I’m confused- i still don’t see how either of these lend credance to the cAGW theory. They could still both be entirely natural.
Am i missing something? Or is it just that these sheets were supposed to be stable so that any change is alarming? Seems a weak premise (if that indeed IS the premise).
Please don’t call me Harry! My nicknames are Hop, Hoppy, Hopper or Mouse Ears!
You sound like a greenie who claim humans are the scourge of the earth and should be eliminated.
” If our interpretation of the data is so weak that it cannot be challenged what is it worth? ”
Quote of the week, An excellent motto for a scientist to live by.
“Observe the amount of the time the anomaly stays around zero upto around 2003 and how much it remains below it after that.”
Huh. Perhaps if I make comments about 30 years as the minimum in climate studies, you might think about retracting this comment or at the very least cease complaining that “deniers” need to get their heads around the concept (if you make such complaints), or at the very least, deride anyone who uses <30 year trends as "proof" of anything in climate.
“It’s simply amazing the number of people who think things that are wrong with even basic research are instead being “overlooked”. “
I did not mean to imply that scientists did not know of this or were wrong, but rather was pointing out that it seems to me that the advocate community seems to pick and choose when “global” is important and when “regional” is important. Much like your arguement above about trends in arctic ice since 2003, how much traction would I get suggesting that surface temperature trends in some region the size of the arctic showed a negative trend? Would I not be told that “global” matters? Surely the same is true of all indicators such as ice cover, cloud cover, precipitation etc? Sure, it does matter to people where these things happen, but if I need to consider only global temp, why not global ice coverage?
“This is wishful thinking based on the “Nothing to see here, natural variability” concept. It could be true but by all means show me the mechanism that regulates the polar ice caps in this way. “
Have we already change the null hypothesis from “it’s all natural until you can show otherwise” to “it’s anthropogenic until you can show otherwise” while I wasn’t looking? If you can’t demonstrate that it’s unusual, why do I need to prove it’s natural? If there is evidence of climate “cycles” (IOW, semi-cyclic, stochastic driven oscillations in weather patterns) on the scale of 60 years, 180 years etc etc – and I believe it’s fair to say there is – under what conditions can you expect to be able to extract something “unusual” in the 30 year record of sat coverage?
You seem to be of the opinion that I think “climate scientists” are idiots – for the record, I do not. I merely think that in many cases, they go a bridge to far based on what is known and what is infered. And if history in general, and science history in particular, is any guide then I want something a bit more concrete than what I have seen so far before I’m prepared to commit to the sorts of actions being contemplated, and in some cases enacted, to deal with the “problem”. You may acuse me of ignorance if you wish and I most certainly will not suggest that I am any sort of expert on matters climate, but I believe it’s fair to say that I am a level 3 on Judy’s scale (having followed this with varying zeal over about 15 years), so I am not completely ignorant on the matter. Just not convinced the level of certainty is justified, or that the urgency suggested is justified. Feel free to attempt to convince me.
Chief – the link is to the same paper as the one in the comment above? Too many G&Ts?
Ohhhhh.. Romm is SOOOO busted.
Yeah i almost feel sorry for him. It’s quite easy to get caught up in a new ‘story’, but this one has a real case of foot meet mouth to it.
Now lets see him try to dig his way ‘up’…..
“Huh. Perhaps if I make comments about 30 years as the minimum in climate studies, you might think about retracting this comment “
The 30 year norm defines the current climate state, it’s not a magic at line upto which everything observed is ignored. The Arctic ice has been “odd” for at least a decade which makes it a subject of serious study. Changes which come and go for a year or even a few years are interesting but not of note but changes which stay put are.
“Much like your arguement above about trends in arctic ice since 2003, how much traction would I get suggesting that surface temperature trends in some region the size of the arctic showed a negative trend? “
You’re the one who made the claim that it was being “overlooked” there was no change in the global trend. The obvious and negative change in the global trend was pointed out to you and now you’re crying foul with irrelevancies.
With regard to regional and global the issue is the what the preponderance of data shows and the likelihood of what future data will show. If you take three major regions of note (Arctic, Antarctic, Greenland) and 2 of the 3 are showing major decline that’s an important caveat regardless of how much region 3 compensates for the other 2.
The actual issue here and always is what is happening in the real world not what technicality can be invoked to ignore what is happening in the real world. Nobody even vaguely interested in the issue of glaciers or sea ice could say with a straight face it’s business as usual. The people who do say that are the same who would never accept anything as being odd, even when the ice caps melt it’ll be “Well if you just go back a few millions years….”
” before I’m prepared to commit to the sorts of actions being contemplated,”
Policy is completely and utterly irrelevant to what’s happening in the Arctic. You want to define reality in relation to your policy preferences such that you’ll only accept conclusions concerning Arctic ice at the same time as you’re prepared to accept whatever policies you think people are proposing if it were true.
The real world doesn’t care about your police preferences. It’s doing what it’s doing regardless of who you elect to Congress and whatever you read on blogs about the reds coming to steal your taxes.
“Just not convinced the level of certainty is justified”
You were and are pretty certain that nothing is happening. Your defence of this position spent a lot of time discussing your opinion of climate science and your policy preferences but very little time on the details of the topic you’re addressing. That strongly suggests your viewpoint is political or idealogical in nature and consequently you’re using the wrong information to form opinions on unrelated topics.
May I draw people’s attention to
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/The_failures_part_1.pdf
Here Joe D’Aleo points out that AGW is not” global”. Antarctica tends to be cooling; the southern hemisphere is staying at about the same temperature; the northern hemisphere is warming, with a lot of warming in the Arctic.
It seems to me that this phenomenon needs explaining before we can really address whether what is happening in the Arctic is due to CAGW.
I’m excited about that data too but I think we only get 4 or 5 years of data and then there’s all the fun of calibrating it. I think expecting it to settle the issue is going a step too far but I agree it’ll be a valuable contribution.
Judith,
What’s the best sources of ice data for the 1930′s? I’ve been curious about how the ice looked in the 1930′s but have failed to find any good data. I even wrote to the Canadian Ice Service who have no ice data before 1968. 1930′s arctic temperature data doesn’t seem so far from the present phase but reconstructions that exist have the ice conditions very different.
Judith,
A fascinating area of study is speed and time.
For example:
If the crust under the ocean took a month to shove 10 meters on a fault line, then the oceans would dissipate that change as the process is slow. But when it is instantaneous, the oceans cannot dissipate the water volume at that point over time and is transfered ocean energy.
The flexibility of ocean elasticity is interesting with the pressure added with depth. Theoretically it is possible to transport pressurized energy to the surface BUT the elasticity of the ocean has to be broken for that to be achieved.
Jim,
Tying climate science globally is a fool hearty adventure at best. The diameter of the rotating equator is the biggest areas of mass and all other areas are subsequently smaller.
This planet is not a cylinder but a globe. And it moves. Not like the stationary pictures or experiments.
Polyakov has heaps of interesting stuff on his website.
http://www.iarc.uaf.edu/people/igor
I did a little bit of climate sciencist pestering last year after reading some of his work and asked him about arctic ice variability in an email. He replied saying his estimate for recent trends (since late 1970′s) is 50% natural variability and 50% climate change but a greater role for climate change in the past decade. Not sure if this chimes with the outlook of this multi-author paper.
Separately. I’ve got a question about the paper itself. It seems to have a multitude of ‘names’ in arctic climate science. As if this is the consensus writ large. I’d noticed other similar multi-author papers and reviews on other subjects which seem to be attempts at bringing the big names in a particular field to give a consensus view. Other examples are
Model forcing (this one may just be a technical exercise)
http://www.geosci-model-dev.net/4/33/2011/gmd-4-33-2011.html
Solar/climate (again nominally rivals in the field coming together)
http://scostep.apps01.yorku.ca/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Gray_etal_2009RG000282.pdf
I’m not trying to get conspiratorial here but is this normal? I know science is collaborative but it’s also largely adverserial as well. I don’t know that such large groups of rivals get together for love ins like this in other science disiplines. Do you have any thoughts on this issue?
When it comes to historical temp reconstructions, I’m wondering why there are not more references to the work of Dr. Patterson and his team from U of Sask. Or anyone else using oxygen isotopes (mainly, w/supporting proxies) for high-resolution climate reconstructions down to seasonal variations. Is there some doubt in the science?
There appears to be some conflicting evidence, RE: above,
“The warming event around 1500 A.D. is identified by climatic simulations in the Atlantic sector of the Arctic and is explained by the internal variability of atmospheric circulation. ”
Compared to:
” . . . grain cultivation had also been established throughout much of the country shortly after settlement but became limited to barley (a shorter-season crop) by the early 1200s, and by the 1500s it was abandoned altogether . . .”
That quote is from ‘Two millennia of North Atlantic seasonality
and implications for Norse colonies’:
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/03/02/0902522107.full.pdf
Within the same article is this:
“Recent investigations of the marine environment off the northwest and northern coasts of Iceland have revealed significant millennial-, centennial-, and decadal-scale variability over the Holocene (14–19). These hydrographic changes on the north Icelandic shelf reflect larger scale ocean atmosphere circulation changes and regional climate variation
in the North Atlantic.”
And this:
“On the basis of δ18O data, reconstructed water temperatures for the Roman Warm Period in Iceland are higher than any temperatures recorded
in modern times.”
Are there any other papers on temp reconstructions in Greenland &/or Iceland using mollusk/isotope values? This process seems to be far more accurate (reliable?) than anything I’ve read re: tree rings or any other temperature proxy. Or am I misinformed?
I’d appreciate the thoughts of commenters here on isotope reconstructions.
-barn
The East coast has a fair number coal plants by salt water for barge delivery of coal. Not enough to make a huge dent, but it may be of some use. Higher efficiency with syn-fuel production makes more sense, but it has its draw backs. Without FutureGen we may never know what it can do.
wade
good question. The commercially important conversion is from 2 CO2 to 2 CO + O2 – See Sandia’s Sunlight to Petrol program.
It appears to need a little lower energy than 2 H2O to 2H2 + O2.
The cost of the solar collectors at $300/m2 is the primary barrier!
Of course, Ian… here it is: http://www.mckinsey.com/clientservice/sustainability/pdf/CCS_Assessing_the_Economics.pdf
I share some suspicions about McKinsey having dealt with some of their experts in the past, and look forward to your comments.
And by the way, I just tried to access the paper and got a “Link not found…”
Actually, the 0.48 C reduction in temperature rise would be an equilibrium value, and the figure at year 2060 would be less.
‘That said there is a LOT of nonsense about the PDO. People like CPC are tracking PDO on a monthly basis but it is highly correlated with ENSO. Most of what they are seeing is the change in ENSO not real PDO. It surely isn’t decadal. The PDO is already reversing with the switch to El Nino.’ K Trenberth – hacked email
Trenberth is certainly wrong. The biology is definitive – as in the fantastic Russian fisheries publication someone linked to earlier. I can’t recommend it enough. The biological changes occur as a result of changes in upwelling of nutrient rich water. But the evidence of decadal changes in hydrology, cloud and sea surface temperature is equally compelling. As sure as sh.. – as we say in Australia (I have censored myself for sake of Bart’s delicate sensibilities – and the fact that I keep getting sent, albeit temporarily, to the sin bin) – it is decadal.
The changes have been attributed to solar UV in the 11 years Schwabe, the 22 year Hale and other diverse solar cycles – which drifts much more over longer timeframes than does solar irradiance. – See for instance – http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/5/3/034008/fulltext – See also – http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/5/2/024001/fulltext
The mechanism involves warming and cooling of ozone in the middle atmosphere – which influences sea level pressure at the poles and thus the path of storms spinning off the polar vortices.
The correlation between ENSO, the Southern Annular Mode (SAM) and solar cycles has been shown in many studies. In the Southern Hemisphere – increased SLP in higher latitudes pushes storms and cold Southern Ocean water towards the western coast of South America in the region of the Humboldt Current. The Humboldt Current is the thermal origin of ENSO and ENSO is of course is the dominant source of global climate variability.
I usually add the postscript that dynamical systems theory implies extreme climate sensitivity near points of chaotic bifurcation – suggesting that changing the composition of the atmosphere may not be entirely risk free.
