For REM, it “starts with an earthquake, birds and snakes, an aeroplane“, for us, it looks like diminishing Arctic sea ice is the sign. Over at Open Mind, the blogger formerly known as Tamino looks in some detail at the sea ice/rapid warming paper I linked to yesterday. His post makes for sober reading. David Lawrence and his team at NCAR and the NSIDC examined runs of the NCAR-based CCSM climate model that included episodes of rapid sea ice loss, and looked at what happened to climate of the Arctic during those periods. They found that the rate of warming increased 3.5 times faster than the average rate models project over the coming century. From the press release:
While this warming is largest over the ocean, the simulations suggest that it can penetrate as far as 900 miles inland. The simulations also indicate that the warming acceleration during such events is especially pronounced in autumn. The decade during which a rapid sea-ice loss event occurs could see autumn temperatures warm by as much as 9 degrees F (5 degrees C) along the Arctic coasts of Russia, Alaska, and Canada.
This is what it looks like in their nifty graphic:
This is what we saw last winter.
Looks as though the process the paper describes is already under way. Canada’s a bit cooler, but then it still has some ice left at the moment…
And the end of the world? Go and re-read my recent post on methane hydrates in the shallow seas north of Siberia. Consider what Lawrence et al have to say about permafrost. Then ponder the meaning of “positive feedbacks in the carbon cycle”. What’s happening up North could make any efforts to reduce global emissions irrelevant, or at best, mean that reaching a relatively low stabilisation target (450ppm?) suddenly a lot harder. Just to make things even harder, we have 30 years of warming to go, even if we could stabilise atmospheric greenhouse gases today.
I’m going to enlarge my veggie garden, and re-examine my thoughts on resilience as a response to climate change.
[Update: Joe Romm at Climate Progress has good coverage.]
[Update 2: Nature's In The Field blog reports reactions to the Lawrence et al paper from aboard a ship cruising the Arctic, and in passing confirms some of my thoughts...]
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- It’s a gas, gas, gas
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- Once upon a time there was an ocean
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Gareth, still 450 ppm? I think I recall asking a while back about Hansen’s 350 ppm and you said you’d address the question of level sometime. I realise that in view of what may be looming even 450 would be welcome, but the truth seems to be that we need an actual reduction from where we are at present.
Well, I was going to put 350ppm above, but as I haven’t yet done my post on targets, I thought I’d better stick with the more conventional figure. But if this paper turns out to be right, and the warming is enough to trigger methane from cryo-sources, all targets become academic. Survival is then the issue…
Although for some time I’ve been won over by Annan/Hargreaves’ Bayesian work on climate sensitivity(S). It hasn’t comforted me much recently. With sufficient carbon cycle feedbacks it may not matter much if S is ~3degC rather than a more alarming (headline grabbing) higher figure.
I’m still not convinced this CO2/CH4 feedback will be fast on policy timescales. However once started it will be self-reinforcing and probably unstoppable (from my understanding). The in-the-pipeline warming we’re committed to, plus the timescales required for human emissions reductions seem to me to commit us to changing the whole planet.
Thanks for the heads-up to Tamino’s blog, a typically excellent post.
My primary short term (coming decades) concern about the Arctic warming remains precipitation changes in the Northern Hemisphere (and Southern?).
Consider the following news stories:
Drought in Central India
Drought in Ethiopia (Need I mention Sudan?):
And the US is suffering drought.
Also Australia, as recently covered by Tamino.
Check out this GFDL projection:
There already seems to be a pattern of drought in the areas projected to experience drought by 2100.
In those GFDL models Arctic summer ice is largely gone by 2085.
We already seem to be ahead of that, and we’re seeing an ahead of schedule pattern of drying suggestive of the modelled pattern (suggestive but no more).
How much of the 2100 projected change is due to global warming, and how much due to Arctic ice loss? The two factors are probably intertwined, not just superimposed patterns.
Are we already seeing the early climatic impacts of the early loss of arctic ice?
With the amount of thinning so far there should have been an increase in water vapour, from my reading that’s key to “teleconnecting” regional changes in the Arctic to the wider atmosphere. Certainly for a few weeks now the HRPT infra red images of Northern Canada have been unuseable for viewing the ice due to haze sourcing IR from higher than the surface. But I don’t know if this is typical or not, as I lack an archive of past years.
Tidied up your links, C.
Thanks for the rainfall projections. They fit with my intuitive response (more water vapour = more precipitation) and that of the scientist in the Nature blog (Update 2 above). It’s interesting to remember that people were whinging about global cooling because of a very snowy winter in parts of North America last winter, whereas that’s what you might expect to happen as the ice disappears. Note also that Norway’s winter was the fourth warmest on record, but also the snowiest.
The impacts on the general circulation (the teleconnections, if you prefer) can be marked – as we see from the NOAA plot in the post. Changes in the “pattern” of weather bring climate changes, and I do think we’re seeing those already (which is what Stu Ostro and Jeff Masters have been posting about).
What concerns me is that we now have evidence that there are rapid climate flips in the current generation of models that have been overlooked in the inter-model averaging process. The observations suggest that we’re seeing it happen now. It’s possible that in five to ten years the NH climate will have been radically transformed, and the physical, environmental, economic and social impacts of that will be felt round the globe.
If there’s an upside, it’s that this change might be dramatic enough to make policy makers get serious about emissions reductions, but by then it will be too late to do much to stop the carbon cycle feedbacks. I hope you’re right about the pace of those, but re-reading my post about methane and clathrates, I’m not so sanguine.
Stupid question – to save you time tidying up – what’s the format for links?
I’ve re-read your “Gas, Gas, Gas” post, still not sure it’ll be fast enough to create a catastrophe in a human lifespan. But I’ll re-read the Archer paper in light of Shakhova and get back to you.
If I believed that an abrupt and massive event like this were imminent I’d want to arm myself to the teeth and “head for the hills”.
Links: standard html format: [remove spaces when you try, except between a and href]
< a href=" URL " >chosen words< /a >
Reading the Archer article, I can see why you’re more concerned with “chronic” releases of methane, rather than abrupt. I guess that “abrupt” in geological terms is rather a long time in human years. How bad it might get is another one of those unknown unknowns, but one that has the potential to make any actions we take irrelevant (or a lot harder).
That’s exactly how I see it, we’re at least committed now, as it seems likely we’re at the Arctic tipping point (so that can’t be stopped) and the warming will be an inevitable consequence.
I say “at least” committed to chronic release because Shakova (abstract) seems to address Archer’s point in the last paragraph of the abstract.
So I know think Archer suggests that the whole lot won’t be likely to go at once, but Shakhova suggests enough could go to be of concern in short timescale (handwaving because I don’t know how long).
So I think you can start worrying again.
Sorry.
PS
I’m watching Beaufort Sea and along the Archipelago coast on today’s Cryosphere Today (Polar View) and QuikScat (Ocean Masked). Time will tell if these are data blips, but recent Easterlies across the Archipelago may have had an impact on the ice. This might be reflected in Beaufort’s area at Cryosphere Today (but that uses same source as their Polar View).
CW, Archer is talking about clathrates globally (most of which are very deep) whereas Shakhova is talking about the limited case of the East Siberian Shelf, noting that per her calculation only about 150 Gt is prone to release. There’s about triple that just in the Siberian yedoma (per a new paper last week), e.g., so long-term the land part of the problem is the larger one, but what concerns me about the ESS clathrates is that they could be subject to very fast release by the same warming currents that are presently melting the sea ice from underneath.
That said, I have no idea what that 150 Gt would actually do, or for that matter what the full 1 Tt or so of Arctic methane would do if released over the course of a couple of centuries. I’ve never bothered with the numbers stuff, so I’d be a little shaky on even doing the basic forcing calculation for the ESS methane. Would one of you be able to?
I think I mentioned in the other thread that I emailed David (Archer) as soon as the Shakhova stuff came out, and from his response it sounded like he wasn’t aware of it (which was surprising). He did sound willing to do another post on all of this, but who knows when he’ll be able to. I hesitate to push him on it again since such things are after all purely extra-curricular for him. OTOH it might help if he heard from others.
While I’m on the subject, remember a couple of months ago when there was a fair amount of attention paid to a paper pinning the snowball earth meltdown of 600 million years ago to clathrates? The publicity included much discussion of how this showed that such a transition could result in a similar shift today, which is weird since it’s not true. Oddly the PETM and the similar Toarcian event didn’t even get mentioned, at least in the coverage I saw. And then Shakhova got zero coverage outside of Der Spiegel. Go figure.
Re the Arctic sats and other data, Wayne Davidson knows that stuff inside and out, so it would be nice if he could be convinced to do regular updates in a blog format.
Shakhova’s abstract notes:
Extremely high concentrations of methane (up to 8 ppm) in the atmospheric layer above the sea surface along with anomalously high concentrations of dissolved methane in the water column (up to 560 nM, or 12000% of super saturation), registered during a summertime cruise over the ESS in September 2005…
Her abstract suggests that 50Gt could be released “abruptly”, increasing methane levels by a factor of 12, ie from about 1.7ppm to 21ppm. Over short time scales, methane has a global warming potential of 72 (over 20 years – 100 year figure is 23-25), so the near term impact of a release on that scale would be equivalent to about 1500ppm of CO2. “Catastrophic” seems a mild description.
If we suppose that the 50Gt releases at a rate of 0.5Gt/year, that would increase atmospheric CH4 by a factor of 0.12 in in the first year, about 0.2ppm/200ppb, equivalent to 14ppm CO2 per annum.
[Edited to correct my original 10^1 error: but even when correctly calculated, the effect is large. 14ppm CO2e is what, five times the current rate of CO2 increase?]
On those figures, if the ESS begins to bubble in earnest, we are – to coin a phrase – f***ed.
Thanks, Gareth (and for staightening me out on the numbers). M. Night Shyamalan only thinks he’s scary.
Anyway, that sounds bad enough, although it would still be interesting to see the details of how such a sharp transient would actually affect things. Trying to think it through conceptually, is it possible that the atmosphere would warm so quickly that we would see a temperature spike due to the oceans not being able to take up the heat quickly enough? Regardless, I can’t imagine somebody hasn’t run this through a model by now, so it seems exceedingly peculiar that nothing has come out on it. Oh what the heck, I’ll email Shakhova and ask her.
So I guess the big question is whether she’s completely out to lunch on the vulnerability of the clathrates. My impression is that there haven’t been enough obs to know for sure whether the present level of emissions represents a serious increasing trend. There’s a Canadian team working out there this summer as well, so in a few months I suppose we’ll know if there’s been an obvious increase.
Note my correction above, Steve.
Thinking about it a bit (I should really be finishing writing a magazine article about GW impacts on NZ, but dissembling is a powerful motivator), I would imagine that there would a considerable methane plume from the ESS that would show up in SCIAMACHY/ENVISAT data. There doesn’t seem to be one yet, but I haven’t seen recent mapping…
The plume would be intemse enough to have local heating effects until dispersed into the rest of the atmosphere. Local effective concentrations would be well above the global average, so you could get intense local warming that would reduce (eliminate?) winter freezing in the area. The local hotspot would therefore be a seasonal, and then perhaps annual feature that would likely have an impact on the general circulation.
I think you might be right about a temperature spike over land. The oceans will obviously warm more slowly. Could be a bad time to be in the northern hemisphere. I can see the NZ tourism ads now…
That’s enough wild-assed guessing for today… back to work.
It slipped past me at the time, but it turns out methane levels have started rising again after being fairly stable for a while.
I tend to stay away from numeric calculations because I’m all to aware of how little I know (regards asumptions etc).
However, once again from Archer,
pdf page 5.
>
“The band saturation for CO2 makes CO2 a less potent greenhouse gas than it would be if we had no CO2 in the air to start with. Let’s revisit our comparison of the CO2 and methane as greenhouse gases. Methane had a disadvantage because its absorption band sort of fell in the suburbs of the earth-light spectrum whereas CO2 fell right downtown.
Now we see the advantage shifting the other way. Methane has a much lower concentration in the atmosphere. You can see from the jagged edges of the methane peak in Figure 4-3 that the methane absorption band is not saturated. For this reason, in spite of the suburban location of the methane band, a molecule of methane added to the atmosphere is 20 times more powerful than is a molecule of CO2. ”
>
This allows methane increases to directly impact IR fluxes at sea level, whereas CO2′s primary effect is in the mid/upper troposphere. I still don’t subscribe to Alastair Mac’s idea of an immediate transition to ice-free Arctic, but this could slow the re-freeze season at least, possibly impact winter thickening of the ice.
I’ve previously read about local pockets of methane at ground level over Siberia and had the same thought. Just found the article from
NewScientist.
“In May this year [2005], Katey Walter of the University of Alaska Fairbanks told a meeting in Washington of the Arctic Research Consortium of the US that she had found methane hotspots in eastern Siberia, where the gas was bubbling from thawing permafrost so fast it was preventing the surface from freezing, even in the midst of winter.”
I agree with you both, this may be very bad news for rates of warming in continental interiors.
Steve,
Archer is talking globally, but does make specific points about the Arctic basin. The reasons he sees for time lags in sediment warming seem to apply there as well.
My concern about ocean warming is mainly centred on the ocean surface warming found last year, with the potential for increased wind driven vertical mixing of the ocean. The Arctic is experiencing more storms due to more water vapour, and an ice free ocean allows greater wind-ocean mechanical energy coupling.
I emailed Wayne last night to let him know about this conversation.
I’ll go back and re-read the Archer article, but the concern I have is that he didn’t take into account the warming current intrusions that were the key to Maslowski’s apparently-successful RCM projection of sea ice melt (noting that he says the GCMs failed because of being unable to resolve these currents). As the ESS clathrates are so shallow (40 meters average IIRC)), currents capable of rapidly melting the sea ice seem like a real hazard. I’ll ask Shakhova about that.
Shakhova’s AGU abstract talks about “open taliks” (areas of melt through the permafrost) already accounting for about 5-10% of the total area of the ESS…
I’ll be most interested to hear what she has to say.
Speaking of Maslowski, he has some new papers in the pipeline. Not sure when they’re going to appear, but they’ll be worth a read.
Tangentially related:
Do either of you know what Maslowski’s projections say about winter extents? To be frank I’ve read little more than media articles and a 2006 presentation of Maslowski’s.
I was reading the expert outlooks from ARCUS yesterday. Well worth reading them all.
I think the winter ice is expected to more or less recover, although of course forming later, melting earlier and staying thin, a little bit more with each passing year. IIRC this has been stated in a few of the published GCM studies. Maslowski had plenty of opportunity to say something different last fall and didn’t do so, from which I gather that his results show nothing fundamentally different (other than being on a faster track).
BTW, on the BBC site there’s some audio of Maslowski from last fall’s AGU meeting. Mark Serreze’s lecture (available on the NSIDC site) is also worth a listen.
Thanks Steve,
What I’m thinking is that the Circum Polar Flaw Lead Team’s expert outlook, pdf here , describes how cyclones fed by WV & heat fluxes from the open water delayed the re freeze in Chucki/Beaufort:
As noted at the end of the article Gareth links to in update 2 above: “Models can’t usually represent storms because they happen on too small a scale.” Yet, despite not being amenable to modelling these cyclones are still having an effect that may impact the region’s climate in a real sense.
I was also wondering if Maslowski has done any further modelling after last year. i.e. incorporating the crash of last year, which Maslowski’s 2013 figure did not factor in. Zhang’s expert outlook centres on a new paper from his team using their PIOMAS model, pdf here
. They’ve taken an ensemble with members 1-7 where they’ve forced from current ice conditions with NCEP/NCAR data for the years 2001-2007. Zhang finds that based on the average response to previous years weather the extent this year is below 2007, but only last year’s weather produces a massive crash.
Cobblyworlds, you say that the Arctic is experiencing more storms due to more water vapor, yet according to NOAA the global level of water vapor is at an all-time low. I realise there are patterns that differ globally, so can you tell me where you got this information?
I don’t think that’s correct about the water vapor, Sidney. Source for that? Come to mention it, though, that statement from CW doesn’t sound quite right either (although I’m no expert and may not have this straight). IIRC the relationship is at least more complicated. Do you have a cite for that, CW?
Aha, Sidney has been to visit our friend Anthony Watts.
In general, Sidney, whenever you see a claim that data (especially, as in this case, NCEP reanalysis data that FYI has been run through a climate model to fill in the gaps in observations) located in an obvious place on a NOAA site has somehow been missed by climate scientists and will overturn some major aspect of the science in some completely obvious way, expect that a mistake has indeed been made… by someone other than the climate scientists.
AW keeps doing this sort of thing because he just *knows* that climate science is a huge conspiracy and that with enough perseverance a none-too-smart or educated guy like Anthony can overturn the whole apple cart.
At this point he’s starting to remind me of the Coyote in the old Warner Brothers cartoons.
I hate it when I’m asked for a reference and I find I can’t recall my source.
By Googling I have found instances of the “more storms” part e.g. “Cyclone Activity Has Intensified in the Arctic” ftp link to pdf.
However that paper states it’s due to a shift in storm tracks, not increased water vapour. And so far I can’t find the reference to water vapour.
However for a future with smaller ice cover more water vapour will enhance any storms that are about (releasing latent heat), and baroclincity (where density depends on both pressure and temperature) is a key ingredient in storms. Baroclinicity is enhanced by humidity. You can expect more water vapour becuase thick ice insulates sea and atmosphere, and broken ice pegs the sea surface to 0degC. When an area is free of ice it warms and evaporation increases significantly, as does the ability of the atmosphere to hold water vapour as it warms.
According to the Met Office:
pdf here. i.e. they can’t reject the hypothesis that the change is due to warming.
Steve,
From Arcus’ expert outlook, CFL’s submission:
pdf here. (my italics)
Such cyclones are below the resolution of GCMs. That’s why I was asking about Maslowski and the winter.
PS
The highest of the expert assesments (Harry Stern 5.56M km^2) is not really an assesment in the spirit of the others. It’s a test of “linear persistence”.
Thanks for the heads up Steve.
To quote verbatim from my post over at Watt’s site:
Thanks for that, CW. I’ll bookmark the link. It’ll be interesting to see how Watts disappears this error, and whether your comment ever sees the light of day (noting also that he’ll probably take your salutation as an intentional insult). Now that you mention it, though, what a dim bulb he is.
Hi Steve,
It turns out I didn’t need to copy it here, to his credit Watts let it through.
I corrected the name in my second post:
So far Watts is ignoring it, no correction to the main post. His cheerleaders are still giving it “ra-ra”…
Thanks for the clarification. Anthony Watts has also clarified, apparently.
Getting back to the Arctic ice extent, if you study the graph you’ll see that the rate of fall this year is not as large as last year’s. I’m of the opinion that we are not going to get a fall. If you look closely here http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/sea.ice.anomaly.timeseries.jpg you just might get the impression that it should really have already showed.
“I’m of the opinion that we are not going to get a fall.”
looks like you’ve got another taker for your bet Gareth.
From Watts update: “After reading comments from our always sharp readers”
Clearly a reference to those other than his aforementioned cheerleaders.
Watts hasn’t clarified.
He’s carefully sidestepped. His post still looks misleading to me.
Actually, Sidney, this year it’s dropped more sharply, but the question of whether it’ll continue to do so won’t really get answered for a few weeks. Bear in mind that the ice is more vulnerable than last year. This is probably a better graph to be looking at.
Yep, CW. It requires a bit of interpretation to understand that the post was completely wrong, and the camp followers over there are a bit short on interpretation skills. It also appears that he did his best to get up some other posts as quickly as possible so as to reduce attention to this one.
I still think that part of Watts’ problem is that he didn’t understand the nature of the NCEP reanalysis data.
Thanks for the info on Arctic water vapor. I wasn’t trying to imply that you were wrong, just that there’s more involved (isn’t there always). I have no direct information as to Maslowski’s findings on this point, but IIRC the GCMs all do find the increased storm activity going forward. Since Maslowski did say that the only major difference between his RCM and the GCMs was the warming currents, presumably that means the storms weren’t different.
Hello Steve,
Watts’ problem is that he saw what he wanted to see and ran with it. When the first thing to do when you think you see something that fits your theory is to attack that notion critically. It’s good when I’m shown I’m wrong, that’s when I learn.
After pondering and googling today I suspect the sort of activity I refer to in the CFL quote can be reasonably addressed in a 40-50km grid RCM. The crack shown across the Archipelago in fig 5 of NSIDC 3 June 2008 is of that sort of width.
My “pet theory” is that mechanical factors are going to be key in the coming years (I’d initially wondered if there was an arctic subtext to Mauri Pelto’s recent RC post). But that’s just my pet theory, I don’t deny the importance of other factors. In the end reality is all, but it’s beyond my intelligence to get a full grasp of the interplay of factors. The “autopsy” of all this will be amazing once the transition is over, especially with the IPY data. Hopefully they’ll manage to get enough funding to extend IPY, at least in the Arctic. If we accept Stroeve, as reported by the BBC today, that’s not too many years more funding. BBC
Can you enlighten me about your point regards the NCEP data?
CW, not only is the NCEP reanalysis the most-used climate data set, it’s a GCM product (data is run through one to generate mssing values and eliminate outliers). It’s impossible for there to be surprises in it of the sort Anthony was hoping for.
In a lot of ways I think the biggest conceptual problem for amateurs trying to study climate science is acquiring a sense of how vast the field is. IMHO Anthony just plain isn’t bright enough to get that. Of course his notion of the science starts with it being impossible and a big conspiracy, so he places himself at a disadvantage in terms of understanding it.
It’s interesting how common that sort of perspective is among both professional and amateur weather forecasters.
Thanks for the Beeb link. May I say that those scientists are on thin ice with such predictions?
So he has made 2 gaffs.
I should have remembered about NCEP, I’ve never read what you say about it, but it has occurred to me that something like that must have been going on considering the Arctic/Antarctic coverage (the only context I’ve closely seen NCEP stuff in).
The fatal flaw of many denialists is the unwarranted self-regard exposed by their initial conceit: “I’m right and all those scientists are wrong.” I now think of them as pub-bores.
…thin ice… Wah Wah Waaah.
CW, see here re the NCEP reanalysis data. Basically it’s a constantly updated consistent set of atmospheric data of all types going back to 1948.
And in today’s news, that Jim Hansen is starting to look a little too prophetic for my taste.
Steve, that link contains a very troubling message. And not even Jim H has quite gone that far yet…
Cheers
[From the height of luxury in deepest Tasmania: I'll have to plant a lot of trees when I get home.]]
Speaking as someone who reads both sides of the debate I have to say that although ‘denialists’ (hate that term, Cobblyworlds) do indeed think they know better than scientists, I am of the opinion that scientists haven’t got it right either. I see climate change very clearly myself. For those who wish to know, I think carbon dioxide hasn’t turned out to be the great forcer we all thought it would be 10 years ago. Who could have foreseen that we would see a stagnant temperature level for nearly a decade? So I think we should be very careful about making predictions in that light. The alarmist predictions may backfire badly. And we have to be careful with the truth also. An example of which is the BBC link given above. The headline screams that Arctic melting is even worse than last year. Unless I’m missing something the graph on that site doesn’t show that. Yes the year began with more ice, but that doesn’t really justify the claim as such because it could equally well be just variance. In other words that red line could equally well creep above the blue again. Which leads me back to the Arctic. Is the melting really as a result of climate change? Because, if so, it was very abrupt when you look at past year’s data. Is it just part of a cycle? We have all seen reports of past Arctic melting, just 70 years ago. What I’m saying is that we have to be honest. If we berate skeptics but act just like them in reverse then we are not doing the debate any good at all. On another conversation here the troposphere is mentioned. I have read much on this myself, and cannot help but form the opinion that we are trying to make something fit which clearly doesn’t. Either John Christy’s data is wrong, or the theory is. And since Radiosonde data over the tropics confirms Christy’s results then I’m bound to say this needs attention. If the Arctic doesn’t melt this year too, then there will be some backfire. It’s bizarre that some are actually hoping it will in order to bolster their opinions.
I would like to add a little bit on the rather surprising comments on Anthony Watts given here. Mr Watts has brought to light the sometimes awful and quite ridiculous placings of temperature recording stations. For this he should be given some respect. His latest, showing a sensor located on top of a 3-storey building, graphically illustrates that all is not what it seems in the debate on climate change.
Sidney, it may seem fair and even-handed to give equal weight to “both sides of the debate,” but I would suggest to you that doing so is going to give you a false impression of the situation. This is science, not politics.
Re Watts, there’s no science to back up his claim of large microsite bias. The Leroy “paper” he bases it on isn’t a paper at all, but a set of seat-of-the-pants maximums intended to be used for site selection. The photo effort actually has some scientific value, but he gets made fun of because he uses it as a platform for ridiculous claims.
Re John Christy, I would suggest that you familiarize yourself with his extensive history of errors.
Re the sea ice, it has in fact melted back more so far this spring, so what’s wrong with saying so? There’s on the order of half as much ice volume this year relative to last, which is why normal weather will give us a much sharper melt.
Finally, bear in mind the words of Wally Broecker:
“Climate is an angry beast, and we are poking it with a stick.”
Well, we can probably expect the transition from an interglacial to the next stable state with reduced ice (as I understand it probably with a smaller Antarctic ice cap only) to be a lot less energetic since there’s much less ice to melt now, especially in the NH. Unfortunately “a lot less energetic” doesn’t translate into pleasant given this new standard for comparison. IIRC Jim has been speaking in terms of at most decadal changes rather than annual changes, so we’ll have to see if he revises that in light of these results. I haven’t read the paper, but the idea that the atmosphere is capable of reorganizing itself anywhere close to that fast is new as far as I know. From the quotes relating to implications for the present, it sounds as if the authors may have been talking to some modelers.
Steve. Thank you for your reply. It’s not that I think along the lines of equal share of the debate, it’s more that I believe this issue to be so complex that one needs to look at both sides to see what each are saying. Over the years I’ve seen pathetic attempts at blaming climate change. The most recent being the truly laughable “Stronger earthquakes blamed on global warming”. Let us not forget that even the New Years Day tsunami was also given a global warming tag by idiots. The climate change debate has holes in it, let’s not make out it’s clear-cut science. On that subject, I disagree that this is about science only. Oh, if only it were! Climate change is more wrapped up in politics than any other debate I have ever witnessed. You don’t seriously believe it isn’t? As for John Christy, I see no point mentioning his errors when we are talking about data which is mirrored by RSS and Radiosonde data. I appreciate your feelings on Mr Watts, but as a bystander I applaud his revelations on the absurd placings of temperature recording sensors. Re Arctic melt, we will soon see. Steve, what do you make of the Antarctic? I see that all the predictions are for a huge ice extent this year, even exceeding last year’s record. This isn’t snow-addition of course, but actual ice-build. Why the abrupt growth that is in direct opposition to Arctic melt?
Sidney, I can see that you’ve succeeded in losing yourself in the details. My point about the science was to pay attention to scientific sources. If you go back and forth between the like of Watts and the earthquake guy you’ll never unconfuse yourself. If you want to know about the science, I suggest you (in this order) read The Discovery of Global Warming, the AR4 (as much as you can handle, but at least the synthesis report and the WG1 technical summary), the last year or so of posts at RealClimate, and finally the entirety of Coby Beck’s Skeptic’s Guide (vetted by climate scientists) over at Grist. Is that a big time commitment? Sure, but believe me it’s a whole lot less than Gareth, CobblyWorlds or I have put into it.
Re the politics, of course it’s completely wrapped up. The problem with most denialists is that they came to the science with a pre-formed political view that they were bound and determined to not change. Occasionally one of them is able to rise above that, but it’s very rare.
To be blunt about it, at this point you’ve succeeded in convincing me that you don’t understand the science and don’t care to. When you say things like “predictions are for a huge ice extent” in the Antarctic, all it does is confirm the prior evidence that you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Steve, Gareth,
The article about rapid shifts in climate state is worrying, although I really want to read the original paper
From the article, quoting Jim White:
Could the loss of Arctic ice play a role in such an event? As far as I can see it’s possible (e.g. atmospheric teleconnections and fresh water flux changes).
Almost certainly not, if such an event were happening now it might be rightly considered weather, for example an extended La Nina, out of trend increase in Arctic Winter ice area… But I stress, I am not saying it is happening now.
And we’re speeding down that road as there’s an increasing timelag between the controls (emissions and other human activity), and their effect, due to lags in the system.
Sidney,
I agree with Steve:
Watts is obsessing over piffling details, I consider his self-regard to be wholly unjustified. Have you read the GISS and CRU primary literature about how they make their datasets? Have you seen what impact last year’s US corrections had on GISS? GISS 2007 Summation, scroll down to Data Flaw, last section. Whatever impact people like Watts will have it will be negligible. Watts’ latest “correction” shows his real game – he just wants to sow doubt.
Christy ignores error ranges to maintain his claims that models aren’t wrong in the tropical troposphere. As discussed by RealClimate recently.
Re the Arctic.
The scientists know that this is a real physical process (as do I), so if they call it wrong they will be shown wrong. The denialist fringe are not so constrained, do you think the prats that have been saying Lyman shows an ocean cooling that refutes AGW will now publish retractions?
Last year I was not overly concerned e.g.
here. I was wrong and have spent since then putting my understanding right. If you think referring to area/extent graphs is enough, try checking out the detailed data e.g. here also check out figure 3 of Nghiem 2007, 303kb pdf here.
You could do worse than see why the scientists are saying what they’re saying:
ARCUS Expert Assesments for May. Note that the 5.5 million km^2 prediction by Stern is not really a prediction, and as far as I’m concerned Bitz is wrong, if she’s right then it may well support the models’ projection of a decadal transition to seasonally ice free state. Which would be a relief.
As for Steve’s comment about the amount of work involved – I have some 200+ papers I’ve read, 142 awaiting reading. That’s just the pdfs on my hard drive. I’m sorry to be blunt but I agree, so far my impression is that you have a lot of learning to do.
Finally, politics – before my scepticism was dismissed by the science I was what’s best described as a “Thatcherite with Fukyama sympathies”. Now I see no way out, I think it’s too late and as there’s no political answer to either Peak Oil or Climate Change, I have no explicit politics to speak of.
As you doubt the reality of our position I will leave the ongoing processes to address that doubt. Sorry, but I am too busy.
Steve. Thank you for that. But I have read the AR4, realclimate, and many, many blogs on both sides of the debate, and will continue to do so. I’m not into science very much but have a good understanding, and constantly learning on the issue of climate change. Your last sentence is harsh and lacks explanation. Inform me why “predictions are for a huge ice extent†somehow confirms that I don’t know what I’m talking about. This flippancy and disregard was also meted out to HarryTheHat. Is it a thing with this forum? I got this from Department of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Illinois Polar Research Group. Last year’s ice extent was greeted with great jubilation from climate skeptic blogs, and by all accounts this year another record will be set. So why do I not know what I’m talking about?
Sidney, in your first comment above you made the unqualified assertion that “according to NOAA the global level of water vapor is at an all-time low,” making it crystal clear that you weren’t aware of the extensively-discussed state of the science on this point.
In another comment you said “the rate of fall this year is not as large as last year’s,” which is clearly wrong.
Just now you asserted that there’s a prediction of a “huge ice extent” in the Antarctic “even exceeding last year’s record” and then link to a page that says no such thing. FYI last year’s record Antarctic extent wasn’t “huge” and you’re not going to find a prediction of a huge extent this year from any credible source.
I could add some additional points. The upshot is that you seem both careless and uninformed.
This flippancy and disregard is because we take your position no more seriously than if you turned up here arguing that the earth is flat (refuted by observation), you have invented a perpetual motion device (violating the first law of thermodynamics), or you can ram 1Mbit/s down a 300-3400 Hz standard phone channel (violating Nyquist’s theorom).
I have however done a long and more detailed reply that is in moderation. (lots of links)
But you must understand that from where we stand the evidence has made your stance obsolete. The world and science has moved on. And I for one get the distinct feeling that in addressing the concerns of denialists I do little more than entertain the delusion that they have a point worth addressing.
Steve. I fully accept I was wrong on the all-time low level of water vapor. I got that from Mr Watt’s site, and was glad of the explanation from you and Cobblyworlds. On my June 19th, 2008 9:30 pm contribution I did indeed say “rate”, and that was an inappropriate choice of word. However, you are clearly wrong about the Antarctic. Last year’s growth was the largest on record. And since the ‘rate’ of growth this year is ahead of last year’s then I’d say that’s a prediction of a record year ahead, with some certainty. I am indeed uniformed to a degree on climate change. However, that doesn’t detract from the facts on Antarctic ice extent, which will be “huge”, and 2 million sq km up on 2003 http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.area.south.jpg
Thank you Cobblyworlds. However, I really don’t think flippancy and disregard is appropriate. I am constantly learning, despite having no science background at all. When I pose a belief based on my observations I don’t expect such retorts. And especially so when I base that belief on a credible source; being the University of Illinois Polar Research Group. You and Mr Bloom quite evidently know far more than I. But that is no reason to treat someone as a ‘flat-earther’. I am not a skeptic as such, but can see both sides of this issue. I’m afraid some can only see one.
Looking from the outside I find it curious that ardent skeptics and enthusiastic-believers of global warming cannot see just how entrenched both are. If a climate scientist who doesn’t believe that carbon dioxide is resulting in the warming came on here, would you treat them as a flat-earther? Such a person would know far, far more that you and Mr Bloom about climate science. Just because he has arrived at a different perspective on climate change doesn’t make him a Creationist-equivalent. You have got to drop such terms as ‘denialist’ due to its connotations and realise that you cannot brow-beat people into your belief or treat them as fools. They just might see far more than you. And by that I don’t mean knowledge, but reasoning.
Thought you might like this http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/2008/apr/sh-seaice-200804-pg.gif It’s from NCDC-NOAA
“If a climate scientist who doesn’t believe that carbon dioxide is resulting in the warming came on here, would you treat them as a flat-earther?”
I’d hear enough to be pretty sure before deciding whether they have a point. But if someone could demonstrate such an alternate explanation it would have to cover such a mass of different factors that the likelihood of that happening is tiny. It’d be like getting to the end of a 500 piece jigsaw with 10 pieces left and realising you got the first 490 in the wrong places!
I have treated PhD’s and Professors with disdain and total disrespect, where they have earned it (e.g. I have caught such people repeatedly claiming papers show things that they do not – they didn’t expect someone to go check!).
The term denialist is not intended to risk invoking Godwin’s Law. It merely refers to being in denial of some aspect of reality. Holocaust deniers and AGW deniers share a common trait of denial, but it is denial of totally different aspects of reality. Otherwise I do not see linkage between the two.
I can’t answer for Gareth or Steve, but I’m not trying to persuade you of anything. Go ahead believe what you want. That people deny reality is not going to stop the ongoing process anymore than royal decree could stop the incoming tide.
PS – your latest post – do you really think I’m unaware? – the Arctic is a sea surrounded by land, the Antarctic land surrounded by sea. I’m not going to ask why you think it would be of interest because I don’t care. Cobbly Out.
Now, back to the issue at hand: The Arctic as a gateway to irreversible climate change….
Er
Where were we?
CW. Is that what you think, that a melting Arctic really is a gateway to irreversible climate change? We know that waÂter abÂsorbs more sunÂlight than does ice, so a larger area of ice-free waÂter would mean a positive feedback (warmÂing). We also know that ocean cirÂcuÂlaÂtions may well be driving warmÂer curÂrents inÂto the ArcÂtic. But isn’t it the case that the loss of Arctic sea ice may be down to changing atmospheric pressure and windflow patterns as well? And that these could well be natural? Although we no longer get reflected sunlight (as the ice is gone) does that have implications for the globe? It’s evidently not a runaway, as this has happened before, yet ice has reformed.
On a different note, what do you think of the Petition Project? Not just a few scientists to treat with disdain, surely?
CW. Getting back to your point on an ‘alternate explanation’ perhaps I can now see where you and I differ, and why I was right about being you being entrenched. What you are looking for then is an explanantion that is all-encompassing. You cannot evidently accept that ‘a portion’ might be right, and some wrong. Let me explain. This is a political stance adopted often. ‘The other side I don’t agree with, so all of their policies are wrong’. Do you see? You shouldn’t be looking for someone to blow away all your pet theories with solid arguments, because that’s never going to happen. Climate science is too complex for that. The cleverest climatologist in the world has huge holes in his understanding of how our climate system works. That’s half the problem! It would appear that carbon dioxide has been responsible for warming. However, it doesn’t follow that it will result in the predicted warming because our models aren’t good enough. When you look at Hansen’s Scenarios, what do you see? Scenario A has turned out to be way off. Scenario B was pretty good, and Scenario C was almost spot on, but both B & C assumed a reduction in greenhouse gases, didn’t they? To get back to my point, you shouldn’t be looking for someone to overturn all what you have learned for you to stop believing in carbon-based climate change, as that simply isn’t going to happen. What you should be looking for is an expert to say, ‘Yes, but carbon dioxide hasn’t turned out to be quite the forcer we thought’. I doubt very, very much that the Sun is going to be revealed as the cause of warming. However, I also doubt that (with the same level) carbon dioxide will turn out to be the cause. My appeal to you would be to be more skeptical, that’s surely the number one rule in science (maybe #2). My other piece of advice would be to consider that you might be wrong. It’s a sobering experience finding out that what you hold as true is wrong. I know; at my age I’ve witnessed it a few times. To use your jigsaw analogy, you may get to the end of the puzzle and find that the makers had wrongly put pieces in from another jigsaw. That doesn’t make your puzzle wrong, it makes it incomplete. And that’s what’s wrong with the debate on climate change. We don’t know enough, and we’re making out we do.
Sidney, you wrote: “Steve, what do you make of the Antarctic? I see that all the predictions are for a huge ice extent this year, even exceeding last year’s record. This isn’t snow-addition of course, but actual ice-build. Why the abrupt growth that is in direct opposition to Arctic melt?”
Later you admitted it was just your own prediction. IOW you feel free to make things up.
Then you say: “However, I also doubt that (with the same level) carbon dioxide will turn out to be the cause.”
So not only do you make things up, you are indeed a denialist.
That’s enough for me.
Steve. Yes, it was my own prediction, I never said it was anyone else’s. Although having said that, I have read many blogs that are predicting a record year.
So I’m a ‘denialist’ then? Yes, in the same way that Christians are atheists, since they don’t believe in other gods. If you’d have read with more care, you might realise that my underlying belief is that carbon dioxide won’t turn out to be the ‘sole’ cause. I had already said that it hasn’t turned out to be the great forcer we all thought it would be. So that makes me a denialist? Of what? What a curious reactive statement you make. I note you haven’t been able to admit your error on the Antarctic. That’s the difference between us Mr Bloom, I admit my errors. I’m still learning, whereas it is actually you who are in denial. Think on it. Those who cannot see another side have no place in science, and are future lambs. In other words, when you get older you may well be sheepish.
Sid, you falsely accuse me of an error on the Antarctic just after I caught you in a direct lie on the same subject? That’s a bit pathological, isn’t it? Note that you referred to prediction*s*, so ix-nay on the odge-day.
I’ve noticed that it’s quite common among denialists to feel that it’s acceptable to have that sort of loose relationship with the facts, and that it somehow shows their views to be more balanced. That’s tolerated in politics, but not in science.
Sidney, Hansen’s scenario B and C both had increases in greenhouse gases. Link.
If we can find ways to educate the opinion-makers and ‘talking heads’ in the mass media who are ‘educating’ us now. That could be a step forward in terms of successfully establishing behavior changes grounded in competence and improved reality-orientation.
The family of humanity is only now starting to learn unexpectedly and painfully about certain human-induced global threats that could soon be presented to the human community by the seemingly endless growth of per human consumption and unbridled production activities increasing exponentially and overspreading the surface of Earth in our time.
Let us the consider the way many too many economists, politicians and their super-rich benefactors who primarily govern the workings of the news media, report to us that Earth can indefinitely sustain people conspicuously consuming its limited resources the way millions of fortunate people worldwide are doing; but I fear these intelligent ‘dreamers’ have lost their reality-orientation with regard to human biological limits and the limitations of the bounded physical world we inhabit. The Earth is relatively small, evidently finite and noticeably frangible; it is neither an eternal provider like a mother’s teat nor is it an endlessly overflowing cornucopia. Unlimited expansion of the global economy without regard to limits to its growth that are inevitably imposed by a finite world is an end-all strategy, I suppose.
A planet with the limitations and the make-up of Earth cannot realistically be expected to much longer maintain profligate over-consumption and adamantine hoarding of limited resources as well as seemingly endless expansion of production capabilities by millions of people, mostly in the overdeveloped world, that we see occurring as a result of actions by a tiny minority of selfish people who possess the wealth and power needed to behave in this ostentatious way.
Obscene displays of consumption by self-seeking people with great wealth could be directly undermining the biophysical integrity of Earth as well as precipitating deleterious effects upon its environs. Please consider how scarce resources are being recklessly dissipated and global ecosystems relentlessly degraded at a much faster rate than the Earth can restore its resources and ecological services for human benefit. Unintended, pernicious challenges resulting from the unrestrained increase of per capita over-consumption of Earth’s finite resources and the unbridled growth of economic globalization appear to be threatening to ravage our planetary home.
Perhaps the current scale as well the anticipated growth of per human over-consumption and the global economy could become unsustainable well before the year 2050.
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001
Sidney, if you question the Fundamentalist AGW movement you will get called a ‘flat earther’ ‘denialist’ etc.
You are lucky. God (aka Jim Hansen) wants as follows:
‘James Hansen, one of the world’s leading climate scientists, will today call for the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to be put on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature, accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming in the same way that tobacco companies blurred the links between smoking and cancer.’
Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jun/23/fossilfuels.climatechange
From a well known left leaning paper, The Guardian (from the UK).
Hansen’s own baby GisTemp has shown no Global (as a whole) warming for 7 years now. Keep questioning, and remember, sticks and stones will break my bones, names will never hurt me.
Regards
Peter Bickle
Fragment, thanks, I haven’t had time to read that yet and have somehow managed to miss it on realclimate in the past.
Steven’s contribution reminds me of what many see as the ‘real’ problem that will face us, over-population.
Steve, no it wasn’t a ‘lie’. I have seen many predictions that this year’s Antarctic ice extent will be a record. They may not have appeared on what you’d say is a “credible” web site, but then given your comments here you wouldn’t believe anything unless it satisfied your ingrained belief. I know for a fact that it’s on ICECAP’s site as I only read it last week. The FACT remains that this year’s Antarctic ice extent will be yet another new record, and will be directly proportional to the discomfort of you and your fellow believers. We have insufficient warming of the troposphere, cooling of the oceans (ARGO), a sea level fall, and record ice extent in the Southern Hemisphere. All you have to cling to is the Arctic, with many scientists saying that even that isn’t due to climate change. And that’s even if it melts again, which it may not. You and CW have to confront the realisation that carbon dioxide doesn’t appear to be giving the warming expected. Until you accept that you’ll be sat on the seashore demanding the tide recedes.
Thank you Peter. Of course, GISS is a bit of a joke now. It’s data is ‘out there’. With other data all showing far less warming, one is left with the feeling that their baseline and inclusion of proxy data makes it worthless. My only worry is that with Obama in power, Al Gore will be given a role to quietly sideline data from RSS and UAH, and even make the HadCRU come into GISS’s line. Only continued huge drops in temperature within the troposphere may start to convince some that something is up with our understanding of climate science.
Sorry to interrupt this little sceptic-fest, but if GISS is “a bit of a joke”, I’ll just give up and close down the site.
What a relief to know that wishful thinking is so powerful, and can solve all the world’s problems.
Gareth. Then I suggest you do indeed close down the site. If you really think that GISS is indicative of global temperatures then you haven’t been paying attention. Have a looky see for yourself, and then decide. Remember their baseline and their use of proxy data, then go ahead and close down this site. Do you think (in any case) that land and sea temperatures are a good place to look for changes in climate? The oceans are, and so is the troposphere. And what do they say again? Oh yes, I remember.
Sid, you really are living in cloud cuckoo land, aren’t you? Or perhaps you didn’t sign up for the irony detector when they were being handed out…
You need to stay up with the game. The old “oceans aren’t warming” line is so last week. As for the tropical troposphere, I suggest you ask Roy Spencer why he doesn’t show the error bars on the data. Because, y’know, they overlap with the error bars on the model predictions.
Meanwhile, your bluster about the Antarctic is just that – bluster. There have been no predictions of record extents from any of the scientists studying the ice, unlike the situation up north.
Time for you to do some reading beyond the little nexus of crank sites. But I won’t be holding my breath.
Gareth, what about the lack of warming from Hansen’s GisTemp for the past 7 years, or should I be arrested for being a denier. These are turning into the crank sites. People are steting to look thru you fundamentalist warmers. Always play the player, not the ball if we dis agree againt the religion.
The problem, Peter, is that climate is not measured by the month or year, but by the decade (30 years is the climatological standard). The most recent ten year period is significantly (about 0.1C) warmer than the decade that preceded it.
You might have a point if the next ten year period was no warmer than the current ten year period. But I would be willing to bet that it won’t happen. Care to put your money where your bluster is?
Gareth. Some questions: a) Can you write without abusing someone? b) If the oceans haven’t cooled then why has global sea level dipped for the past 2-3 years? c) Are you stating on here for all the public to see that the Antarctic will not see a record level of ice extent this year?
Can we see what a big brave man you are by answering that last question especially?
My troposphere temperatures come from the UK’s Hadley center. Would you like to see them? http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadat/hadat2/hadat2_monthly_tropical.txt The fact is that models don’t tally with what’s actually happening. Now you can deny that if you want, but then that would make you a denier, wouldn’t it Gareth?
And now we discover that Jim Hansen has been ‘correcting’ UIHE temperatures in the wrong direction! http://www.climateaudit.org/ Could it get worse for you believers? Yes, and it will.
Gareth. Your comment to Peter on the “last 10 years”. This http://icecap.us/images/uploads/ALL_SINCE_2002.jpg is for the last five years. What do you think will be the trend when the next five years data is revealed?
a) Can you write without abusing someone?
Mr Pot, meet Mr Kettle.
b) If the oceans haven’t cooled then why has global sea level dipped for the past 2-3 years?
Really? You look mistaken to me. It goes up and down a bit, but the long term trend is rather obvious.
c) Are you stating on here for all the public to see that the Antarctic will not see a record level of ice extent this year?
Looks 50/50 to me. The Antarctic sea ice behaves very differently to the Arctic, for lots of obvious reasons, but it’s interesting to consider why it might be growing when the data suggests that the continent is losing ice mass. Could that lead to a freshening of the water around the edges, making sea ice easier to form? The work done over the last austral summer as part of IPY will be interesting to see.
Gareth. Would you kindly point out exactly where I have abused someone? The trend for global sea levels was up, now it has fallen, and that can only be because of cooling oceans. Do you know of any other cause for it? The Antarctic is breaking all records simply because of the temperature! Look at the station records.
Drop in sea level rise
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/SeaLevel_TOPEX.jpg
Sid, your whole attitude (“Can we see what a big brave man you are”) speaks volumes.
You clearly don’t know what a trend is. If you visit the link I provide, you’ll see that the trend over the full range of data is resolutely upwards. As for the Antarctic “breaking all records” that would include mass loss, would it?
Gareth. Mine was a ‘response’ to your unwarranted slur that I am living in “cloud cuckoo land”. Try and debate an issue without casting stones. And I didn’t argue that there was a trend, what I said was that there has been a dip in ocean temperatures, and that it could only come from a cooling. Do you not understand that? If not, why are you commenting on climate change issues? Mass loss is a contentious issue. I assume you’re going to mention Grace. Only Grace’s data is not only insufficient, but also two years old: Anny Cazenave, from the Observatoire Midi-Pyrenees, France, said “Great uncertainty remains, mainly because of incomplete coverage by remote-sensing surveys, spatial and temporal undersampling, measurement errors, and perturbation from unrelated signals.” Then of course you should remember that the data showed an annual loss equivalent to 75,000 sq kl of 2-metre thick ice. I put it in that format to remind you that the rate of build is such that 1,000,000 sq kl MORE THAN LAST YEAR’S RECORD will most likely form this year. Do you see now?
Gareth,
I would like to thank you for your
website’s excellent summary of what is
occurring now in the Arctic, especially
the specific focus on the methane
being released and that which is about
to be released per Dr. Shakova and
Dr. Semilitov and many others.
Methane release is critical to the
future, so much so that any discussion
of it will draw deliberate disruption. Your
group went even further (i.e contacting
Dr. Shakova and Dr. Archer), with the
result that the fundamental inquiry was
being moved forward through your
questions. The most important questions
are: how much, how soon, triggering what
consequences when?
As for Dr. James Hansen, it is a genuine
pleasure for me to acknowledge him as the
finest climate scientist of the last twenty years.
Again, thank you for your website Gareth.
That will be this James Hansen, will it?
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=b6a8baa3-802a-23ad-4650-cb6a01303a65
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/06/james_hansen_abusing_the_publi.html
No. More like this one (two, three).
Sidney:
According to this abstract ) from 2006 in which Casanave was a researcher: “Over Greenland, the GRACE data indicate significant ice mass loss over the period of analysis, of about – 60 cub km/yr after accounting for glacial isostatic adjustment.” (my italics)
So what are you saying? In the last 2 years Greenland has started gaining mass? Think again abstract “A record negative Greenland ice sheet surface mass balance rate in 2007.” Modelling support for the idea that the Arctic warming of 2007 impacted the ice. Don’t expect a different message from empirical studies ongoing, warmth melts ice.
So on the ice-sheet that’s got the potential to melt rapidly there’s already mass loss.
Meanwhile in Antarctica; that abstract notes: “Over Antarctica, the trend map
shows two distinct behaviours, with significant mass loss in the region of Amundsen glaciers,West Antarctica, and mass increase over most of the East Antarctica ice sheet.”
That’s interesting when one reads the whole of Cazanave’s quote: BBC
So we know from work that Cazanave was personally involved in that Greenlands net loss is “significant”, not much doubt there, Greenland is losing and doubt will be about by how much. The pattern in Antarctica is more complex and on the whole it’s gaining (from that abstract).
It remains your bias that reads into the quote the notion that there is real doubt about that general picture. Obviously the doubt about absolute levels of net gain/loss from Antarctic/Greenland will compound, making the overall impact on sea level rise even more doubtful. That is what leads to the “great uncertainty” with respect to sea level rise contribution.
Sidney:
What you mean there’s a cooling concentrated in the southern hemisphere (Ocean related)? CRU / GISS.
And at the same time the Antarctic sea ice is growing larger!
Like WOW man simply AMAZING.
It’s like…
It gets like colder.
And the ice grows!
Ooooh spooky!
By the way…
Significant.
versus
Not significant.
Sidney:
What? See that you really need to start being truly sceptical instead of indulging in pseudo-science?
Yes that point has been made over and over, starting with your hook-line and sinker swallowing of Watts’ and his inability to compose graphs correctly.
Have a look at the Canadian satellite sea ice report: as I write the current map is for 22 June. Looks like the NW Passage could be open reasonably soon – just a chunk of ice in the passage west of Baffin Bay and to the north of Alaska, otherwise it’s broken ice or open water.
Gareth,
I agree, the NW passage will be open once more this year, and it could be soon.
The HRPT visible images are getting largely useless because of cloud. IR are useless at this time of year because all they see is emission from water vapour.
However there are some breaks in the HRPT visible and there are tantalising glimpses of a lot of broken ice / surface melting in the Chucki/Beaufort region. That said, the current thinning in that region seems to be less than last year – AMSR-E (That’s essentially the same as Gareth’s link, but you can go back to previous dates.) And last year’s melt really took off in July due to weather that’s likely to unique to last year. From Gareth’s above link, the Sea Ice Extent Anomoly Map shows a negative anomaly near the pole.
Once again I’m not at all sure which way it’ll go. Fingers crossed it’s above last year, the slower this process the happier I’ll be.
I’m awaiting the latest National Ice Centre analyses, they’re done every 4 days or so now, with the last up to 20/6/08. (Google – National Ice Centre Arctic )
CW. You first few paragraphs are wasted as I was talking about Antarctica, not Greenland. And as you point out, ice mass is growing as it’s getting colder. This was a point I’ve been trying to get Gareth to understand. And another display of your petulance and sarcasm. Did you know they talk about you on forums when you’re not even there – and not in a good way? Mr Watts didn’t compose a graph wrongly, he mistook “up to 300mb” as up from the surface.
“Did you know they talk about you on forums when you’re not even there – and not in a good way?”
What you mean like back on the Science forums Harry? Well with scant science to discuss social chat is all that’s left. So I’ve riled some denialists? Good!
Mr Watts composed a graph at 300mb height, and presented it as a tropospheric observation – if not wrong what is that? Correctitudinally Challenged? It took me less than 1 minute to figure where he’d gone wrong.
PS AFAIK because Antarctica is complex there is disagreement about whether there’s net loss or gain. That’s why I specifically referred to that abstract saying net gain (note my wording I was careful to specify reference to the abstract). In any case because it’s not all going to go at once (due to that complexity) the local picture in places like WAIS is crucial.
PPS Greenland is relevant to Casanaves quoted statement.
“Russian army trains for Arctic resource war.” Canada’s Financial Post, more here.
Is it clear that things are generally cooling where the Antarctic sea ice forms (for the most part rather distant from the mainland)? Regardless it would be important to know what’s going on with both air and water temps. IIRC there’s a paper demonstrating that more snow (from warmer air) has the effect of increasing the sea ice a bit.
I find this UIUC plot to be the most useful one for keeping the Antarctic sea ice changes in perspective.
Re the Arctic sea ice, if it’s the case that the warming currents are the main thing going on then the weather becomes less important. Combine that with all the thin ice and we can see why the NSIDC scientists are openly predicting a new record. They’re actually pretty conservative folks in terms of their public statements.
CW. Wrong, my friend. Harry’s older (and smarter) brother! And I’ve never been on the ‘Science’ forums. I was on the BBC’s Weather (The Environment) forum, and they used to talk about you on there when you were stumped by a contributor and couldn’t answer his very simple question.
Antarctica is net gain, it’s a simple bit of mathematics.
Antarctica is net gain, it’s a simple bit of mathematics.
You have to learn to distinguish between sea ice, and continental ice sheets. The sea ice around Antarctica might – or might not – set a record extent later this year. The continental ice mass balance is, however, likely to be negative.
Sidney,
So you go from quotes supporting uncertainty on the issue to “it’s a bit of simple mathematics.”
Steve,
From GISS (plot) Last year there was significant cooling reaching into the ice covered area.
I’ve not read anything suggesting the cause of the increased sea-ice area in the Antarctic. However it really shouldn’t be a surprise on the most basic level as there is a notable cooling of the southern hemisphere which is centred on the oceans. If I was seriously interested in a mechanism I’d be looking at a whole lot more. And given papers like Toggweiler’s study of winds at the LGM, southern hemisphere cooling due to ocean current changes (due to wind changes) would not be an unreasonable outcome.
PS have you read Perovitch “Sunlight, water, and ice: Extreme Arctic sea ice melt during the summer of 2007″ abstract.
Gareth,
I’m probably not as up-to-date as you are (the Antarctic is not my back-yard), I may well be working off a superseded reference in the abstract above.
Note that Domingues only goes up to 2003, the hemispheric air temperature differences seem to me to suggest a real cooling blip at present.
At the end of July last year there was a lull in ice extent build in the Antarctic. If we don’t get any pauses this year, and ice builds as fast as it has been so far, then the totality in September is going to be truly significant. Wait and see. To CW and Gareth, as I point out, ice build in ‘sea-sheets’ is actually more than ice lost on the western side, so there is overall net gain at the moment. I really cannot make it any plainer for you both.
To CW and Gareth, as I point out, ice build in ’sea-sheets’ is actually more than ice lost on the western side, so there is overall net gain at the moment.
Gobbledegook.
Okay. The ice lost from Antarctic’s mass was almost all on the Western side of the continent (according to GRACE back in 2006). However, the ice extent built since in sea ice around the continent more than outweighs that loss. As I already pointed out above, “…the data showed an annual loss equivalent to 75,000 sq kl of 2-metre thick ice…the rate of build is such that 1,000,000 sq kl MORE THAN LAST YEAR’S RECORD will most likely form this year. Do you see now? How is that Gobbledegook? You’ve already shown that you cannot understand how sequestered carbon dioxide is released immediately when a tree is burned, against slow release when left to rot, so I perhaps don’t hold out too much hope that you’ll understand the above. Could I recommend a crash course in basic science Gareth?
CW. I genuinely look forward to your opinion on this at Mr Watt’s site http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/06/25/surprise-explosive-volcanic-eruption-under-the-arctic-ice-found/#comments
Sid, why do you want CW to waste his time on another one of Watts’ wackaloon flights of fancy? For that matter, why do you want to waste your time? Remember how you took the bait on the water vapor? Here we go again.
From now on, only serious responses will be replied to.
Steve. Actually I read it first on PhysOrg.com, so it’s not “one of Watts’ wackaloon flights of fancy” at all. Try growing up Steve, there’s a good chap. I wanted CW to reply at Mr Watt’s site rather than reading it at PhysOrg because there are some interesting replies.
The paper and its findings are quite real and interesting. The implications for global warming are zilch, which is where the wackaloon flight of fancy comes in. Of course AW, having been told why this sort of thing is irrelevant to AGW (see his prior posts on Antarctic vulcanism), is now more subtle about it. He can be confident that people like you know just what to do with the information.
Wrong Mr Bloom – again. Mr Watts makes no direct implication from it, and neither did I, merely offered it up to get a reaction and, as I said, a genuine opinion. Pity you couldn’t offer a sensible opinion on it, rather than a rather childish reactionary one.
What Sid “missed”:
“The big question is then; where did the heat from the volcano go, and what effect did it have on the sea ice environment?”
Oh, but I see, this is an *indirect* implication. Clever Sid! Does that pass for erudition at your institution?
Sidney,
I came across it elsewhere last night, it is interesting, I genuinely mean it!
But it’s not relevant to the Arctic “environment” as in the ice, and the regional warming.
The area is well away from the seat of action in the Arctic (Chucki/Beaufort Sea), and as there’s an ocean net heat flux of 3.8T Watt through the Fram Strait (between Iceland and Greenland) with 2.3T Watt through the Bering Strait, both into the Arctic#. It’s not going to matter much in terms of the Arctic ice melt.
I do agree with Steve. Just rewind to Watts’ Tropical water vapour posts. Had I done them I would have noted that models give good agreement with measurement of total column water vapour (e.g. Soden’s work on Pinatubo as a test of both modelled WV feedback and the assumption of relative humidity). The measurement of total column water vapour is more accurate than that of levels in the atmosphere. Others might see other reasons for caveats, such reasons are out there for the blogger seeking to inform.
Watts’ stance and the general content of his blog that doesn’t lead me to think he is posting that out of interest, especially in view of where the volcano is. How many of the other recent undersea volcanoes elsewhere in the world has he covered?
# Re Arctic regional heat fluxes and more: See slide 8 of this (pdf 3.91Mb) 2008 presentation by Maslowki re Arctic Basin heat fluxes.
With regards Antarctica.
Antarctica’s Sea ice; you melt 2 metres of it and you have dark ocean, also the underlying water is excellent for storing and distributing heat. Antarctica’s continental ice cap; you melt 2 metres and there’s more ice, the relative immobility of the underlying ice makes it much less effective at storing and re-distributing heat.
That’s just one reason why the change in sea ice is not relevant to Antarctic ice sheet mass balance.
PS re Watts’ blog, here are the results of his poll on Hansen:
Looks like he’s drawing the wrong crowd.
Mr Bloom. Now you’re getting it, you’ve learned the difference between direct implication and indirect implication. The next thing you have to learn is atmospheric science. While the troposphere does warm as a function of increasing GHGs, the maximum change is not at the surface, but actually in the mid-troposphere. And there’s your problem.
CW. Thank you. Yes, Mr Watt’s site was crashed. It’s going to be interesting to see if Mr Maslowki’s ice-albedo feedback is correct.
Ice Albedo feedback is correct, ice reflects more light than sea. BTW Serreze et al explicitly say the ice around the pole may fare better than one might imagine. That’s because of the low angle of incidence of sunlight.
Here is a plot of data from the current N Pole Webcam, note incoming shortwave, about 200Watts/m^2.
Tropospheric temperature is surely off topic on this thread, unless you want to discuss the Arctic in that respect. However I do hope you’re giving due weight to the error ranges of the data you use to make that claim.
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