncated; sorry luke, the above comment was made before I received your data; I shall immerse myself and get back to you.
Antarctica has been glaciated for the last 35.5 million years (and dozens of other times throughout geologic history since continental drift has left Antarctica right around the south pole for most of the past 600 millions years.)
When Antarctica froze over in this episode, CO2 levels were over 1,000 ppm.
The average annual temperature at the south pole is -49.5C.
Luke and fellow travelers, I know as far as you are concerned posting logical and informative comments are a complete waste of time since you are totally immersed in the fanatical AGW cult however for others who may read this blog but are reticent to post it is informative to see how infantile and groundless the AGW alarmist’s arguments are.
With regard to the recent posts and your replies, the laws of physics are universal and are equally applicable all over the world e.g. Beer’s, Stefan’s, Boltzman’s, Plank’s. Wein’s, Kirchoff’s etc. etc. I quote these since they all pertain to radiation Physics and energy transfer.
The IPCC hypothesis in general terms says that some of the IR leaving the earth’s surface is captured by CO2 and is reradiated back to the surface thus increasing the radiation absorbed by the surface and therefore increasing its temperature, then the more CO2 there is in the atmosphere the more energy is reradiated back to the surface. To those with no expertise in Physics this simplistic logic has some appeal however when the laws as listed above are applied the entire hypothesis falls apart and is proven to have no validity. It is for this reason that no IPCC report has ever tried to validate their hypothesis using the basic laws of Physics, which should be a first and mandatory step in the development of any hypothesis.
It is agreed that the surface temperature of any part of the globe is the result of a large number of functions but until each and every function is understood and quantified individually it is impossible to say the overall trend is due primarily to any one of them. However I must stick to my point that since the effect of CO2 alone is dictated by the laws of Physics it must be universal. I find it interesting that when challenged with discontinuities you leap to point out all the other factors which influence temperature ( none of which are remotely connected to CO2) and then in the next breath attribute all global warming in the entire 20th century and beyond into the future to CO2 alone. This will not appear as a contradiction to you but to all rational people it will.
Pity for during the PETM when CO2 was also high that ice sheets were minimised….. sigh …
Barry – I read your comment. Your start off by talking about “logical and informative comments” – you then proceed to go off in the usual denialist and pseudo-sceptical tirade and political rant. As for your appeal to “simplistic logic” – well it’s far from simple isn’t it. We have a number of interacting natural and a number of anthropogenic climate influences and feedbacks. On your dismissal of radiation physics I assume you’ve corresponded with a few international institutes involved in radiative physics and convinced yourself that the last 50 years of research on energy balance is all wrong. Of course you haven’t – you’ve accepted some blog goon’s bleated assurance that that is the case. The IPCC’s job is to review the science periodically – your considered response to a massive tome with hundred’s of supporting references is that there is nothing in it. Mate – you’re having your chain pulled by an organised anti-science gang of pseudo-sceptics. You will prefer to indulge yourself in blogosphere crappola than think through the science for yourself – your choice !
And you have the sheer audacity to attempt to frame an argument about rationality and fanaticism !!
Barry – a trivial example why universalism is wrong. The effect depends on the amount of solar radiation received. Is the amount received uniform – no – oh dear.
You think that CO2 should overcome the patterns of the Earth’s geography, ocean circulation and rotational spin – hmmmm – oh dear.
You do ask a lot don’t you.
What is your point Luke? You are supposed to have a point you stupid marxist. Is the idea for your idiots take on science to win over simply on the grounds that you keep jabbering until everyone goes away?
“Barry – a trivial example why universalism is wrong. The effect depends on the amount of solar radiation received. Is the amount received uniform – no – oh dear.
You think that CO2 should overcome the patterns of the Earth’s geography, ocean circulation and rotational spin – hmmmm – oh dear.”
What are you jabbering on about here? It actually looks like the leftist-reversal. If you have changed your mind, and you now think CO2 CANNOT override all these things, then you ought to apologize for your former stupidity and quietly commit suicide to try and make up for the shame.
Because it was precisely this contention that you held. You held that extra CO2 would override all of these other things. Have you now changed you mind dopey?
Jeniffer, Proteus and cohenite might be interested to find that Ross Hays is apparently being a little disingenuous:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2009/01/23/antarctica-warming/
It is becoming more obvious, that the warmenista brigade is in retreat.
While the government is in the process of not only taxing carbon, it’s been declared a “pollutant”, and yet if you listen to the debate here CO2, is relegated to a minor contributor to warming.
I can well remember the comments from early last year even, when CO2 was king.
Well BJ, I was going to reply to luke who is seeking to drown me with detail [the Stine et al paper is interesting luke] but that throwaway by you about Hays and our dear chum, Tamino, deserves reply; the Steig paper lists Butler Island as being the frontrunner for temperature increase [see supplementary information to paper]; here is the temperature record for Butler;
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=700892660009&data_set=0&num_neighbors=1
The Steig paper also informs that it uses data from 42 sites; there are 46 sites in the Antarctic, several of which are Australian, none of which are used;
http://data.aad.gov.au/aadc/soe/display_indicator.cfm?soe_id=1
And here is the temp trend from Amundensen Scot [the South Pole] which Steig also hasn’t used;
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/South_Pole_temps.jpg
Let Tamino weave his magic with that.
Thanks Bernard J. but since you linked to a post by Tamino, who is charactersitcally tendentious, I had to check for myself. I notice, for instance, he begins the plot, like Steig et al do, in 1957; now that is cherry-picking. Further, in comparsion to Steig, his co-authors, and Tamino, I dare say Hayes has visited Antarctica more times than any of them. I will also note that Tamino’s post is entirely a distraction to the main issue: Is Antarctica, generally, cooling or warming? which was exactly its intention.
Cohenite – sigh – you really aren’t coming to grips with Steig et al. Put the alternative analysis or roll over and play dead. You’re only playing with 10% of the story at the moment – which is why Steig et al have pissed all over your parade.
Tell you what Cohers – you must be disappointed with the level of stupidity of your fellow sceptics here. Have you ever seen such drivel?
marcus,
Yes, it looks like retreat might be underway, and not a very orderly one. I’m grateful to Luke for giving us a picture of what it’s like in the AGW camp.
Retreat !! &$@!^!@ – ROTFL
within a week – 3 damning AGW papers
Unprecedented recent warming of surface temperatures in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean
Widespread Increase of Tree Mortality Rates in the Western United States
Warming of the Antarctic Ice-Sheet Surface Since The 1957 International Geophysical Year.
choo chooooooooooooo
au.youtube.com/watch?v=e0DcROcmHrc
how about Glacier Slowdown in Greenland, snow falls in the United Arab Emirates and 7 scientists using different data predict global cooling and not one of them connected with RealClimate so they actually have cred. 🙂
ROTFL
“Jeniffer, Proteus and cohenite might be interested to find that Ross Hays is apparently being a little disingenuous:”
On tamino’s sayso???? Bernhard attempt not to be gutless. If you have a case to make why not make it in your own words and not hide behind bigoted, anti-science, extremists like tamino.
Face it Bernhard. You are lying about Ross aren’t you? And using that dumbass tamino to duck responsibility. Let us hear your lying argument in your own words.
What is this 1957 business? Has anyone figured that out yet? Was that some strangely cold year for the Antarctic that the liars have picked up on?
Yeah Luke you really are convincing people that there is runaway warming going on. Don’t be a dickhead mate. Just kill yourself. You have been found out finally. I knew you were a compulsive liar the whole time.
Code for “Bernard – errr Tamino is too clever for me – can you pls explain it for me”.
Ya gott realise Birdy did arts …
Birdy it works like this – what ya do if you think you’re a plyer (and you’re not) is you write a rebuttal comment to Nature on Steig et al. Now if you get rejected you can share the rejection letter here as we do need a laugh. Here’s a draft for you to work on …
“Dear Nature,
You mob are a bunch of anti-science marxist Leninist extremist commo nazis and lefties. I hate you. BTW Steig et al sucks. And it’s wrong too. The world has a one-way crushing all destroying cooling bias (Except when it’s not). I hate you again and all your work over the years sucks. Your entire board is a bunch of lying tax-eating scum that needs to be sacked then shot – then sacked again. I am serious and not mental or anything.
Regards and best wishes
GB”
mmmmm – 1957 – gee Graeme – dat’s a hard un – perhaps the paper title may explain it
but otherwise try your party’s training video au.youtube.com/watch?v=IIlKiRPSNGA
BTW you can’t kill the borg … (well not with conventional weapons)
No not code for anything. And Tamino is a mindless ideologue and a moron. The fact is that Bernhard is doing what he always does. He cannot make the argument. He will not make the argument. He refuses to make an argument. Yet he’s willing to cast aspersions on other people on the basis of arguments that he himself refuses to take the responsibility for making. So rather then a full-blown bullshit-artist like yourself he’s a coward. And a general obstructionist. Its just stunning that a fellow like him is involved in medical research.
The magazine Nature is irrelevant to this argument. There is no point attempting to publish in that worthless screed. What is relevant is REALITY. No publishing can change physical reality. Now does anyone know why they picked on the year 1957.
If one wanted to pick years out of a hat…. or to just pick a base year that you thought was relevant to this argument, the chances that you would wind up with 1957 are not good. Since the claim was only made that Antarctica had been on a cooling trend since the late sixties. Which means of course that prior to that Antarctica was either static or warming depending on what two years you were talking about.
So the choice of year was itself tendentious. It actually stands out like a sore thumb. And since Michael Mann is a known science fraud it is reasonable to speculate that this was a standout cold year for Antarctica.
After the kindergarten stuff of the last dozen or so posts here, I would welcome serious responses to my post (#155) at the thread “Valuing Passion Over Wisdom: Hansen Awarded Highest Honour by American Meteorologists”.
OK – I’ll tell you – essentially it’s a quiescent point in the quasi-biennial oscillation time series which essentially linearises any LOD effects. You realise anything else would have made their analysis non-orthogonal. Are you advocating non-orthogonality Graeme – is that the level of your science matey?
Luke,
I specifically referred to the relegation of CO2 to a minor role by yourself and others, although it was been blamed for all the warming to begin with, proven by the fact, that the new tax is supposed to reduce CO2 emissions.
As to the debate about the whole AGW and warming in general, I just watch it in amusement.
I am used to dealing with very small margins in engineering, where it matters, but the minuscule temperature changes, you people are arguing about, leaves me cool and comfortable.
Oh, it looks terribly impressive on the graphs produced by you and others until one realises the actual values involved and the magnitude of the change.
I’m more worried about the politicians, of any flavor jumping on the bandwagon and screwing us for more money, under false pretenses.
Luke I know I have said this before but you really must enrol in reading comprehension grade one then work your way up. “political rant” there was not one word about politics in the post. I was definitely not appealing to simplistic logic I was accusing IPCC of using it. Your statement “We have a number of interacting natural and a number of anthropogenic climate influences and feedbacks.” Was exactly my point. Far from dismissing radiation physics my point was that the laws of physics should be applied and the IPCC refuse to do so. My knowledge does not come from blogs it has come from reading hundreds of peer reviewed technical papers. If the IPCC have reviewed the same papers why don’t they have a chapter on radiation theory in their reports. I have read the IPCC report and it consists of a massive collection of statistics which do not prove a thing because correlation does not prove causation. It also inculdes 2 of the 11 full chapters devoted to climate models and the rest of the report is an endless stream of references to model results. You can not program a computer with a hypothesis then claim the compute results have proven your hypothesis that is called circular logic. Virtually all the pre-eminent scientists in this field including NASA and NOAA agree that the computer models are interesting but have no intrinsic value. Take all of that out of the IPCC report and all you have left is Mann’s hockey stick and worthless ice core data.
This is interesting, comment from the authors on the study:
The findings are “really consistent with the general warming that we get from greenhouse gases. So we now see that warming is taking place on all seven of the Earth’s continents in accord with what models predict as a response to greenhouse gases.”
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/more-on-antarctica-and-consistent-with-4906
Well done luke, as fine an example of malapropism and amphigory as one could wish for; pseudo-recherche rodomontade at its best; a tad contradictory inas much orthogonal vectors are linearly independent; but it captures the iterative spirit of Mann splendidly; as a reward read this front to back and back to front and then eat it;
http://www.nwra.com/resumes/baldwin/pubs/Baldwin_et_al_2001_QBO.pdf
Graeme,
Since you can’t be bothered attempting to seek out any facts for yourself, here’s a response from one of the authors about why 1957 was the start year:
Actually – most of the weather stations were added after 1980
http://amrc.ssec.wisc.edu/databook/fieldreports/fldrep03.doc
I thought about mentioning the 1958 Geo Physical year (again), back in the thread but reckoned everybody here should be well informed by now…
Its kids stuff today hey
http://www.questacon.edu.au/onlinestuff/ipy.html
Gavin – since 1980 – 100 AWS have been added and maintained by the University of Wisconsin and school students.
They cover the continent.
http://users.tpg.com.au/johnsay1/Stuff/stations.jpg
Plus there are the aussie stations Cohenite mentioned.
http://users.tpg.com.au/johnsay1/Stuff/stations_oz.jpg
I did like the article & the rather humorous remark (wrongly) attributed to Prof. Brooke. I would have to side with the ‘deniers’ on the AGW debate as they seem to be the only ones following scientific method.
I have listened to Kinninmonth’s comments.
The ABC “addition” omits the preceding question, so Kinninmonth’s comments are out of context. It took me a few seconds to work out that Kinninmonth was responding to a question that does not exist in the official archived transcript.
Lynsenkoism par excellence.
Well Done Oy Bee Cee and that fundamentalist Fabian Robyn Williams.
“a few disreputable apples like Mann have managed to so spoil the entire barrel”
It sounds like scientists are in the same boat as economists – they both have their Bernard Madoffs …
HA HA .. I can’t believe you are quoting from Junkscience.com — in 1998 they were running heaps of editorial against the “anti-tobacco” lobby. They claimed that there was no link between passive smoking and lung cancer. After one hell of a hefty lawsuit and some outing of internal documents the Tobacco lobby withdrew and gave up.
We’ve still got Junkscience – sponsored by Right Wind Cato and Heartland institutes and all their exxon mates. THey’ve just reinvented themselves — first they went after legitimate science showing the links between smoking and lung cancer. Now after losing that battle (LOSERS) they are trying to help other corporate interests by going against legitimate scientists ringing the alarm bells on the threat of accelerating global warming. (From huiman caused increases in Greenhouse gasses)
>Comment from: Chris Schoneveld January 23rd, 2009 at 9:33 pm
>How do the authors of the paper explain the UAH MSU Polar temperature anomaly graph for the >Lower Troposphere?
>http://www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/UAHMSUSPol.html
>It doesn’t cover al the polar region (like the central part of the Antarctica which unequivocally has >cooled anyway) but it sure is an indication that the southern polar region has been warming >during the satellite era..