by Greg Goodman
This year, as every year, there has been much excitement in the media about ‘catastrophic’ melting of Arctic sea-ice, run-away melting, tipping points, death spirals and “ice-free” summers.
There has been the usual guessing game about when exactly the minimum will / has occurred and what the ice area or extent will be on that day.
Claims of ‘ice-free’ conditions at some time in the summer have been bandied about for years in various forms but as the reality sinks in that it’s not as bad as some had claimed, the dates when this is expected happen have often been pushed out beyond the life expectancy of those making the claims.
The meaning of “ice-free” has also been the subject of some serious goal-post relocation efforts, we are now told that ‘ice-free’ does not actually mean free of ice, it means there will be less than one million square km of ice left.
This special branch of mathematics is apparently based on the axiom that zero = 10 6
The problem with this obsessive focusing on one single data point out of 365, is that there is a lot of short term, weather driven variability that can affect the exact timing and size of the minimum in ice coverage. Since the main interest ( outside maritime navigational requirements ) is the hope to find some indications of long term changes in climate, this is not a very instructive way to use the detailed data available.
There have been three notably low summer minima in recent years: 2007, 2012 and 2016. The 2012 event was the lowest in the satellite record going back to 1979. The other two years tie for second place, meaning the current minimum is indistinguishable from the one which occurred nine years previously and the lowest one lies between the two. This incompatible with claims of run-away melting. This was a reasonable hypothesis and cause for concern in 2007 when the relatively short record could be characterised as an increasing rate of change but this interpretation is not compatible with what has happened since.
In the golden days of “run-away” melting, leading up to the ‘catastrophic’ 2007 Arctic sea-ice minimum, this was often presented as the ‘canary in the coal-mine’ for global warming and climate change. It is still referred to as such.
The aim here is to try to separate the changes in the annual cycle from the weather-driven and other short-term variability and to see if we can learn something about the life expectancy of our canary.
Method and Results
In order to determine an objective timing for the sea-ice minimum, it is necessary to filter out short-term variability. Visual inspection of the northern hemisphere sea-ice data [1] shows that there are periods of about a week in length having alternating greater and lesser rates of change throughout most of the year. Spectral analysis also reveals notable cyclic components at around 4, 10, 16 days. This means that the date of the minimum tends to fluctuate rather erratically over the first three weeks of September.
The criterion adopted here for having sufficiently removed the short term variability in order to get a stable estimation of the turning point ( minimum sea-ice extent ) of the annual cycle, was that there shall be only one change of direction. Since the annual cycle only has one minimum, anything producing multiple localised minima is noise in this context.
To detect this condition, the rate of change of the NSIDC NH sea-ice extent was taken and a 3-sigma gaussian low-pass filter applied. The length of the filter was increased progressively until all years in the data had a unique turning point (ie. a change of sign in the time derivative ).
This was achieved in practice by a single operation: convolution of the daily data with a diff-of-gaussian kernel [*] of the chosen length. The data point at the change of sign was taken as the date of the minimum in the annual cycle for each year.
As is typically the case for satellite records, the data processed by NDISC comes from a number of different satellites as instruments and spacecraft fail. They are cross-calibrated as well as possible to provide one continuous time series. One notable change in the data is that the earlier orbits only provided full surface coverage every six days [2] and were originally processed to give a data point every three days. These have apparently been interpolated to give a homogeneous time series. Obviously data with only a three day time resolution will be less accurate at determining the exact date of the turn-around. To mark the different nature of the early data this section is plotted in a different colour.
Comparison to the minima of 5 day trailing average presented by NSIDC shows the expected reduction in the variability that was the aim of this study. This manifests primarily as the reduced occurrence of later minimum dates. The pre-1998 data change little. This is probably due to the blurring effect of the extended 6 day orbital coverage being similar to the gaussian smoothing applied in this analysis. It can thus be inferred that the short-term, weather driven variations introduce an asymmetric shift to a later restart to freezing.
Discussion
There is a clear non linear nature to the variation in the timing of the annual minimum in Arctic sea-ice extent from NSIDC. It reached its latest recent date for the turning point in 2007 and has been getting progressively earlier ever since.
That is to say, that the freezing season has been beginning steadily earlier for about a decade, having drifted in the opposite sense for the previous two decades.
There is much talk about naive assumptions of the effects of reduced ice area on the energy budget of the region. The simplistic argument being that less solar energy will be reflected by water compared to an ice or snow surface leading to further warming and thus ever more melting. However, there are several other effects which need to be measured and taken into account to determine whether this extra energy input will cause an overall positive feedback ( and accelerated melting ) or whether it will be counted by other effects. Open water emits more infra-red energy to space and evaporation of surface water in the windy Arctic region will remove substantial amounts of heat from the surface. Both of these effects will continue during 12 months of the year, not just the short summer. It is far from obvious how these factors and others will balance out. Climate models are notoriously poor at reproducing both Arctic temperatures and sea ice coverage. (They tend to under-estimate both temperature and ice loss). Clearly the ‘basic physics’ for this region is poorly understood.
The observational data can help shed some light on the how the region is responding to the reduced ice cover since the 2007 minimum.
The decadal rate of melting has also reduced since 2007 as measured by ice area data retrieved by the University of Illinois [4].
https://climategrog.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/ct_ice_area_short_anom_nh_2015_final.png
The derivation of that graph is detailed here:
Conclusion
There are two ways to interpret the observational data:
1) the net feedback from open water is negative , not positive and run-away melting was an erroneous interpretation. It is not happening.
2) the feedbacks are not the key driver of Arctic sea ice melting, there is another external force, such as N. Atlantic sea surface temperature and ocean currents, which is dominant and run-away melting was an erroneous interpretation. It is not happening.
The death spiral is dead.
Update: Since the rate of change at the beginning of refreezing tends to be faster than end of melting, removing higher frequencies with a filter introduces a general drift to a earlier date of minimum ice extent. This simply reflects the asymmetry of the annual cycle. This underlines the caution needed in merging the two sections of the dataset : the earlier Nimbus and the later military satellites which had different orbit resolution. The data are not fully compatible and comparing dates of ice minimum without suitable filtering will lead to an exaggerated impression of later melting.
Resources
[1] The NH sea-ice extent data are provided by NSIDC as daily anomalies form an average cycle plus the annual cycle which has been subtracted. The “near real time” data for the current, incomplete year is provided as a separate file in the same format. Documentation for the NSIDC data : http://nsidc.org/data/docs/noaa/g02135_seaice_index
[2] DMSP Satellite F8 was the first of a series a spacecraft and flew from 7 September 1987, it was flown by US department of defence. Data from this family is combined with that from earlier NASA provided Nimbus-7 spacecraft which flew similar but somewhat different polar orbits. https://nsidc.org/data/docs/daac/nimbus-7_platform.gd.html “The Nimbus-7 observatory provides global coverage every six days, or every 83 orbits.” This section of the combined record is less reliable for estimating the turning point due to lack of time resolution. The data has to be in-filled to produce daily data series and contributions to one ice extent figure are actually spread over 6 days of flight time.
[3] An implementation of the diff-of-gaussian filter is presented here: https://climategrog.wordpress.com/2016/09/18/diff-of-gaussian-filter/
[4] The sea-ice area data used in the decadal trend analysis are provided by Cryosphere Today team at U. Illinois. http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/timeseries.anom.1979-2008
Moderation note: As with all guest posts, please keep your comments civil and relevant.
It was never really alive, but more reason to believe it’s dead is also a good thing.
Well the concept that Arctic ice is on an infernal downward trend is very firmly entrenched. Mark Serreze who is head NSIDC repeated this week to the media that he “would not be surprised” if Arctic was ice free by 2030 or sooner.
Professor Peter Wadham’s of the world famous Cambridge University is still foolishly predicting it will happen in the next year or two.
Greg
I wrote two articles on historic variations in arctic ice, the first covering the period from 1814 to 1860 and the second from 1918 to 1950
I was genuinely surprised at the astonishing variability from one year to the next and that the winter minimums also decreased.
Other variations also occurred during the 1500’s and the Viking period
Tonyb
“It was never really alive,..”
Don’t agree. Note the paragraph which was in bold in the introduction.
My napkin calculations showed it being negative except for maybe a few months summer, and that was mostly controlled by how cloudy it was.
It’s part of the planet’s temperature regulation system.
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I have just realised the reason for the drift to earlier dates with the filter but I just missed getting the text modified before it went up.
Greg
Sorry that should say “without suitable filtering “
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Up-to-date spiral.
http://iwantsomeproof.com/extimg/siv_annual_polar_graph.png
Funny “spiral” is at the same point as it was NINE YEARS AGO . In fact what you have called a spiral is not a spiral at all it is a series of concentric rings which conveniently omits the fact that 2012 was lower than the last tive years, including this year.
This is the typically disingenuous kind spin and misrepresent of alarmist. Let me guess that you found this on Unskeptical Scienc blog, since I doubt you are capable of plotting anything yourself.
I was just looking for something up to date, and this was the first one I found with 2016. Yes it has decades. If you really want to see a spiral you can do a 10-year running mean for each month that would join these circles into one line.
Jim D: “If you really want to see a spiral you can do a 10-year running mean for each month that would join these circles into one line.”
I didn’t want a spiral, you did and misleadingly claimed to show one.
You won’t see a spiral because is has increased in the last 5 years and this year is still exactly the same as it was 9 years ago.
Instead of playing games with graphics, just look at the decadal rate rate of change shown in the article.
Of course you don’t want to see a spiral, but if you did a decadal running mean one I am just saying that is just what you would see.
You posted ” Up-to-date spiral.” , but it’s not a spiral.
Arctic sea-ice minimum has been essentially flat for the last 9y. If you use a long enough filter you will be able to mask that fact.
So what?
You don’t want to see a spiral. I gave you decadal circles. What’s all the fuss about?
You basically have four data points on that graph: four decadal rings. That is less informative than the graph I provided also showing long term trends:
https://climategrog.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/ct_ice_area_short_anom_nh_2015_final.png
No fuss, mine’s not a spiral either, it’s just that I did not pretend it was.
The benefit of the circular display is that it shows that the winter extent is decreasing as rapidly as the summer extent, and so it contains more information, and it shows that the spiral is indeed not dead at all as of 2016.
Decadal averages show more than their propounders think. The ice extent at the beginning of all of the decadal periods starting in 1980 exceeded the extent of each decadal ending. Ice extents decreased from beginning to end of each decade.
The seven year period beginning 2010 is different. The end, visually, in 2016 is about the average of the seven years. No decline, in contrast to the proceeding decadal trends. No spiral.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
Charlie Skeptic
The other problem with that graph is that it is model output from PIOMAS and NOT observations.
climategrog said:
It’s turtles, all the way down.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XyOwfSUUeBg/VXOOUcMlbjI/AAAAAAAACIg/CHmjrkFMFU4/s1600/reality_turtles.gif
> Arctic sea-ice minimum has been essentially flat for the last 9y.
Not Da Paws again, Greg.
Judy had a better chance with hers, and yet crickets.
You want to bet on this one?
There’s nothing to bet on. I’m not making predictions, I’m analysing observational data.
Neither did I say it was a pause, which would imply that it will return to melting later. That would also to be making an unfounded prediction.
The only patterns I think we can draw on are the rebounds which occurred after last two significant minima which would lead to an expectation of a similar rebound in the next two years and the 5.4y cycle which I identified in the doing trend analysis which hits it’s sharp low point next year.
Since these are opposing patterns it is unclear how ice cover will develop next year.
If Mark Serreze now says he would “not be surprised” if the Arctic is ‘ice-free’ by 2030, I can say that I would not be surprised if he is wrong. He has been pretty badly wrong so far and I do not see any observational evidence that this trend will not continue for some time to come.
One think that can be concluded from the data is that this naive idea that more open water since 2007 will cause a positive feedback and run-away melting can be ruled out NOW. That is not a predictions, it is an observation.
Greg Goodman.
Greg:
Keep digging.
Then
A reference for this “naive idea” would be good. Here’s what the IPCC says on the future of Arctic Ice: (SPM)
So, something not predicted not to happen, didn’t happen. Your point being what?
verytallguy said:
Predictions are kinda important, especially when we’re being asked to bear enormous costs and sacrifices due to those predictions.
The predictions about Saddam’s WMD and all the hand waving about looming “mushroom clouds” comes to mind.
Ah, typo, my bad. Should read
Jim D is missing several hundred years of the past ice record. That may be the most deceptive thing of all.
> I’m analysing observational data.
You keep using that word, Greg.
Curve fitting 60 years cycles into 30 years data is not data analysis, it’s extrapolation.
Picking 2005 as a starting date for your Da Paws trick is not data analysis, it’s cherry picking.
Are you sure it’s it a 60 year cycle, W?
GG has already referenced 5.4 year cycles, 4.2 year cycles, one week cycles, 16 day cycles, 10 day cycles and 4 day cycles.
So, I have a suggestion – that he’s confused the “Death spiral” with the “Wall of Death”. Cycles all the way.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_of_death
All “interesting”, whatever.
> Are you sure it’s it a 60 year cycle, W?
Let’s ask my best friend, CTRL-F. Ah, there it is:
A Stadium Wave of cheers for Greg!
No he said it was dead. In a blog post.
That means its impossible for the Ice to ever drop to below 1sq km.
he said so.
It’s too funny that these clowns cant grasp operational definitions.
Thanks Mosh’ , do you have a link to that. Seems contradictiory to what he was feeding to the media this week.
He was also quoted by the Guardian as saying that this “reinforce” the downward trend. Funny how being at the same level as it was almost a decade ago “reinforces” the previously steeper trend.
I supposed reinforcing must be another of those “operational definitions”.
The operation in question being to mislead the public.
The green line is where it was in the last decade, and the red line is where it is now.
Maybe it was Mosher’s unicorns wot said it, or didn’t say it. One never knows with Mosher’s unicorns.
Either way — using either Jim D’s turtle method or Mosher’s unicorn method — one can come to similar conclusions.
Steven Mosher and Jim D — The Arbiters of Science
http://img4.hostingpics.net/pics/519753Capturadepantalla1440.png
“Thanks Mosh’ , do you have a link to that. Seems contradictiory to what he was feeding to the media this week.”
No Greg I am talking about your claim that reaching 1million is impossible
Clearly not talking about what I said.
Your comments are usually so terse as to be cryptic and unfathomable. That always give you option of redefining what you meant later.
Neither do I recall claiming it was “impossible” for it get below 10^6 km^2. There is far too little data to make long term predictions and I am not doing so. I am studying actual observations to see whether claims of positive feedbacks and run-away melting are consistent with what we DO know, without making meaningless, unscientific projections massively extrapolated outside the observational data.
Perhaps we could base these on meaningless, unscientific “analysis” like this nugget from you Greg, proudly referenced from your OP
In a glass house of such fragility, the throwing of rocks seems unwise in the extreme.
climategrog said:
When it comes to the use of rhetoric and word games, Mosher is the undisputed master.
Rhetoric, however, has its limits, and can carry one only so far.
The ocean heat content of the N Atlantic is dropping and has been for a decade. It reached its maximum about 2007. The Arctic will recover. It may start melting again in later years but for now the death spiral story is dead.
stevenreincarnated | September 19, 2016 at 9:00 am
The ocean heat content of the N Atlantic is dropping and has been for a decade. It reached its maximum about 2007
Is there a reference on that ?
Nick Stokes | September 19, 2016 at 5:55 am |
satellite temps … are rising
So who is right ?
http://climate4you.com/
Air temperatures in the Arctic are determined by the amount of sea ice coverage. There is no reason during a transitional stage that they can’t both be right.
Well that didn’t go where I wanted it to. Go to oceans, then ocean heat content 700m, then find the chart on the N Atlantic.
From the figure I posted above we can see that the “spiral” is far from dead. In the decade from the 80’s to the 90’s, the sea-ice volume minimum dropped by 2000 km3. In the next decade of the 00’s it dropped another 4000 km3. In the next half decade of the 10’s it dropped another 4000 km3. This looks like the spiral is accelerating, if anything.
The graphic comes from an interesting site, by the way.
http://iwantsomeproof.com/
The actual origin of the graphic appears to be here.
https://sites.google.com/site/pettitclimategraphs/sea-ice-volume
You stick with trend lines melting ice. I’m going with heat.
As stated above, playing with decadal averages can get you in trouble if the endpoint is the same as the average.
The reduction has been doubling per decade (winter and summer). This points to complete summer loss in the decade of the 2020’s and complete winter loss by 2040 if those doubling rates continue. Even the winter ice volume has decreased 25-30% since 1979 so that is spiraling too.
IF
And to only keep “doubling” too!
We are mid-way through the third doubling at this point, and it is on pace.
From the figure I posted above we can see that the “spiral” is far from dead.
The spiral plot is just a fancy way to obscure reality
https://i.imgur.com/Lde7lOe.png
The sea ice stopped “shrinking” in 2007. Then we had a 2008 icelandic volcano and a 2010 icelandic volcano and an El Nino (2014 to date).
This winter we could have a 10 year sea ice volume maximum. If we do this “its melting, its melting” meme is a crock.
PA wrote:
“The sea ice stopped “shrinking” in 2007.”
Wrong.
Since 1/2008, Arctic SIV has decreased at a linear trend of -183 km3/yr.
PA wrote:
“This winter we could have a 10 year sea ice volume maximum.”
Wrong again.
Dec15-Feb16 Arctic SIV ranked 4th-lowest since 1978.
Taking decadal averages based on round numbers of calendar years is arbitrary and error prone. As with all ‘trends’ it depends very much on where you start and where you stop.
That is why I developed a method which identified shorter cyclic patterns and only used intervals containing and integral number of such patterns. This was posted in the article but everyone seems to be over looking it. Especially Jin D because he does not like what it shows.
https://climategrog.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/ct_ice_area_short_anom_nh_2015_final.png
Until 2007 the ‘doubling’ you refer to was consistent with the data. It could be approximated as such a parabolic curve. What happened since 2007 does NOT fit the doubling pattern and is not consistent with run away melting. We do not need to wait unit 2020th anniversary of Jesus’ birthday to work that out.
That is perhaps because it is confused, self-contradictory and entirely lacking in quantitative analysis.
From the OP:
Let’s note “visual inspection” and no less than four different claimed “cyclical components”.
From your reference blog:
In other words, you allocate a completely arbitrary form, period and magnitude correlation based apparently on nothing more than eyeballing a graph.
Is this some kind of joke, or elaborate performance art? Or do you really think this constitutes scientific analysis?
climategrog, I mentioned using a running ten-year average which would be my preferred method of avoiding the decadal end-point issues, but you did not like that for some reason, probably because it would have converted concentric decadal circles into a spiral.
climategrog said:
Early Christans had predicted the second coming of Jesus. When that didn’t happen, it was necessary for them to continuously reformulate their theology.
PBS did a great documentary on early Christianity and the dilemma the first Christians faced when their prediction of the second coming of Christ didn’t come true:
David Appell wrote:
“This winter we could have a 10 year sea ice volume maximum.”
Wrong again.
Dec15-Feb16 Arctic SIV ranked 4th-lowest since 1978.
Ummm… We’ll see.
You keep making irrelevant points as though they were meaningful.
If the winter increase matches the 2012-2013 increase we could match the record maximum of 25.074 thousand km3 from 2009.
The minimum is typically around 5-6K km3 of ice and the max is around 25-30k km3 of ice. So only about 20% of sea ice survives the winter in good times.
We might not hit a 10 year max this year (the Blob and all that) but we will hit it next year.
Without an Icelandic volcano or a relapse into El Nino the sea ice volume should continue to increase.
Jim D:
On a typical Arctic Death Spiral plot I think it would be more useful to put these numbers on the Axis:
36
25
16
09
04
01
00
with equal distance between each number.
A better representation of area would be shown, if my math is correct. What we see now doesn’t do that.
Yes, and you could go even further, because this is a volume plot.
Jim D:
I guess I object to representing volume as in that plot above. Circles frequently accurately represent volumes using something like radius squared. It’s not a big deal but something visually more consistent with the actual volume would be nice.
Say I plotted your net worth same as above. Visually it would overstate gaines and losses. I would not do that. The above could be said to overstate gains and losses visually. If ExxonMobil prepared a plot of their net worth like this, 100 plantiffs attorneys would be filing papers with the courts.
Jim_D,
Your graph shows area not volume.
My graph is this one. It is volume.
https://sites.google.com/site/pettitclimategraphs/sea-ice-volume
Jim D, looks like things have stabilized in the 2010’s.
It looks like you are comparing one year with a five-year average. One year doesn’t tell you anything about stabilizing, does it now.
It does when the magnitude of the last year is approximately the average of the period.
The period includes 2012. Your hopes will be dashed when this decade is lower than the last one, and by a lot.
I didn’t say this decade’s average would not be lower than last’s. I implied that this decade’s ending point would not be much different than it’s average.
Previous decades’ ending points were lower than their averages. That reflects the past post-1979 decline in ice coverage.
We now have a pause, plateau, hiatus, leveling or what have you. No death spiral. Kind of like surface and atmosphere temperature plateaus, hey? IPCC climate models didn’t predict those, hey?
As with temperatures, don’t let individual years fool you. You need at least decadal averages for trends. Skeptics like 2016, but I say be careful.
Jim D, I don’t need to “be careful” of anything.
I freely admit I do not know where temperatures, ice melt nor even the economy are going. I do know, though, that now I am going to bed.
Advice? Beware of people who know the future.
Yes, my advice is that decades are relevant to climate. When talking to skeptics about 2016, whatever you do, don’t mention the temperature. I think I got away with it this time, but usually they don’t like talking about single years on that subject.
What about the decades pre-1979, Jim D?
…or the decade of 1326-1335 for that matter, what about it? Just because we don’t have all the information on how much more ice the Arctic had on previous dates, doesn’t make this decline any less important. There are paleo studies that show this to be an exceptional few decades of decline, but you won’t believe those because of their result.
No argument here that the last few decades have been exceptional, Jim D. Mid-20th Century was low, but maybe not as low. Of course, we are at a higher temperature plateau.
http://psc.apl.uw.edu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/schweiger/ice_volume/Bpiomas_plot_daily_heff.2sst.png
The “trend” is that we will have a 10 year volume high by the end of the winter season.
The extent is significantly less that 2 standard deviants after being more than 2 standard deviants all summer.
Finally,less ice means more Arctic heat loss which reduces global warming. Greater Atlantic mixing with the Barents sea is the primary reason there is less sea ice (per a study posted somewhere in this thread) – which makes the “slower AMOC” claimants look unusually silly.
I am bewildered why all the concern about something that isn’t going to happen (no sea ice) that won’t affect anything if it does happen. It doesn’t look like warmunists are right and we don’t care if they are. Further, I googled it, there are no canaries in the Arctic Circle.
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“It is not happening… The death spiral is dead.”
True, true, prices of California beachfront properties probably are not falling anytime soon.
Some things in California are falling. I bet you can get a good deal on these homes.
http://a.abcnews.com/images/WNT/160126_wn_karlinsky4_16x9_992.jpg
How many years will it take for the seas to rise to the top of the cliff, millions and millions?
Coastal erosion is also an accelerating problem with rising seas.
“Those pushing the hardest to reduce man-caused CO2 and those controlling the funds for research, actually worry little and care little about the threat of warming or flooding. If they did, they would not personally grossly emit carbon or buy homes at Sea Level in West Palm Beach, Florida. —Burt Rutan”
Well if it’s erosion it’s not due to a few cm rise is sea level, it’s erosion.
pretty dumb building that close to an unstable cliff ( if of course that is the case).
In 2008 it was a safer margin.
http://ww1.hdnux.com/photos/43/44/50/9325084/11/920×1240.jpg
Jimd
Doesn’t look much safer to me in 2008. When are where are those houses located and what type of rock were they built on?
Tonyb
Jimd
Found the story
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3417401/Dramatic-drone-footage-shows-oceanside-homes-teetering-edge-California-cliffs-crumble-El-Nino-storms.html
This destruction has been going on since 2003 and the houses were largely abandoned in 2010
Looks very similar to the red sandstone we have in our area. The evidence of past erosion can be seen in the sand at low tide whereby the cliffs have eroded several miles over the ladt few centuries.
You need to demonstrate this is unique. To me it just looks foolish that those apartments were ever allowed to be built there in the first place.
Tonyb
Jimd
Here you go, 32 villages lost since Roman times on the east coast of England
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-22025150
The cliffs have eroded some three and a half miles. The sandstone looks similar to the Californian material. It’s nothing new. It was stupid to have built on that cliff in the first place.
Tonyb
Seas also recede.
Ur in Iraq is now about 250 km from the sea. A working seaport until 1000 BC or so.
Ephesus is now around 9 km inland.
In the U.K., several of the Cinque Ports are now anything up to 6 km inland. Siltation is often given as a facile explanation, but doesn’t fit with observed geology, or written records.
Satellites record the apparently solid land bobbing up and down. The sea basins are not immune to vertical displacement, obviously affecting sea levels as container volume changes. Relative sea levels vary unpredictably, chaotically as far as is known.
Florida and parts of the US east coast are subsiding, other areas rising.
Good luck with predicting the future.
Cheers.
Look ! It’s a piece of real estate with a view ! I can make a profit on this, and if it falls into the ocean… oh well. I made my money. I live elsewhere, not my problem.
That’s the way the cookie crumbles using Jim D’s turtle method.
Point to any unseemly event — almost any event will do — and blame it on burning fossil fuels. No demonstration of causation is needed.
We haven’t seen anything like it since the Salem Witch Trials.
No no, NO!!!, Mike.
THIS time coastal erosion is the fault of Man ’cause burning fossil fuels and CO2 and Polar melt spirals (LOL) and sea level rise of 3mm per year and not enough solar panels, windmills and Tesla’s.
Wake up man! /sarc
“Some things in California are falling. I bet you can get a good deal on these homes.”
About 5 minutes away from me
Apart from this, sea-ice loss does not raise sea levels, Waggy.
read more…
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Greg
The raw data speaks volumes without filters.
The very nature of the Arctic sea ice decrease, its rate of daily decline and variability, then after the minimum it starts to increase, points to factors of control outside the region. Currently when the sea ice area recovers quickly is simply apportioned to colder temperatures taking over. Why does it cool so rapidly ? The reality is that temperatures cool rapidly simply because the inbound trasport of atmosphere stops or reduces. When the ice increase is interupted or slowed, it is a return of the same import of warmer atmosphere, whether it be from its transport across warmer oceans or land.
The Arctic sea ice minimum on the (7th) was in the main part due to the NH temperature upswing (anomalies) in July and August. Had they not stalled and increased in those two months the sea ice minimum record would have been severely under threat, considering the very low winter base.
It is almost amusing that forcasts are made without knowing the reasons for the rate and variability of the decline.
Thanks ozone.
There are always people saying ” what are these alarmists on about , it was only this low because of a storm” , or like Serreze this week that it there had been more wiind it would have been even worse.
The whole point of this analysis is to get away from arguing about which way the wind was blowing and get to the decadal scale changes in the annual cycle.
Serreze is correct in his statement, but unfortunately the source and reason for the wind is unknown them. Therefore it is pure unknowing speculation. Judith provided a link recently of commentary by Caleb about “Ralph” – the storm or cyclone in the Arctic. A fantastic review. Ralph was a result of atmosphere being pressured into the Arctic region. It was mild because of the lack of July Aug. temperature decline.
The Arctic responds to a signal from other latitudes. It is immediate and precise.
The whole point of this analysis is to get away from arguing about which way the wind was blowing and get to the decadal scale changes in the annual cycle.
Ice free nearly 200 years ago? https://pindanpost.com/2016/09/14/ice-free-two-hundred-years-ago/
The good news is the arctic canary will live. The bad news is the next canary will probably be the extreme weather events canary where unsupported claims are all you need to show how sick the canary is.
I don’t know why the focus on the date of minimum. The argument is about the extent at minimum. Here’s Tamino’s plot:
https://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/annmin.jpg
Yes, 2016 is about the same as 2007. The thing is, 2007 was an extraordinary reduction on its predecessors. But 2016 was only just below 2015. And then, every year since has been below the minimum of years before 2007. It’s not that 2016 was exceptionally icy, but that it is now normal. And about halfway to that 1M sqkm.
Sorry Nick –
I didn’t see your comment before I posted mine.
The date of minimum is not supposed to replace any other factor, but may be an additional source of information. There was a clear change in dirft of the dates in 2007. There was also a change in the magnitude of the annual cycle in 2007. The long term trend in ice minimum has been roughly constant since 2007.
That all goes to show that the idea of accelerating decline is out of the window. You can’t have a 9y pause is 37y and pretend it’s a glitch. The idea that there is a dominant positive feedback is blown out.
This is just another iteration of the different trends that different people see by selecting the time frames of choice. Look at Tamino’s graph of average annual extent for the period from @1995-1995, or 1990-2000. Selecting those periods guide a decline that is apparent when looking at longer time periods, hence the problematic nature of limiting a reference period to 2007-2016.
Sorry, @1985-1995
Looking at Nick’s chart above, a more appropriate question would be, what were the factors that stopped the rapid rate of decline in 2013 and 2014. Perhaps the dominant factor (or feedback) has simply been interupted. The red line was heading south until something changed in 2013, and it looks by the trend that it is heading there again ??
There is a dominant feedback, atmosphere is feeding back into the Arctic region despite a declining troposphere capacity due to the downward movement of the tropopause. The temperature profile in the second half of the year changed in 2013 and 2014, that stalled the process of decline. The decline has not stopped.
Ozonebust,
Actually the declining trend got interrupted in 2008. 2012 has to be seen as an outlier, not as a projection of the previous trend. Before 2012 we had 2011, 2010, 2009 and 2008 that did not follow the previous trend. Nature has a wicked way of hiding her cards. 2012 is there only to fool the fools.
The change happened with the significant drop in 2007. That event rightly caused concern at the time. 2007 to 2016 , just in, is ten data points. That’s decade of data.
If we average the minimum ice extent for that decade it is flat. The biggest increase in open water on record did not cause run-away melting, it stopped !!
It also produced a significant change in the annual cycle ( larger range nim to max ) and changed the direction of the drift in the timing of when minimum occurs.
That is three fundamental and clear changes which occurred following the drop of 2007. Ignoring those changes and continuing to stubbornly fit inappropriate models to the data reveals an adherence to dogma not investigative science.
climategrog said:
For those in love with theory, no reality and no common sense will ever penetrate their mind.
Here’s my plot:
https://climategrog.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/ct_ice_area_short_anom_nh_2015_final.png
Conclusion
There are two ways to interpret the observational data:
1) the net feedback from open water is negative , not positive and run-away melting was an erroneous interpretation. It is not happening.
2) the feedbacks are not the key driver of Arctic sea ice melting, there is another external force, such as N. Atlantic sea surface temperature and ocean currents, which is dominant and run-away melting was an erroneous interpretation. It is not happening.
There is another way of interpreting the observational data. It’s not an alternative to the two you provide, just a different way of looking: There’s a ~60yr cycle pretty much in sync with the observable ~60yr cycle in the global temperature cycle. With data unavailable over a longer period, it isn’t yet clear whether this interpretation is valid.
Incidentally, I would have expected the ice area cycle to lag the temperature cycle, so that introduces some more questions.
Thanks Mike. That is pretty much the implication of 1) and 2).
There is clearly a strong non linear element and it’s starting to look suspiciously like the circa 60y periodicity. Though that respect speculative on the length of data present.
The alarmists are obsessed with drawing straight lines through any variable since it allows them to pretend there isa correlation with CO2. My main point here is that that is not longer tenable.
I did not want to get into equally tenuous suggestions that would distract for the facts of what we already have.
The interesting thing about the change in date is that it appears to be a lot closer to being in sync , whereas it is probably rate of change ice area that will be in phase with temperature.
> There’s a ~60yr cycle […]
Between 1975 and 2015, no less.
If the 60 yr cycle ain’t enough, let’s make Uranus great again and try 84 years.
climategrog said:
Hannah Arendt’s critique of Leibniz’s epistemology in The Human Condition is germane:
Nick Stokes:
Why all the focus on one day out of 365?
Here is the rate of change in sea ice extent filtered with 182 day gaussian to remove the annual cycle.
https://climategrog.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/ddt_nh_sea-ice.png
There is a strong, clear positive rate of change following both the 2007 and 2012 minima. That looks like pretty conclusive evidence that the net feedbacks are negative not positive.
Most of claims of those convinced that Arctic ice was under-going run-away melting were based on the trivial assumption that more exposed water would lead to more melting.
Clearly this is not the case.
The negative feedback is obvious in the raw data. When there is less summer sea ice extent, the rebound to the following Spring maximum is greater. Such that Spring maximum extent relatively increased from 2008-2013 following the reduced minimum’s of 2007-2012:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.arctic.png
Well I think that Cryo Today graph is very *unclear* after 2007 because it has so much residual annual signal.That is why I developed the adaptive anomaly graph included in the article.
Sadly they have not maintained it since the satellite failed in February so that record looks like a dead end now.
“Well I think that Cryo Today graph is very *unclear* after 2007 because it has so much residual annual signal.”
That increased minimum to maximum variability is precisely the negative feedback that I am referring to. The variability reduced around the last sunspot maximum because of a brief positive NAO regime, and has started to increase again. After such a low minimum this September, the maximum extent next Spring should be relatively larger than the last few years, and more like the 2008 maximum.
==> The problem with this obsessive focusing on one single data point out of 365, is that there is a lot of short term, weather driven variability that can affect the exact timing and size of the minimum in ice coverage. <==
Hmmmm…
https://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/annave.jpg
Hmmmm…
https://tamino.wordpress.com/2016/09/11/climate-deniers-embarrass-themselves-about-arctic-sea-ice/
When the arctic is free of ice, that is a natural and normal part of a natural cycle. That is when it is snowing more and replenishing the ice on Greenland and the mountain glaciers. You get ocean effect snowfall from a warm thawed ocean and that rebuilds ice on land in Greenland and on the high mountain glaciers. Why do so many people not understand natural climate cycles? The data is available, just look at it.
Flip the UAH 6 Beta graph upside down and it looks similar to the graph of the Arctic sea ice extent. A decline, with a bottoming out, followed by a generally flat trend.
Trends up, down, sideways, whatnot last ’till they don’t. For whatever reason, the last decade or so of temperature and ice data points look like pebbles bouncing along an uneven stream bed. Things appear to have settled down. We’ll see in a few years who is right.
Ice comes. Ice goes.
It went away from much of the Northern Hemisphere, after the last Ice Age.
It came to Antarctica, liked the conditions, and stayed.
Ain’t chaos grand. I think someone said predictions are difficult, particularly where the future is concerned. What will be will be.
I’d be inclined to dress warmly in the Polar regions, just in case. If it’s unseasonably warm, strip off and get in the shade.
Greg Goodman said “The death spiral is dead.” Or doing a fair imitation. Fast asleep, perhaps.
Cheers.
Why all the concern about Arctic ice?
One can state unequivocally that every ice free past period has been followed by an Arctic with ice.
What is to fear this time around?
If the ice does go, which is not at all certain.
Geoff
“What is to fear this time around?”
This time is different. It’s a response to us putting 400+ Gtons of fossil C in the atmosphere. That has never happened before. And it looks like we’re going to dig up more and more.
Loss of ice we can probably live with. But it’s a concrete indicator of our impact on climate.
Nick, you’re smart and you are capable in maths. Why do you insist in pretending this data is is linear. Both the decadal trends and the shift in the date of minimum show distinctly non linear variability.
” But it’s a concrete indicator of our impact on climate.”
In 2007 I would have been prepared to accept that hypothesis, it is not longer tenable. There is ever growing CO2 and thus ever growing radiative forcing yet if you take the trend of your favoured ice minimum over the last 9 years it’s flat.
Your concrete indicator has just turned to sand.
I would have thought that satellites would be recording inexorable temperature increases and the oceans, an acceleration of rise that should follow temperatures immediately and inexorably.
Surely these are better proxy thermometers than ice at the poles. Can you explain why satellite temps are hardly responding to more than half that CO2 put into the air since 2000?
Geoff
“I would have thought that satellites would be recording inexorable temperature increases and the oceans, an acceleration of rise that should follow temperatures immediately and inexorably.”
Well, Greg says it isn’t linear (and I never said it was). And satellite temps and ocean levels are rising.
Nick Stoke says: “Loss of ice we can probably live with. But it’s a concrete indicator of our impact on climate.”
Like a concrete indicator of how the climate is misunderstood. AMO and Arctic warming is negative NAO driven, rising CO2 is modeled to increase positive NAO. The increase in negative NAO since the mid 1990’s that drove the AMO and Arctic warming has nothing to do with rising CO2, it’s completely the wrong sign.
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch10s10-3-5-6.html
“Well, Greg says it isn’t linear (and I never said it was). And satellite temps and ocean levels are rising.”
N. Atl SST isn’t linear on the same time-scale either. Maybe there is a connection.
Temperature and sea level have been rising for how many centuries now? Attribution?
Jim
There was a high water stand around the end of he roman period, another around 1200 , another around 1600. The LIA then locked up huge amounts of water as ice. That started to melt in fits and starts from around 1730 and has continued to melt ever since as temperatures generally have risen.
The amount of glaciation now still seems to be more than during the MWP and roman periods. No doubt at some point the ice pool will be depleted further as it was in previous eras.
Tonyb
Nick; “Well, Greg says it isn’t linear (and I never said it was).”
Well you did not say it but if you want to take warming half the 60y cycle and say it “concrete evidence” of our affect on climate you are effectively talking about a linear rise in forcing and wilfully ignoring the non linear character of the changes in ice data.
Just like the deceitful Grant Foster’s graph, where he is still trying to fit accelerating melting to data that is at the same level as it was 9y ago.
> The amount of glaciation now still seems to be more than during the MWP and roman periods.
Take that, satellites!
Well you did not say it but if you want to take warming half the 60y cycle and say it “concrete evidence” of our affect on climate you are effectively talking about a linear rise in forcing and wilfully ignoring the non linear character of the changes in ice data. …
is it linear or nonlinear thinking to talk concretely about the 1st half of a 60-year cycle.?
Speaking of which, my favorite do-nothing cycle in the North Atlantic… the big blue cold blob has returned. It’s on a 2-month cycle.
August 25, 2016:
http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2016/anomnight.8.25.2016.gif
September 15, 2016:
http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2016/anomnight.9.15.2016.gif
I really miss the absolute master of the 60-year cycle: Girma. The best AMO scientist ever… even better than the stadium-wave crew. The AMO is coming for me. I think it is a feckless puzzykat. A great big global pushover. Bring it AMO!
Duh, past cycles of warm and cold have repeated inside the same bounds for ten thousand years, in the northern hemisphere and in the southern hemisphere. This is the new normal. This robust cycle does not care if we cause any warming, the polar oceans thaw and increase the cooling snowfall at the same thermostat set point. The temperature that polar oceans thaw, Arctic and Antarctic, is the set point and cooling is always turned on when the oceans thaw and cooling is always turned off when the oceans freeze. Look at the ice core data from Greenland and Antarctic.
I would like to look at the Law Dome ice core results like oxygen isotopes, but colleagues like Steve Mc say that some of it is not yet released despite requests. IIRC.
Geoff
“Duh, past cycles of warm and cold have repeated inside the same bounds for ten thousand years, in the northern hemisphere and in the southern hemisphere. This is the new normal.”
Nope. You are under the illusion that Holocene average temperatures are flat due to Greenland ice cores compression. They need to be corrected for altitude changes like Bo Vinther did in 2009. In reality Holocene temperatures are progressing towards a pretty obvious target and the cycles of warm and cold are not a repetition but a progression.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v461/n7262/images/nature08355-f2.2.jpg
My analysis shows the Arctic sea ice extent could (maybe) reach about 2 million km2 by August 2122. I used August because the data is available, and there’s an exponential trend line drawn through it.
https://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/
This data seems to be more optimistic (from the alarmist point of view) that the Danish data set.
I would add that May-June-July-August ice cover may be better debate subjects because there’s more sunlight. I’ve also noticed (by personal observation) that seawater has a slight fog above it when the ice breaks to form a polinya. As discussed in the post, this seems to make open water work like a very efficient radiator. I guess one could say there’s increased heat uptake from sunlight and heat release from water vapor.
By the way, I also noticed there’s more snow piled up on sea ice during warmer weather. I used to have to walk out on those snow drifts over sea ice, and sometimes I sank in it down to my waist. I’m just guessing, but the ice cover reduction may lead to increased snow fall over land and the surviving sea ice?. This means ice thickness and volume won’t drop as much (that’s a guess, I haven’t modeled it).
Sorry, any extrapolation that far outside the data is meaningless. The sort of crap the IPCC would come out with having ignored their own statement that climate is a complex, non-linear system.
Sure, but if one does a meaningless extrapolation it should be done with care. If you read carefully, I also hinted that snowfall may turn into a negative feedback.
Besides, I felt I needed to write about something other than badmouthing RCP8.5
Two words:
1) asymptote
2) thickness
Oh, but PIOMAS is a model. Whatever, the graph is pretty:
http://psc.apl.uw.edu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/schweiger/ice_volume/BPIOMASIceVolumeAprSepCurrent.png
brandonrgates said:
Another one deeply enmeshed in the turtle method.
Water currently covers about 70 percent of the earth. Some of it is covered with ice. There is no mistake in this, the climate of earth is as it is, regulated as it is, because to the abundance of water, in all of its four states. The magical properties of water, changing state in our comfort range is responsible for earth temperature staying inside the bounds to support life as we know it.
Every major ice age and warming cycle of the last 0.5 Ma put ice at mid-latitudes and melted it and returned it to the oceans.
Every major ice age and warming cycle of the last 0.5 Ma put ice at high-latitudes and on high mountains and did not melt all of it.
Each major cycle took water out of the oceans and did not put all of it back in the oceans.
Each minor cycle took water out of the oceans and did not put all of it back in the oceans.
The water in the oceans that is currently available to put ice on land in mid-latitudes is not enough to support another major ice age. It is also not enough to get as warm as a major warm time. That is why we have the new normal that has been in place for ten thousand years.
The ice cycles have been moving water out of the oceans and locking up more if it on Antarctic, Greenland and High Mountains for millions of years to finally get to this point. When more water was in the oceans, earth could get warmer. Water warms and holds heat better than land. When oceans were warmer and held more water, more water was available for more snowfall that put ice in mid-latitudes for major ice ages that melted and was returned to the oceans while some ice was put on Antarctic, Greenland and High Mountains where only some of it was returned to the oceans.
Milankovich and other forcing cycles likely resonated with this natural ice cycle. The ice core data shows that it snows more in warm times and it snows less in cold times. Warm Milankovich time periods would promote more movement of ice to land and cold cycles would promote less movement of ice to land.
It is during cold times that snowfall is reduced so much that snowfall rates are less than melt rates. In warm times, snowfall rates are much more than melt rates.
Modern Climate Theories on the Consensus side and on the Skeptic side makes earth cold and then adds ice as a contributing feedback and makes earth warm and removes ice as a contributing feedback.
The actual ice core data shows that is backwards. There is no actual data that shows earth gets cold first and more snow falls after. The ice core data shows that it snows the most in the warmest times and it always gets colder after. The ice core data shows that it snows the least in the coldest times and it always gets warmer after.
You must have warm, thawed, oceans to get ocean effect snow. You do not get snow from cold frozen oceans.
An open Arctic is a normal natural and necessary part of a cycle in climate. Oceans get warm and polar sea ice thaws and snowfall increases to rebuild ice on Greenland and the Mountain Glaciers. It snows more until the ice volume is enough to cause the ice to spread out and make it colder. When it gets colder, the polar oceans freeze and reduce the snowfall. The ice continues to spread and make it colder but it depletes because it is not snowing enough to replenish the ice. It runs out of enough ice and the ice melts and retreats until it gets warm again.
This is a normal, natural, necessary ice cycle. There was a warm period about three thousand years ago with an open arctic that replenished ice, then it got cold, polar oceans froze, snowfall diminished and ice depleted until it got warm in the Roman warm period about two thousand years ago. The arctic opened and replenished the ice and it got cold, polar oceans froze, snowfall diminished and ice depleted until it got warm in the medieval warm period. It snowed and replenished the ice until it got heavy enough to spread out and make it cold in the little ice age. Oceans froze and snowfall reduced until the ice depleted and retreated into this modern, natural, normal, necessary warm period. The snowfall has started that will take us into the next natural, normal, necessary cold period.
Alex Pope
No climate models were abused in Hudson (2011):
A simple method for estimating the global radiative forcing caused by the sea-ice-albedo feedback in the Arctic is presented. It is based on observations of cloud cover, sea-ice concentration, and top-of-atmosphere broadband albedo. The method does not rely on any sort of climate model, making the assumptions and approximations clearly visible and understandable, and allowing them to be easily changed. Results show that the globally and annually averaged radiative forcing caused by the observed loss of sea ice in the Arctic between 1979 and 2007 is approximately 0.1 W m−2 ; a complete removal of Arctic sea ice results in a forcing of about 0.7 W m−2 , while a more realistic ice-free-summer scenario (no ice for one month, decreased ice at all other times of the year) results in a forcing of about 0.3 W m−2, similar to present-day anthropogenic forcing caused by halocarbons. The potential for changes in cloud cover as a result of the changes in sea ice makes the evaluation of the actual forcing that may be realized quite uncertain, since such changes could overwhelm the forcing caused by the sea-ice loss itself, if the cloudiness increases in the summertime.
Clouds. Why does it always have to be clouds.
The largest uncertainty in the future radiative forcing caused by sea-ice loss is related to how clouds in the Arctic will change. If cloud cover increases as sea ice decreases, that could offset the direct effect of the SIAF, especially if clouds increase in summer, when there is the most sun and the most sea-ice loss. However, studies so far have found that the summer season has the lowest correlation between ice cover and cloud cover, which would minimize the offsetting effect that clouds play.
On the bright side, at the rate we’re not reducing CO2 emissions, we may get to figure it out empirically. Won’t that be nice … there’s nothing like hard data.
brandonrgates said:
The best rejoinder to this sort of imperious “logic” comes from Hannah Arendt:
Try Hu et al. (2002):
[1] Influence of winter pre-conditioning of Arctic sea ice due to atmospheric forcing associated with the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) on the reduction in summer sea ice extent is studied. It is found that winter sea ice is about 50 cm thinner in high-NAO index years than in low-NAO index years in the Eurasian coastal region mainly due to stronger wind-driven ice export. The thinner wintertime ice combined with strengthened southerlies in spring promotes an earlier break-up of the ice pack in the Eurasian coastal region, resulting in significant sea ice export. The higher ice efflux, in turn, further reduces the ice compactness, thus more solar radiation is absorbed by the oceans which enhances the summer melting process. Thus, winter and spring atmospheric anomalies associated with the positive phase of the NAO may underlie the reduction of summer sea ice extent observed during the 1980s and 1990s.
More recent, Delworth et al. (2016):
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v9/n7/images/ngeo2738-f2.jpg
Pronounced climate changes have occurred since the 1970s, including rapid loss of Arctic sea ice1, large-scale warming 2 and increased tropical storm activity 3 in the Atlantic. Anthropogenic radiative forcing is likely to have played a major role in these changes 4, but the relative influence of anthropogenic forcing and natural variability is not well established. The above changes have also occurred during a period in which the North Atlantic Oscillation has shown marked multidecadal variations 5. Here we investigate the role of the North Atlantic Oscillation in these rapid changes through its influence on the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation and ocean heat transport. We use climate models to show that observed multidecadal variations of the North Atlantic Oscillation can induce multidecadal variations in the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation and poleward ocean heat transport in the Atlantic, extending to the Arctic. Our results suggest that these variations have contributed to the rapid loss of Arctic sea ice, Northern Hemisphere warming, and changing Atlantic tropical storm activity, especially in the late 1990s and early 2000s. These multidecadal variations are superimposed on long-term anthropogenic forcing trends that are the dominant factor in long-term Arctic sea ice loss and hemispheric warming.
Yeah, yeah … but models.
“winter and spring atmospheric anomalies associated with the positive phase of the NAO may underlie the reduction of summer sea ice extent observed during the 1980s and 1990s”
Sea ice loss accelerated from the mid 1990’s because of a negative NAO regime (apart from around the last two sunspot maxima) driving a warm AMO. Summers with the greatest ice loss, 2007, 2012, 2016, had stronger negative NAO values through those Summer months.
“These multidecadal variations are superimposed on long-term anthropogenic forcing trends that are the dominant factor in long-term Arctic sea ice loss and hemispheric warming.”
Rising CO2 is modeled to increase positive NAO/AO, that would cool the AMO and Arctic.
Yeah, yeah … but models.
Funnny – I didn’t notice any prognostications in that, nor any claim that prognostications were even possible.
Variability of fluid flow remains unchallenged by meager humans.
brandonrgates,
Deirdre McCloskey did a very insightful paper titled “The Secret Sins of Economics.”
Looking at your commentary, it becomes quite clear that climate science has succumbed to many of the same sins.
After going through a whole litany of lesser sins, which McCloskey argues can be forgiven, she comes to “the two real sins:”
Indeed, Glenn. Because we can infer so much about climate science on the basis of what I, some random guy on the Interwebz, says about it.
That said, your qualitative comparison of climate science to economics is indeed impressive for its exhaustive rigor and utter lack of appeal to significance, statistical or otherwise. I am, however, troubled by one thing:
I am sure you will agree: An inquiry into the world must think and it must look. It must theorize and must observe. Formalize and record. Both.
How is it that you intend to quantitatively prove the negative proposition that climate scientists do not do these things?
brandonrgates said:
What you “say about it” isn’t that important, and it never is, because what you “say about it” never amounts to anything but a bunch of incomprehensible gibberish.
What is of greater importance, and representative of climate science, are those you quote: Hudson (2011), Hu et al. (2002), and Delworth et al. (2016).
“…we are now told that ‘ice-free’ does actually mean free of ice, it means there will be less than one million square km of ice left.”
I think you might have meant *doesn’t*…hope you can correct it as I would use that as a leading quote when I share.
Thanks for spotting, lack of willing proof readers before going live.
Better to get an original quotation. If you follow the link to the NSIDC at the end of the article, I think they state that in their FAQ.
You’re welcome – and thank you :)
Given the really remarkable drop in sea ice growth this winter, I find this claim pretty hard to understand. What I’ve seen the last few years is a pretty considerable drop in what’s considered normal for arctic sea ice. I don’t see the sense in denying that.
What “this claim” are you referring to ?
What have you “seen” exactly apart from misleading media reports. What is this ” considerable drop” you are referring to ? Data?
I find it hard “deny” something unless I have specific evidence that there is something to deny. What, specifically, are you taking about?
Greg
https://judithcurry.com/2016/02/22/arctic-winter-sea-ice-puzzle/
Michael
I think ‘normal’ is a difficult word to apply to arctic ice.
In the 1920 to 1940 period the article ice melted so much that the Russians opened up the northern sea route. It was useable for most, but not all years. The allies were able to get supplies to Murmansk.
Around 1940 the route became mostly ice bound and was not properly reopened until the late 1970’s.
Tonyb
Obviously, the thinning and later buildup are due to man-generated CO2. I mean, what else could it possibly be?
Nice one Jim, is that your Jim D impression ?
;)
Murmasnk has been ice free for over 100 years. The ice edge used to reach the Kola Peninsula, but Murmansk is a bit due west.
I don’t consider it part of the Northern Sea Route. I’d say the NSR started at the winter ice edge about 300 km West of Kolguyev Island, went into the Pechora and through the Kara Gate, north of Yamal, and on to the Laptev etc. Navigating the NSR required ice breakers, and only the Soviets would disregard economic factors to cruise north of Siberia.
I do notice that recently the NSR opens a bit in August and September, but it won’t be set for regular ship travel in this century. An ice breaking cargo vessel could travel through, but it doesn’t look very practical.
> we are now told that ‘ice-free’ does actually mean free of ice
A quote might be nice.
As requested: “What does ice-free mean? When researchers say the Arctic could soon be nearly ice free, they do not mean that every last ice floe will melt, turning the Arctic Ocean into a new Caribbean Sea. Ice will still form each winter, as the temperature falls far below freezing. Even in the summer, new studies indicate that some of that ice will remain, pushed by the prevailing winds to pile up along the northern Canadian coast. Stephanie Pfirman, professor of oceanography at Barnard College, says “Many climate scientists use the term ‘ice-free’ in a functional way, as a shorthand to mean very little reflective surface at the end of the summer when sea ice is at its minimum.”
http://nsidc.org/cryosphere/icelights/2011/05/when-will-arctic-lose-its-sea-ice
Just wishing to be helpful.
Thanks, Danny.
Now, if Greg could substantiate his now, say by showing how this “functional” descriptor has changed so much as to reflect serious goal-post relocation efforts, that would help his case.
This is not science, but it’s important.
Our Freedom is at stake.
Dang HTML:
if Greg could substantiate his now in we are now told that ‘ice-free’ does [not] actually mean free of ice.
Must be a vocabulary thing.
The IPCC defines ice free as the following
sea ice extent less than 1sq km for 5 years in a row
It is very likely that there will be further shrinking and thinning
of Arctic sea ice cover, and decreases of northern high-latitude
spring time snow cover and near surface permafrost (see glossary)
as global mean surface temperature rises. For high GHG
emissions such as those corresponding to RCP8.5, a nearly ice-free
Arctic Ocean (sea ice extent less than 1 × 106
km2
for at least 5 consecutive
years) in September is likely before mid-century (medium confidence).
This assessment is based on a subset of models that most
closely reproduce the climatological mean state and 1979 to 2012
trend of Arctic sea ice cover. There is low confidence in projected nearterm
decreases in the Antarctic sea ice extent and volume. {11.3.4}
Though most of the CMIP5 models project a nearly ice-free Arctic (sea
ice extent less than 1 × 106
km2
for at least 5 consecutive years) at the
end of summer by 2100 in the RCP8.5 scenario (see Section 12.4.6.1),
some show large changes in the near term as well. Some previous
models project an ice-free summer period in the Arctic Ocean by 2040
(Holland et al., 2006), and even as early as the late 2030s using a
criterion of 80% sea ice area loss (e.g., Zhang, 2010). By scaling six
CMIP3 models to recent observed September sea ice changes, a nearly
ice-free Arctic in September is projected to occur by 2037, reaching the
first quartile of the distribution for timing of September sea ice loss by
2028 (Wang and Overland, 2009). However, a number of models that
have fairly thick Arctic sea ice produce a slower near-term decrease in
sea ice extent compared to observations (Stroeve et al., 2007). Based
on a linear extrapolation into the future of the recent sea ice volume
trend from a hindcast simulation conducted with a regional model of
the Arctic sea ice–ocean system (Maslowski et al., 2012) projected that
it would take only until about 2016 to reach a nearly ice-free Arctic
Ocean in summer. However, such an approach not only neglects the
effect of year-to-year or longer-term variability (Overland and Wang,
2013) but also ignores the negative feedbacks that can occur when
the sea ice cover becomes thin (Notz, 2009). Mahlstein and Knutti
(2012) estimated the annual mean global surface warming threshold
for nearly ice-free Arctic conditions in September to be ~2°C above the
present derived from both CMIP3 models and observations.
Less than 1 sq km?
I’ve got more ice than that in my martini….
Tonyb
Mosher,
Thanks for that quote from AR5! These threads w/b more useful and better grounded IMO if they started with the relevant IPCC text.
“Though most of the CMIP5 models project a nearly ice-free Arctic (sea ice extent less than 1 × 106 km2 for at least 5 consecutive years) at the end of summer by 2100 in the RCP8.5 scenario…”
Wow. Even RCP8.5 (with its unlikely assumptions to reach that level of forcings) gets an ice-free arctic only in the late 21st C — by the IPCC’s definition (which IMO should be the standard definition used in these discussions).
IPCC AR5 ( the word according to Mosh’ ) .
Now let’s check what the IPCC REALLY says in the text that Mosh himself provides:
So it’s a barefaced lie. The IPCC repeatedly and consistently uses the term nearly ice-free Arctic . That is clear and even Joe Public will understand that this does not mean the same thing as zero sea-ice.
There my friend you have blown it . I don’t mind anyone having a different opinion and arguing a technical point but I do object to being lied to and trying to pull the wool over my eyes.
Anyway thanks for settling the issue. We now know that the “official” meaning of 10^6 km^2 is “nearly ice-free”, not ice free.
So the models still aren’t melting the ice fast enough, and scaling them with observed rates brings it forwards to 2037. Interesting.
Interesting, yes.
Check what the models say about Antarctic sea ice decline.
Must …….. Believe ……… Models
Seems an article criticizing projections of Arctic sea-ice loss should have mentioned that the models were still underestimating this rate. This one that someone posted below should have been in the article. It comes under the category of “it’s worse than we thought”.
http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/a475/Knownuthing/SeaIceProjections2_zpssnsxjkwv.png
But ….. but, how can it be worse than the models?
Anyway, I asked about Antarctic model projections vs. actual.
The Antarctic sea-ice isn’t changing so much and nor was it expected to, but perhaps you have those plots. There are big bits breaking off Antarctica on a regular basis, but those are hard to predict.
Models “expected” Antarctic sea ice to decline. Your “big bits” (breaking off shelf ice) would have added to it. That is, unless shelf ice is Mr. Mosher’s trope, this one for sea ice.
Do your own homework.
I see a lot of “big chunks” floated by CAGWers.
The Antarctic trend was expected to be, and is, very slow compared to the Arctic.
What’s a girl like the IPCC supposed to do, Jim D?
She adjusted the AR4 model hemline for AR5 to show more arctic amplification. That change caused further inaccuracies in the “fits” throughout the remainder of the dress. Physics is not a girl’s best friend.
It’s like a fat lady in a girdle: What’s pushed in there pops out here.
> [E]ven Joe Public will understand that this does not mean the same thing as zero sea-ice.
So Joe Public won’t understand that “zero sea-ice” means zero sea-ice. What does Joe Public understand by “zero sea-ice,” then? Search and report.
what Joe Public understands is irrelevant to settle Greg’s empty assertion about moving goalposts. What we can suspect is that when Greg says:
He failed to pay due diligence before asserting that The meaning of “ice-free” has also been the subject of some serious goal-post relocation efforts,
Go team!
It’s also worth noting the little clause “for at least 5 years”.
ie NOT one cherry picked day per year the first time it happens, but five solid years.
And that is not going to happen any time soon even if you take the totally unjustified and unscientific step of fitting a linear “trend” to 35 years of data taken from a system with a sizeable 60y periodicity and project it 85 years into the future.
Aside from being disingenuous, coming from a man who plucked a “rectified sine wave” out of his, well…hat… to fit to the decline of ice extent this is really very, very funny indeed.
The Antarctic sea-ice isn’t changing so much and nor was it expected to,
That’s not correct.
Check NASA GISS for one – Antarctic sea ice was modeled to decline on percentage basis more than Arctic.
It is confirmation bias to emphasize Arctic decrease and dismiss Antarctic increase.
Here’s your modeled Antarctic Sea Ice decline that failed to verify.
Eddie wrote:
“It is confirmation bias to emphasize Arctic decrease and dismiss Antarctic increase.”
By volume, Arctic sea ice is melting about 10 times faster than the Antarctic is gaining sea ice.
Global sea ice extent is decreasing.
TE wrote:
“Here’s your modeled Antarctic Sea Ice decline that failed to verify.”
Meanwhile, the Arctic is melting *faster* than models project:
http://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2014/03/the-puzzles-involving-sea-ice-at-the-poles/
Jim D:
“It comes under the category of “it’s worse than we thought”.
But the rate of decline has fallen to zero for the last decade which is way better than we thought.
So what is better for modelers, that they got the amount wrong or that they got the rate of decline wrong. Oh, wait, they got both wrong. I think this is pretty damning evidence that they haven’t got a clue.
> But the rate of decline has fallen to zero for the last decade which is way better than we thought.
See for yourself:
Paws may not always bring good news to Denizens.
Go team!
Willard:
“We should also not forget that back in 2005, minimum sea ice levels like we’ve seen since 2007 (3-5 mkm2) were not predicted to occur until 2040-2070.
Paws may not always bring good news to Denizens.”
That also talks about the appalling predicting capabilities of the Team. What are they predicting now, less ice? Looks like we might get more ice then. We should not trust the Team. They haven’t got a clue.
Javier commented:
“That also talks about the appalling predicting capabilities of the Team.”
1) Why do you think you need a precise prediction of Arctic or Antarctic sea ice trends?
2) Are you aware models don’t do predictions?
Javier wrote:
“But the rate of decline has fallen to zero for the last decade which is way better than we thought.”
Absolutely false.
In the last ten years the Arctic sea ice trend is -204 km3/year.
PIOMAS monthly source:
http://psc.apl.uw.edu/research/projects/arctic-sea-ice-volume-anomaly/data/
David Appell:
“1) Why do you think you need a
preciseprediction of Arctic or Antarctic sea ice trends?2) Are you aware models don’t do predictions?”
1) To demonstrate that they understand what drives Arctic sea ice and to be able to trust them when they tell us all the bad things that are going to happen that we don’t see.
2) People like Serreze do predictions based on models. They do it all the time on the MSM. I know they don’t have a clue, but they claim they know what they talk about. I guess you don’t believe them either since models don’t do predictions.
David Appell:
“In the last ten years the Arctic sea ice trend is -204 km3/year.”
Make believe data from models, not real evidence.
Javier wrote:
“1) To demonstrate that they understand what drives Arctic sea ice and to be able to trust them when they tell us all the bad things that are going to happen that we don’t see.”
Why?
Arctic sea ice melt is underpredicted, remember.
“2) People like Serreze do predictions based on models.”
No they don’t — they do projections. Do you understand the difference between a prediction and a projection?
Javier wrote:
“Make believe data from models, not real evidence.”
“Without models there are no data.”
– Paul N Edwards, A Vast Machine
David Appell said:
So according to Appell “logic,” two wrongs make a right?
David Appell:
“Do you understand the difference between a prediction and a projection?”
Sure I do. A projection is when you want the blame for failing to fall on something that is not you.
David Appell said;
Lordy, Lordy!
I can’t believe you would say something so asinine.
Glenn wrote:
“So according to Appell “logic,” two wrongs make a right?”
No. It says that the inability to precisely predict something is not a reason to ignore climate change.
Javier wrote:
“Sure I do. A projection is when you want the blame for failing to fall on something that is not you.”
Javier, would you explain to use how climate models can do predictions, even in principle?
David Appel said:
Yep. It’s turtles, all the way down.
https://i0.wp.com/2.bp.blogspot.com/-XyOwfSUUeBg/VXOOUcMlbjI/AAAAAAAACIg/CHmjrkFMFU4/s1600/reality_turtles.gif
Glenn wrote:
“Yep. It’s turtles, all the way down.”
You didn’t understand.
Global sea ice extent is decreasing.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg
Doesn’t look significant.
But then panic attacks about insignificance is what the modern CAGW game is all about, right?
TE wrote:
“Doesn’t look significant.”
Global sea ice linear trend = -25,200 km2/yr since 1978.
Total loss = -950,000 km2.
“Less than 1 sq km?
I’ve got more ice than that in my martini….
Tonyb”
#####################
1 it is less than 1m sq km of Sea Ice EXTENT
so, suppose your best instrument is a satellite with a 25 sqkm footprint. ( the size of a pixel is 25sq km ). The way they count extent
is this… IF the pixel indicates that at least 15% of the area is ice, then
it counts as 25sq km of ice.. SO, an actual 3.75 sq km of ice would get
counted as 25sq km.
So you will see numbskulls like Goodard and Goodman whine that 1m sq km is not zero, when they DONT EVEN understand that 1Msq km is not even 1m sq km. These ae the kind of deep thinkers who would point at an single ice floe and argue that the arctic was not “technically” ice free.
That is why in other places people say
EFFECTIVELY ICE FREE
or
VIRTUALLY ICE FREE
or
ESSENTIALLY ICE FREE..
or just say ice free and explain ( psst ice free means 1m sqkm of ICE EXTENT )
“Mosher,
Thanks for that quote from AR5! These threads w/b more useful and better grounded IMO if they started with the relevant IPCC text.
###############
yes but goodman cant be bothered to read, much less understand.
Imagine that you have to ground your skeptical belief system in
IGNORING what the science says, and instead latching onto
the popular short hand that appears in the news
Goodman isnt doing science, he is actually doing news analysis.. or rhetoric with some numbers thrown in to give the illusion that he is doing science. mostly it is a DELIBERATE effort to misundertand, misread, over read, under read, everything he sees in the press and NOTHIING about what the actual science says,
Only a bankrupt thinker would make his case turn on the fact that the science says “nearly ice free” and the popular press shortens this to
“ice free”
Thats some frickin EINSTEIN THERE by golly.
> That also talks about the appalling predicting capabilities of the Team
It tells more about the IPCC’s conservativeness than anything.
It tells even more about Greg’s Paws trick.
It’s like arguing that because we hit in 2005 a low we expected as a new normal in 2060, polar bears should already be disappearing, but worse. It’s just curve fitting.
The IPCC ain’t a team like Team Denizens or the Kyoto Flames.
What Mosher said. Which brings us back to the only point of interest: given that this is painfully obvious to anyone scientifically trained, why does Judith, a well known climate scientist, choose to deliberately promote this cargo cult content?
Steven “Humpty Dumpty” Mosher,
You ain’t lookin’ so good there.
And all the king’s horses and all the king’s men aren’t doing a very good job of putting you together again.
http://s17.postimg.org/fa34grwhb/Humpty_Dumpty_Health_Care.jpg
Observation bias?
http://climatewatcher.webs.com/ArcticFingerprint.png
Temperature pattern from 1910-1945 indicate Arctic sea ice loss also, followed by a period of Arctic sea ice gain.
The satellite record began from a peak making much of the trend emphasized by what has been measured, not by what is unmeasured.
Active minds gravitate toward confirming the hypothesis, not questioning perspective.
Venus has the inverse of Polar Amplification, high levels of climate forcing create strong polar vortices that keep the polar regions massively colder than the rest of the planet. While on Saturn the poleward heat transports are so strong that the polar regions are only around 10°C colder than the mid latitudes.
Earth during inter-glacial periods has the Arctic functioning in the same manner, as a negative feedback to forcings. The post 1995 AMO and Arctic warming is the natural response to the decline in solar wind pressure since then, by it increasing negative NAO/AO conditions, and thereby increasing the poleward heat transports.
Venus polar atmosphere profile, from ESA spacecraft:
http://cdn.phys.org/newman/gfx/news/hires/2012/1-acuriouscold.jpg
We need to send a Zeppelin to Venus. If it’s designed to float at 20000 meters would it survive?
Judith promoting (not endorsing, obviously) this “analysis” is, well, interesting
http://variable-variability.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/interesting-what-interesting-judith.html
You clearly do not have any educated or technical criticism of the article but think it is somehow sufficient to say you find it interesting that Judith finds it interesting.
Well, it’s very interesting that you find that interesting, Thank you for your contribution to saving the planet.
The article very clearly isn’t intended to be educated or technical; it’s intent is rhetorical. For example:
There’s no pretence of any serious technical review, let alone novelty. Which is why it is interesting purely in the sense that Judith chooses to promote it.
“The article very clearly isn’t intended to be educated or technical; it’s intent is rhetorical. For example:”
According to the IPCC, “nearly ice free Arctic” is less than 10^6 km^2 ice area for five years in a row. So “ice free” does seem to be more of a political standard than a useful climate metric. Now if you really want a purely scientific discussion, perhaps you have some insight on exactly why less than 10^6 km^2 for five years is relevant.
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2015/12/seven-years-ago-today-al-gore-predicted-north-pole-would-be-ice-free-in-five-years/
Capt,
exactly; if the article were technical or educated, it would have discussed the reasons for using such a definition, the pros and cons and alternatives together with the scientific rationale.
The “Gateway Pundit”, by it’s own definition is ” a leading right-of-center news website.”; it seems a little odd for you to offer it as a source for “purely scientific discussion”, but it certainly fits right in with the OP here.
vtg, I offer that because there is no scientific rational for picking an arbitrary “ice free” or “nearly ice free” Arctic. Gateway pundit is a great example of a right wing response to a left wing claim used for political inspiration.
I wasn’t aware that technical definitions had political leanings, nor that they were “claims”, but you live and learn.
Anyway, it seems that we agree the OP is rhetorical rather than technical, and agreement is rare in the climate blogosphere, so that’s something positive, I suppose.
Wait. If this article your contribution to saving the planet, providing a citation for
might be more important than I thought, Greg.
Your strawman has just become more than interesting.
Willard
I think you will find ‘does’ was a typo
https://judithcurry.com/2016/09/18/is-the-arctic-sea-ice-spiral-of-death-dead/#comment-812123
Tonyb
> I think you will find ‘does’ was a typo […]
It has already been corrected in the text, TonyB.
A quote would still be nice for “we are now told that ‘ice-free’ does not actually mean free of ice.”
A URL too might be good to have. It might even be important, if we presume that this is Greg’s contribution to our eternal Fight for Freedom.
CaptD says
“Now if you really want a purely scientific discussion, perhaps you have some insight on exactly why less than 10^6 km^2 for five years is relevant.”
Any takers?
Dare ya.
I’m reminded of a funny about the word “interesting”:
A surgeon can always apply the precautionary principle that the CAGW devotees are so fond of:
http://img4.hostingpics.net/pics/72855528FALSECOMPROMISE.jpg
Vtg
Victors article is nearly 3 years old, was there a particular reason for referencing it today?
Tonyb
Purely if you didn’t understand the meaning behind the very short post
Greg
This is an important topic that seems to be mostly ignored. Thank you for posting.
Here are my comments:
1. We have performed a similar assessment – see “Temporal Trends In Arctic and Antarctic Sea Ice Maximum and Minimum Areal Extents”
https://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2009/09/09/temporal-trends-in-arctic-and-antarctic-sea-ice-maximum-and-minimum-areal-extents/
Our conclusion at that time (2009) was
“The time of occurrence of the maximum and minimum sea ice coverage in the Arctic showed slight trends towards occurring earlier in the year, although not significant. In the Southern Hemisphere, the trends were smaller and also not significant, but the time of ice maximum was becoming later, contrary to the other three trends.”
2. With respect to how the atmosphere responds to the removal of summer sea ice, I looked at this in the paper
Pielke, R.A., 2001: Earth system modeling — An integrated assessment tool for environmental studies. In: Present and Future of Modeling Global Environmental Change: Toward Integrated Modeling, T. Matsuno and H. Kida, Eds., Terra Scientific Publishing Company, Tokyo, Japan, 311-337
in the section “Sea-ice feedbacks” https://pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/cb-35.pdf
Here is part of the text from that section
“Figures 5(a)–(d) illustrate for the summer the complicated feedbacks between the sea ice and adjacent land masses that can occur. To create these figures, the RAMS model (Liston and Pielke, 2000) was integrated for the warm season of the year with assimilated observed sea ice and with the ice removed. As evident in the figures the near surface air temperatures are actually warmer over the Arctic Ocean (by over 1°C in large areas) when the sea ice absorbs solar radiation and transfers some of this energy as sensible heat back into the atmosphere. Without the sea ice, while the Earth system gains heat through the reduction of reflected solar insolation, the atmosphere is cooler on this time scale. This difference in surface temperature is communicated into the troposphere and could result in a weaker arctic frontal region when sea ice is present, than if it were absent.”
I look forward to further investigation of both topics.
Roger Sr.
Thank you for your comments. I will look at those papers.
A couple of factors that may have contributed to the non significance finding in NH
1) incompatibilities in the two dataset ( Nimbus and DoD platforms ) I realised the importance of this just after sending the text to Judth and did not catch her in time to amend it. See comment #3
2) the time you wrote that was just after the turning point in 2006/2007 though this would not have been evident at that stage.
3) The use of a poor filter by NSIDC ( 5 day trailing mean ) distorts the signal and would have added noise. Decreased S/N would degrade the significance. See comparison of different filter in second graph.
4) the early data seems to be the end of an preceding trend towards earlier minima. Viewing the whole process as evolving in one direction would again degrade significance if the trend to later dates only occurred for about two decades: 1985-2007.
Thanks again for coming by.
Greg Goodman.
The other difference of course is that you were using CT’s ice area. This is considered less reliable in the summer due the presence of surface melt water which the satellites can not distinguish from sea water. This is very likely also reducing the S/N ratio.
I used the CT area for the decadal trend analysis which uses all available days of data not just the minima. Maybe it is not the best choice for analysing minima.
NSIDC consider the binary 15% extent test as more robust in the summer months.
Looking at the graphs in your first link the dates look rather random, and the non significance result is not surprising. If I have the time I may see what I get if I use the area data, though sadly this will not include 2016 since that dataset is now defunct.
Greg – Thank you for your reply – Bill Chapman had been very helpful when we worked on this, so it might be useful to contact him. Also, I hope you take your paper to a peer reviewed form. This contribution is much needed.
Roger Sr
Reblogged this on Canadian Climate Guy.
Reblogged this on The Ratliff Notepad.
This is an important article, Climategrog, because it shows from a different type of data (date of minimum extent) that something happened around 2007 to Arctic sea ice that interrupted a 35 year trend. This interruption was obvious to me since 2014 but has eluded most ice experts. Even now NSIDC, Tamino, Nick Stokes, Steve Mosher, are oblivious to that change despite 10 years of no statistical differences in Arctic sea ice. How long do they need to see something so obvious? One doesn’t see what one doesn’t want to see, and finds excuses to cling to old clichés.
Other experts, however, were faster to see the changes and point to a reasonable possible cause, a change in the AMO trend at about the same time:
A signal of persistent Atlantic multidecadal variability in Arctic sea ice
M.W. Miles et al. 2014. Geophys. Res. Lett., 41, 463–469.
“We establish a signal of pervasive and persistent multidecadal (~60–90 year) fluctuations… Covariability between sea ice and Atlantic multidecadal variability as represented by the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) index is evident during the instrumental record. This observational evidence supports recent modeling studies that have suggested that Arctic sea ice is intrinsically linked to Atlantic multidecadal variability.
Given the demonstrated covariability between sea ice and the AMO, it follows that a change to a negative AMO phase in the coming decade(s) could —to some degree— temporarily ameliorate the strongly negative recent sea-ice trends.”
So NSIDC, Tamino, Nick Stokes, Steve Mosher, should prepare themselves for more years of no Arctic sea ice melting and even Arctic sea ice growth if AMO decides to turn negative. They better start working on the excuses now.
For Greenpeace and its campaigns to save the Arctic by giving us money, well it looks like lean times ahead once the media catches up that there is an ongoing pause in Arctic melting.
If next year rebounds like it did after 2007 and 2012, we will have a ten year period with a net positive trend. That’s going to get hard to ignore.
It is essential in getting understanding to separate cyclic behaviour from any longer term linear effect. Any warming is probably transmitted via SST anyway. Attempting to directly link this to AGW is nothing short of foolish.
But there’s a lot of it about. :(
Climate grog,
That’s an important point. Nick’s trend lines (above) are insensitive to a change in trend, hence used by true believers who “know” the correct story. Moving averages provides more information.
Inflection of moving averages direct of attention to what’s changing — 6 year average then 7 year then 8 then …
> How long do they need to see something so obvious?
The same time they presumably did before they noticed Da Paws.
Paws? Which Paws?
Denizens may never learn.
Go team!
yes, we just need someone to notice that winter ice measurements are “biased” and need to be “corrected” to be the same as summer ice trends, then we’d be back of track for run-away melting and death spirals, etc. I can’t believe they have not dealt with this issue already.
> I can’t believe they have not dealt with this issue already.
Incredibilism strikes again.
So, Greg, about that bet – how much can you afford to lose?
next up they will play the monkton game and calculate the trend backwards..
Javier
Firstly thanks for the link in the WUWT conversation.
You will note that the atmospheric temperatures are identical to the profile of the AMO. That is the issue. Air transport is immediate and has the major effect. This years NH and SH Sea ice profile and timing provides the best that I have seen for detailed analysis, simply because it was a soft landing. Sea ice loss in the NH will remain a problem until the AMO and NH atmospheric temperatures in particular reduce back to blue.
That does not look like its going to happen soon. Your second last paragraph above is spot on.
You are welcome.
Currently I do not think that Arctic sea ice depends mainly on air temperatures. Ice melts a lot faster in water at 10°C than in air at 20°C because of energy transfer rates, plus warmer air ascends and melting requires a lot of latent heat. Also there is no apparent relationship between El Niño, that produces a lot of warm air that in part is transported towards the poles, and ice melting rates historically. So really I do not have much in terms of evidence to think that the atmosphere is the main agent melting Arctic sea ice.
Reblogged this on Climate Collections.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/age_coverage_time_series_83_15_w_labels2_thumb_thumb1.jpg
Five+ year ice%: increasing for three years.
Four+ year ice%: increasing for five years.
Three+ year ice%: increasing for seven years.
Multi-year ice%: increasing for eight years.
There is less ice, but that which remains has gotten shinier.
TE. It would be nice to know what we are looking at there. source?
That is Arctic Sea Ice Age from NSIDC. Since the graph was showing recovery, that year they changed the graph to a more cryptic version where it is not so obvious that Arctic sea ice is recovering.
Taking advantage of the change they fiddled with the data. Tony Heller caught them red handed.
Of the three main sea ice projections, the exponential decay (Arctic sea ice spiral of death) promoted by Wadhams, Maslowski, Serreze and Mosher is the worse looking and not supported by evidence.
Of IPCC projections RCP 8.5 can be discarded for unrealistic. RCP 6.0 and 4.5 do not project an Arctic free of ice before 2080
RCP 2.6 and a realistic model based on past sea ice extent and its relationship to AMO are indistinguishable and do not anticipate an Arctic free of ice within the 21st century if current trends are maintained.
http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/a475/Knownuthing/SeaIceProjections2_zpssnsxjkwv.png
Javier,
“Of IPCC projections RCP 8.5 can be discarded for unrealistic. RCP 6.0 and 4.5 do not project an Arctic free of ice before 2080”
As my post here in Dec 2015 explained, the RCP8.5 scenario is useful “worst-case” scenario — but makes some unlikely assumptions to get such a high level of forcings. It is important to remember, however, that the RCP’s don’t don’t differ much for decades.
This graph from the RCP Database shows forecasts of CO2 levels in the two most severe RCPs. The lines don’t diverge much until after 2030.
Let’s try that again: here’s the graph:
https://fabiusmaximus.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/rcp-co2-forecasts1.jpg
“Of the three main sea ice projections, the exponential decay (Arctic sea ice spiral of death) promoted by Wadhams, Maslowski, Serreze and Mosher is the worse looking and not supported by evidence.”
Huh?
I am with the IPCC.
“Though most of the CMIP5 models project a nearly ice-free Arctic (sea
ice extent less than 1 × 106
km2
for at least 5 consecutive years) at the
end of summer by 2100 in the RCP8.5 scenario (see Section 12.4.6.1),
some show large changes in the near term as well. Some previous
models project an ice-free summer period in the Arctic Ocean by 2040
(Holland et al., 2006), and even as early as the late 2030s using a
criterion of 80% sea ice area loss (e.g., Zhang, 2010). By scaling six
CMIP3 models to recent observed September sea ice changes, a nearly
ice-free Arctic in September is projected to occur by 2037, reaching the
first quartile of the distribution for timing of September sea ice loss by
2028 (Wang and Overland, 2009). However, a number of models that
have fairly thick Arctic sea ice produce a slower near-term decrease in
sea ice extent compared to observations (Stroeve et al., 2007). Based
on a linear extrapolation into the future of the recent sea ice volume
trend from a hindcast simulation conducted with a regional model of
the Arctic sea ice–ocean system (Maslowski et al., 2012) projected that it would take only until about 2016 to reach a nearly ice-free Arctic
Ocean in summer. However, such an approach not only neglects the
effect of year-to-year or longer-term variability (Overland and Wang,
2013) but also ignores the negative feedbacks that can occur when
the sea ice cover becomes thin (Notz, 2009).
########################
You have to be incredibly ignorant to take wadhams seriously when the IPCC does not.
Hint: you dont attack the consensus by pointing at known outliers.
Sheesh.. some skeptic you are you got fooled by reading the news rather than the official summary of the science
too funny
Mosher,
The background to that figure is from:
Stroeve, J. C., V. Kattsov, A. Barrett, M. Serreze, T. Pavlova, M. Holland, and W. N. Meier, 2012: Trends in Arctic sea ice extent from CMIP5, CMIP3 and observations. Geophysical Research Letters, 39, L16502, doi:10.1029/2012GL052676
As used by NCA:
http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/report/our-changing-climate/melting-ice/graphics/projected-arctic-sea-ice-decline
It clearly shows Arctic sea ice projections from IPCC RCP scenarios.
RCP 8.5 is completely unreasonable and its median estimate crosses the 1 million km2 by 2060. So anybody predicting an ice-free Arctic before that date really has no clue, and that includes you.
“You have to be incredibly ignorant to take wadhams seriously”
But I don’t take any of you seriously. In the case of Whadhams and Serreze it is actually very sad because they have dedicated their professional life to Arctic ice, yet they demonstrate that they don’t have a clue. I don’t find it funny but sad.
Mr. Mosher, maybe you are spending inordinate amounts of time Wandering in the Weeds and not aware that climate policy is based on the news.
Anyway, when someone quotes model output, I just ask them to “prove it.”
Charlie Skeptic
Javier cant read.
This is what he cited as his Authoritative source
“These results imply that the AMO may be an important factor in the faster-than- projected decreases in sea
ice, in qualitative agreement with a recent modeling–satellite-data analysis [Day et al., 2012] that attributes
up to 5–30% to the satellite era (1979–2010) summer sea-ice decrease to the concurrent AMO warm phase,
and an even higher proportion for the winter sea ice. Given the demonstrated covariability between sea ice
and the AMO, it follows that a change to a negative AMO phase in the coming decade(s) could—to some
degree—temporarily ameliorate the strongly negative recent sea-ice trends. There are, however, caveats: (1)
multidecadal fluctuations in Arctic–subarctic climate and sea ice appear most pronounced in the Atlantic
sector, such that the pan-Arctic signal may be substantially smaller [e.g., Polyakov et al., 2003; Mahajan et al.,
2011]; (2) the sea-ice records synthesized here represent primarily the cold season (winter–spring), whereas
the satellite record clearly shows losses primarily in summer, suggesting that other processes and feedback
are important; (3) observations show that while recent sea-ice losses in winter are most pronounced in the
Greenland and Barents Seas, the largest reductions in summer are remote from the Atlantic, e.g., Beaufort,
Chukchi, and Siberian seas (National Snow and Ice Data Center, 2012, http://nsidc.org/Arcticseaicenews/);
and (4) the recent reductions in sea ice should not be considered merely the latest in a sequence of AMOrelated
multidecadal fluctuations but rather the first one to be superposed upon an anthropogenic GHG
warming background signal that is emerging strongly in the Arctic [Kaufmann et al., 2009; Serreze et al., 2009].
Thus, the observed decreases in the Arctic sea-ice cover, especially in summer, may continue largely unabated
as the GHG signal strengthens further”
here is a clue. It is NEVER AGW alone.
It is always AGW +- natural quasi periodic internally forced effects.
That is WHY it is not a simple “death spiral” but rather, as I said, a long secular trend downward superimposed on natural wiggles.
Sometimes those wiggles will enhance the trend and sometimes they may reverse the trend… THAT is what the science says.
Non monotonic… up and down… but in the end… enexorably downward.
> Non monotonic… up and down… but in the end… enexorably downward.
A bit like the Denizens’ coverage of Da Paws.
Go Team!
We should also not forget that back in 2005, minimum sea ice levels like we’ve seen since 2007 (3-5 mkm2) were not predicted to occur until 2040-2070.
On the basis of those predictions, polar bears were predicted to decline to levels that would make them threatened with extinction (a >30% decline).
However, the ice we’ve had for the last decade has not caused any such decline in polar bear numbers. Not only were the sea ice experts wrong but the polar bear experts failed as well.
https://polarbearscience.com/2016/09/13/recent-studies-show-sept-ice-of-3-5-mkm2-did-not-kill-polar-bears-off-as-predicted/
> We should also not forget that back in 2005, minimum sea ice levels like we’ve seen since 2007 (3-5 mkm2) were not predicted to occur until 2040-2070.
I don’t think that should count as a win for team Denizens. One may even argue it messes up a bit with Greg’s Da Paws narrative.
I agree with vtg. It would be a shame to not see such revelatory ideas submitted for peer review.
It’s a shame the publishing environment has gotten so toxic good people might decide that isn’t worth the effort.
People outside of academia often don’t see the point of going through the academic peer review process, which takes months and can cost order of $1000. More people read the blog posts, the blog posts get plenty of review from academics and other professionals, and they influence the public debate on this issue. What’s not to like?
The ‘journal’ of Climate Etc. has published some pretty interesting material, some of which gets referenced in the regular peer reviewed journals.
That was what I decided to do.
Maybe they should, at least, try.
What, so the person’s expertise can be picked apart and their career ruined?
Even if a rare thing, it seems to have happened, or been attempted more than once.
Micro,
Although it might be a shame, there are plenty of entirely legitimate reasons the author might not wish to make the effort to publish, there’s really no need at all for you to get all conspiratorial about it.
ATTP,
Nice try at an appeal to authority.
But why would anyone want to submit something to peer review when those doing the peer reviewing are in the throes of an accute credibility and legitimacy crisis?
micro,
Of course they don’t need to bother if they don’t wish to. However, if their ideas are truly revelatory, it would be a shame to not see it in the published literature.
I thought Dr Cockroft was in academia, my mistake.
The lack of a quality filter meaning poor material like Greg’s gets accorded the same status as good quality work.
A citation would be nice
“…citation would be nice..”
Jesus, life is about more than citations. There is real, on the ground work going on everywhere without citations. Nobody ever asked me for a citation after I cut their budget. Get a grip.
Ceresco,
I could have asked for data and code too, ceresco. ..
Actually, though, I was just interested in which academic studies referenced this blog. Lewandowsky, perhaps, springs to mind, but I don’t know, do you?
Maybe Judith could do a review of the academic papers which have cited the blog, that could be interesting?
cerescokid said:
Oh, I think in their onanistic little circle jerk, they’ve already got quite a grip.
It is so frustrating when other people don’t agree with you, isn’t it Glenn?
Blogs. They get the commentators they deserve.
°°°°°°verytallguy said:
I wouldn’t know. It’s the elitist CAGW cheerleaders, what with all their highfalutin “peer reviewed” journals, that that’s become such a problem for.
http://s21.postimg.org/6gnpmoftz/Captura_de_pantalla_1404.png
°°°°°°verytallguy said:
That’s very Hillaryesque. Nevertheless, I’ll proudly take my place amongst the deplorables.
Question: We know that re traction in journals happens. It might not happen frequently enough, but it happens.
Cant really say the same
for blog posts and comments on blogs.
I dont particularly care for journals. I care more that a person making claims provide the detail required to check their claims– code and data please… Also there is something to be said for the acountablity of journals.
Imagine that there was a editorial board for blog posts and you could go to that board and say “Hey? you need to correct or retract that Goddard Post”
Now we might argue that journal editors are down for the cause, but the mechanism for retraction at least exists. we can watch and judge– hey nature is really down for the cause they refused to retract X” but with blog science and comment science, you dont even have that
On a couple of occasions I have seen WUWT come close to yanking stuff.
So question to Judith; Since you run the blog would you ever see yourself “retracting” a post made by a guest poster?
or do we just publish stuff and let the audience decide?
I have a facebook feed like that..
and too many pictures of cats show up
If, based on the comments or other analysis, a poster wants to correct his post or add an update, I am TOTALLY in favor of that. I am becoming more selective with time regarding guest posts. Unless i made a HUGE error of judgment regarding a guest post, I won’t retract unless the author requests it. The best outcome is to improve the arguments/post as a result of the comments/discussion. And yes, I am generally inclined to let the public decide what is worthwhile and will always err on the side of getting the arguments out there for consideration.
I can’t agree with you more, Mr. Mosher! You say “I care more that a person making claims provide the detail required to check their claims– code and data please…”
I’ll add “parameterizations” to the list for modelers to produce. “Validation” exercises would help.
Oh, and the IPCC’s comparing model outputs with and without AGW forcings is, in your words, too funny.
charlie.
When I see you apply your skeptcism to both sides of the argument, then I’ll believe you agree with me.
Cool! How’s the following for eclectic skepticism?
Charlie Skeptic does not believe in any of the explanations publicly given for past decadal, centennial and millennial Holocene climate variations affecting the Earth as a whole. That includes CO2, sunspots, cosmic rays, solar magnetic variations, the position of the planets, land use and whatnot.
Whatever is going on is intricately linked to the oceans and annual variations of solar incidence. The whole thing is mediated by the multifarious manifestations of the various phases of H2O and air/water movement. Planet spin/tilt and topography play roles.
Weather is not climate. Weather models are not climate models. All climate is local.
The many and various observation schemes are unable to tell us what is going on, much less why. Everybody picks their favorite data weed patch and wanders around trying to tease out true meaning. None have succeeded.
So sayeth Charlie Skeptic.
Climate models are expensive speculation and lead to disastrous policy decisions. Anybody not understanding those facts either do not understand the profound and mostly unknown complexities of the chaotic system or are paid to look the other way. Or do you have a better reason for believing the unbelievable, Mr. Mosher?
charlie wrote:
“The many and various observation schemes are unable to tell us what is going on, much less why. Everybody picks their favorite data weed patch and wanders around trying to tease out true meaning. None have succeeded.”
It is unfortunate you don’t understand the science.
But it clearly doesn’t prevent you from being cocksure you know what you’re talking about.
I’m informed the models reflect the science. The models are wrong forward and backward (hindcasts). Something is wrong with the science, as practiced.
charlie wrote:
“The models are wrong forward and backward (hindcasts).”
Prove it.
Actually, I have a paper on that topic submitted – it’s out for review as we speak. Whether it gets a fair hearing remains to be seen but I am hopeful that the time is right and the evidence is strong enough to carry it through.
If I’m successful, you’ll hear about it!
Susan
Dr. Crockford,
“If I’m successful, you’ll hear about it!”
And if you’re not that would also be interesting to hear.
Interesting. Will you be submitting to a peer review journal?
VTG
Just for fun, why don’t you line up your credentials on the polar bear against those of Dr Crockford. Living in the real world she might have an edge.
Ceresco,
I’ve no beef with doc crockford at all. The post seemed pretty well researched from my very superficial uninformed skim, and certainly a contrast to Gregs OP here.
As Dr Crockford seems eminently capable of putting her hypothesis properly in the scientific literature ( assuming it stands up to scrutiny) it seems a shame for something she seems to regard as revelatory to languish as a blog post.
Anybody not following climate blogs is not following climate science.
Climategrog, nice guest post. A rigorous way to show that something has changed the last decade and that the ‘death spiral’ is not happening.
Tonyb had two articles showing historical Arctic ice variation. My essay Northwest Passage used DMI August ice maps from 1921-1939 to show qualitatively a diminution similar to that from ~1979 ~2007. Larsen made the first ever single season NWP transit in 1944, more evidence of a low ice period.
There appears to be a ~60-70 year natural cycle. In which case despite this summers strong gales, the ice is in the natural recovery phase. As this becomes more evident, it will be an important, easy to understand refutation of CAGW.
death spiral continues.
understand what it means..
It means: there will be no recovery.
It doesnt mean every year will get progressively worst.. the best science
puts the life expectancy of under 50 years..
As the ice gets thinner the ups and downs will get wider and wilder ( yes the year to year variation is unprecidented, bye bye null) The secular trend is downward. towards death. even the DOD knows this
Mosh’, when do you ever see a spiral which expands back over it’s own path. That is no one’s definition of a spiral. Death spiral means ever increasing melting or at least constant unrelenting melting. 9 years with a flat trend and two strong recoveries does not qualify as a “death spiral”. Unless, of course, it’s one of those “operational spirals”.
That is why I said the death spiral is dead.
I did not say that in a hundred years time it is impossible for Arctic sea-ice to have dropped to an “operational zero” of 10 MILLION SQR KM, since any claims on that time-scale would be totally unjustified on the very limited data we have available.
Regards, Greg.
No one know this.
Too funny.
It’s not clear that Arctic sea ice has been as sparse as present.
But it is clear that the temperature fingerprint of the Arctic is consistent with decreases and increases of sea ice in the past.
Confirmation bias makes those so inclined to get excited about something which might confirm their bias and ignore other evidence.
“Mosh’, when do you ever see a spiral which expands back over it’s own path. That is no one’s definition of a spiral. Death spiral means ever increasing melting or at least constant unrelenting melting. 9 years with a flat trend and two strong recoveries does not qualify as a “death spiral”. Unless, of course, it’s one of those “operational spirals”.
################################
1. Death spiral has never been a technical term.
2. your literalist interpretation is typical for fake skeptics
3. When it comes to metaphors, THERE IS NO CANONICAL
method of determining the meaning. ( see Johnson )
That is why I said the death spiral is dead.
your strawman is dead.
Why did you bring him to life in the first place
Bottom line, stick to numbers you know next to zero about how to interpret tropes
How about this…Steven,
‘Death Spiral of Cap & Trade’, today.
It is even backed up, with facts for a change.
A quick sketch of N. Atl SST and Arctic ice extent
https://climategrog.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/nh_sea-ice_amo.png
They share a similar shift around 1995-2005 but the short term cycle behave does not seem to be related. There is the clear circa 5.4y periodicity in sea-ice and a rather crudlely defined circa 8y periodicity in “AMO”.
Note I’ve used actual N.Atl SST from Reynolds since I see not reason to start detrending without having a reason to start messing with the data.
The 9mo and 273d gaussian removes most of the annual cycle ( the 9mo is not a zero in the frequency, it is a parameter of the filter “sigma”).
Greg Goodman
No safe haven for polar bears in warming Arctic,
Sea-ice retreat is affecting every one of the endangered species’ refuges.
http://www.nature.com/news/no-safe-haven-for-polar-bears-in-warming-arctic-1.20590
http://s15.postimg.org/70jj2av7f/Captura_de_pantalla_1441.png
Apparently someone needs to tell them that “ice free” means they will still have ONE MILLIONS SQR km to ‘roam’ and catch seals from.
Allegedly there will still be a few “pockets of ice” left for them.
This is the problem with using terms like ” ice-free” when you don’t mean free of ice. Innocent, Joe Public, foolishly thinks it means ICE FREE.
It’s a bit like taking up an offer of ‘interest free credit’ and buying a new car. Then at the end of the month you bank sends you a bill with 1.15% interested added.
They explain that since they usually bill card holders 8% and 1.15% is less than 15% of 8% it is “effectively” zero. It’s just an “operational credit charge”. You know, a bit like products that are sugar-free….
Please avail yourself of a copy of all relevant legislation before buying.
climategrog wrote:
“So it’s a barefaced lie. The IPCC repeatedly and consistently uses the term nearly ice-free Arctic . That is clear and even Joe Public will understand that this does not mean the same thing as zero sea-ice.’
Why don’t you ask a scientist, say from the NSIDC, why they consider SIE<1 Mkm2 to be "ice-free?"
“Apparently someone needs to tell them that “ice free” means they will still have ONE MILLIONS SQR km to ‘roam’ and catch seals from.”
Wrong.
You would have 1m sq km of EXTENT…. not ice… Ice EXTENT
which could be as little as 150K sqkm.
not ice.. Ice EXTENT which doesnt even measure the actual amount of ice
be precise greg
Apocalypse Tourism? Cruising the Melting Arctic Ocean
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-crystal-serenity-northwest-passage-cruise/
“The meaning of “ice-free” has also been the subject of some serious goal-post relocation efforts, we are now told that ‘ice-free’ does not actually mean free of ice, it means there will be less than one million square km of ice left.
This special branch of mathematics is apparently based on the axiom that zero = 10 6
####################
I wish the mathematically inclined would check their silliness at the door.
These kind of comments are pure silliness
1. Fields of study get to DEFINE their terms. So for example, when the FDA defines sugar free they do not take a LITERAL meaning of the words.
They choose an OPERATIONAL DEFINITION.. Sugar free MEANS
“has less than .5gm of sugar per serving”. So, if you were labeling
1000 lbs of a food that had 1000 grams, but 3000 servings, you are correct to call it sugar free.
2. Consider the silliness if we take the language (ice free ) Literally.
What does it mean? No ice visible to a satellite? To a camera on a
plane? no ice visible to the human eye? standing how far away?
Are we talking chunks of ice? 1 sq in? if there was only one molecule
of ice would that be ice free? How could be sense the entire arctic
to determine that it was absolutely ice free?
Well, you cant.. If you defined ice free as no ice larger than say 100 sq meters, how would you measure and test that? Every measurement approach requires operational definitions… measureing sea ice is no different. And the folks who get to define it.. are those that actually do the work.
3. The metric selected is Extent. and typically a 15% rule is used.
That means if your satellite could see a 25km grid, and you could determine that it was 15% ice, then you count the whole square as covered. This is just a operational definition that takes notice of the
difficulty in perfectly distinguishing ice from water, and ice from Ice with melt ponds on top. So extent will over estimate the amount of ice.
Theoretically 1m sqkm of extent could result from sensing many many
grids with only 15% ice.
4. The IPCC in its official summary looks at 5 years in a row of extent less than 1m sq km. Again, a somewhat arbitrary decision, why not 4 years? why not 6? Well, Nothing in the science turns on The selection
of 15% or 18% or 21.5% or 1 year or 5 years, or 7 years. These are just choices made by practicioners to simplify communication. Ice free means
X. Now you could pick something silly like ice free means less than 15 million sq km.. but then it would always be ice free. or you could pick something silly like ice free means not a single molecule of ice and it would never be ice free, So you get to make a choice. All analysis involves choice. As long as your choice isnt silly, as long as you communicate it clearly, people understand. Nobody with half a brain objects to
definitions of “sugar free” or “full employment” as long as there is a clear description of the definition. And YES you can change definitions, especially as your measuring systems improve..
5. “ice free” has been used by the press for its shock value. And a couple people have talked about 1 year of ice free free conditions as opposed to the IPCC 5 years. Only idiots judge a science by what the press says and by what a few extremists say. Stick to reading AR5 and ignore the press.
Or, youll be sucked into silly rhetorical games..
basically.. When I read that paragraph I tuned out.
start here
http://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,382.0.html
That guy knows how to go to source data as opposed to the crap this post works with.
which is also the reason why activist scientists use it and other terms like “death spiral”. They are playing “communication” and propaganda games not being scientific.
Now what is wrong with the data I have sourced this analysis. Maybe you need to communicate your concerns to Mark “death spiral” Serreze who heads NSIDC if you think it’s “crap”.
Serreze is the only person I know who used the metaphor.
So, its hardly a common technical term. And its fairly accurate although clearly not precise.
You can always spot a fake sceptic because they misinterpret casual speech.. Typically they over literalize, or the apply ideas of precision that dont apply… like with metaphors.
As for your data. suggest you read more.
The other way to spot a fake sceptic is they typically only look at on dataset… and they never go back to sources
For the layman, “ice-free” means exactly what it says: free of ice, as in zero, nada, zilch. We see the term used in stories like the one published in Nature published a few days ago:
But for those deeply enmeshed in the unicorn method and other power plays, “ice-free” has a very different meaning.
So the vocabulary has been thrown into disorder. Perhaps Lewis Carroll captured the current zeitgeist of climate science best:
But, as Confucius said,
http://static1.squarespace.com/static/539cd64fe4b045b6dc98ad0c/t/55ac585de4b054cb3b7ef5ef/1437358175054/government-doesnt-name-things-properly.jpg
“For the layman, “ice-free” means exactly what it says: free of ice, as in zero, nada, zilch. We see the term used in stories like the one published in Nature published a few days ago:”
Not a single molecule huh?
How about sugar free?
When we say “free speech” do we mean we can say ANYTHING.
here is the clue. you dont get to decide what the meaning of terms is, especially in technical areas.
But if you like folks could say “effectively ice free”
for the purpose of talking about the positive and negative feedbacks of open water in the arctic, folks can adopt any terminology they like.
So, You can define Ice free as zero molecules of water in a frozen state.
Dont know how you are going to operationalize that ( the first decision to make in any measurement campaign isare the operational definitions)
So you wont be doing science… you will be doing rhetoric
Mosher, what is wrong with going with what the IPCC used, nearly ice free? Then they defined “nearly ice free” as >10^6 km^2 for five consecutive years in summer. Pretty clear actually, unlike the “ice free” used by a number of activists that doesn’t really have a defined meaning, in spite of your heroic attempts.
Jargon, not rhetoric. Climate science has created their own jargon with definitions and everything so you have to be careful what you call a “forcing” because that has its own specific and appropriately anal definition as noted in the Braswell et al. dust up. That even had the peer reviewed seal of approval :)
captdallas2 wrote:
“Jargon, not rhetoric. Climate science has created their own jargon with definitions and everything so you have to be careful what you call a “forcing” because that has its own specific and appropriately anal definition as noted in the Braswell et al. dust up. That even had the peer reviewed seal of approval :)”
Imagine, scientists being precise about the terms they’re using. The nerve!
I’m sure that’s not important if you’re trying to put a spacecraft on the moon, build the next-generation transistor, or write software for self-driving car sensors.
A true sign of the Apocalypse, twice in one thread I have had people agree with me :)
Steven Mosher said:
But of course you do “get to decide what the meaning of terms is.”
Right, Humpty Dumpty?
charlie wrote:
“I assume you would accept Dr. Trenberth as being up to your “standards.” He has published peer reviewed papers stating El Ninos cause ocean warming.”
Really? Which papers? Cite them.
“You are a silly twit, aren’t you? To denigrate someone without cause.”
I gave cause, of course.
One last time, little man:
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/papers/2000JD000298.pdf
Anything else would just trigger you, little man.
Late on the Thread while you’re sleepin’
Charlie Skeptic comes a creepin’ a-la-ah-ah-ong.
Steven,
When you see “sugar free”, the expectation of the consumer is zero sugar. As a diabetic, that is certainly my expectation.
AR5: The Climate Bible.
Instead of Turtles, it’s Models all the way down.
Plan your life based on models that have no validity.
charlieskeptic commented:
“Plan your life based on models that have no validity.”
http://www.climate-lab-book.ac.uk/comparing-cmip5-observations/
David, LOL! [Thank you, I finally got to use LOL.]
A long time ago we saw that particular CMIP5 vs. observation tripe. It is post hoc arm waving and misdirection at its worst.
It took a super El Nino to get surface temperatures above the bottom coolest of the all-hot models.
Take a look at Steve McIntyre’s: https://climateaudit.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/boxplot_glb_tas_1979-2015_201601.png
None of the models approached the actual HadCRUT4 trend from 1979 to 2015. All were much hotter.
Similarly, look at the discrepancies between model output and satellite and radiosonde results as shown by John Christy in Congressional testimony. Trend differences are even more devastating to the “accurate model” meme. [Gee, I got to use that useful word again.]
Tell me again how accurate models are.
“A long time ago we saw that particular CMIP5 vs. observation tripe. It is post hoc arm waving and misdirection at its worst.”
Why?
They put lipstick on a pig. I don’t know why.
Charlie wrote:
“It took a super El Nino to get surface temperatures above the bottom coolest of the all-hot models.”
Were you happy to count the decade of 2000-2010 dominated by (cooling) La Ninas? I bet you were!
Which were interspersed with heating El Ninos.
charlie wrote:
“It took a super El Nino to get surface temperatures above the bottom coolest of the all-hot models.”
This is why scientists and the WMO emphasize looking at 30+ year trends.
Want to talk about them?
Oh lordy, lordy! Yes! I do want to talk about 30-year trends, David.
Lets see ……… Bob Tisdale presents graphs comparing modeled 30-year trends to 30-year trends of the various surface temperature products in his FREE e-book “On Global Warming and the Illusion of Control.” Why don’t we check in with him?
“Figure 1.17-16 contains two model-data comparisons of 30-year trends (trailing) in global surface temperatures.
The models in both graphs are represented by the multi-model mean of the climate models stored in the CMIP5 archive, which were used by the IPCC for their 5th Assessment Report. The model outputs are available through the KNMI Climate Explorer. For the data, the top graph includes the GISS Land-Ocean Temperature Index (LOTI), while the bottom graph includes the HadCRUT4 reconstruction from the UKMO.”
Crap, I can’t copy the graphs. Oh, well. Since the e-book is free, David, I’m sure you can afford it. Get on his website, Climate Observations.
The graphs show that models vastly overstated the 30-year trend ending 1945. More importantly, they overstate the 30-year trend ending today even more so.
Wait! You can find the up-to-date graph from his September temperature update:
https://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/12-model-data-30-year-trends.png
It’s from:
https://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2016/09/13/august-2016-global-surface-landocean-and-lower-troposphere-temperature-anomaly-update/
Models are crap. So sayeth Charlie Skeptic. [Supported by Bob Tisdale. Don’t neglect his tip jar!]
charlie wrote:
“Which were interspersed with heating El Ninos.”
Which were interspersed with cooling La Ninas.
Ready to talk about 30-year trends?
Or why surface temperatures for this El Nino were about 0.4 C above 1997-1998’s, and why that El Nino was 0.4 C higher than 1982-83?
charlieskeptic wrote:
“They put lipstick on a pig.”
In what way?
charlie: You’ll have to do a lot better than “Bob Tisdale.”
He is a guy who thinks ocean heating is coming from El Ninos.
Got some real science?
David, after this I am not going to try to cater to your inanities.
Bob Tisdale has published much of real data. If you are not willing to look at his real data, there is not much I can tell you.
Here is real data on your requested 30-year trends:
https://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/12-model-data-30-year-trends.png
Climate models, reflecting current climate science (it’s the physics), fail your 30-year test.
Charlie: Sorry, Bob Tisdale is not up to standards. As I wrote, the fact that he thinks El Ninos cause ocean warming shows his poor scientific judgement.
I take it you don’t have any peer reviewed science to present. In that case, case closed.
I assume you would accept Dr. Trenberth as being up to your “standards.” He has published peer reviewed papers stating El Ninos cause ocean warming.
You are a silly twit, aren’t you? To denigrate someone without cause. Go back to your Sks pallies.
Despite having no formal training Bob Tisdale was quite insightful in pointing out that El Nino / Nina cycle is NOT a net zero “oscillation”, it is two difference asymmetrical processes. It is a throughput of energy, not a pendulum type ‘oscillation’.
There is no need to check his CV to see whether that is true.
This is fundamental misconception that is at the heart of climatology for the last 30 years. Any and all long term rise is to be attributed to AGW and any remaining variation is to be explained as “internal oscillations” which have zero long term affect. This is why there are a plethora metrics ending in O : AMO PDO NAO AO SO ENSO …..
This is why the first thing climatologists generally do with any dataset is “detrend” it. They “know” what the trend is due to.
This method of working imposes the preordained result and is based on assumption not analysis.
Now if the untrained Bob Tisdale can see that, why can’t all our illustrious PhDs ?
BTW I do not find Bob’s demonstration that warming IS caused by ENSO very convincing ( like a large proportion of professional climatologists he is not capable of anything other than running averages and sliding trends. both of which are awfully flawed ) but his fundamental insight that it is not a symmetrical ‘oscillation’ is of paramount importance.
Kudos.
climategrog said:
This takes us back to what Deirdre McCloskey said. Her critique of “high-level economics” is amazingly perspicacious when it comes to “high-level” climate science too:
Steven,
As to definitions, climatologists make up their own as they go along. They also redefine the definitions whenever it suits.
You can take your pick from several, as I know you would resent me spoon feeding you.
As to ice, lurching off into the irrelevant analogies regarding sugar merely serves to confound the issue.
It seems you are continuing with the climatological tradition of redefining normal terms into climatological jargon, where ice free can mean anything you want it to, if reality diverges from toy computer model output.
Ice free, to me, means free of ice. No ice at all. If there is any ice to be found, obviously the area is not “ice free”.
I haven’t seen the climatological operational definition of “ice free”. In what peer reviewed journal would it be found? Does the operational definition of “ice free” vary from location, or is a flexible definition, only to be produced with a flourish, when the normal definition doesn’t suit the climatologists?
Maybe it’s like the “Arctic death spiral” – as fine a climatological operational definition as you could find. I haven’t seen a single climatologist disagree with the concept, so it must be the concensus. Scary, meaningless, and of course capable of instant redefinition – depending on the previously hidden “operational definition” of “ice free”.
Have you managed to come up with a disprovable hypothesis for the world heating ability of CO2 yet? Or only an operational hypothesis – the sort that doesn’t actually need to be disprovable? Just good enough to bluff the gullible into keeping the grant funds flowing.
Ice free means ice free. Why do you need an “operational definition”? Just say 1,000,000 sq. km. If that’s what you mean.
As to fields of study getting to define their own terms, usually these terms, if relating to a quantity are assigned a distinct name – say volt, ohm, or ampere in electrical work. Even the size of a variable unit, a quadrat, say, is specified by the researcher, so that others are kept informed.
Climatologists just make stuff up on the fly, trying to weasel out of their previous silly statements. Prediction? Don’t be silly – we really meant scenario or possibility.
Climatologists can never be wrong – they just produce I different definition (operational or otherwise) to justify their obvious inability to accept reality.
Cheers.
Mike Flynn:
“I haven’t seen the climatological operational definition of “ice free”. In what peer reviewed journal would it be found?”
Scientific papers routinely define “ice-free” as < 1 Mkm2. Those papers are written for other scientists, not you or layman.
Example: Stroeve et al, GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 39, L16502, doi:10.1029/2012GL052676, 2012
Whether some sea ice clings to a harbor somewhere — which can happe n for several reasons — isn't especially indicative to the change in climate.
David Appell,
The climatological model output paper you referred to does indeed define ice free to be anywhere between no ice at all and 1000000 square kilometres.
This is a good operational definition for climatologists, of course.
For those who love a good irrelevant analogy, this is the same as asking for a Government handout because I’m nearly penniless, with a large family to support. My operational definition of penniless is having between nothing and a million dollars, and my operational definition of large is between twenty and none.
Even the Government would not fall for this nonsense, except when cloaked in the mysterious aura of “climatological definition”. Even worse, the IPCC refers, as far as I can see to “almost ice free”. If “ice free” is up to 1,000,000 square kilometres, then “almost ice free” might be 1,000,000 square kilometres to that base amount multiplied by what? 10, 100, 1000?
Handy things, these operational definitions.
Hopefully, the Death Spiral might need to to be operationally defined as the inexorable collapse of the Cargo Cult Scientism currently operationally defined as “Climatology.”
I live in hope.
Cheers.
Mike Flynn wrote:
“This is a good operational definition for climatologists, of course.”
Scientists write paper for the scientific community, not you.
If you don’t read them and can’t understand them, don’t blame them — the fault is yours.
If you don’t like their terms, write your own papers, or at least a letter to the journal’s editor.
But it’s much easier to just whine here, I’m sure.
They shouldn’t use the term “ice free.” If Exxon did that, all the executives would be drawn and quartered and sentenced to life in prison.
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Observation supports Popes Climate Theory when you consider facts about both poles. Pope says,”Duh, past cycles of warm and cold have repeated inside the same bounds for ten thousand years, in the northern hemisphere and in the southern hemisphere. This is the new normal. This robust cycle does not care if we cause any warming, the polar oceans thaw and increase the cooling snowfall at the same thermostat set point. The temperature that polar oceans thaw, Arctic and Antarctic, is the set point and cooling is always turned on when the oceans thaw and cooling is always turned off when the oceans freeze. Look at the ice core data from Greenland and Antarctic. Yes, Pope is right – look at data showing that as the Arctic ice melts the Antarctic ice expands.
Now, a new study by a team of NASA climate scientists has sparked controversy by reporting that “Antarctica is actually gaining ice.” Scientists concluded in the Journal of Glaciology that the loss of glacier mass in Antarctica’s western region is being offset by thickening of glaciers on the continent’s eastern interior, which has experienced increased snowfall. The result: A net gain of about 100 billion tons of ice per year, according to the report.
That increase in ice translates to about a quarter of a millimeter per year less sea level rise than was previously predicted, says lead author Jay Zwally, chief cryospheric scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/11/151103-antarctic-ice-growing-shrinking-glaciers-climate-change/
Reblogged this on Climatism and commented:
Bad news for “Climate crisis Inc.”…
Some numerology: 2016 has the lowest year-to-date Arctic sea ice extent in the satellite era.
source: NSIDC data
err, no.
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/charctic-interactive-sea-ice-graph/
err, should have written, lowest year-to-date *average* Arctic SIE.
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I’m just wondering. If the ice extent recovers, will this issue go the way of the Great American Drought from a few years ago ? Of course, I fully expect that sometime in the near future drought will return. It wasn’t called the Great American Desert for nothing. We are about 4 years into a wetter cycle, I would think it will be trailing off sooner or later, becoming drier, then dry. Then the sky will be falling again. It’ll be worse than ever.
Mr. Goodman, how many times did you say you had been to the Arctic?
o,ooo,
“This special branch of mathematics is apparently based on the axiom that zero = 10 6”
Do you expect mathematics behave differently in the Arctic?
Many times less than the illustrious Prof Peter Wadham who has claims to have spend 50 years studying it. He was convinced it would be “ice-free” last year. Then it was this year or next year. Claims that even Gavin Schmitt described a “bollocks”.
It seems that going to the Arctic is not a key to understanding physics and being able to prcess the satellite data. Neither do I rely on making spacious claims to whip up fear and attract grant funding.
The Arctic is big place. Standing on it is not the best way to asses changes in the ice coverage.
What’s this??? You mean I’m not going to be able to take my sailboat to the North Pole as promised
From a discussion on WUWT that might be on topic:
https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/sidads_arctic_ice_anomaly.jpg
Here’s what it looks like to me. Before, more random. After, synchronization. Assume warming oceans. At some point the Arctic Ocean gets to work attempting to cool them more than they had been doing before. The sea ice now retreats when it can, during Summer which cools the Arctic Ocean. It still cannot stay open during Winter. Compare this to the temperature at my furnace’s thermostat. During mild Fall it wanders as the furnace is not running. As Winter starts, that temperature synchronizes. It drops until the furnace is commanded to start. It rises until the furnace is commanded to stop. When something is needed, in this case warmth, synchronization. Same pattern as in the sea ice plot. Synchronization might be described as a lot of similar things doing the same thing at the same time. The emergence of consistent melting followed by consistent freezing is this. Without synchronization, we’d have the more random prior data.
Ragnaar:
That graph is very wrong.
First, it isn’t plotting the anomaly, as it claims.
Second, it stops at 2010, when a lot of melting has happened since.
You’re right. It’s not an anomoly. I hadn’t noticed that. Steven Mosher was as best I recall reviewing the emergence of an annual signal in the data recently. The above shows that though I know nothing of any filtering or smoothing used. I picked it because it shows the annual signal. Who would have thought the annual signal emerged in about 2007?
The plot here: http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/
labelled: ‘N. hemispheric anomaly’ is similar to the one above.
That graph IS the anomaly otherwise you’d see nothing but a massive annual cycle. What happens in 2007 is that the magnitude of the annual cycle gets bigger, so when the average annual cycle is subtracted there is still some annual signal. That is why I developed the adaptive anomaly method in the trends analysis I included in the post. The link under it describes the method.
https://climategrog.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/ct_ice_area_short_anom_nh_2015_final.png
This allows a clearer view of what is happening behind the squiggles.
But the ‘squiggles’ show that a negative feedback is occurring.
The volume is a more important indicator of melt.
Because melt occur downwards as well as horizontally.
Likewise freeze occurs vertically as well as horizontally.
The coldest winters freezing deepest.
The refreeze over winter is where AGW will arguably have most effect.
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/schweiger/ice_volume/BPIOMASIceVolumeAnomalyCurrentV2.1.png
I also find it “interesting” that this thread should come up as the Arctic minima records the 2nd lowest on the sat record.
Except, both melt and freezing area’s are more defined by surface area, not volume.
Pretty typical goalpost move though.
That is not the latest volume I posted.
One is available to end of August.
Trying this one ….
http://neven1.typepad.com/.a/6a0133f03a1e37970b01b7c88efea5970b-pi
This is the trend in sea-ice minima (essentially) ….
http://www.carbonbrief.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/NSIDC_March.png
Sorry …. maxima.
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
click on Antarctic daily image… great 30-year, 1/2 cycle stuff.
“Except, both melt and freezing area’s are more defined by surface area, not volume.
Pretty typical goalpost move though.”
I call it shooting the ball in the goal firmly planted where it should be my friend.
Logically melt and freezing of Arctic ice should be defined by volume. As when surface ice melts, well up bobs ice below to continue the melt. And conversely freeze will go the opposite way. Why? Because the Arctic is confined … horizontally. It is not the Antarctic.
I’m going to ape vtg, “whose logic, my logic, your logic, the homeless crazy guy hanging out downtown”?
Logically, water surface freezes when exposed to temperatures below freezing.
Melting takes place when ice’s surface is exposed to air or water that’s warmer than freezing.
Surface is expressed by area, not volume. I’ve never, ever seen an ice cube melt from the inside out.
JCH:
I didn’t realise that Antarctic ice was touching 2 sigma below this year.
“Surface is expressed by area, not volume. I’ve never, ever seen an ice cube melt from the inside out.”
Cripes mate…
Look, it’s not difficult.
I said that the best measure for Artic warming is ice volume.
Not that area is expressed by volume.
Hint:
Try watching the ice on your pond freeze (may have wait a few years if living in England).
Err, what does it do when it’s reached the edges.
Well, surprise, surprise – it freezes downwards and increase the thickness.
Talking of thickness…
Over to you.
JCH:
I didn’t realise that Antarctic ice was touching 2 sigma below this year. …
As a card carrying member of the climate is a
complexfairly simple nonlinear system, I sleep with one eye open and watch every available monitoring system for… of all things… lol… 60-year cycles, especially the negative 1/2 ’cause I’m pretty much convinced there ain’t gonna be one. But I still look for it!Another example of synchronization having to do with water. The temperature in your auto’s radiator. Auto off, it lags the outside temperature. Auto on and time to get to work, warming and cooling in a nice repeated pattern. Lagged wandering data points synchronize. This is controlled by a binary switch as far as I know. Sea ice to me is a binary switch or nearly an infinity of them if we look at each square meter of the oceans surface. The Arctic Ocean is getting a strong reaction from the sea ice. I think it is more predictable than prior to 2007. Less random.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.arctic.png
The all things being equal qualification goes well I think with a drifting system, warmer for instance. With the drift perhaps even slowing the drift there could be these synchronized responses. Holding us at a threshold. One long term example of thresholds are the bounds of the climate over the last 1 million years. Some process, and water is the most likely candidate, holding us from crossing into runaway warming or cooling.
“Computer models have such a strong tendency to fall into the White Earth equilibrium that climatologists find themselves wondering why it has never come about. It may simply be a matter of chance.” – Gleick
It’s my understanding that the White Earth is colder than the recent glacial periods. If it’s true that they try at all costs to avoid this, why do the models go there? These theorized threshold synchronizations may exist in nature and if modeled correctly would prevent White Earth excursions.
“…in terms of the global mean temperature, instead of having a gradual trend going up, maybe the way to think of it is we have a series of steps, like a staircase.” – Trenberth
A nice La Nina is a synchronization of a lot of stuff doing the same thing. Some upwelling and some Westward movements. You could say it’s a temporary threshold for the GMST. When it collapses we can see GMST spike which I think is an indication of synchronization again.
These ENSO synchronizations could be argued to cause the recent Arctic sea ice synchronization by sending more warmth to the Arctic. The signal used is mostly temperature but also includes water vapor.
This spiral of death may be a beneficial cooling of the Arctic Ocean. That sea ice will be obliterated during say, December and January I don’t think has many agreeing with that. What is left will maintain a strong annual signal with rapid annual recoveries. If Arctic sea ice does have such a threshold behavior we should see a flattening with some drift.
“CMIP5 models project a nearly ice-free Arctic (sea ice extent less than 1 × 10^6 km2 for at least 5 consecutive years) at the end of summer by 2100 in the RCP8.5 scenario … “
Assume a 15 km2 million max and 3 km2 million min. Add those and divide by 2 for a 8 km2 average. So when we get 1/8 of the average we are there and I will forget the 5 year thing so we can get the parade started on the very day it happens. Make that the next day.
At the same time we have our respected climate scientist accountants who are not leaving 1/8 of the Joules on the table or sweeping them under the carpet or just giving up on the whole thing. They are not calling 1/8th of the Joules nothing. They learned to count, are gosh darn it, they are going to count the way the Babylonians, Mayans and Indians did who while they invented the zero, knew the difference between zero, one and eight.
1/8th of your net worth really isn’t that much. You don’t need it. Think of it as zero. We want a parade and 1/8th is not a lot to ask.
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https://climategrog.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/nh_sea-ice_2007_trend.png
A change happened with the significant drop in 2007. An event which rightly caused concern at the time.
From 2007 to 2016 is ten data points. That’s decade of data.
If we analyse the minimum ice extent for that decade, it is flat. The biggest increase in open water on record did not cause run-away melting, it stopped it !!
However, we should also consider the start and end points when fitting trends, and choosing round numbers like ten years is not an objective criterion.
The trend analysis I linked in the article identifies circa 5.4 year periodicity in Arctic sea-ice and uses integral multiples in fitting trends. This cycle is due to hit a low in 2017.
That will make the 2007-2017 trough-to-trough trend slightly more negative than 2007-2016 decadal trend and the 2012-2017 trough-to-trough trend the first sustained positive trend since the rapid decline started in the 1990s.
The record is still frustratingly short to see whether this is due to feedbacks from the open water since 2007 or all part of a longer multidecal cycle in climate.
Greg.
I thought denizens might be interested in the source of the spiral.
As far as i can work out it’s here:
http://haveland.com/
and is an effort to visualise the trend, not predict the future.
I find no reference to it at all in the peer review literature.
I can find no claims in mainstream media that it is a runaway system (claims, such as they are, seem to relate to methane emissions causing runaway not ice per se, and are not supported by IPCC or mainstream science)
The claim that more exposed water will absorb more solar and thus ever more melting is pretty wide spread. It is usually referred to as the albedo feedback. It is supposed to be a strong positive feedback but the observations since 2007 do not support this at all.
You will not have any problem finding the claims made about its effects:
To clarify , albedo change is a +ve f/b but the assumption that there are not other strong -ve feedbacks is not supported by the data.
So, you make two untrue claims.
One that this positive feedback was predicted to be “runaway” in your OP. You have not and cannot substantiate that claim – see my cite above from AR5 for the reality of the prediction.
Secondly, you are now de facto claiming that unless sea ice area monotonically decreases, albedo is proved not to be a positive feedback. Given the year to year variation, that’s obviously bonkers.
And your whole thesis is founded on cherrypicking an unusually low year, 2007.
Interestingly, whilst sea ice is a net postive feedback, it is well understood that it is also, in some cirumstances a negative feedback. For example, my bold:
http://psc.apl.uw.edu/impacts-of-reduced-sea-ice-on-atmospheric-heat-precipitation-rates-and-ice-production/
Read more. Assert less. Stop embarrassing yourself by attempting analysis beyond your capabilities.
“Secondly, you are now de facto claiming that unless sea ice area monotonically decreases, albedo is proved not to be a positive feedback. ”
Albedo is +ve and I have not said the contrary. Try quoting my words instead of making “de facto claims” whatever they are.
vtg, It looks like “nearly ice free” is a curiosity not a relevant climate metric when the onset and duration of “nearly ice free” isn’t a factor. In order for “nearly ice free” to be meaningful there would need to be some significant positive feedback so instead of just radiating more heat from the oceans, some of that heat has to be retained if it is going to contribute to AGW.
So we have this controversial climate change “metric” where literature teasingly alludes to reduced albedo’s contribution to ocean heat uptake for some short period of time in September when solar irradiance is already past it’s peak and the majority of Arctic amplification is in DJF when temperatures are roughly 5 C warmer than the brutally cold -30C and lower temperatures.
So again, exactly why is “nearly ice free” even worth discussion?
> Try quoting
Words of wisdom, Greg, words of wisdom.
Here:
You did not quote much in your editorial, btw.
Albedo is +ve and I have not said the contrary. Try quoting my words instead of making “de facto claims” whatever they are.
With pleasure. It’s unfortunately necessary to try and interpret your claims as they are constantly shifting and often self-contradictory. Here we go…
Further “clarified” as
Yet originally you claim negative feedback from sea ice melt (my bold):
then it seemed that it was unclear whether the net effect was a positive or negative feedback
Further, in the comments you clearly claim that the net feedback is negative:
So, if I have misinterpreted your claim, perhaps you can understand why that is, and now actually clearly state what your claim is? (and stick to it).
captdallas2 0.8 +/- 0.3 said:
It’s “worth discussion” because it fits into the narrative about the polar bears starving to death.
This type of science is motivated by theology, economics and a quest for political power.
“So, if I have misinterpreted your claim, perhaps you can understand why that is, and now actually clearly state what your claim is?”
That is now possible since you are referring to what I said and not you own mistaken interpretations.
Albedo is REFLECTIVITY, it is ONE aspect of several feedbacks which result from more open water. You seem to have been thinking that they are synonymous and were therefore confused by what you thought was contradictory statements.
I hope that clears up you misunderstandings about what you read.
Albedo is +ve , several others are negative. If the net result of more open water was dominated by albedo and positive then we would have seen a rapid acceleration after 2007 and more after 2012. The opposite is seen.
https://climategrog.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/ddt_nh_sea-ice.png
In 2007 Serreze predicted ‘ice-free’ by 2015 IIRC. He was assuming the downward curve would continue getting steeper. What Prof Wadham is on is anyone’s guess. But both are recognised Arctic “experts” frequently cited by the media and both keen on “communication” with the public.
More conservative estimations are talking about mid century now and seem to be based on fitting a linear trend ( which is based on the implicit assumption that its AGW driven).
AGW models actually under-estimated the rate of melting, so clearly the physics is poorly understood all round. Without a validated model there is no justification for fitting a linear trend and extrapolation way outside the range of the data. That would instantly be rejected in just about any field of science except climatology.
Greg,
I’ll go through your latest line by line (painful though it is)
On the contrary, I specifically referenced an example of a negative feedback for you.
No, what you said is self contradictory.
Ah, an actual claim. Unfortunately, this is mere assertion, and a straw man. You need to quantify the effects relative to others in order to make such a claim. You need to reference an actual study which concluded we would see a “rapid acceleration” on an annual drop in coverage. None did, to my knowledge. Please provide a citation predicting “rapid acceleration” or withdraw your claim.
Yet again, an assertion without a citation. A by now very familiar theme. Let’s google “Serreze 2007”, which leads here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7139797.stm
So, you’re flat wrong. It took me less than 30 seconds to find you out. You persist in making false claims without making even the most cursory effort to research them.
But you, Very Tall, messed your HTML.
Your arguments are therefore invalid.
Ah, an actual claim. Unfortunately, this is mere assertion, and a straw man. You need to quantify the effects relative to others in order to make such a claim. You need to reference an actual study which concluded we would see a “rapid acceleration” on an annual drop in coverage. None did, to my knowledge. Please provide a citation predicting “rapid acceleration” or withdraw your claim.
I did quantity the effects relative to others by saying if the net result is positive. The effects of a positive feedback are accelerated change. If a large sudden change results in an opposite reaction as show seen following 2007 and 2012 ) that is a strong net negative feedback
If you want citations for 1+1=2, sorry I don’t have time.
“Which is why nobody does this [ linear extrapolation ], to my knowledge. ”
So how are they producing the ‘expert’ opinion then. They don’t a working model how Arctic ice changes, you say they don’t extrapolate so what it is ? Squint at the graph and scratch their balls?
Ah, so you are claiming that total net feedback including stefan bolzmann is negative?
And because there is no runaway observed that proves your point?
No-one has ever claimed total system net feedback is positive. (This is a commonly held misconception amongst “skeptics” and is merely a result of different definitions in control theory and climate science, the latter neglecting SB feedback in the definition).
Now, please acknowledge you were wrong on Serreze – you seem to be completely ignoring the falsehoods you’ve been exposed proclaiming.
*You* claimed linear extrapolation was used. Justify your claim or withdraw it. Diversion into scatology won’t convince anyone
Or are you now saying you haven’t actually read the literature you claim to be refuting. Oh dear.
https://thinkprogress.org/exclusive-new-nsidc-director-serreze-explains-the-death-spiral-of-arctic-ice-brushes-off-the-96c8a65a7c9a#.pibydig58
Serreze :
OK, maybe we should cut him some slack. As I said in the article highlighted in BOLD text: this was a reasonable hypothesis in 2007.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/12/071212-AP-arctic-melt.html
Well apparently the canary was not dead, he we was just sleeping !
No.
You should withdraw the false claim you made.
The link you provide clarifies again that it was false.
Serreze did not make the prediction you said he did.
You have continued to make false claims, then fail to withdraw them when called out.
Your claim was false. Simple Admit it.
Exclusive: New NSIDC director Serreze explains the “death spiral” of Arctic ice
https://thinkprogress.org/exclusive-new-nsidc-director-serreze-explains-the-death-spiral-of-arctic-ice-brushes-off-the-96c8a65a7c9a#.vtvjotoij
Dr. Curry, I’m struck by Mr. Serreze’s comment that he was speculating about an ice-free North Pole, not predicting. In an apparent attempt to justify his speculation, he stated that others made the same “speculation.” Presumably, those others are ice scientists/experts.
My concern is that the news outlets, politicians and general public view those as predictions from authoritative sources, not simply idle speculation. They view the (speculative) statements-from-authority with alarm. This can lead to some very bad decision making.
Dave Fair
” *You* claimed linear extrapolation was used. Justify your claim or withdraw it. ”
OK, I withdraw. They had no working model, were not extrapolating , they were just scratching their balls and making alarmist claims. How improper of me to have suggested that they *may* have attempted extrapolation when they were just squinting scratching their balls. Sorry.
Of course I’m also assuming without documentary evidence they are were not using necromancers , channelling or reading sheep’s entrails.
Since they never seem to tell press what the scientific basis is for this kind of claim and the press are too dumb and compliant to ask. We are left guessing. Phrases like “at this rate” indicate that they are basing their opinion on extrapolation of a linear trend. That being a more technical expression of “at this rate” ie assuming that this current rate of change remains constant.
Now since you clearly don’ t have anything to say about the data and the implications and have nothing more than ankle biting to do, I think that’ll be all for now.
Thanks for the input.
> They had no working model
Here, Greg:
“Observed” does not mean “model-free.”
Read. Quote. All good for the soul.
VTG
Serreze said that the researcher who thought that the ice would disappear by 2013 was a smart guy and he would not be surprised if he was correct. So he may have ridden two horses but plainly thought that 2013 was possible. The penultimate paragraph of your BBC link refers.
Tonyb
Cmon Tony. Serreze said it was possible he was wrong, but it wasn’t what he would predict. Not remotely what Greg claimed, and absolutely in line with AR5.
This is really difficult science and as the quote from AR5 makes absolutely plain, there is no consensus on when the Arctic will become nearly ice-free.
Greg’s has two problems. Firstly that he obviously lacks expertise in or knowledge of his subject. Second, that he seems unable to acknowledge his errors. And I guess maybe third, that he’s unwisely given rope by Judith.
The key point of GG’s analysis is that there is substantial decadal scale variability in Arctic sea ice extent. The nose dive decade of rapidly declining sea ice extent has now morphed into the most recent decade where the trend is pretty flat.
Too many people (climate scientists (non sea ice experts), a few sea ice experts, and alarmed AGW advocates and many in the media hype the arctic sea ice spiral of death (google turns up 409K mentions). This is what GG is calling out.
The main challenge remains sorting out natural variability from human caused variability. GG’s analysis helps in this regard
Vtg
I like serreze, whereas I watch aghast as wadhams is quoted as an expert. I do read links that people such as you post and clearly serreze thought that ‘ice free’ by 2013 was not out of the question so on balance I would say you won this aspect of the game , but only 3-2 after extra time.
It’s a shame that The winter temperatures were not discussed in more detail as clearly a factor in Ice thickness as well as extent are winter temperatures. In this respect we have a lot of information that might help us to understand why ice can be a tricky beast to predict.
This from 1949
“During the last three decades there has been a marked change in the climate of the Arctic which is being felt throughout the northern hemisphere where, especially, the mean temperature of the winters has increased considerably. In the North American sector this change is perhaps best understood and also most marked in Greenland, where long meteorological records exist from a number of points on the west coast, Thus at Jakobshavn, in latitude 690 13 North, the mean winter temperature for the years 1913-1922 was about 5 degrees F above the mean of 50 years and that of 1923-1932 almost 10.0 degrees F. above. In 1935-1936 the mean for the winter at Godhavn was 13.40 higher than the normal at the end of last century, that of Godthaab 7.60 and at Julianehaab 9.8oF. Increasing temperatures are not limited to the air; sea temperatures also have increased and while the amplitude is not so great, the result is even more profound and far reaching.”
Tonyb
> The nose dive decade of rapidly declining sea ice extent has now morphed into the most recent decade where the trend is pretty flat.
Sure. It’s Da Paws trick all over again.
For the Denizens who didn’t get Greg’s memo:
INTEGRITY ™ – Trendology without trends.
curryja | September 20, 2016 at 12:22 pm |
Exclusive: New NSIDC director Serreze explains the “death spiral” of Arctic ice
climategrog | September 20, 2016 at 11:15 am |
https://thinkprogress.org/exclusive-new-nsidc-director-serreze-explains-the-death-spiral-of-arctic-ice-brushes-off-the-96c8a65a7c9a
Curryja,
Which part of GGs “analysis” concerns attribution to natural or anthropogenic causes?
I’m amazed you promote such poor analysis as this. It’s just so obviously shonky, and reflects very poorly on you. It’s also pretty unfair on Greg to be honest; if he can’t see the gaping holes in it himself he deserves help before high profile exposure.
“The main challenge remains sorting out natural variability from human caused variability. GG’s analysis helps in this regard”
No it doesn’t, it just shows that beyond a certain threshold sea ice loss has been self limiting since 2007. Rising GHG’s are modeled to increase positive NAO/AO, that won’t warm the AMO and Arctic, they warmed since the mid 1990’s because of increased negative NAO/AO.
That separates the human caused, the natural is the decline in solar wind strength since the mid 1990’s, meaning that AMO and Arctic warming is a negative feedback to a decline in climate forcing.
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch10s10-3-5-6.html
Low-pass filtering of the whole 365 d/year daily ice extent record reveals a clear cyclic pattern which will reach a trough early in 2017.
https://climategrog.files.wordpress.com/2016/09
/arctic_extent_gauss273.png
??
https://climategrog.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/arctic_extent_gauss273.png
Here is the corresponding graph from the ice AREA data, showing the timing of the 5.4 y periodicity:
https://climategrog.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/art_nh_ice_area_short_anom_2007_wkg.png
And a reference to the source, where the use of a “rectified sinusoid” (!) is justified and breakpoint analysis provided to justify the use of four separate linear non-continuous trends on the dataset.
Oh. You seem to have missed that bit.
“Oh. You seem to have missed that bit.”
No, you missed that bit there is a link in the main article under the same graph. There is a full explanation of the derivation and method.
I’m sorry I see just an exercise in curve fitting.
Where is the saw-tooth point in the green section?
And you have 6 cycles covering around 34 years, and that makes a 7.5 yr cycle.
Indeed there is. Unfortunately the method is you making entirely an entirely arbitrary choice of function to fit without any quantitative or even qualitiative justification whatsoever.
Why was a “rectified sinusoid” chosen?
How was it compared to alternatives?
Can you give another example in the physical sciences where such a function is chosen to fit data to?
It’s not supposed to be physical model, it just summarises as repetitive pattern in the data which it is important to take note of when choosing the periods for over which to fit a trend. NB I do not subtract the fn , linear regression is done on the data.
You could also question why to fit linear model but since climatology seems obsessed with “trends” I though this was better than a single straight line.
This can be compared to the “spiral” which was not a spiral graph which does totally arbitrary decadal grouping based on nothing more that calendar dates. How appropriate is that ?! Apply your same questions to that method.
Clearly the rate of change does vary over time and was steepest during 1997-2007. I think this analysis represents it fairly clearly.
As you failed to do so in your own post, earlier I helpfully provided you with a link to the originator of the “spiral”. It’s nothing more than a visualisation tool, and is not referenced anywhere in the scientific literature that I can find.
Your analysis purports to be scientific, and you claim a “rectified sinusoid” is detected in the data.
Which, in fact, you just arbitrarily made up.
Your whole approach is cargo cult science. You put lots of technical sounding terms in your post, but actually, you have no understanding of how to undertake analysis yourself, and you haven’t even bothered to read any of the literature you claim to be refuting.
To the point of not even reading the summary of AR5, it seems, which is very clear in not projecting an ice free Arctic for decades to come.
> You could also question why to fit linear model but since climatology seems obsessed with “trends”
Climate Science Makes Greg Do It. In the comment thread of a trendology article. You just can’t make that up.
Greg could try to answer the question he’s just asking, but no, he has to cut to climatology.
***
> It’s not supposed to be physical model
Yet every model is a model of something.
What did you model, Greg?
No, Willard, it is not a model of anything. It is a fairly large magnitude, recurrent pattern in the data that I do not want to cause spurious trends. I do not remove it , I just use it as a guide to chose the start and end points of each fit.
No, I’m not a fan of “trends” since they are usually simplistic and misleading but since they seem to dominate about 95% of the discussion about climate I thought a more detailed analysis may help give some insight that the usual attempts to resume any dataset with on straight line fail to do.
It confirms that there was an accelerating melting until 2007 and that it has reduced somewhat since. ( I limited the fitting at 2012, and ignored the later recovery because of the circa 5y cycle ) . Next year it may be possible to go further , if the dataset is maintained. Which for the moment looks unlikely.
> I thought a more detailed analysis may help give some insight
Of course that would, Greg. When you are making one, and what kind of insights would you make?
A filter ain’t an analysis.
You know, any investor should be able to spot that 2006-2016 looks a lot like 1992-2003:
https://climategrog.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/nh_sea-ice_min_dates_comp1.png
Another formation like that and it’s a buy. The “spiralling” effect would show.
Since there are glimpses of it in the previous data you decided to color in light blue, you may have been wise not to accept to bet.
Trendology without trends is not worth much. It’s a good way to write op-eds asking rhetorical questions, though.
Thanks for playing,
W
Wrong graph:
https://climategrog.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/nh_sea-ice_min_date2.png
In no other science is it necessary for skeptics , of say cold fusion, to prove why they are wrong. That’s what I see here. No one from the CAGW side has offered any idea as to why the Arctic isn’t ice free. This isn’t a guessing game. The IPCC and associates have categorically stated that laboratory tests prove that co2 works a certain way. They have the math and incoming energy fluxes , outgoing fluxes to support their positions.
Why aren’t we swimming down Canal St in NYC in 20 feet of water ? Why hasn’t the Arctic melted ?
Time and the events that have followed, the projections/predictions of CAGW should have already invalidated AGW theory. Obviously there is an error in AGW theory.
This is especially true in light of the fact that co2 production continued to rise. The confidence level was at 95% of 97% of allegedly all scientists that certain temperatures would occur by a date which has already passed. Any one from the CAGW side care to rework the projections with new insights with how we got to where we are today ? All I’ve seen is a frantic effort to push the dates out, leaving out the intertwined and never stated effects of co2. The warming was supposed to be a direct function of co2. It seems that the melting of the Arctic, or some melting, is totally disconnected from CAGW.
The proof that AGW theory is wrong, is the certainty that was stated if we didn’t do something now ( 2001), we would face unimaginable horrors, not by 2100, by 2015, and starting earlier. Humanity pretty much continued on producing co2 and nothing much happened. Not one event has happened that didn’t happen before.
How can CAGW be so wrong with state of the art math, data gathering technology, and super computers ? The theory is wrong, that’s how.
And yes, with the amount of warming that should have taken place, you should be able to take your sailboat to the north pole.
We need to know whether the changes we are seeing are the result of something other than co2 or what the new results might be concerning co2.
“No one from the CAGW side has offered any idea as to why the Arctic isn’t ice free.”
They don’t have to, as it wasn’t expected to be.
“Why aren’t we swimming down Canal St in NYC in 20 feet of water ? Why hasn’t the Arctic melted ?”
Again – because it wasn’t expected to be.
We’re not in the virtual world (bollocks) of the film “The Day after Tomorrow”.
This is a continual meme of sceptics – that because these sorts of things haven’t happened then AGW theory is wrong.
Those event’s are decades down the line and SL rise to that degree, centuries.
“…..allegedly all scientists that certain temperatures would occur by a date which has already passed.”
What date? and what temperature?
“It seems that the melting of the Arctic, or some melting, is totally disconnected from CAGW.”
Nope Arctic ice melting is most certainly connected with the GHE – however (as with GMT’s) there is a modulation due to weather and natural variation.
“Humanity pretty much continued on producing co2 and nothing much happened.”
Again nothing was expected to happen (catastrophically) for the moment – just a slow (erratic) rise in GMT’s.
“How can CAGW be so wrong ….”
Again it’s not wrong and it’s not a theory the (C) bit. The IPCC estimate for a doubling of CO2 is between 1.5 and 4.5C.
1.5C is NOT catastrophic!
So that’s a) as low as 1.5 (we are at 1C now) and b) we are no where near far enough along for any (C) to appear, even if it’s going to.
“with the amount of warming that should have taken place, you should be able to take your sailboat to the north pole.”
Err, no.
This reply is a crock. Everything I stated was dragged out and used as evidence to subvert and control the political process in the west. The fear mongering among CAGW was extreme. No paper in any peer reviewed publication refuted any of those assertions. In fact most, if not all supported them. That’s just a matter of record. AGW is bluntly false.
You are just trying to sugar coat the failure. The models, predictions, and assumptions that become facts have all failed.
Of course a government agency that can from year to year change the numbers, can make anything up. And they did.
“This reply is a crock. ”
Cripes …. are you on something??
“It most certainly is as AMO and Arctic warming is negative NAO/AO driven, and rising CO2 increases positive NAO/AO:”
There may well “be a connection”.
That is VERY far from saying “totally disconnected” however.
I’d have thought most people up on climate would be aware that nothing about climate acts on it own. Modulations on modulation….. and in the case of AGW on a rising trend.
“It seems that the melting of the Arctic, or some melting, is totally disconnected from CAGW.”
It most certainly is as AMO and Arctic warming is negative NAO/AO driven, and rising CO2 increases positive NAO/AO:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch10s10-3-5-6.html
I don’t trust any of the numbers from the IPCC. They’ve been shown to be corrupt. When I use their numbers, I use them to show internal contradictions in the math itself. Then there is NOAA. Just this year NOAA changed the numbers again. The only reason that I can see is that previous to moving the yearly anomalies around slightly was to disassociate in the record that co2 lagged behind temperature. Even with the new numbers the association is still there, but not as pronounced. Graph it out yourself. And they also moved the peak times and values as well. Who knows, right ? From my reseach there is little or no association between temperature and co2. In fact, it is incumbent upon AGW theory to explain the last 20 years. I don’t have to disprove AGW theory, it’s already disproven and there is no math or explaination has to how the last 18 years happened. A slight increase in global temperature is not what AGW had projected/predicted. Of course, that being said, the people who are putting out the numbers are the same people predicting doom. They are going to make up the numbers as they go along. And there hasn’t been one weather event that has occured that hasn’t happened before. CAGW has a very short memory and a very poor ( or use it to spin their tale of fingerprints all over it ) understanding of land use that impacts the interaction between events and results.
These models I agree with, increases in climate forcing should increase positive NAO/AO, higher solar does. But that’s not what the climate has been doing since 1995, because of declining solar overwhelming the GHG increases.
rishrac,
One has to ask, “Why have our scientific institutions becomes so corrupt, decadent and dysfunctional?”
According to Carrol Quigley’s theory of history, which is a cyclical theory based on materialism, this is to be expected in societies or civilizations which have entered what he called the “Age of Conflict.” (Carroll Quigley, The Evolution of Civilizations)
As Quigley explains, the Age of Conflict is “the most complex age” of all the stages that typify the rise and fall of civilizations. It is a period of declining rate of economic expansion in which there is “growing irrationality, pessimism, superstitions, and other-worldliness.”
The declining rate of economic expansion is caused by the deadence of the ruling classes and the institutionalization of “the instrument of expansion.”
The instrument of expansion, which formerly was engaged in “(a) increased produciton of goods, eventually reflected in rising standards of living; (b) increase in population in society, generally because of a declining death rate; (c) an increase in the geographic extent of the civilization, for this is a period of exploration and colonization; and (d) an increase in knowledge,” transmogrifies into an “instrument of irrationality.”
The “vested interests” encourage the “growth of irrationality” because it serves “to divert the discontent of the masses away from their vested interests.”
“[T]he institution of irrationality controls much of the intellectual life of the society,” Quigley concludes, and once this instrument of irrationality is created, the chances of it being reformed into an instrument of expansion once again “become almost nil.”
Applying Quigley’s theory to CAGW, what we see is that CAGW is an instrument of irrationality, created by the governing classes, which serves to “to divert the discontent of the masses away from their vested interests.”
Glen, that’s a good argument. I can’t disagree with it. I think in the mind of CAGW people though they pretend it is as the vast amount of people agree with them on the urgency of the situation. The only people they have convinced is the top of the government. The rest of everybody could care less. The top of government, the wealthy, and some technical people will never feel the effects of the draconian measures that are being proposed. Which by the way, if implemented will have, by their own narrative, have a miniscule effect on the climate.
If CAGW were real, after all this time it would be manifest and except for a very few would doubt. I am much more convinced that CAGW is a hoax today than I was in 2001. I thought there were errors and that they could be right, but as time has passed, it looks a lot like fraud. It’s not a best case of where they are simply flawed.
rishrac, please note that the wizards behind the curtain have moved the goalposts once again; It is now AGW, not CAGW. CAGW is a skeptical conspiracy against the ever-truthful wizards.
The problem? Nuevo AGWers use the same bogus IPCC climate models as the now-not-CAGWers used in their not-CAGW past. If you can follow that, you are proficient in climate-speak.
NOAA changes the numbers on the field as well.
“1.5C is NOT catastrophic!”
Damn right. But they still managed to slip this as a rider into the Paris agreement.
Try telling the alarmists at The Guardian, they keep trying to talk up the 1.5 limit.
rishrac was pretty fact free on the rest of his claims.
OK, so…
You now accept that the your claim that linear extrapolation is used to project sea ice is false (though you can’t manage it without referring to testicles along the way)
You accept that you falsely claimed that Serreze predicted an ice free arctic.
You accept that your knowledge of the literature is so poor you don’t know how Arctic ice projections are made (though you can’t manage it without referring to testicles along the way)
Your “analysis” consists of an arbitrary “rectified sinusoid” picked without justification.
Your thesis appears to be that a net positive sea ice feedback should result in runaway loss of ice, a fundamental misunderstanding of the use of feedbacks in climate science.
Why on earth do you put yourself forward as an authority on this? It’s embarrassing.
“Your “analysis” consists of an arbitrary “rectified sinusoid” picked without justification.”
No the trend analysis consists of fitting a trend to several periods. Those periods are chosen with respect to the form of the data. That is not arbitrarily aligned to round numbers of calendar years like Jim Pettit’s “spiral” graph proposed by Jim D.
“Your thesis appears to be that a net positive sea ice feedback should result in runaway loss of ice, a fundamental misunderstanding of the use of feedbacks in climate science.”
Announcing a “fundamental misunderstanding” without saying what you think it is , is meaningless.
The observational data show evidence of a strong -ve f/b not a +ve one. I am not trying to sum up the whole of the global climate in one linear f/b.
There is far too little data to inform us on how the rest of the planetary system will react over the next 50 or 100 years. Those making claims on that scale are by and large making it up. The climate is a complex non-linear system and we are only scratching the surface of how it works. Even with a thorough knowledge it would be impossible to predict that far ahead.
“Your thesis appears to be that a net positive sea ice feedback should result in runaway loss of ice, a fundamental misunderstanding of the use of feedbacks in climate science.”
Announcing a “fundamental misunderstanding” without saying what you think it is , is meaningless.
I already did. Here
https://judithcurry.com/2016/09/18/is-the-arctic-sea-ice-spiral-of-death-dead/#comment-812597
The observational data show evidence of a strong -ve f/b not a +ve one. I am not trying to sum up the whole of the global climate in one linear f/b.
There is far too little data to inform us on how the rest of the planetary system will react over the next 50 or 100 years. Those making claims on that scale are by and large making it up. The climate is a complex non-linear system and we are only scratching the surface of how it works. Even with a thorough knowledge it would be impossible to predict that far ahead.
“Your “analysis” consists of an arbitrary “rectified sinusoid” picked without justification.”
No the trend analysis consists of fitting a trend to several periods. Those periods are chosen with respect to the form of the data. That is not arbitrarily aligned to round numbers of calendar years like Jim Pettit’s “spiral” graph proposed by Jim D.
“Your thesis appears to be that a net positive sea ice feedback should result in runaway loss of ice, a fundamental misunderstanding of the use of feedbacks in climate science.”
> No the trend analysis consists of fitting a trend to several periods.
No model, no trend, Greg.
A trend is a trend of something.
Don’t forget that you’ve just told me not to be a fan of “trends”.
Why would you do trendology if you’re not a fan of trends, BTW?
The trend was fitted to the ice area data nothing else. why do you want ‘model’? Try to make sense. rather than mindless sniping.
Why would you do trendology if you’re not a fan of trends, BTW?
I already answered that twice. 95% of the “debate” seems to be obsessed with trends. I thought a more detailed trend analysis would be informative. If you break a trend down into different segments it’s not longer a linear trend it is an approximation to something more real.
Now try to make relevant comments instead of just griping and trying to be smart.
> why do you want ‘model’?
Do you even stats, Greg?
Talk about making sense.
***
> I thought a more detailed trend analysis would be informative.
I already responded to that armwaving, Greg:
A filter ain’t an analysis.
If you’re to do some trendology, do trendology and stop dogwhistling crap.
The observational data show evidence of a strong -ve feedback not a +ve one. I am not trying to sum up the whole of the global climate in one linear f/b.
There is far too little data to inform us on how the rest of the planetary system will react over the next 50 or 100 years. Those making claims on that scale are by and large making it up. The climate is a complex non-linear system and we are only scratching the surface of how it works. Even with a thorough knowledge it would be impossible to predict that far ahead.
This doesn’t look like much of a ‘death spiral to me? What am I missing?
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/NEWIMAGES/arctic.seaice.color.000.png
Gadzooks, we’re rumbled, we’ve only gone and published the *real* data by mistake.
Flee at once, all is discovered!
I don’t understand why uiuc would post such a picture with obviously and admittedly false data? This seems to be more accurate picture:
http://media.breitbart.com/media/2016/09/fullsize_cice_combine_thick_sm_en_20160830_thumb.png
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/09/01/green-arctic-expedition-frustrated-large-quantities-ice/
An Arctic expedition designed to raise awareness of the perils of man-made climate change is being frustrated by unexpectedly large quantities of ice.
The Polar Ocean Challenge, whose aim is to circumnavigate the Arctic in a sailing boat while the summer ice-melt allows, is being led by veteran explorer David Hempleman-Adams. He justifies the expedition thus:
Permanent irreversible change in the sea ice landscape of the Arctic seems inevitable. This will / is already having global economic political, social and environmental implications. A significant change in my lifetime.
I see this possibility to circumnavigate the Arctic as one I wanted to take despite the risks associated with it in order to increase the worlds attention on the effects of Arctic climate change. There may be a possibility still to curb this progressive warming and melting in the Arctic. But even if this is not possible the next most important thing is to at the very least highlight the need to ‘Navigate the Future of the Arctic responsibly’.
Well, yes, of course, David. That’s just the kind of eco-friendly blah which will have landed your expedition sponsorship from a City of London finance firm. But what if, as the real world evidence increasingly suggests, your prognostications of climate doom are flat out wrong?
Already the expedition is around 4 to 6 weeks behind schedule having been held up in the Laptev Sea by the kind of ice which experts like Cambridge University’s Peter Wadhams – of whom more in a moment – assure us will soon disappear permanently from the Arctic in summer.
If they are not out now they should be making emergency plans. Once it start freezing it happens fast.
Even 2.5m thick over the geographic north pole. Even if Mark Serreze was only literally meaning the pole itself he was off by a country mile.
Oh dear, you really don’t like being called out on your falsehoods, do you? A new place on the threat to dissemble.
I only asked questions of which I did not know the answer. You must be a conspiracy theorist.
bad chart
Mr. Mosher, bad boy. Wandering in the Weeds could degrade anybody’s ability to discern bad.
The closer to quitting time, the more terse Mr. Moser’s comments.
It’s only 4 PM on the West Coast.
I agree. The misrepresentation begins with the IPCC, which talks about ‘net positive’ f/b by excluding the Planck f/b. This has caused a lot of confusion and the idea that climate can become unstable. I’m glad that you do not share that idea.
David Evans and Monckton of Blechley have both propagated this misrepresentation by not including Planck as a feedback. I have criticised both for doing so.
The initial climate scare started in the late 90’s when surface temperatures were rising “exponentially”. The rise quite rightly raised concerns and scientist were right to raise the alarm. Then warming back off.
Attention then switched to accelerating melting in the Arctic. In 2007 it was a legitimate cause of concern ( as I highlighted in the text of article ). Then the melting backed off.
The problem is that there is so much politically motivated scaremongering going on that most non scientific people I meet are unaware that warming has not continued to go trough the root and do not know that Arctic sea ice is at exactly the same extent as it was in 2007.
“No-one has ever claimed total system net feedback is positive. (This is a commonly held misconception amongst “skeptics” and is merely a result of different definitions in control theory and climate science, the latter neglecting SB feedback in the definition).”
I would change no-one to most, Hansen did go through his boiling oceans phase – tar sands = game over. He was the father of the C in CAGW
> The misrepresentation begins with the IPCC, which talks about ‘net positive’ f/b by excluding the Planck f/b.
A quote might be nice.
Here’s what I found, Willard:
IPCC AR5 WGI Chapt. 9 p. 819:
9.7.2 Understanding the Range in Model Climate
Sensitivity: Climate Feedbacks The strengths of individual feedbacks for the CMIP3 and CMIP5 models are compared in Figure 9.43. The feedbacks are generally similar between CMIP3 and CMIP5, and the water vapour, lapse rate, and cloud feedbacks are assessed in detail in Chapter 7. The surface albedo feedback is assessed here to be likely positive. There is high confidence that the sum of all feedbacks (excluding the Planck feedback) is positive. Advances in estimating and understanding each of the feedback parameters in Table 9.5 are described in detail below (see also Chapters 7 and 8).
Thanks, BG.
Sometimes, Judy’s looks like a book club where the club members refuse to read the books they’re supposed to read. Not that it prevents them to pontificate, far from it.
Go team!
Prove to us you have read Bob Tisdale’s books.
What the hell happens when you apply Planck feedbacks? Beyond that, justify all your feedback parameters in writing.
You’re welcome, W. For my part, bull$h!tt!ng on book reports stopped working in college, and certainly doesn’t fly in the Real World. Otters’ mileage may vary.
brandonrgates, you might give us book reports on Bob Tisdale’s books. Or do you just use Sks Cliff Notes?
The subject is the consensus position on climate, Charlie S., which I am addressing by properly citing and quoting primary literature and IPCC reports.
If the subject of the OP were Bob Tisdale’s books, I would indeed be remiss to comment on them without providing the relevant citation and direct quotation.
Brandon, Brandon, Brandon.
You cite CMIP3 and 5 models to support your positions. According to your standards, then, discussion of such models must be “proper” citations for this Thread.
How about citations of work that show such models are bunk? Are not those “proper” for this Thread?
In your words, we are “remiss” when we denigrate someone without actually reading their work. You, personally, are remiss when you make unfounded statements about someone’s credentials or the validity of their work. Little man, you are. [Love Yoda!]
You are childish in your insistence that we only look at “consensus” positions on climate science. You rely on political IPCC junk. Have you actually read IPCC reports? I have. They are mindless bureaucratic nonsense.
You have commented on Bob’s books by dismissing him as someone who asserts that ENSO affects climate. Someone told you that. You did not actually read his work to see what he actually said. You are a twit.
charlieskeptic,
Yes.
Yes.
I would say anyone is remiss when they critique someone’s work without properly citing and quoting it.
Absolutely yes.
And you were doing so well. You are lying when you put words in my mouth that I did not say.
Thank you for your subjective opinion.
I hadn’t said a word about Bob Tisdale on this thread until you asked me specifically about him.
You know this … how?
Thank you. You were saying something about being childish?
Oh no, no, no, little Brandon.
I am not lying. You said “The subject is the consensus position on climate, …” I said that is the only thing you want us to look at. Lying?
Since you have not stated that you have actually read Bob Tisdale’s work, I am only left with the opinion that you have not. To then take the Sks line means you are a twit.
Bob is an unsung giant of climate analysis. He may or may not be right about ENSO driven steps in SSTs, but his data is impeccable.
I would encourage you, or any of the Sksers, to actually debunk his data. Personal attacks are vile. To repeat them is twittish.
CO2 does not explain any of the ocean basin responses over the satellite era. Bob’s work is an attempt. You are a twit if you don’t read alternatives to your “consensus position on climate.”
I’m a real man, with real accomplishments. Who are you, brandongates?
Dave Fair, aka Charlie Skeptic
charlieskeptic,
No, now you’re asking a question. What you actually wrote was: You are childish in your insistence that we only look at “consensus” positions on climate science.
Which is a statement, and a false one at that.
In answer to your question, you’re free to look at whatever you want.
Yes, twice now. Do please continue, it shows Integrity.
I’m beginning to understand how committed you are that principle.
I didn’t realize this blog towed the consensus line on climate.
There certainly is, from you.
It’s not “misrepresentation” at all, it’s just a convention. As is immediately obvious to anyone making the most cursory foray into the field.
The convention is to misrepresent. The whole language of the field is loaded. Start with temperatures. Any deviation from a historical mean is called an ‘anomaly’, implying that there is something abnormal about change. Temperature anomalies get bigger and bigger , it’s worse than we thought ! It’s not normal.
Natural variations are “detrended” and called internal oscillations. thereby establishing *by definition* that they are net zero fluctuations because we all know where the long term trend comes don’t we ?!
It is all ‘just a convention’ but it is a convention that systematically imposes a predetermined conclusion, not one laid out in neutral terms to
be studied. The bias and the preconceived results are structured into language and conventions of the field.
If the convention chooses to ignore the main feedback in the whole system that has kept it stable to billions of years and not count it when listing feedbacks, it is also part of loading the dice.
There is active debate about whether ‘net feedbacks’ are positive or not when clearly the true net feedback are not, it’s just defined so as not to count the main feedback of the system.
This loaded way of looking at things is ‘ just the convention’. In climatology, it is the norm.
It’s not science, but it’s important.
Our freedom is at stake.
Go team!
For his next act, Greg takes on the preconceived notions endemic to the field of evolutionary biology.
” This is just bonkers, barking at the moon stuff. ”
so you don’t have any counter argument other that “bonkers”. Very good.
The language and conventions show a pervasive bias throughout the field. Your best response it attempt the “conspiracy” card. It’s not a conspiracy, it’s group think.
If you detrend any and all natural variations you render it impossible to find one of them contributes to the long term trend. That is not a “conspirational ideation” nor is it “barking at the moon”, it is a valid criticism of the method. Rather than having a counter argument you try the old ad hom. mental instability trick. Very amusing.
Many studies have tried to subtract out variability like ENSO, which is defined as being detrended. The result will by definition retain any and all trend that is in the data. The “ENSO corrected” is then used to search for the cause of the trend. One of the human activity variable which has not been detrended.
Now if it turns out that , for example , there is a change in the frequency , intensity or duration of El Nino events over a certain period and that this warms or cools the climate this kind of method will falsely attribute it something else because it is hard-wired not to be able to link it to El Nino events.
It seems from your attitude and content of your replies that you are involved in climatology. Perhaps, rather than insults, you can explain how you such ‘conventions’ would allow the possible detection of an ENSO driven trend , should one exist.
Trenberth says that such efforts leave “residuals” from ENSO that warm the globe.
Look, Ma! No CO2!
> so you don’t have any counter argument other that “bonkers”.
What is there to counter, Greg?
You’re just saying stuff.
If you insist, I can play semantics.
Beware your wishes, even if the Freedom of the Western Civilization is at stake.
So still not counter argument.
” Language fails me.”
Yes, I’ve noticed that already. Glad you caught that one too.
Skip the bit about about the methodological detrending problem , way above your pay grade apparently.
Greg,
I did post a reply, but it seems to have gone into the lumiferous aether. Perhaps it will appear later.
Anyway, I’ve had enough here.
I’ll just reassure you of a couple of things.
Firstly, despite your paranoia, the definitions of feedback and anomaly were not invented to persecute you. Really, they weren’t, they are mere technical conventions. Honestly.
Secondly, I have no involvement whatsoever in climatology. It’s not at all necessary in order to see the gaps in your “analysis”; they’re painfully obvious to anyone with a smidgeon of scientific training.
Do yourself a favour in future and provide citations rather than asserting facts. It would help you discipline your intuitions into a more meaningful form.
Your “valid criticism” is question-begging, Greg: the preconceived conclusion is embedded in detrend any and all natural variations.
You’re welcome.
Somebody get Goodman some english lesson.
“Any deviation from a historical mean is called an ‘anomaly’, implying that there is something abnormal about change. Temperature anomalies get bigger and bigger , it’s worse than we thought ! It’s not normal.”
Anomaly does not imply ABNORMAL
in some fields of study, yes, it implies some peculiar
but once again Goodman thinks he determines the meaning of technical terms in specialized fields.
In some fields it merely means a difference from what is expected.
not normal, or different from normal, but not abnormal.
it can be small or large..
Dont forget climate is what you expect.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_anomaly
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouguer_anomaly
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-air_gravity_anomaly
Nobody who actually does the science, is fooled into thinking
“Oh, a temperature anomaly of .1C is ABNORMAL”
Typical of fake skeptics and illiterates to think that you can score linguistic points in science
Re: fernandoleanme | September 19, 2016 at 1:15 pm |
Frankly I’m astonished that nobody’s mentioned this yet, but better late than never! A multinational crew aboard the Irish yacht Northabout are cureently en route back to Bristol. That’s the one in the once Great Britain, contrary to some news reports! Read all about it, and the ensuing “controversy”, at:
http://GreatWhiteCon.info/tag/northabout/
Despite the reservations so eloquently expressed in Breitbart (see above) and elsewhere they have somehow managed to successfully pass through both the Northern sea Route and the Northwest Passage in a single summer season. The first British led team to do so but not the first ever, contrary to some news reports!
As regards commercial (and other) traffic along the NSR see:
http://GreatWhiteCon.info/resources/arctic-regional-graphs/northern-sea-route/
The current “official definition” has the westernmost boundary of the NSR at Proliv Karskije Vorota (Kara Gates):
http://nsra.ru/en/granici_smp/
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/12/071212-AP-arctic-melt_2.html
Here Zwally is describing and Arctic dominated by a positive feedback.
Nowhere does he predict the runaway you rail against. Nowhere.
And he’s right; the melt has been much worse than predicted.
You just make stuff up. Over and over and over.
And you seem to expect no one will notice.
He describes an Arctic dominated by positive feedbacks. He suggested it maybe ‘nearly ice-free’ by 2012. He does not use the word “run away” in those quotes but < 10^6 from 2007 to 2012 is just that and driven by a positive f/b. What exactly are you claiming I “made up”?
“And he’s right; the melt has been much worse than predicted. ”
So the models have serous issues with the basic physics. Tell me something we don’t know already.
much worse than predicted,… except for when it isn’t, like the decade from 2007 to 2016.
“And he’s right; the melt has been much worse than predicted.”
I thought the convention was to use “projected” when you screw up. :) Now was that miss due to underestimation of conventional focings or just “unforced variability?”
> Here Zwally is describing and Arctic dominated by a positive feedback.
I don’t always quote scientists, but when I do, I quote journalists instead, and I cite the same article over and over again.
Here would be one paper:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2007GL032043/full
The last sentence should give you a hint.
Read and report, Greg – you know the stakes.
I quoted what Zwally is directly reported as saying. If they are feeding one thing to the press and saying another thing when write papers this needs to be addressed.
I have often noticed some very questionable claims reported from press conferences and press interviews that are not found in the related papers when you dig them out.
It seems that a lot of activist climatologists are prepared to provide claims to journalists that they would not get away with in the literature. The problem is that this is what informs public opinion, the PR literature.
> I quoted what Zwally is directly reported as saying.
That feedback is the key to why the models predict that the Arctic warming is going to be faster may not mean what you think it means, Greg. You need something stronger than that. Search for “dominant” and report.
Meanwhile, another paper by Zwally with “feedback” in it:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2008JC005074/full
***
> The problem is that this is what informs public opinion
Your That is not science, but it’s important moves the goalposts of your editorial.
It is curious that you cite 2007 and earlier studies.
Meaning “Little Willard” citations.
Unless you quote something I’ve written you can hardly accuse me of moving anything.
Of course I can, Greg. Just as you do. While everone who read your editorial can see the pea moving, your The meaning of “ice-free” has also been the subject of some serious goal-post relocation efforts has yet to be substantiated. All you did was to indirectly acknowledge that you did not check.
As for your request, here it is:
As you can see, you shifted from “but the media” to what you misleadingly call an “analysis,” and when your bluff is called, you switch back to “but the media.”
It’s hard to learn anything about the life expectancy of our canary without doing some forecasting trendology, BTW. So here again, you’re switching from dogwhistling a Paws to “who? me? I did not talk about any Paws.” Paraphrasing, course.
Willard, you really are a twit. Maybe a troll. Who knows?
As a Supreme Court Justice once said, you know it when you see it.
Still having fun, Daddy?
Greg needs to learn about genre’s
‘I quoted what Zwally is directly reported as saying. If they are feeding one thing to the press and saying another thing when write papers this needs to be addressed.”
Now lets take his post. Is it science communication analysis? That is, does it discuss how the science is actually reported in the press and how it differs from the how the science is explained in actual papers?
Nope.. he doesnt actually quote either. he kinda hand waves at the reporting in the press..
Is his post Science? Nope, if it were science, the hand waving complaints about how the science is reported would get tossed at the first review.
And we would expect to see some citation, some data, and some methodological defense.
So, If your Genre is analysis of science communication, then you need to cite both.. EXamples of what the science says ( in actual papers) and examples of how this is perverted in the press. There would be no mathturbation in this kind of piece.
But if your genre is science, they you have to beef up the actual analysis and drop the commentary on how the press covers the science.
See, when people cite Hansen, for example, the cite his science, not his
ramblings to the press.
or you could just write a piece on how the language is being corrupted.
That tradition is rich and deep and entirely bogus.perhaps you could quote Robert Lowth (1762), who objected to “double negatives” in the language because in math if you multiply two negatives you get a positive
Oh, gawd! Weed Wandering in its finest, Mr. Mosher.
You just said some scientists lie to the press, but tell the truth to “people.”
“Read and report, ”
What do you expect me to report? There he is adding further +ve f/b on top of albedo f/b in 2007. I can see why he expected a system dominated by +ve f/b and accelerated melting to ice free conditions in 2012.
Fortunately he was wrong and this year, after ten years of “accelerated melting” we see the same ice min. as in 2007.
Looks like he failed to appreciate some other factors and the idea that it was dominated by +vs f/b was mistaken.
Pretty much the point I have been trying to make. See conclusions section of OP.
> What do you expect me to report?
Evidence from the lichurchur substantiating the claim you put into the mouths of the scientists to whom you handwave.
***
> Fortunately he was wrong and this year, after ten years of “accelerated melting” we see the same ice min. as in 2007.
Again with the dogwhistling, Greg.
If 2007 was a minimum we did not even expect since in 25 years from thence that already has been repeated twice before 2020, why would you celebrate your Pyrrhic victory by dancing a touchdown dance on your own line of 20?
If 2007 was a minimum we did not even expect since in 25 years from thence that already has been repeated twice before 2020, why would you celebrate your Pyrrhic victory by dancing a touchdown dance on your own line of 20?
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
Well, the 2016 extent ties with 2007. Even NSIDC supports that.
That means the “accelerating melting” was really “decelerating melting”, “retrograde accelerating melting” or something.
If the minimum was decreasing and after 10 years is the same… at some point it stopped decreasing. Only one year in the last 10 was lower than 2007, 2012.
With the El Nino we should have seen a new minimum.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/05/12/the-arctic-ocean-could-be-nearly-ice-free-at-the-end-of-summer-by-2012/
“The Arctic is screaming”, Mark Serreze, senior scientist at the government’s snow and ice data center in Boulder, Colorado.
Apparently the Arctic got hoarse and stopped screaming.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/nasa-climate-scientist-says-were-toast/
Hansen [in 2008], echoing work by other scientists, said that in five to 10 years, the Arctic will be free of sea ice in the summer.
Apparently we were only browning one side of the Arctic and have now flipped over and are browning the other side. Or Hansen could be wrong and we could be hash browns, or corned beef hash, or pancakes or waffles or other breakfast food.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7139797.stm
Arctic summers ice-free ‘by 2013’, Scientists in the US have presented one of the most dramatic forecasts yet for the disappearance of Arctic sea ice.
You can’t claim 2007 was 25 years early with Hansen and all the other claimants that 2012-2017 would be open water.
> That means the “accelerating melting” was really “decelerating melting”, “retrograde accelerating melting” or something.
That’s if you assume that Greg’s filter can lend itself to a trendology, something Greg sometimes disapproves:
What you need, then, is to show a Paws without telling there’s a Paws. To do that, you paws and you talk about scientific churnalism while rolling your eyes.
You also need to assume, like David Rose’s 1998 trick, that you start your trend with a local minimum.
INTEGRITY ™ – Only Show, Do Not Tell
> You can’t claim 2007 was 25 years early […]
Tell that to Susan:
Perhaps I should have said “33 years early” so that PA doesn’t fall for it.
Tell that to Susan:
Since Susan is for me a dead link I’m not sure what point (if any) is being made.
Here, PA.
CTRL-F is your friend.
The Polar Bearers used this information:
The Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (Hassol 2004:Chapter 6, Fig. 6.8, copied below) shows that 3 of the 5 models used to forecast the next century’s September sea ice predicted that routine levels of 3.0 – 5.0 mkm2 would not happen until 2040-2070.
Who is this Hassol? Susan Joy Hassol, a “climate change communicator, analyst, and author known for her ability to translate science into English.”
Vs the 2013ers:
Professor Maslowski’s group, which includes co-workers at Nasa and the Institute of Oceanology, Polish Academy of Sciences (PAS), is well known for producing modelled dates that are in advance of other teams.
These other teams have variously produced dates for an open summer ocean that, broadly speaking, go out from about 2040 to 2100.
So the “ice free arctic” is really “routine levels of 3-5 mkm2.
If you want to make the claim that 2040-2070 is from an authoritative source you can give it a try and see if it works.
As with much in the climate field you can find almost any sea ice prediction you want. It is almost like they really don’t know what is going on.
> If you want to make the claim that 2040-2070 is from an authoritative source […]
If this not an authoritative claim, PA, then Susan’s trick falters under its own weight.
If you want to claim it’s not an authoritative claim, you go raise that concern to her.
If this not an authoritative claim, PA, then Susan’s trick falters under its own weight.
The IUCN/PBSG did use it as the basis for a disaster claim. You have to use the basis of of the opponents claims for discussion and treat them like they are valid, otherwise you end up pointing out that the basis is invalid and the opposition are complete idiots, and further discussion is futile. In this case the IUCN/PBSG “gonna kill off the polar bears” sea ice levels arrived 30 years early and haven’t had any effect on the polar bears.
Warmunists/Environmentals have so many lies/bad estimates embedded in their ethereal claims of harm that trying to debate the claims is like shadow boxing.
> You have to use the basis of of the opponents claims for discussion and treat them like they are valid […]
You got caught burdening me with a claim that wasn’t mine, PA. Please stop rationalizing this. Better luck next time.
Yes, PA. Please stop triggering Willard.
PA, it is futile to try reasoning with twits or liars.
“You made up extrapolation of linear trends. ”
I may have made the error of crediting them a degree of integrity and not making stuff up out of think air. I cited Zwally saying “at the current rate…” by which he is indicating he’s basically assuming a constant rate of change and projecting it forward into the future. AKA extrapolation of a linear trend.
Not made up.
How to get from 2007 to ‘ice-free’ in 2012 without run away melting ?
Not made up.
You two are a waste of time. Goodnight.
Conclusion
There are two ways to interpret the observational data:
1) the net feedback from open water is negative , not positive and run-away melting was an erroneous interpretation. It is not happening.
2) the feedbacks are not the key driver of Arctic sea ice melting, there is another external force, such as N. Atlantic sea surface temperature and ocean currents, which is dominant and run-away melting was an erroneous interpretation. It is not happening.
The death spiral is dead.
Greg Goodman.
> It is not happening.
Then you should bet, Greg.
How much can you afford to lose?
Well…
Don’t know that the spiral is dead…
No evidence that the Arctic isn’t ice-free periodically. 6000-10000 years ago it is claimed that the 80+ degree zone got 50 W/m2 more in June.
The Fram strait ice loss, storms, volcanoes (mostly Icelandic), GHG, North Atlantic climate cycles, current patterns etc. all affect sea ice
While we know CO2 isn’t driving the bus that doesn’t mean it isn’t one of the passengers.
w, This is how a death spiral functions to a man with a limited education…
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/712818/F-you-EU-Philippines-president-blasts-Brussels-over-anti-crime-killings
from reports may have reduced drug crime by up to 95%. Deal with it from the looks of it, old school justice. This still seems to work for the masses. Next he may outlaw lawyers so crooks won’t get off the hook anymore. Catch and release may be coming to a screeching halt. The full circle.
Serreze clarified what he said. He said that what he meant is that it was speculation, along with other speculators. Post facto. [What is is? From the greatest philosopher of our pre-Obama times.]
Sadly, the media, policymakers, and the general public took it as gospel.
Throwing up a bunch of theory, data, etc. does not change the fact that CAGW proponents use scare tactics in the media. Deny that little factoid. [Maybe I could start using that word, along with meme, as some of the really great communication tools I would like everyone to adopt? Climate communications (propaganda) is the growth industry.]
Charlie Skeptic (Still a creepin’ along.)
>What is is?
Hey, it was only a snow job …
Snow? Blow?
Both.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-09-20/money-laundering-scheme-exposed-14-pro-clinton-super-pacs-non-profits-implicated
The bloom has already fallen for most of us, the new Spring, is not that far away..
VTG, your claim of “I have no involvement in climatology whatsoever” is in opposition to your “You repeat falsehoods” statement.
@climategrog – Having come to the conclusion that you are the author of the article at the top, I feel I should point out a couple of apparent misconceptions on your part.
1) The Polar Ocean Challenge sailing boat you are so concerned about is currently nearing Nuuk in Greenland. See my link above. They “got out” of the Northwest Passage quite some time ago.
2) If I can embed an image successfully, this is how the North Pole looked at the end of August:
http://greatwhitecon.info/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Oden-Pole-20160828-768×509.jpg
Alternatively see:
http://GreatWhiteCon.info/2016/09/santa-extends-his-secret-summer-swimming-pool/
This whole Thread has been pettifoggery in action. I’m getting a snack and going to bed.
Models are bunk. Prove otherwise, twits.
Charlie Skeptic
http://neven1.typepad.com/.a/6a0133f03a1e37970b01b7c894ed1f970b-pi
I don’t follow your weed wandering.
The linked image shows the error in the “predictions” of a wide variety of methods for “estimating” the annual sea ice minimum extent in advance.
Some, but not all, of those methods are “models”. For more detailed information see:
https://www.arcus.org/sipn
Just finished my snack. Thought I’d define my term “twit” before bed.
Twit: Foolish and annoying person.
Anybody who believes CAGW as defined by models is a twit. Anybody who uses models to bruit CAGW is a twit or a liar. Which are you?
There may be AGW, but I think its extent is unknowable. If you argue differently, I’ll listen. Just don’t use theory, use facts/data.
The fact that the world has warmed is no proof of AGW. Likewise, the fact that certain climate metrics (ice, etc.) have responded to that warming is no proof of AGW. Additionally, the fact that certain flora and fauna have responded to that warming is no proof of AGW.
To justify AGW, you will need to explain the lack of a tropical troposphere hot spot and a steady atmospheric humidity. You will need to explain why satellite and radiosonde measurements indicate a lack of predicted warming of the atmosphere. All that, and more.
Theory, as reflected in climate models, doesn’t work in the real world. Don’t try to BS me with theory or models. I’ve already read enough to understand the theory and the structure of the models. It should work, but it doesn’t. I don’t know why.
I SUSPECT that H2O in its various forms, along with varying sun incidences and earth spin/tilt, dictates weather and ultimately climate. I THINK that condensing H2O overrides other green house gasses when it comes to regulating climate. I don’t KNOW anything. I suspect that you don’t know either.
Prove me wrong in my skepticism, please. I don’t have my ego tied up with any of this crap. Beware, though; I am well grounded in science. Bogus analyses get short shrift around here. Tendentious esoteric circumlocution goes straight to the round file. If you are not clear in your arguments, then you don’t know what you are talking about.
Charlie Skeptic
> Anybody who believes CAGW as defined by models is a twit.
CAGW is a meme defined by contrarians, Daddy.
You said something about personal attacks, .
Not unlike the the term denier ? Or the very real and personal attacks I’ve been subject to. Such as the professional community producing papers that state I have a psychological problem, or worse. Somebody threaten you with criminal crime for supporting CAGW . Somebody tell you that you are delusional for pointing out errors in the science ? Somebody tell you, you have a problem with authority ? Somebody tell you that you will be responsible for millions of deaths by simply standing in the way of CAGW agenda and you should be tried as a war criminals? ” twit”… I think that is a mild characterization .
> Not unlike the the term denier?
Somehow, “twit” sounds more personal, rishac. I don’t recommend the use of the D word for CB players, and prefer “contrarian.”
***
> Or the very real and personal attacks I’ve been subject to.
I don’t think you’ve had the 10th of mine, so keep calm and use them against those who use them, like I’m doing right now with Daddy.
Just watch me.
rishrac, Willard forgets my pledge to not try to engage him and his Sks pallies in substantive discussions. A waste of time.
> Willard forgets my pledge
I don’t, Daddy, but since you broke it on about every single thread since you’ve made it, I thought you were being sarcastic or something.
Denier is about as personal as it gets. For standing in the way, penalties can be applied retro actively. After all whose in charge of the Holy grail of the control of information? It’s a power play for politics and control. Science has little to do with this argument. I’d call it a debate, except it isn’t. Scientifically, AGW has proven itself false. All the conjectures and hypothesis of how co2 and temperature are connected fall apart in the massive amount of heat that should be and isn’t. It’s the IPCC ‘s math, not mine, hence the dire predictions and the need to do away with western government as ineffective to deal with this immediate problem that threatens the world. The time has passed. It is not a defensible position to champion AGW as it stands without major revisions . Cold fusion has more support than AGW as something workable.
I applaud the efforts of all who go after CAGW at what I would call the nit picking level. The result, however, is that nothing in CAGW or AGW is correct as it applies to climate. It’s not my duty to tell you what’s with wrong with it. As it is not my duty to explain why cold fusion doesn’t work.
> Denier is about as personal as it gets.
Ther are theories of denial. There’s no theory of being a twit. There are prolegomenas for jerkitude, though.
While You’re a CAGW alarmist may be personal, it’s still a collective label, in contradistinction to you’re a twit. Even if something like it is not my duty to explain anything to CAGW alarmists contains a less personal jab, there’s still one.
How personal these attacks are felt could be analyzed by circles of intimacy.
***
> Scientifically, AGW has proven itself false.
It did?
A citation might be needed.
Who needs a citation ? Not one prediction happened. Oh, it did get slightly warmer, so far below any of the models that in itself is proof that AGW is a failure. Where are the scientists that put their stamp on the 95% certainty of so much warming per co2 ?
Which ” How Climate Works” event were you heckled at ? Next time you attend one, ask how the MWP happened without a change in co2 levels or the LIA. Oh, oh, it wasn’t that warm or cold. Oh, maybe it was local and not world wide. Case closed, no further study needed. Sure, it wasn’t, and the French just passed laws about the importation of wine from England, which actually happened. It hasn’t been that warm since, and it was world wide.
While it may feel good, rishrac, attempting to engage twits in meaningful dialogue is a waste of time.
I know .. he’s a true believer, facts don’t matter. The only facts that matter are the officially approved ones. No finer example of why CAGW is a religion.
No matter how outlandish, I’ve never seen anyone questioned, let alone heckled at a ” How Climate Works” event that supports CAGW. Ask the wrong question and things get ugly in a hurry. Intimidation? When I go, I’ve learned to keep my mouth shut.
His idea of being called names is in his head.
His automatic triggering response led him to believe I referred to him as a mental giant, rishrac.
Note where he shifts “SSTs” to “global surface temperatures?” How about truncating analyses at 1998? With available data through 2007? What about Trenberth’s “ENSO residuals?”
He either has not read Bob Tisdale’s published work or fails to understand simple english and data analyses. Twit.
I have to stop feeding Willard. No matter how he dresses CAGW up, it’s still a failure. What he doesn’t understand is that the math from AGW has closed the door on itself. The time for doomsday has passed. All that has to happen now is for Arctic ice to recover and it’ll be like the drought. What drought? Or more frequent stronger hurricanes. What hurricanes? Fear mongering is all they got.
> Who needs a citation ?
You, Rish. You claim AGW is falsified. Show me.
***
> Which ” How Climate Works” event were you heckled at ?
No need – read this thread.
This thread is not physical intimidation. This thread is not a legal threat to your freedom to express your opinion. The fact is that your opinion here is not censored.
Show you ? Not one prediction has occurred. Not one. That’s what has falsified AGW. CAGW is a religion and you are a perfect example of its follower.
Go ahead, list which predictions happened.
Rish,
Considering how you’re talking about falsification of AGW and how you’ve just slimed me while whining about abuses, you’ll need to provide more substantial evidence than a pseudonym testimony I can’t verify.
Here’s a quick’n dirty guide to falsifying AGW:
https://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2010/01/06/a-quick-n-dirty-guide-to-falsifying-agw/
Here’s NG on
http://blog.chron.com/climateabyss/2011/08/roger-pielke-jr-s-inkblot/
That Da Paws ended could be the prediction you’re looking for. You would not be able to read back the last time I mentioned it here. Wonder why?
Willard, you were established as being a twit some time ago. All of your thrashing around just reinforces that fact.
Thank you for your kind words, Daddy. Here’s what you recently said about personal attacks
I thought you were converting to pacifism by chosing this new nickname.
Calling a twit a twit is not a personal attack.
Who said Charlie Skeptic was a pacifist?
It is a shame you are triggered so easily.
> Calling a twit a twit is not a personal attack. Who said Charlie Skeptic was a pacifist?
Daddy himself:
https://judithcurry.com/2016/08/30/climate-policy-fake-it-til-you-make-it/#comment-808858
That was to calm you down after your triggering episode.
And you need sarcasm glasses.
> That was to calm you down after your triggering episode.
You said something earlier about telling one thing to someone and another thing to someone else.
I think you called it a lie.
charlieskeptic,
Here’s my own multiple linear regression model:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5NsdtYi0Ifg/VqQqEq8O-BI/AAAAAAAAAkU/BzdI7Q7-Gsk/s1600/HADCRUT4%2Bvs%2BCO2%2Bmonthly%2B2015-12.png
This shows the non-CO2 component attributions:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vniapHOw-Po/VqQqEXqI2tI/AAAAAAAAAkQ/387eopVqVoM/s1600/HADCRUT4%2Bnon-CO2%2Bmonthly%2Bcontributions%2B2015-12.png
Nothing there but facts/data.
So, how exactly does Co2 increase temps?
According to those pictures (in your next post), it all happens at the “hot spot”? and then some bleeds down to the surface?
Do I have that correct?
micro6500,
Oh come on, you should know exactly where to find Official™ descriptions of the enhanced greenhouse effect.
My understanding is that it’s the release of latent energy of condensation by water vapor in the tropics which primarily drives the hotspot under a warming regime for comparable CO2 or solar forcings. Since radiative water vapor feedback supposedly comes into its own in the upper troposphere, that could also be a factor.
Temperature response at the surface is dominated by lapse rate, i.e., convection and evaporation. So in that sense, I’d say you’re more right than wrong.
Fair enough, so i just spent 45 minutes reading what everyone says is the “heat trapping” ability of ghg’s to warm the planet. No where do i find what temperature they are talking about, they talked about balance, but for any single measurement at toa, it’ll never be in balance, because the planet below emitting the energy is always in change (seasons).
So, how do we tell the homogenized, infilled global average temperature series are warming from Co2?
Just because we don’t have a different answer?
I can show proof it can’t be co2 if, this “heat trapping of ghg’s” blocks night time cooling, and causes warming because there is less cooling.
But if you (royal ewe), think any positive change in any temperature metric you choose (like the arctic’s million sq mile melted metric, or complaining about extent, until area looked worse) is all blamed on co2, well it’s hard to debate humpty dumpty.
As far as detecting the change in lapse rate, not sure anyone has an answer from surface data, but I can show co2 doesn’t cause a reduction of nightly cooling by 2 or 3 orders of magnitude.
micro6500,
It’s difficult to comment not knowing what you read, but typically GMST anomaly is the the “temperature” “they” are talking about in this context. I GMST anomaly as an operational definition of convenience because surface measurements are the longest-running instrumental data we have. If I had to choose a single “best” diagnostic of warming, it would be vertically averaged ocean temperature because oceans are the single largest heat sink in the climate system. Unfortunately, useful estimates only go back to 1955 or so, whereas GMST anomaly products like HADCRUT4 go back to 1850.
Of course no single measurement will ever be in balance (except for that picosecond when it crosses zero) in this system. Stick a thermometer into a glass of water, and tell me the reading it gives you. I will challenge you that your “measurement” is nothing more than an imprecise averaging that you have errantly extrapolated to the entire volume of liquid. I will also then demand of you that unless you tell me the exact temperature of every stinking molecule in that glass, I won’t accept your estimate of its temperature. I will howl at you that you can’t tell me the glass of water has reached an equilibrium with the ambient environment because the ambient temperature is inhomogeneous and always changing. I will tell you that your “science” is voodoo, and that I insult black magic with the comparison.
You will then, rightfully, gouge out your own eyes in frustration at my pedantry and tell me, again, to go read the Wikipedia article on steady state as a theoretical construct conducive to tractable analysis of thermodynamic physical systems. Even (especially) planet-sized ones which defy sampling every cubic nanometer of their volumes at picosecond time resolutions.
I know the feeling.
I wasn’t talking about lapse rate feedback. I wrote that temperature response at the surface is dominated by lapse rate, which is admittedly a poor way of expressing it. Benestad 2016 is a good reference which doesn’t gloss over any number of complexities that I would by attempting to summarize it into blog-comment length.
I’ve told you previously that I think your analysis is flawed, and why. Your typical response is that I don’t understand what you’re doing. As you say, fair enough. Fact remains that my patience is nearly exhausted having the same “debate” with you over and over again.
I didn’t specifically ask you to respond, but I do appreciate that you did.
Yes, we disagree on your review of my work, but I’m trying to make those arguments irrelevant.
Maybe I have, but if nothing will change your mind, then I am wasting my time as well.
So, let me explain the next graph.
This is the average of today’s rising temp, compared to tonight’s falling temp (An average of N.n +/- 0.n), so the average rising temp, and the average falling temp. This is for stations that collect 365 samples per year, and the average is an annual average. This is plotted out for all included stations since 1940 thru 2015. One of the complaints to this is the stations can change from one year to the next. But I figured out that all stations are getting a calculated solar forcing based on latitude, and when I average all of the included stations I also get an average of the solar for that particular combination of stations recorded in the average solar forcing, I also calculate the same value with an average Sun, and I generate an average of the average blend of latitude values. The ration between the average solar forcing for the average of station blends, can be used to normalize for the slightly different mix of stations (+/- ~9%), this can then be used to normalize the temperature changes based on changes to station counts.
https://micro6500blog.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/corrected-rise-and-fall1.png
What you see in this, is that nightly cooling matching warming, no delay, only slight changes between warming and cooling.
But, here’s the real key. In 1996 prior to the el nino, the average daily increase in temperature was 16.75F, in 1999 that rose to 21.5F, the next year it was 18F, a 4.5F rise with a matching night time cooling records from 1996 to 1999, and then a 3.5F drop in temperatures.
None of this requires fractions of a degree difference to make the point, nor does it matter about how I round numbers, include or exclude stations, and the signal is some 50 times the size of the proclaimed co2 greenhouse effect, and I’ve accounted for a blending of different stations.
There is no measurable change in temperatures from co2 changing, well not at the surface anyways.
Here’s the next graph, this is the corrected min temp average for above same data, with the same range as outlined from the first graph on top of min temp.
https://micro6500blog.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/corrected-min-and-range-79-to-2015.png
charlieskeptic,
To justify sundiddit arguments needs the same thing according to your … logic. The GISS Model E view of things …
2xCO2:
http://www.realclimate.org/images/2xCO2_tropical_enhance.gif
2% TSI increase:
http://www.realclimate.org/images/solar_tropical_enhance.gif
Images courtesy of RealClimate.
Wadda joke! Using models to disprove observations! Wadda twit!
Putting words in my mouth that I did not say is lying, Charlie S. By all means, please continue to demonstrate your Integrity.
I gave you just the facts/data in this post just above. I find it *interesting* that you’ve got no response to it.
charlieskeptic,
Orbiting (A)MSUs have poor vertical resolution. Radiosondes have better vertical resolution, but have sparser horizontal coverage and (same as satellites and surface-based timeseries) inhomogeneities. Radiosonde products don’t even agree with other — from Thorne (2008):
http://i51.tinypic.com/35mgjr6.png
Figure 1 Vertical profile of tropical mean temperature trends. Trends reflect the mean change in temperature (in K per decade) between 20° N and 20° S for the period 1979–2005, obtained from radiosonde temperature measurements 5 (blue and green colours), climate models 8 (dashed orange, with grey shading indicating 2-sigma range) and the new reconstructions from radiosonde winds 4 (pink, with error bars indicating 2-sigma range). The surface temperature change 11 from 1979–2005 (grey asterisk) and the vertical profile inferred from the moist adiabatic lapse rate (dashed yellow) are also shown. The model range was derived by scaling the model vertical trend behaviour (which has been shown to be tightly constrained 8 ) and its uncertainties 8 by the surface trend. Prior to 2007, only the HadAT and RATPAC estimates existed, and a case could be made for a fundamental discrepancy between modelled and radiosonde observed behaviour.
This bit from the text doesn’t pull any punches:
The uncertainty with respect to upper air temperature estimates in the tropics is so substantial that we can draw no meaningful conclusions as to whether or not there is a discrepancy between long-term trends in the real world and our expectations from climate models3,5 (Fig. 1). This is not simply an interesting academic aside — not knowing where observational problems begin and modelling limitations end undermines our ability to understand and predict global climate change.
Thorne isn’t talking to just me here, you realize.
I have no doubt about that. I’m quite familiar with the, “you can’t explain {X1, X2, X3 … Xn}, so you don’t know nuffin’ about Y” tactic.
“not knowing where observational problems begin and modelling limitations end undermines our ability to understand and predict global climate change.” But, by God, we know it’s C[not now]AGW from our model projections.
Like I said, Chas. S., the “you can’t explain {X1, X2, X3 … Xn}, so you don’t know nuffin’ about Y” tactic is quite familiar to me. You’re running it to a Tee at the moment.
P.S.: I would be the last person on the planet to argue that we *know* that a C belongs in front of AGW on the basis of models. Thank you so kindly for strawmanning me again — I just can’t tell you how much I appreciate it when you exhibit that kind of intellectual honesty.
Radiosonde products don’t even agree with other — from Thorne (2008):
This is incorrect. The Radiosonde products agree quite well. The Reanalysis (RAOBCORE), Homongenization (RICH), Wind derived, and models don’t agree with Radiosondes.
In fact much of the model profile is more than two standard deviants from the Radiosonde profiles. None of the models – not even the most deviant, is close to right.
As usual when real data doesn’t match the models Warmunists find ways to torture the existing data or create new data to match the models.
The data don’t match the “physics” based models. This means the modellers either don’t understand the physics or don’t understand modelling.
The reality is the CO2 warming theory where increasing CO2 creates a more positive vertical thermal gradient in the lower troposhere to enhance the surface warming is not evident in the data. “Global Warming” appears to be just a surface effect with some unrelated temperature trends in the high troposphere/stratosphere that can have little or no impact on the surface temperature.
Charlie – Have you read this?
https://judithcurry.com/2016/01/05/climate-models-and-precautionary-measures/
If so, what did you make of it?
Jim, I had read it and, thanks to you, went over it again.
It reinforces my belief: IPCC climate models are bunk. [With all the willful misinterpretation of what is meant by the use of common words, I am being forced to clearly state that models, climate models and other various formulations mean “IPCC climate models.” There are many useful models extant.]
It also brings back my loathing of “precautionary principle” mental masturbation.
Charlie Skeptic
That’s hardly a telling refutation of Taleb’s “The more uncertain or skeptical one is of ‘scientific’ models and projections the higher the risk of ruin, which flies in the face of the argument of the style ‘skeptical of climate models'” Charlie!
Like I said, Jim: Mental masturbation about future “ruin.”
And like I said Charlie, that’s still not a telling refutation.
Well, Jim, you are just going to have to explain to ignorant little me how it is not mental masturbation. Also, why you think the models don’t fail both backward and forward.
SImple. There are benefits to more CO2 and it reduces the risk of an ice age which is provably harmful (currently more people die in the winter). We should tell the warmunists to “make like the wind”.
The models aren’t accurate. Try telling a software engineer with control system experience that the climate models are accurate enough to usefully predict the future. After the laughter stops the response will be, “No, just no.”
As is noted in the link – an ice age is far worse than 3x CO2.
We are being asked to forego a proven CO2 benefit. If the warmunists are defeated the current 60% plant growth CO2 benefit will become 100+%.
This is important. The CSIRO study of plant growth from 1982-2010 only showed 11% plant growth increase instead of 20+% because of activities like Tanzania, who chopped down 28% of their forest for firewood during the period. Without more plant growth from more CO2 the equatorial regions will be denuded in the foreseeable future.
There is proven benefit to more CO2 plus mitigation of a real risk,. and only idle speculation by biased parties about harm.
FYI – I am a software engineer (amongst other things). My 3rd year BSc option was Control Engineering. As you can see, I am no spring chicken.
Or maybe you can’t see! You’ll just have to take my word for it, since Climate Etc. seems not to support gravatars.
Given your background it is probably evident that with only the GHG model input and the resulting “water vapor feedback” controlled, the GCM functions as a noise generator with a variable bias. The mildly exponential increasing GHG inputs are going to produce a noisy mildly increasing exponential output.
To control other inputs would require divination and given the sea ice predictions we know scientists don’t have that power.
In fact the lack of divination is a problem with the RCPs. The emissions are at RCP8.5, the atmospheric CO2 level is at RCP4.5 and falling.
Yeah, in theory Control Systems was my degree option but I took all 60 of my electives in heavy engineering so I had a smattering of everything.
I don’t know about you PA, but I was taught quantum physics as part of my course. I even still have Feynman on my bookshelf!
Forgetting all those pesky “models” for the moment, what do you make of the basic physics of the so called “Greenhouse Effect”?
http://GreatWhiteCon.info/resources/greenhouse-effect-explanations/
Jim, while your question was not directed to me personally, I’ll take a shot:
Radiation physics is impeccable. It’s action in our mixed atmosphere leads to your “Greenhouse Effect.”
Now it is the difference in the interpretation of the operation of “it’s the physics” in the real world that has everyone’s panties in a wad.
An increase in the atmospheric concentration of CO2 gas would, theoretically, lead to some modest global warming. That modest warming would, theoretically, lead to some increase in water vapor.
Putting those two, theoretical, processes together with some shaky assumptions about aerosols, clouds and other atmospheric phenomena, and arriving at an assumption that the theoretical minor warming of CO2 is tripled is what concerns a true skeptic. The best actual data available indicates otherwise.
Dicking around with global climate models leads to bad policy decisions. On par with Karnak the Magnificent divining climate model outputs stored in mayonnaise jars on Gavin Schmidt’s back porch.
Charlie Skeptic
Jim Hunt wrote:
I don’t know about you PA, but I was taught quantum physics as part of my course. I even still have Feynman on my bookshelf!
Forgetting all those pesky “models” for the moment, what do you make of the basic physics of the so called “Greenhouse Effect”?
Got Feynman, also took nucleonics (applied physics) which was part of the power curriculum.
There is a greenhouse effect. More CO2 reduces mean absorption distance. This means energy takes more hops to escape the atmosphere and stays in the atmosphere longer. By definition there is more energy in the atmosphere since it is traveling slower.
The applied physics of the greenhouse effect is wildly different than the theoretical.
Basic Atmospheric profile:
https://chiefio.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/atmosphere-temp-press-profile-1076.jpg
CO2 Warming Trends
http://www.climatedialogue.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Intro-CD-hot-spot-fig-3.jpg
The model profile is just goofy and bears no resemblance to reality. The radiosonde products don’t agree completely with each other, but they violently disagree with the models. The effect is a surface effect (100 meter surface layer), essentially no effect for 4-8 km, then lots of warming followed by lots of cooling. Some of the sources show an effect as high as 1.5 km, but the majority show butkus.
So the greenhouse effect is a surface effect. We don’t care about the upper atmosphere. The 4+ km buffer space means we just don’t care what happens in the higher atmosphere and claims we should are misinformed.
The purport of this is global warming is a surface effect that occurs at 288K (average surface temperature) and at 288K it takes 5.5 W/m2 to raise the temperature 1K.
Do you bruit CAGW based on IPCC climate models?
It’s fascinating how things can get screwy on a Thread. In extremely broad brush strokes, here is how Charlie Skeptic became embroiled in (with?) a little snit:
Everybody was throwing around data and trends. Somebody suggests looking at 30-year trends. Charlie Skeptic says OK, look at Bob Tisdale’s 30-year trend comparison of IPCC climate models to surface data showing that the models are bunk:
https://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/12-model-data-30-year-trends.png
Some mental giant said he wouldn’t consider that because Bob was unreliable because he believes ENSO affects SST. Charlie Skeptic pointed out that Climategate hero, Trenberth, said the same thing in a peer reviewed paper. Things degenerated from that point.
The usual snake oil salesmen then came up with various experts/studies that tried to make the unbelievable believable: IPCC climate models accurately reflect past and current temperature trends. No amount of post hoc “lipstick on a pig” can change the fact that IPCC climate models, the ones true believers reference for CAWG, are unreliable. Those are the models that reflect the “scientific consensus.”
The snake oil salesmen tried to convince Charlie Skeptic that models are as accurate as satellite and radiosonde data. Somehow, those data only became unreliable when they showed a marked slowdown in the rate of atmospheric warming. When they were showing late 20th Century warming, no problemo!
The failure of climate models have been acknowledged by both sides of the climate wars. Additionally, when CMIP3 models failed to anticipate significant Arctic sea ice declines, changes were made to CMIP5 models. They still showed too little decline and, unfortunately for their boosters, the fiddling caused them to become less accurate on other climate metrics.
All of this stuff is well known, including models’ abysmal failure at reflecting regional climatic parameters. Anybody that states IPCC climate models are accurate enough to dictate drastic economic and societal changes is a twit or a liar. Now, not-C-just-AGWers circumlocution on the climate blogs tries to hide that fact and gain more twits to the cause.
The point is that all the weed wandering, data mongering and model flogging to date has not proven CAGW sufficiently to allow UN socialists to run my life. A gently warming world is proof of nothing.
Rant over.
charlieskeptic,
I believe that was David Appell, but you apparently think it was me.
Except Trenberth didn’t exactly say what Tisdale attributed to him:
Now skip down a page or so to Figure 1.15-7, under which Bob writes:
Here’s what Trenberth et al. (2002) really says, right in the friggin’ abstract:
Over the same interval, surface temperatures increased just over half a degree, about ten times the amount this paper attributes to ENSO. Yet Bob would have us believe that Trenberth endorses his ENSO ratchet effect.
Team Integrity for the win, once again.
I was just about to put this whole miserable Thread in the round file. Then, I made the mistake of glancing at this Ackroyd drivel again. I only care because it involves someone I admire, Bob Tisdale.
And no, this is not for you, twit.
Bob’s main work involves ENSO phenomena and ocean sub basin SSTs since the beginning of the satellite era. He also relishes blowing up IPCC climate models. His analyses are data-rich and painstakingly clear. I urge all of you to read his books and follow him on his blog “Climate Observations.”
I only summarize his work because I am a very bottom line guy. I look, read and synthesize. I don’t hang onto studies, papers, graphs and whatnot. I draw reasoned conclusions from reliable inputs and operate based on those conclusions. When someone comes up with contrary facts, I change my conclusions.
I’ve had a very successful life operating that way. That’s also why I don’t get involved in “data-slinging” wars with twits and Ackroyds on these Threads. They always have one more data-rich, subtlety wrong and misleading argument. One could spend a whole lifetime digging out the biased pseudo analyses therein contained. Every once in awhile I try, but they just continue on as if someone had not found them out.
There is only one question paramount in my mind: Do the IPCC climate models justify NGOs and UN socialists taking over my life? Everything else is simply window dressing for the political classes, their suck-ups and profiteers.
Dave Fair
He did completely stuff this one. I’d be embarrassed too if I were a Tisdale fan. It’s no small wonder you handwave away his misrepresentation of Trenberth et al. (2002) … on an Integrity thread no less!
Except for that love tap of course. You’re so pretty when you’re angry, Charlie.
In my opinion, they do not. Of course it’s not my opinion that a global carbon tax warrants being characterized as socialists taking over anyone’s entire life. I’m also of the opinion that Uncertainty Monsters are not my friend, so crappy forward-looking Modulz actually tend to increase my sense of urgency for mitigation. Pretty standard risk assessment/mitigation practice where I come from. YMMV.
As Mosher points out, we don’t need no stinkin’ Modulz to understand that CO2 is overwhelmingly the dominant driver of temperature trends since the mid-20th Century … for that we’ve got observations. A data-rich fan such as yourself ought to dig it.
Bbbbbbbbbut … the Socialists are coming for all our lunch money!!!!
Not at all alarmist. No sir. Nope. Not a bit.
You really still believe that?
After observations show that the entire world can cool an average of an additional 4F over night for a year? Isn’t that about 50 decade’s worth of global warming, poof gone right out to space in one year?
micro6500,
We’ve established that I don’t exactly understand your analysis. I would say especially so now that its results have changed rather radically since we first discussed it. I wouldn’t claim to understand the entire process behind making HADCRUT4 …
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5NsdtYi0Ifg/VqQqEq8O-BI/AAAAAAAAAkU/BzdI7Q7-Gsk/s1600/HADCRUT4%2Bvs%2BCO2%2Bmonthly%2B2015-12.png
… however, it is described in detail in refereed literature, which means something to me. And I understand how I put together that plot. Not only is CO2’s role more than detectable, so are several natural influences ….
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vniapHOw-Po/VqQqEXqI2tI/AAAAAAAAAkQ/387eopVqVoM/s1600/HADCRUT4%2Bnon-CO2%2Bmonthly%2Bcontributions%2B2015-12.png
… according to my own analysis such as it is. I even get a CO2 sensitivity value within striking distance of published values even though my multiple linear regression isn’t a “proper” way of calculating it.
All of which tells me that one has to try very hard to NOT find the dominant effect CO2 is having because over multiple decades.
It seems that, all of those attempts to separate out Co2, all involve calculating a forcing from Co2, and then basically subtracting it out, So of course they find it, it just doesn’t prove it’s even there.
How can Co2 be preventing cooling when one year the average daily increase is less than 17F, and a few years later it goes up 21F, but it also cools an extra 4F per night in the same amount of time?
It’s impossible for an effect from co2 to not show up under this condition, if there was any effect at all, and nothing shows up.
micro6500,
Proof, huh. You’ll rarely find me talking about proof when it comes to non-trivial empirical sciences.
The only assumption I make in that regression is that CO2 forcing is logarithmic as function of its concentration. I don’t precalculate anything else. Any other fiddling and twiddling I do is intended to maximize the fit to natural forcings and modes of internal variablity.
Like I said, one has to try very hard to not find it.
Check your calcs. Practically everyone doing temperature time series in primary literature finds a long-term secular trend.
How many times do I have to tell you I have, there is nothing wrong with the calculations.
This is what the Data shows, and there is no way if co2 causes warming that it would show outgoing a exact match to incoming where one year it’s going up 17F a day and a couple years later going up and down 21F a day.
“Everybody was throwing around data and trends. Somebody suggests looking at 30-year trends. Charlie Skeptic says OK, look at Bob Tisdale’s 30-year trend comparison of IPCC climate models to surface data showing that the models are bunk:”
Some skeptic
Charlie…
Let me ask you a simple question?
How do you test a Model?
Suppose you have 30 models.. all trying to predict the same thing.
would you
A) see how each model did individually and then assign a SKILL score
to the model based on how it did?
B) Average them ALL together and reject them all if the average was out of
wack.
Let’s make it SUPER SIMPLE
I have three models of how long it takes to get from point A to Point B
Model A: T = D/R
Model B T = D/R + .52
Model C T = D/R – .1
Now to test this we take offf driving for 100 miles at 50 miles per hour
we record 2 hours 3 minutes
Model A Predicted 2 hours
Model B Predicted 2.52 Hours
Model C Predicted 1.9 Hours
when you average them you get about 2.2 hours
Look at that The models collectively suck.. or do they?
IF your current understand BEFORE the model was that it would take you
3 hours.. Then even the SUCKY average of models is an improvement of understanding. because the error is smaller.
And in reality we want to test models by themselves, not collectively.
So Bob is just wrong. And you are no skeptic.. because you FAILED to question his work.. you failed to think from the beginning..
Now, you may ask yourself something
why was it 2 hours 3 minutes?
Thats because models ALWAYS disagree with observations..
why? well maybe they really didnt drive 100 miles.. they measured wrong
or maybe they didnt drive 50 mph consistently..
This is always going to be the case with a climate model.. because its not a controlled test.. its a projection of emissions and then a prediction given that projection.
In any case nobody believes in AGW because of models.
We knew AGW was true in 1896
Entertaining as always, Mr. Mosher. I’ll respond because of that.
The model-mongers advise the use of ensembles, and present the output average of a number of their models, including those having ensembles. Gavin Schmidt advises this as the way to get to the underlying drivers of the whole mess. So I would guess that testing their average output would be OK, which Bob Tisdale does:
https://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/12-model-data-30-year-trends.png
Testing individual models is problematic. Their assumptions vary all over the place. There is a spread of 3-plus degrees C between models as to the average temperature of the globe, so there is some fiddling with the physics going on. Since the model with the highest temperature trend estimate is so far off from the lowest, which do you pick?
Individual models have significant differences in their TOA energy imbalance:
https://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/figure-141.png?w=1280
I would strongly suggest you read Bob’s model energy imbalance work at:
https://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2015/08/10/no-consensus-earths-top-of-atmosphere-energy-imbalance-in-cmip5-archived-ipcc-ar5-climate-models/
I like it that Bob gets down into the details of model output. For example, they underestimate the North Atlantic warming and underestimate warming of the East Pacific. Additionally, the regional aspects of multi-metric model outputs are uniformly wrong. You really should read:
https://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2016/09/13/august-2016-global-surface-landocean-and-lower-troposphere-temperature-anomaly-update/#more-11285
If you have not read any of Bob’s excellent work, I suggest you get on his blog site. It would save a lot of Ackroyd-ing around. Although, I do suppose we would have to put up with a bunch of Wandering in the Weeds and comments that have nothing to do with the thrust and import of Bob’s work.
In 1896, we were informed that CO2 was a radiating gas. We know that man produces CO2 in providing for your livelihood, if not your very life. I do not dispute the fact that it affects global temperatures. I’m willing to call it AGW.
My problem, and yours, is that the amount of AGW is in dispute. Team warming uses IPCC climate model outputs to claim CAGW and the need to take drastic actions. All of the petty Ackroyd-ing on the blogs obscures that fact, intentionally or not.
I’ll now check on what the twits are up to and see if I should apply a little Charlie Skeptic.
Overestimate the East Pacific.
charlie again
“The model-mongers advise the use of ensembles, and present the output average of a number of their models, including those having ensembles. ”
1. So you dropped your skepticism and did it because THEY said to do it?
Again, Charlie the UNTHINKING ROBOT just does what other people do.. free thinker…
“Gavin Schmidt advises this as the way to get to the underlying drivers of the whole mess. So I would guess that testing their average output would be OK, which Bob Tisdale does:”
Actually, not. When did you last speak to gavin about this PRECISE POINT? the precise point being… How do you test models?
Again, You dont question your own ability to understand. Let try again
You have three models. One predicts 100, one predicts 10, and one
predicts 0. The observations are 10. Model 2 is correct.
But YOU THINK, that you should listen to Gavin? You think you should
average all the models.. the good with the bad.. and reject them ALL
because the average of good and bad is still bad
Now tell me, Where did Feynman say you should
A) average theories and then test them against observations?
Where did Feynman tell you to believe in the wisdom of experts like Gavin? Or where did he tell you to believe in Tisdale? or where did he tell you to trust your own ability not to fool yourself?
Answers? No where.
You are a failed skeptic. shallow thinker.. easy target.. Im bored
You are totally lost in the weed patch, Mr. Mosher. This last is not even good Ackroyd-ing.
I don’t do original research. I don’t gather nor graph data. I don’t dig into the internals of models.
I indicated practitioners like to look at model averages. If I remember correctly, the IPCC likes to do that; and no, I’m not going to dig back into their ridiculous AR5.
I gave you data and sources indicating problems with individual models. I am not going to compare every output metric to actual observations. I do note that the spaghetti graphs don’t look good; and no, I’m not going to define good.
You don’t appear to be able to follow a clear line of thought tonight. Or you are just being obtuse to the extent of incomprehensiveness.
How would you suggest I question my own ability to understand how to test models? If somebody paid me and provided manpower, I’d sure take a shot at testing models!
As it is, the 30-year temperature trends of individual models, and in their collective, do not track well with those of early-20th Century, mid-20th Century, nor early-21st Century observed estimates. I base this belief on the data I have had available to me over time. If that offends your intellectual and data-mongering sensibilities, so be it.
End of games.
Reblogged this on 4timesayear's Blog.
Here is the same data shown in the article with a bezier spline fitted.
https://climategrog.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/nh_sea-ice_min_datebez.png
There is a fundamental change in the progression of the date of ice minimum in 2007. This coincides with the change from accelerating melting to decelerating melting shown in the decal trends.
It will require a few more weeks to get the dot for 2016 through the filter but it appears to be close to 2015. The date of 0.690 is comparable to the average date around 1997 before the alarming increased melting started. Maybe this much slower rate of melting is the true long term decline that corresponds to the general warming since the LIA .
Anyway, it looks like out canary will have a long and happy life and will be telling his grandchildren about the crazy days of alarmism and the premature announcements of his demise.
Assertion. Changepoint analysis would provide quantitative evidence that there has been a detectable change in the date of melting minimum.
But the chart says nothing about the rate of melting, just the date of the minimum.
It really doesn’t look like that
http://psc.apl.uw.edu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/schweiger/ice_volume/BPIOMASIceVolumeAnomalyCurrentV2.1.png
Oh, and on the cycle you claim to have detected
https://tamino.wordpress.com/2013/03/08/back-to-school/
https://climategrog.wordpress.com/2013/03/11/open-mind-or-cowardly-bigot/
When Grant Forster comes out from hiding behind the safety of his own website where he blocks and deletes any comments he does not like, he may get taken more seriously.
Insulting people and then running away to hide behind a locked sums up the kind of man he is.
https://climategrog.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/arctic_extent_gauss273.png
clearly it’s all a fiction of my imagination. All just “stochastic” variability certainly.
BTW do you actually know what a change point analysis is? Are you capable of doing one, or is that just a buzz word you picked up somewhere?
Perhaps you could try applying it to the data you present and explain why you think a straight line is most appropriate and informative way to analyse the data.
You are so lame it’s beyond a joke. Can you even fit a straight on your own?
I’m not the one making claims Greg.
I wouldn’t do that without analysis to back it up.
Your analysis consists of you eyeballing graphs and making arbitrary judgements.
Lame is as lame does.
That you don’t take him seriously, doesn’t mean he isn’t taken seriouslty. Personally, I tend to regard those who imply others are cowardly bigots as people not worth taking seriously, especially if it’s based on him simply deciding not to help you. YMMV, of course.
Try reading again. it was not because he refused to “help” me after mouthing off about how smart he was, it was because he called me liar, refuse to allow me a right to reply; deleted all the posts I made that were inconvenient to him and banned me from commenting.
Just as courageous as hurling insults at someone across the street then running inside and locking the door.
I simply invite others to draw their own opinions about that. Maybe you consider that the actions of heroic climate warrior.
Here’s an idea for you @climategrog.
Since you evidently don’t approve of this sort of thing, would you mind popping over to WUWT, where you seem to be quite active today, and asking Anthony to release this comment of mine from his “moderation queue”?
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/09/23/arctic-ice-a-historical-viewpoint/comment-page-1/#comment-2305011
Thanks in anticipation.
Jim
Your link only goes to the start of the article. Have you got an actual copy of what you wrote?
Tonyb
I noticed this comment, Greg:
https://tamino.wordpress.com/2013/03/08/back-to-school/#comment-79761
Can you confirm you were banned from Tallbloke’s?
@Tonyb – That’s because my comment is still invisible!
I can only assume that’s because Anthony doesn’t approve of Tony Heller for some strange reason. Here’s a screenshot:
http://greatwhitecon.info/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/WUWT-2016-09-23_1347.png
Jim
Tony heller may well be persona non grata bearing in mind the history between the two Tony’s ( what a great Christian name)
Linking to his site may well have tipped you over into moderation.
Tonyb
What’s the tale of the two Tony’s, the Other Tony?
Sounds like a good story.
@Tonyb – Quite possibly, in which case why do you suppose this comment of mine from yesterday is also still invisible at WUWT?
http://greatwhitecon.info/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Caleb-WUWT-2016-09-22_1225.png
@Willard – Are you familiar with the goings on at “Steve Goddard’s” coming out party yet? If not here’s some ancient history for you:
http://GreatWhiteCon.info/2014/07/does-tony-heller-need-to-be-prosecuted/
Willard
As far as I remember, If you go back five or six years tony heller, or Steve Goddard as he called himself at the time, wrote many of the articles at WUWT in much the same way as Eric Worral does these days.
The articles were quite entertaining but the two had a disagreement when Steve made a claim about co2 being able to condense out of the sky at the arctic ( I think)
Tony watts contested this and if I remember correctly carried out an experiment to demonstrate that steves claim was wrong.
Steve stopped writing for tony watts and soon after started his own blog.
The background is told here, also go to ‘references’
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Goddard
If mosh wanders along, he may be able to give more background
Tonyb ( the one that hasn’t been banned from anywhere, yet)
Thanks, TonyB and JimH.
Given that all I can’t seem to find where he supposedly did this (maybe I missed the link in your post) it’s hard to confirm one way or the other. All we have so far is you calling him a cowardly bigot.
Maybe you regard this as a good faith comment?
Well you have the link to his laughably name ‘Open Mind’ post where he tries to school me. If you are really keen you can try to find where he flat out calls me lair and bans me. Maybe he has tidied up that too now to save face. The content of his is rather ‘subject to change without notice’.
You will note I did not call him anything I ask to assess for himself what his actions revealed. Evidently that comment did not go public but he recieved it before he blocked my IP
That is why the right to reply went up on my own blog.
I think that is about a fair and measured as one can be when replying to that sort of behaviour. So please do not misrepresent what I wrote.
Apologies, I hadn’t realised you were playing the “when did you stop beating your partner” game.
> You will note I did not call him anything I ask to assess for himself what his actions revealed.
Of course you don’t call him anything, Greg.
Here’s the title of your post:Open Mind or Cowardly bigot
Here’s the assessment you task Tamino to assess for himself:
Here’s your judgment on how open minded Tamino appears to you:
Here’s your judgment on how courageous Tamino appears to you:
Here’s the possibility you entertain:
Your plausible deniability isn’t very impressive, Greg.
Much as I hate to interrupt the banter, I wonder if Greg might care to hazard a guess as to what Watts might have objected to in this perfectly pleasant (& linkless) comment of mine?
http://greatwhitecon.info/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Selection_898.png
“What’s the tale of the two Tony’s, the Other Tony?
Sounds like a good story
####################
hehe.. There is more to it than tonyb can tell you…….
lets just say…. na.. email me
@Tonyb – Shock News!!!
That link of mine to the Blog of Fools is (rather belatedly!) no longer invisible at WUWT:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/09/23/arctic-ice-a-historical-viewpoint/comment-page-1/#comment-2305011
I wonder if the Gremlins will able to locate my other missing comments in amongst all the detritus on Anthony’s cutting room floor?
@climategrog – Having come to the conclusion 3 days ago that you are the author of the article at the top, I feel I should once again point out a couple of apparent misconceptions on your part.
1) The Polar Ocean Challenge sailing boat you are so concerned about is currently moored in Nuuk in Greenland. See my link above. They “got out” of the Northwest Passage quite some time ago:
http://GreatWhiteCon.info/2016/09/the-son-of-the-blog-of-fools-gets-arctic-sea-ice-horrifically-wrong/
2) This is how the North Pole looked at the end of August:
http://greatwhitecon.info/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Santa-Pole-201608.jpg
see:
http://GreatWhiteCon.info/2016/09/santa-extends-his-secret-summer-swimming-pool/
I used to post by signing in under my name but Judith had to make everyone login to comment using a service like FB, WP etc, due to certain people being stupid. Then she took it off ( at my request ) then it had to come back on again due to more stupidity. ….
I did put a signed comment up as soon as Judith told me it was live and it was right near the top. As indented comment replies built up that became lower and less visible.
My WP login is climategrog as you will have noticed if you clicked on any of the images which are hosted on m WP blog.
Next time I’ll put a note on the end of the article.
Sorry for the confusion there.
> I used to post by signing in under my name […]
That answers the part where JimH says Having come to the conclusion 3 days ago that you are the author of the article at the top, Greg.
That doesn’t respond to what follows: I feel I should once again point out a couple of apparent misconceptions on your part.
Pray tell more about coward bigotry.
So the boat got out , wow, you want signed disclaimer. That, while useful info did not really need a follow up comment.
Now stop being silly unless you have something to say about the subject of article.
This thread is obvious descended into banality now. I’m out.
> This thread is obvious descended into banality now. I’m out.
Thanks for that explanation Greg, if I may now call you that?
Thanks too for your kind words regarding the “useful info” that I brought to your attention. However I get the distinct impression that you have neglected to follow my assorted links, which contain lots more useful information concerning the topic of this thread.
For example, are you aware that Halloween season has already begun?
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/oct-729757-admission-halloween.html
Not only in SoCal but also in the Arctic! To try and simplify matters for you I’ll itemise a few questions. I asked some similar ones over at Breitbart but I have yet to receive a coherent reply, so perhaps you can help me out before you disappear over the horizon:
Q1. In your article you state “There have been three notably low summer minima in recent years: 2007, 2012 and 2016. The 2012 event was the lowest in the satellite record going back to 1979. The other two years tie for second place”
However your graph of sea ice area seems to stop in 2015. Why is that?
Q2. What evidence do you have that the sea ice is “Even 2.5 m thick over the geographic north pole? Have you seen my photos from the geographic North Pole this year for example?
Q3. What evidence do you have for your implication that the Northwest Passage must already be “freezing fast”?
Thanks in anticipation.
Mornin’ all (UTC)
I note that Greg hasn’t answered the questions I posed yesterday, and there are plenty more where those came from!
Perhaps we should just talk amongst ourselves whilst we await his return?
Annual average Arctic sea ice extent was the flavour du jour in certain quarters not so very long ago. The much maligned “Tamino” has prepared some nouvelle cuisine especially for Greg:
http://GreatWhiteCon.info/2016/09/the-2016-arctic-sea-ice-metric-minima/#Sep-11
http://greatwhitecon.info/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/TaminoAnnualAnomaly-Aug-2016.jpg
Funny to see an article about the Arctic Death Spiral, without an image of the actual Arctic Death Spiral!
So, here’s the latest one, updated every month…
http://haveland.com/share/arctic-death-spiral.jpg
All the trends for all the months since 1979.
Still very much alive.
To be frank Andy, it looks to me as though in actual fact Arctic sea ice is pushin’ up the daisies.
The arctic death spiral looks too much like tree rings to gain much traction with sceptics. :)
Tonyb
Amdy
All joking aside, that was a very good piece of artistic imagery. I first saw it two or three years ago, I think. What gave you the idea?
Tonyb
Yes, surreal, isn’t it.
But Climate Etc isn’t generally too interested in reality.
I did provide a link to your site above, but no one seemed bothered to follow it up.
https://judithcurry.com/2016/09/18/is-the-arctic-sea-ice-spiral-of-death-dead/#comment-812521
Andy,
Maybe Greg (climategrog) just doesn’t understand it, although it does seem pretty simple.
And what’s happening with Antarctic sea (and land) ice ?
For Antarctic sea ice see:
http://GreatWhiteCon.info/resources/antarctic-sea-ice-graphs/
An early, low (by recent standards) maximum extent would seem to be on/in the cards.
Jim D | September 19, 2016 at 7:11 pm |
The Antarctic trend was expected to be, and is, very slow compared to the Arctic.
Due to lower CO2 levels in SH ?
Or might there be factors other than CO2 involved in sea-ice melt ?
Mornin’ all (UTC),
I note that Greg (AKA Brave Sir Robin) still hasn’t returned to answer any of my questions.
It was kindly pointed out to me yesterday by a denizen of Tony Heller’s recently renamed “Deplorable Climate Science Blog” that it looks as though it is currently possible to circumnavigate Banks Island on a Stand Up Paddle board:
http://GreatWhiteCon.info/resources/arctic-sea-ice-images/winter-201617-images/#CAA
http://greatwhitecon.info/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Banks-Terra-20160923-768×477.jpg
David Appell | September 19, 2016
8:21 pm
Are you aware models don’t do predictions?
So what then is the point of them ?
8:53 pm
Arctic sea ice melt is underpredicted, remember
Is this an impressively quick change of mind in the face of evidence ?
Or is your overall point that predictions come from somewhere other than models ?
You’re a bit late to the party Punksta, but since there ain’t nobody here but us chickens, and a whole bunch of crickets, what’s your overall point?
Is the Arctic sea ice ‘spiral of death’ dead? Or not? IYHO!
Jim
Look carefully, you’ll notice just I asked some questions (rather than make an overall point).
Arctic Ice. Looks like downward on the 60-year scale, level on the 10-year one. So : hard to say, really.
In which case why didn’t you simply “reply” to the comments you were asking questions about?
You’re still not making any sense.
To recap
– I asked Davud Appell some questions
– You made a completely unrelated comment, asking me a question
– I referred you to what I actually said, and even answered your unrelated question
– You again make some completely unrelated comment
Too many sherries ?
I prefer scrumpy Punksta.
To recap. Can you see the text that says “Reply” at the end of the first line of most, but not all, of the comments above?
If so, try clicking on it.
“David Appell | September 19, 2016” not clear enough for you?
Oops, forgot to add the two timestamps.
” The trend in Antarctica is totally expected ”
No it wasn’t. I remember the terrible warning of the ice sheets collapsing. And as proof of global warming they were publishing pictures daily of different ice flows that had broken off. One of which in 2003 I believe was the size of Connecticut. Penguins were being trapped by the ice when it collided with the shore line. They were publishing the increased rate of flow of the ice sheets. Hush, hush don’t talk about the volcanic activity under the ice sheet. Global warming was supposed to have melted the ice holding back the glaciers allowing them to collapse immediately. That was what they were saying. Little is said officially now since the eco warriors got trapped in ice that wasn’t suppose to be there. The big to do now is take cruises around the Arctic Ocean. Of which the US and Russia have held joint meetings on how to rescue them.
All of the focus now is on the Arctic. It will be something in a few years. .
You must have missed this recent report rishrac?
http://www.projectmidas.org/blog/a-growing-rift-in-larsen-c/
See also:
http://go.nasa.gov/2dbzRNs
Nope, I’ve seen it. It’s been there awhile. About 13 years now. Old news. Things happen. The cause is the what we have a disagreement about. Since the last break, the evidence supports that Antarctica has been gaining ice and that the ice extent has expanded. Of course, it is a concern. But global warming ? No.
This has been a problem from the beginning, claiming that an event happened because of global warming. It’s an old tactic. One is left either denying that there is a rift or acknowledging that there is and by way of association that the cause is AGW. Then I am left with the responsibility of proving you wrong.
Time has already proven that all of the projections/predictions from AGW have been in error. One can not make that many errors and still claim it is a valid scientific theory.
I’m sure one day a big slab will break off. Whether it will cause SLR is unknown and if so, how much. The only thing that I am absolutely certain of is that when it does, the people who support CAGW will say it’s from global warming.
I’m not going to convince you, and unless there is something that is manifest you definitely aren’t going to convince me. I rest my case on 2 positive world wide events that were not and could not be explained by co2 levels. They are near enough in recent history that there is little doubt as the extent and scope of the changes they brought. The failure of AGW is that they haven’t explained how those events happened, and how those things are not working today. The constant re calculating of the temperature record doesn’t add support or credibility. There are others errors as well. While co2 levels kept going up, ppm that were added to the atmosphere followed temperature, that’s in the record, recent record from at least 1960. TSI was in error from instrument failure. Many of the assertions are based on those TSI numbers which were high, and rounded up higher. Solar variability may be way too low. The amount of forcing from co2 I think is 5 times too high. Then there is the carbon issue itself. The size of the sinks and the discrepancy between whats produced and what ends up in the atmosphere. They don’t match by big percentages.
Unless and until I can see these issues addressed in a manner that is less than condescending, I have little reason to change my mind.
With that I’m breaking off here. You do your own research. I seldom quote or reference anybody.
Did you check out my link to Worldview?
See also:
http://mallemaroking.org/low-antarctic-sea-ice-extent/
I reference people quite a lot. Certainly more than you!
Why, do you feel the need to appeal to someone else? are you unable to to think for yourself? In every calculus course I took, it was never good enough to know the equation, but the proof. Should I remain quite when there are so many errors ? CAGW doesn’t answer questions or corrects itself, it drowns itself in minutia and then attempts to say it was right all along. I can see that in the posts, endless arguments that resolve nothing. The real questions remain unanswered. AGW is a religion. It’s a faith based belief system. As I said, nothing on the CAGW side has changed my mind. In fact, as time goes by I become more convinced that AGW is a failed theory. You know who convinced me ? The IPCC. I doubt I’ll change yours, but it has happened.
@rishrac – Because for some strange reason I like to examine the data, and my personal budget doesn’t run to operating a fleet of ice hardened research vessels and numerous satellites.
Does yours?
Ice hardened research vessels? Isn’t that an oxymoron in the age of an ice free arctic since 2013.
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Excellent work, Greg.
Not only a good, informative piece, but you have had spectacular success at luring JC’s entire bestiary of trolls, moonbats and similar utter wastes of bandwidth out from under their reeking, noisome bridges to boot.
As the old saying goes, if you’re drawing all that flak, you must be very close indeed to the target!
Keep up the good work!
Long time no see CatWeazle!
As far as I can see Greg has been studiously avoiding my “flak”. Perhaps he’s hiding under a bridge somewhere?
http://greatwhitecon.info/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/KBT-Climate-Trolls.jpg
Is there any chance you could persuade him to pop back here and answer the questions posed above?
Jim Hunt: As far as I can see Greg has been studiously avoiding my “flak”
Like me, he probably has a sensible policy of not feeding tr0lls, especially ones that haven’t a clue what they’re wittering about.
Now – SHOO!
Top o’ the mornin’ to you CatWeazle. You’re as fragrant as ever!
What’s your definition of a “tr0ll”? Somebody who asks you questions you’re unable to answer?
In the continuing absence of anyone who does have a clue what they’re wittering about, perhaps we might prevail upon our hostess to provide some answers?
I’d be happy to discuss Arctic ice with you but I’m not interested in anecdotes about where ships are or what photos show. Would you care to make the case that this paper that argues “Recent sea ice loss is thus largely caused by an increasing “Atlantification” of the Barents Sea.” is wrong?
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-11-00466.1
Shock News!!! A peer reviewed paper at long last! Can I safely assume that your name is Steven and not Greg?
If you don’t much care for “anecdotal evidence” involving photographs of a large area of open ocean at the geographical North Pole then my questions remain:
Q1. In Greg’s article his graph of sea ice area seems to stop in 2015. Why is that?
Q2. What evidence is there that the sea ice is “Even 2.5 m thick over the geographic north pole?
Q3. What evidence is there for Greg’s implication that the Northwest Passage was already “freezing fast” on September 20th?
Q4. What do you make of this graph of annual average Arctic sea ice extent?
http://greatwhitecon.info/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/TaminoAnnualAnomaly-Aug-2016.jpg
Who cares why it stops in 2015? I don’t care about question 2 or question 3 either. What I make of the graph that you show is that sea ice extent has been dropping. Combined with my link that indicates the ocean heat transport from the Atlantic to the Arctic had been increasing over that time period. Now that ocean heat transport from the tropics to the N Atlantic has been dropping would you expect the ocean heat transport from the Atlantic to the Arctic to also drop and thus cause a recovery of the sea ice in the Arctic? If not why not?
Forgive me if I point out that I see no empirical evidence for any supposed recent sea ice “recovery” on the Atlantic side of the Arctic:
http://greatwhitecon.info/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/UH-Atlantic-Area-2016-09-28.png
Quite the reverse in fact, and that’s in spite of the recent export via the Fram Strait.
That would be a great answer if that was what I actually asked.
The ocean heat content of the N Atlantic actually hit it’s maximum about 2007 so why didn’t you start your graph in 2007? Just kidding :)
Because AMSR2 didn’t fly until mid 2012.
My question was what would you expect, not what the trends were. Unless you went to the same school as Jim D where they teach trend lines melt ice and not energy?
5. Conclusions
Recently observed decadal trends in Arctic winter sea ice extent are not well explained by external forcing
alone. The particularly rapid sea ice loss from 1997 to 2007 was related to extreme ocean conditions that
drove a sustained warming of the surface waters throughout the subpolar Atlantic and Nordic Seas. Ongoing
adjustment of the ocean THC is now contributing to a cooling trend in the subpolar Atlantic and an associ-
ated slowdown in the rate of Arctic winter sea
ice retreat. Uninitialized simulations of the twentieth century
driven by anthropogenic and other external forcings lack
the ocean heat transport variations that contributed
to the magnitude and spatial patterns of observed sea ice loss. However, initialized prediction ensembles
using CESM can skillfully predict low-frequency modulations in the decadal trends of Arctic sea ice, and the
significant skill scores for Atlantic sector sea ice extent, in particular, suggest that CESM DP future forecasts
merit serious consideration. In theory, the record high (positive) trend in Atlantic winter sea extent observed
between 2005 and 2015 could have been predicted back in 2006. Future forecasts from the CESM DP indicate
that we should expect a pause in decadal Atlantic winter sea ice loss over the next 5 to 10 years.
JCH, good job. The problem is the cooling of the N Atlantic hasn’t stopped quite yet. There is no telling at this point how much recovery we are going to get.
JCH – What “slowdown in the rate of Arctic winter sea ice retreat” would that be?
Jim Hunt – I wonder how much of the cooling in the North Atlantic is actually the big blue blob that is south of Greenland, and question whether or not that blob will have much of an impact on arctic ice.
Since the mid 1990s the NAO has changed from a strong positive phase to a more neutral phase. In our model simulations this weakens the AMOC and poleward ocean heat transport, and diminishes the contribution of ocean heat transport to the reduction of Arctic sea ice extent. Considered in isolation, the reduction in ocean heat transport implies a possible moderation in the rate of Arctic sea ice loss in the coming decade.
OK, now show where your 4 year trend is statistically significant.
Jim Hunt wrote
Q4. What do you make of this graph of annual average Arctic sea ice extent?
Your chart is a joke. It shows annual average ice extent for 2016.
You can’t compute an annual average ice extent until you have had an annual average.
Did you bother to follow any of the assorted links above? I assume not, because if you had done so you would have read:
If instead of averaging January-through-December we do September-through-August (to make the final year complete), we find that the most recent year is still the lowest on record:
Jim Hunt | October 2, 2016 at 2:13 pm |
Did you bother to follow any of the assorted links above? I assume not, because if you had done so you would have read:
Well, thanks for the clarification.
That basically makes the chart meaningless.
The 2015-2016 season started low and stayed low due to the El Nino. The current volume is higher than 4 other years. The 2016-2017 season is going to put another upward spike in the chart. It could be anywhere between the 5 and 12th highest annual average volume.
I don’t know what to do with this subject. The claims the sea ice is going to drop below 1 million km2 or 1000 km3 are just absurd. And we don’t care if it does. Arctic sea ice is a meaningless metric.
PA – “The current volume is higher than 4 other years”
According to who? Nobody has yet bothered to comment on my SMOS map:
https://judithcurry.com/2016/09/18/is-the-arctic-sea-ice-spiral-of-death-dead/#comment-814437
which shows sea ice thickness < 1m across most of the Arctic, Pole hole excepted of course.
"Arctic sea ice is a meaningless metric."
I fear we're just going to have to agree to disagree on that one?
https://judithcurry.com/2016/09/18/is-the-arctic-sea-ice-spiral-of-death-dead/#comment-814276
According to who?
http://psc.apl.uw.edu/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/email-before-download/download.php?dl=90f28ff8f048a5ba0a20fde1554af7d4
2016 was actually 3rd as of September (ie August 31). It was 4th in August. The 95% confidence interval is about 2200 GT at 5000 GT and 3800 GT at 15,000 GT and 2016 was about 160 GT lower than the next higher sea ice volume.
They have updated (some partially) the charts but not the data table for October (September 31).
We’ll revisit this when the data gets updated. There is a problem, I have a download file from Piomas with a 10/6/2016 date.
But according to Greg above:
https://judithcurry.com/2016/09/18/is-the-arctic-sea-ice-spiral-of-death-dead/#comment-812101
The other problem with that graph is that it is model output from PIOMAS and NOT observations.
Do you prefer to believe the PIOMAS “model” or the SMOS “observations”?
https://robertscribbler.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/neven.gif
The previous “exponential trends” were nonsense.
Current “exponential trends” aren’t likely to have any more value.
2012 was 17% lower than any other year and 26% lower than this year.
https://readtiger.com/img/wkp/en/Plot_arctic_sea_ice_volume.svg
PIOMAS appears to underestimate volume.
The spiral claim is nonsense – that ship sailed in 2012.
PA – “PIOMAS appears to underestimate volume.”
Do you have any evidence for that assertion? Please examine my SMOS map carefully before answering, since you appear not to have done so yet.
Do you have any evidence for that assertion?
http://i.imgur.com/lbxfzo2.png
This isn’t the first time this has come up so obviously you don’t click on links or look at material. Since SVG doesn’t plot on this site I converted it.
Somebody overplotted Cryosat2 and PIOMAS. Cryosat2 is higher.,
This either means the model reads low or the real world reads high.
PA – CryoSat-2 NRT hasn’t restarted again following its summer break. SMOS has. What do you make of it?
Are you familiar with the assumptions made when deriving the CryoSat-2 NRT numbers?
http://m.esa.int/Our_Activities/Observing_the_Earth/SMOS/SMOS_versatility_offers_sea_ice_mapping
The Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) satellite carries an innovative passive microwave radiometer to capture images of ‘brightness temperature’. These images correspond to microwave radiation emitted from Earth’s surface and can be related to soil moisture and ocean salinity.
…
Moreover, the team has gone one step further so that the thickness of the sea ice can also be inferred. The information from SMOS is most reliable for ice that is thinner than 1 m.
ESA clearly prefers to use Cryosat-2 for sea ice measurements, which uses an active radiometer. Cryosat has been validated against polar aircraft EM and laser measurements.
https://diablobanquisa.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/image0014-e1380134461314.png
There is a significant problem with PIOMAS. It computes +/- 15 to 20% of the actual volume much of the time compared to actual measurement.
Since PIOMAS seems to be derived from passive data directly or indirectly SMOS and PIOMAS should be wrong in similar ways.
To be frank PA, on the basis of the evidence you have presented I would be justified in claiming that “ESA clearly prefers to use SMOS for sea ice thickness measurements < 1 meter". At the risk of repeating myself:
Q8. Are you familiar with the assumptions made when deriving the CryoSat-2 NRT numbers?
PIOMAS at the end of the 2013 melt season listed the sea ice at 5400 km3.
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-25383373
Data from Europe’s Cryosat spacecraft suggests there were almost 9,000 cu km of ice at the end of this year’s melt season.
Now when a measurement is almost twice an estimate there is an issue.
http://www.cpom.ucl.ac.uk/csopr/science.html
The information from Cryosat is altimetric information from a stripe interpreted with synthetic aperture radar. The Cryosat data is within 10% of measurement methods.
Given the minimum ice extent is about 4 million km2 and 4000 km3 (an average of 1 meter thickness) the SMOS data is of limited value.
https://wiki.zmaw.de/ifm/SMOSIce
The SMOS is based on detecting weak nondirectional microwave emissions over a large .area. SMOS measures the brightness of 35 km x 35 km pixels (1225 km2 resolution).
If you can post a plot of SMOS vs Cryosat that might be informative.
PA – As I pointed out above “CryoSat-2 NRT hasn’t restarted again following its summer break”. You may however find this recent paper enlightening?
Improved retrieval of sea ice thickness from SMOS and CryoSat-2
For some reason you have neglected to answer my Q8.
For some reason you have neglected to answer my Q8.
Read links.
http://www.cpom.ucl.ac.uk/csopr/science.html
Standard data assumes
1. that the sea ice floats in hydrostatic equilibrium
2. that different amounts of snow accumulate on first-year (FYI) and multi-year (MYI) sea ice
3. use Norwegian Meteorological Service Ocean and Sea Ice Satellite Application Facility data to classify ice as FYI or MYI
Further:
We calculate Arctic sea ice thickness and volume values from the standard, publically available CryoSat data as well as from near real time (NRT) CryoSat data provided directly to us from the European Space Agency. NRT data lack the precise orbit determination of the standard data, and often lack the atmospheric corrections. They also experience a small reduction in coverage. However, our monthly sea ice volumes calculated from NRT and standard data agree to within 0.5% on average, which shows that the NRT data allow us provide users with a reliable operational thickness and volume product.
If their NRT data and standard data agree to 1:200 (1 part in 200) the claim there is an NRT issue is just a claim not an issue. The PIOMAS/SMOS data is off up to almost 1:2 (one part in 2).
PA – Why did you leave out this bit?
“Ice thickness is then calculated using a combination of the freeboard measurements and estimates of snow depth and density derived from a climatology [Warren et al., 1999]”
Jim Hunt wrote
PA – Why did you leave out this bit?
“Ice thickness is then calculated using a combination of the freeboard measurements and estimates of snow depth and density derived from a climatology [Warren et al., 1999]”
Read harder.
I listed the way they addressed the issue:
3. use Norwegian Meteorological Service Ocean and Sea Ice Satellite Application Facility data to classify ice as FYI or MYI
http://blogs.esa.int/campaignearth/2014/03/20/cryovex-nasas-icebridge-supports-esas-arctic-campaign/
Cyrosat “compares” against 3 other sources. The Cryovex page is listed above.
I don’t know what the SMOS uses for external (ground) calibration but they do have some issues:
https://earth.esa.int/web/guest/missions/esa-operational-eo-missions/smos/available-data-processing
PA – Do you understand what “derived from a climatology” means? Particularly one from 1999? If not you may wish to read this 2015 paper:
http://www.the-cryosphere.net/9/37/2015/tc-9-37-2015.pdf
We found the Warren snow depth climatology to be outdated, in agreement with earlier studies….
The Warren climatology has to be used carefully. It is not valid over first-year ice and it is of limited use outside the central Arctic Ocean. The Warren climatology is still valuable when no other depth snow estimate is available but we recommend using the Warren climatology in combination with a second data set of snow depth over first-year ice. Furthermore we recommend that effort should be put into developing an inter-annually varying snow depth and density over sea ice product for the ice-covered oceans. Snow depth obtained from SMOS over thick sea ice might be an important contribution here.
There are similar caveats about ice density assumptions.
What assumptions do you suppose one should make when performing freeboard-to-thickness conversion now that much of the Arctic resembles a Marginal Ice Zone?
http://realclimatescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-08-at-10.53.21-PM.png
Jim Hunt wrote:
There are similar caveats about ice density assumptions.
http://www.tellusa.net/index.php/tellusa/article/download/24617/38489
You keep insisting preferring an inherently less accurate more difficult to calibrate/compare method
You can continue to do this all you like. Won’t make it more accurate or easier to validate.
PA – What I “insist on” is that there is no CryoSat-2 data available for Autumn 2016. Unless you happen to have some hidden up your sleeve somewhere?
Regarding the veracity of assorted methods of estimating sea ice thickness, it would seem that you are unaware of this paper?
“Comparison of Arctic Sea Ice Thickness from Satellites, Aircraft, and PIOMAS Data”
The biases for APP-x, PIOMAS, and CryoSat-2 relative to IceBridge thicknesses are 0.18 m (7%), 0.18 m (7%), and 0.29 m (12%), respectively, for March–April over 2011–2013.
All four datasets (APP-x, PIOMAS, CryoSat-2, and SMOS) have positive biases, indicating overestimates of thin ice relative to IceBridge, with the smallest overall bias of 0.26 m (34%) between SMOS and IceBridge. However, because there were few data available for thin ice from IceBridge in March and no thin ice data at all in April, the thin ice statistics are not statistically significant and this should not be considered as a robust analysis.
Jim Hunt: “What’s your definition of a “tr0ll”? Somebody who asks you questions you’re unable to answer?”
No Jimbo. Somebody like you who doesn’t permit his utter ignorance of both the science and the actual events stand in the way of insulting those who actually know what they’re talking about and is full right up to the eyeballs with smelly brown stuff.
Keep on keeping it klassy, kool kat.
There we were having a perfectly civilised conversation about “the science and the actual events” and then you show up.
Is your sort of behaviour tolerated in these hallowed halls? Is there by any chance a moderator in the house?
Anything goes as long as you don’t point out c0nspiratorial thinking by Denizens, that gets you into the sin bin sharpish.
If you don’t like the moderation don’t comment. The blog gets the commenters it deserves. It deserves kool kat.
My implied answer was “I’ll believe it when I see it!”. In addition the Arctic is a lot bigger than just the Barents Sea. “Predicting” or “projecting” anything in the Arctic on decadal timescales is fraught with difficulties:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2016GL070067/abstract
Exponential fitting or “3-sigma gaussian low-pass filtering” of extent data without reference to the underlying physics is even more fraught with danger!
I haven’t had a chance to read your paper yet. I broadly agree with the initial conclusion that “Sea ice responds to anomalous heating both from below and above and is therefore a sensitive indicator of ongoing climate change.”
Beyond that you’ll have to wait. During the hiatus you could always address my questions. Or twist Greg’s arm!
I was addressing the underlining physics. Right now all you have in the Arctic since 2007 is a winter storm in 2012 and an El Nino in 2016. I suspect the only reason you don’t already see it is weather. Like I stated before the questions don’t really interest me.
I am aware you were addressing the underlining physics. That’s one reason why I mentioned it.
Perhaps you could answer a question on JCH’s behalf? Where did his “slowdown in the rate of Arctic winter sea ice retreat” quote come from? It’s not from the conclusions to the paper you linked to, and where’s the empirical evidence for it?
Don’t you mean “a summer storm in 2012”? We’ve had lots of those this year too:
http://GreatWhiteCon.info/2016/08/the-great-arctic-cyclone-of-2016/
No, I can’t say the paper JCH cited. I.m sure he’ll be around to let you know. It doesn’t look like an unusual finding to me, probably as good as you are going to get if you think GHGs are the primary driver of sea ice extent. I happen to think ocean heat transport is the primary factor so would consider just a slow down in melt rate an error on the melting side of the argument.
I suspect you can easily get that result depending on which data set you select.
“Big blue blob” or not, the paper JCH quotes from would seem to be this one:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2015GL065364/full
It contains this figure:
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/files/2016/02/figure5.png
As I said, “I’ll believe it when I see it!”. I don’t see the blue area on the Atlantic side of the Arctic yet:
http://greatwhitecon.info/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/UH-Atlantic-Area-2016-05-30.png
It looks red to me at the moment. Whichever way you look at it the “Arctic sea ice spiral of death” evidently isn’t dead yet.
Correction – Having just downloaded the paper it doesn’t contain the map shown above, which is from the NSIDC’s overview of the paper:
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2016/02/january-hits-new-record-low-in-the-arctic/
Nothing wrong with being skeptical.
Are you going to try and explain why a trend line melts ice and not energy or just a statement that I don’t believe it will be your final position?
Please reveal to me where I said words to the effect that “a trend line melts ice”.
Whilst you’re at it perhaps you could explain the theory behind all the red and yellow areas on the Pacific side of the Arctic in the Yeager et al. figure above?
I say the ocean heat content in the Atlantic is dropping, you show trend lines. The paper I linked argues it is the Atlantic that determines ice melt. It’s a fairly common finding by those that study such things. You base the effect of the waters of the Pacific being the important factor on what exactly?
I wouldn’t be surprised that over longer terms than we have decent data, it doesn’t slosh through the arctic ocean both directions at different times, as well as circular ocean currents in both northern and southern oceans while waters flow through the arctic in the north, and around Antarctica in the Southern ocean.
Micro, I’m sure there is some ocean heat transport from the Pacific. If you wish to make the argument that the scientists are wrong the appropriate way to do so would be to show the quantities are comparable.
I think part of my point was the historical data to make or reject that claim doesn’t exist because as a species we only recently developed satellites and remote sensing.
Steven – I have to admit that I have shown a trend line. I have also provided empirical evidence that the ice edge on the Atlantic side of the Arctic is retreating in both Summer and Winter, not advancing. Albeit on a brief timescale.
According to the paper at your link (after an admittedly quick scan):
“It is found that the heat transport into the western Barents Sea sets the boundary of the ice-free Atlantic domain and, hence, the sea ice extent.”
It’s about the Atlantic side of the Arctic in general, and the Barents ice edge in particular. It’s not about the Arctic as a whole.
Yes, too brief to where you couldn’t have possibly thought I’d do anything but laugh I hope lol. It also doesn’t mean anything. Trend lines can change. I have an empirical reason why it should and you keep pointing to a trend line saying it hasn’t yet. I say that is not a reason why it shouldn’t. The paper also says the largest decrease in sea ice over the last decade has been in the Barents. Clearly if you have gotten the latest melting there then you will get the earliest freezing there also should there be a reversal. You can also follow the flow of the Atlantic water entering Arctic Ocean and it tracks where the ice has melted quite nicely, as it should since the Atlantic provides an order of magnitude more inflow than the Pacific does.
Trends are, until they aren’t.
Steven – Yet you expect me to believe in a theory based on a single paper presenting “results from a regional ice–ocean model” which is contradicted by the available empirical evidence?
Jim, no, I expect you to believe that heat melts ice. That’s all. The argument is sound without any literature or model. The ocean heat content of the N Atlantic is dropping. The N Atlantic is the primary source of water to the Arctic. Trend lines don’t melt ice. This is where we disagree: what melts ice. If it wasn’t you wouldn’t keep going back to trend lines.
Steven – Please stop patronising me. It is self evident (to anybody who has studied a modicum of physics at least) that “heat melts ice”.
Instead please answer my questions.
Q5. Where is the empirical evidence to support the theory that “the ocean heat content of the N Atlantic is dropping”, which is leading to “some recovery of the Barents Sea winter sea ice area… in the short term,”.
Jim, my original question to you was do you expect it to do. Instead you keep talking about what your data set says has happened. There is a difference between expectations indicating the future and current trends indicating the past. Since you intend to cling to the argument that it hasn’t happened yet and I am arguing for the future, I don’t see any progress being possible until the future happens and changes the trend line. To take a larger scale view of the situation, the AMOC has slowed by about 15% over the last decade. Here is what an old climate model says about a 15% increase in poleward ocean heat transport:
“We investigated the effect of increased ocean heat transports on climate in the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) general circulation model (GCM). The increases used were sufficient to melt all sea ice at high latitudes, and amounted to 15% on the global average. The resulting global climate is 2°C warmer, with temperature increases of some 20°C at high latitudes, and 1°C near the equator. ”
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/91JD00009/abstract
And your position is the decreased heat transport to the N Atlantic isn’t even going to change the trend line as far as I can tell.
Steven – Please also stop putting words in my mouth. Part of my position is that I don’t place much trust in current sea ice models.
Q6. What is your data set of choice?
Q7. What other sources of “heat” might melt Arctic sea ice apart from “Atlantic inflow to the Barents Sea”?
To have a data set of choice I would have to understand the data sets better than I do. I don’t care which data set you use which is why I haven’t been arguing data sets other then to point out there are other data sets. Why do you use the one you do?
The argument on other sources of warming is what makes it interesting as to if the melting will just slow or if it will reverse. I think the influence of changes in ocean heat transport and what the scientists say that should cause is good evidence it will actually reverse especially in the context of the drop in 0-700m ocean heat content in the N Atlantic. What do you base your position that the change in ocean heat transport will have no effect?
If I’m putting words in your mouth perhaps it is because you haven’t ever bothered to answer my question about what your expectations are. You keep arguing about the past. If that is your only argument I have to assume you expect the past to continue.
Jim Hunt wrote:
Q5. Where is the empirical evidence to support the theory that “the ocean heat content of the N Atlantic is dropping”
http://www.freddofili.it/images/2016/07/05-lug-16-ArgoTimeSeriesTemp59N.gif
Question asked and answered.
PA & Steven,
Q5 (a) Gotta link to the data behind the image?
Q5 (b) Where is the empirical evidence to support the theory that there is “some recovery of the Barents Sea winter sea ice area… in the short term,”.
I linked climate4you above on this page. You can search my name and find it or just go to NOAA where they have the actual data if you prefer to do it yourself. JCH’s paper showed a recovery on the Atlantic side. I’m less interested in what has happened then in what should happen as I’ve tried to make clear and apparently failed at doing.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/jo.nova/graph/ocean/argo/atlantic/north-atlantic-ocean-cooling-jun-2016.gif
Even Climate4you has a version of the graph and he generally gives his data sources. It is the Argo information and this is publicly available.
If you google “North Atlantic cooling” it is pretty obvious that this is a known issue and if you are going to deny it there isn’t any point in having a discussion with you.
Further ocean heat content is not a SI unit and isn’t even a measured unit, it is computed. The platinum resistance thermocouples trace resistance to temperature. The specific heat varies with temperature and the thermocouple can’t tell the difference between fresh water, 35 ppt salt water, and alcohol all of which have different specific heats at a given temperature.
The temperature measured has to be combined with other measurements so that the specific heat of the water can be computed with then allows the specific heat content to be estimated.
PA – It’s considered common practice where I come from to link to ones sources. I’m a citizen of the once Great Britain, so I’m quite familiar with the idea of “North Atlantic cooling”. Here’s an article I once wrote on that subject:
http://econnexus.org/the-day-after-tomorrow-coming-soon/
I’m also quite familiar with Argo floats. Here’s a picture I took of one recently:
http://greatwhitecon.info/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/2016-03-05-Helen-Argo.jpg
Q5 (b) Where is the empirical evidence to support the theory that [North Atlantic cooling] is leading to “some recovery of the Barents Sea winter sea ice area… in the short term”.
Q7. What other sources of “heat” might melt Arctic sea ice apart from “Atlantic inflow to the Barents Sea”?
Where is the empirical evidence to support the theory that there is “some recovery of the Barents Sea winter sea ice area… in the short term,”.
https://nsidc.org/news/newsroom/arctic-sets-yet-another-record-low-maximum-extent
According to NSIDC, sea ice extent was below average throughout the Arctic, except in the Labrador Sea, Baffin Bay, and Hudson Bay. It was especially low in the Barents Sea. As noted by Ingrid Onarheim at the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research in Bergen, Norway: “A decrease in Barents Sea ice extent for this winter was predicted from the influence of warm Atlantic waters from the Norwegian Sea.”
Scientists are watching extent in this area because it will help them understand how a slower Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) may affect Arctic sea ice. “Some studies suggest that decreased heat flux of warm Atlantic waters could lead to a recovery of all Arctic sea ice in the near future,” said NSIDC senior research scientist Julienne Stroeve. “I think it will have more of a winter impact and could lead to a temporary recovery of winter ice extent in the Barents and Kara seas.”
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/files/2016/04/Fig.png
Two points:
1. If the AMOC were slowing the Barents sea ice would be recovering. The Barents sea ice looks like it switched from a high ice mode to a low ice mode in 2005 and there isn’t much of a trend to speak of. At the current moment it can’t be characterized as getting worse.
2. I hate idiots that compute linear trends for nonlinear phenomenon.
PA – Looks like we were typing our comments simultaneously!
It seems we’re agreed that “According to NSIDC, sea ice extent [in March 2016] was below average throughout the Arctic… It was especially low in the Barents Sea.”?
Jim, funny how people see different things. I see the expectations of scientists for a recovery of various magnitudes and you see the reference to one year. If you can’t argue climate then you argue weather or words to that effect was what a climate scientist once said about deniers. I thought it was a good line.
Steven – I see this at PA’s link:
“Some studies suggest that decreased heat flux of warm Atlantic waters could lead to a recovery of all Arctic sea ice in the near future,” said NSIDC senior research scientist Julienne Stroeve. “I think it will have more of a winter impact and could lead to a temporary recovery of winter ice extent in the Barents and Kara seas.”
What do you see?
That’s what I see and it is consistent with what I have been saying. If you agreed with it you could have just said so a long time ago.
You seem to be making my point for me Steven?
You seem to “see” that bit of text as meaning that the view you expound is “settled science”. I “see” it as anything but.
“Some studies suggest” is a long way from “there’s a 97% consensus”!
I agreed with a statement that says something between almost no change and a complete refreezing of the Arctic. I don’t really think it is controversial that the change in ocean heat transport will do something. My opinion is it will be closer to a refreezing than almost nothing but I don’t confuse my opinion with fact. I also don’t confuse the future with the past so if someone shows me trends from the past when I am trying to argue about the future then I assume we are having two different conversations. After a few attempts to get on the same conversation I eventually get tired and quit.
Steven – The paper you quoted is from 2012, and talks about “the short term”. Doesn’t 2016 qualify as the short term future when viewed from the vantage point of 2012?
Jim Hunt wrote:
PA – It’s considered common practice where I come from to link to ones sources.
http://climate4you.com/SeaTemperatures.htm#North Atlantic 59 degrees north transect to 1900 m depth
Ummm… Once I mentioned Climate4you that should have been it. The above page has all the North Atlantic charts referred to and lists the source as the Global Marine Argo Atlas.
A 4 year trend that ends in an El Nino? You tell me how much attention you’s pay to a 4 year trend that ends in a La Nina.
In fact, how much attention would you pay to any 4 year trend if it didn’t happen to agree with your bias? 4 years in climate is nothing but noise.
Sure, but the paper you quoted said “short term”. I didn’t. Then it said “If the general positive trend in Atlantic heat input remains, winter cooling will likely be insufficient to produce ice over an increasing area, leading to further ‘‘Atlantification’’ of the Barents Sea.”
Since nobody has answered my Q7 yet, here’s an introductory text:
http://cedmcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Artic-sea-ice.pdf
The surplus heat needed to explain the loss of Arctic sea ice during the past few decades is on the order of 1 W/m2. Observing, attributing, and predicting such a small amount of energy remain daunting problems.
Jim, perhaps you should ask them what short term is then. If you agree with me that 4 years is too short term to be meaningful for a trend of arctic sea ice extent then why are you bothering me with it?
Good morning Steven (UTC),
You introduced that paper into the discussion, not me. Getting back to the physics of Arctic sea ice, here’s another extract from Kwok and Untersteiner:
In the heat-energy balance, which describes the gain or loss of heat in the system, sketched in figure 5, the solar and atmospheric radiation terms dominate. Smaller in magnitude are the latent and sensible heat transported across the Arctic boundaries by atmospheric circulation and the sensible heat carried into the basin by the warm West Spitsbergen Current and by the Pacific inflow through the Bering Strait.
Another quote regarding trying to extract a short term signal from the noise:
On time scales of years to decades, reliable projections face the problems of forecasting winds, cloudiness, surface albedo, and oceanic heat advection— all confounded by a plethora of climate-system feedbacks. Because sea ice is extremely sensitive to the least well-modeled and simulated part of the climate system — radiative heating from the clouds — it seems difficult to predict more than the fact that Arctic sea ice is likely to diminish.
My estimates are that open arctic water it net cooling, depending how much clouds there are.
Their conclusion is just opinion on the same parameter.
I brought a paper up so that excuses you taking an irrelevant piece of garbage not from the paper that has no statistical meaning and acting like it does?
I thought we were intent on discussing physics, not “lies, damned lies, and statistics“?
Jim Hunt: “I thought we were intent on discussing physics”
But Jimbo, it is very evident that you don’t actually KNOW any physics, so that is impossible.
And you know even less climate science, and zero statistics.
Stick to
software engineeringsitting in your bedroom knocking out poor quality web sites in HTML for your mates down the pub, that’s about your limit.It’s evident that you have done even less due diligence on my academic background than you have on the physics of sea ice CatWeazle. Once upon a time I even did some original theoretical statistics, but that was “top secret”!
Where might I find evidence of your physical expertise in the peer reviewed literature?
We can continue this conversation after you show the statistical significance of your 4 year trend since you attribute to me making some sort of false argument.
You show me where I claimed it was “statistically significant”. That may take you a while, so why don’t you address the physics while we’re waiting?
Micro is at least endeavouring to do that, Albeit in the absence of links to peer reviewed research!
Because I did my own calculations based on observations and data. And it depends on parameters that are not well measured. It is likely a net cooling most years there’s open water. And doesn’t it have to be for there to be a conveyor powered by cold sinking water?
So you agree that you have been wasting my time by using your 4 year trend over and over? Just so we can clear that up and I won’t be seeing it again.
Steven – I reserve the right to bring it up again if you introduce something along the lines of “some recovery of the Barents Sea winter sea ice area may occur in the short term” into the conversation again.
Then I reserve the right to ignore you.
That should say Arctic storm not winter.
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icethickness/images/FullSize_CICE_combine_thick_SM_EN_20160929.png
http://GreatWhiteCon.info/resources/arctic-sea-ice-graphs/#SMOS
http://greatwhitecon.info/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/SMOS-20160929.gif
Jim Hunt,
The IPCC states that prediction of future climate states is not possible. I agree.
I also believe that the prediction of future ice states in the Arctic is not possible in any meaningful sense.
I assume the Poles will continue to be colder than the Tropics at sea level, and that the Earth will continue its four and a half billion years of cooling.
It doesn’t make any difference what you or I think, but I do object to anyone forcibly removing my assets to go on an ill-conceived frolic of their own. The multi billions of taxpayers’ dollars spent on desalination plants in Australia at the behest of Flim-Flam Flannery, self proclaimed climatological seer, predicting dam-filling rainfall would be a thing of the past, might be a case in point.
Nature will do as she wishes. Maybe Antarctica will revert to its abundant collection of flora and fauna. Who knows.
But anyway.
What specific disadvantage will accrue to me if I choose to disagree with you? When, where, and the quantum, would be nice. I assume you don’t know, but you might care to deny, divert, and confuse if it makes you feel better.
Cheers.
Mike – What do you “choose to disagree with me” about?
Do you have any grandchildren?
Jim,
Answer the question!! Isn’t that the strident demand of the witless GHE supporter? What is it you claim I am disagreeing with you about?
I merely asked you for information. You appear to be unwilling to provide any, I don’t blame you. You can’t supply what you don’t have.
As to my grandchildren, are you trying to play the Hansen gambit? What is the relevance? Have you so little regard for your children that you give preference to your grandchildren? Why do you exhibit such a cavalier disregard for your children?
The IPCC states that the prediction of future climate states is not possible. I agree with the IPCC. Don’t you?
Cheers.
Mike – You’re the one that made the claim.
Answer the question!!
Q9. What do you “choose to disagree with me” about?
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