Are the ice caps melting?

whats next

Global Warming/Climate Change is this decade's global catastrophe

before that i think it was AIDS

and what happened to being scared about Nuclear Weapons.

I wonder what the next thing is i need to be scared about so that i can go and purchase products to make me feel all secure again.

A useful reference book...

"I wonder what the next thing is i need to be scared about ..."

chris adkins

Chris, may I recommend the book "Extrordinary Popular Delusions and The Madness of Crowds", by Charles Mackay (pub 1841)? It provides a comprehensive description of the idiocies and baseless fears of Western European humanity from about 1550 to 1840. I am sure you will find something in there to be frightened about - plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose....

Incidentally, I have often thought that the book could do with updating to cover the last hundred years - perhaps an El Reg contributor would oblige.....

Sheesh,

When will the boffins realise that they're all completely wrong and Global Warming is caused by the decline in Pirates since the beginning of the 18th century!

Arrr it be correlation off the port bow mehearties!

The oil is running out

The oil is running out, that should be pretty obvious to most people by now. I no longer believe the "global catastropy if we don't change" theory, not because I believe the science is wrong in principle, but because I no longer believe that there is enough of the stuff left that's causing the problem (primarily oil) for us to reach the worst case scenario.

Concerted international action might bring the current oil price spike down, but that will at best give us a temporary breathing space.

Whatever you believe, the oil is running out so we need to be more efficient with what we have left and where possible switch to something better.

Fresh water effects on the Gulf Stream

Melting polar ice will have an effect, it will dilute the salinity of the sea water and cause the Gulf Stream to slow/change/stop and we will all freeze/boil/die!

I'm no expert, can you tell? But I can explore possibilities not covered in this article, which IMO would not stand up to scrutiny.

Hansen's first article

It is claimed that in the 80s Hansen stated that the North and South poles should warm the same. However, if you bother to read that article you quickly see that this is the equilibrium response, i.e. what will happen if you double CO2 and wait a century or two to let temperatures stabilize. If you look at the transient response the far larger amount of oceans in the southern hemisphere will be able to absorb more heat, delaying the warming.

Myths

So is it just an urban legend that the north pole is frozen in ice, in the same way that we used to think that the moon was made of cheese and that the earth was flat until we went to look?

@whats next

I have read through all the comments and I was waiting to see if anyone had noticed that, (nope all too busy debating trends in graphs and coming up with a myriad of intellectual insults for each other).

It is a sad fact that scientists don't earn enough money in their chosen career that they have to resort to scare-mongering tactics such as global warming, AIDs etc to raise grant money as job protection but let’s not forget it is a fact.

The other aspect to all of this is that these disaster scenario's play into the hands of the mostly bored, commonly drunk jurno's and politicians. It's a safe topic to write/talk about as it automatically spurns this type of lengthy debate.

I can in all honesty say that I neither like nor dislike Al Gore and his message on Global Warming I respect hi ability to make him very large sums of cash, marketing on the latest disaster scenario.

In summary are we all going to burn up in a Venus like cataclysm as a result of Global Warming, no? What do I base that on, what graphs or facts? None I call it faith* ;)

*Not the religious zealot's faith in some unknown entity but the type of faith that Physicists has about Quantum Entanglement or Biologists over the creation of life..

@whats next by chris adkins

I'll tell you what to be scared of next: Imagine someone with influenza is exposed to and contracts H5N1 avian flu. The theorized exchange of genetic information between the two virii could enable H5N1 to become an upper respiratory infection, dramatically increasing communicablilty. (H5N1 being a lower respiratory infection limits the rate of infection from human to human) So now, the mutated/enhanced H5N1 is easily spread from human to human and retains a very high mortality rate. Imagine the 1918 flu pandemic with a possibly higher percentage of the global population infected and much higher mortality rates.

Dead bird, obviously.

If you actualy look at the graph...

You'll see this statement is incorrect:

"Summed up over the entire earth, polar ice has remained constant. As seen below, there has been no net gain or loss of polar sea ice since records began."

If you actually look at the graph, you'll see that the global sea ice area is clearly trending downward over the period depicted. The blue line is the reading for a certain day, the brown line is the mean over all the years depicted for that calender date. The blue line is above the brown line in the early years, and clearly below the brown line now. i.e. the global sea ice is trending downward - I'd say by about 5% over the last 30 years, by eyeballing it.

Is it due to man made global warming? I don't know. But if you are going to use graphs, at least understand what they represent before you publish them.

Excellent discussion about the Arctic climate

http://www.john-daly.com/polar/arctic.htm

Follow the money

WRT the notion that climate scientists are motivated by greed to "push" AGW: it should be obvious they can make more money by "debunking" than by "pushing."

It's probably true that, if people are scared about global warming, more research funding money goes into the pool for which climatologists compete. Some scientists may see their own funding prospects improving modestly if they support the AGW consensus. I'd be might surprised, however, if anyone's getting rich by publishing pro-AGW findings.

OTOH, people (like our iconic friend here) who make money in the fossil-fuel market stand to lose billions if serious AGW abatement policies are adopted. They'll always be ready to outbid the AGW "pushers" for favorable scientific conclusions. If I were a climate scientist who was motivated primarily by greed, I'd be working for the "debunkers," not the "pushers."

Something to keep in mind when evaluating research findings.

Rising Sea Levels

Now like every other person here, I have a half contrived view on this. It's not melting ice caps or any other global warming nonsense causing rising sea levels.... its the navy

Think about it, there are more boats now then there were many years ago. As a boat sinks, it displaces water, and we then build a new boat which also displaces some water... the sea will continue to rise the more boats we put into it...

Don't believe me? Put a boat in a glass of water! it will destroy the glass... in this case the glass is representing the world... ergo, boats destroy the world.

Rock on the armchair scientist

@ (another?) AC..

"WRT the notion that climate scientists are motivated by greed to "push" AGW: it should be obvious they can make more money by "debunking" than by "pushing."

Tell that to Steve McIntyre. No doubt there will come a time for debunking, when all the little ACs will run to explain how suspicious they were of this scare, but how they had to keep quiet for one reason or another, but it's not yet. If you debunk now, you get the reward of the late, great John Daly....

Oh, and...

"...I'd like to see an explanation that explains why the greenhouse effect that observably worked from 0 to 260ppm of CO2 suddently stopped working as we rise to 450ppm or beyond..."

El Rupster

There is a saturation point, beyond which greater concentrations of CO2 cease to have any effect. You can play with some graphs here: http://www.applet-magic.com/radiativeff.htm

@Dodgy Geezer

re "Follow the money"

Absolutely. And, of course, Greenpeace is notoriorously far richer than Exxon.

/sarcasm.

You progress in science by publishing somethjing new.

How many papers do you think were published this year on "Yeah, Einstein was right" rather than "Here's how to extend Einstein and fix what he missed". Well, few of the latter, cos no-ones done it yet: but that is what everyone is *trying* to do, as that is where the money is.

Re saturation.

I read it.

For a start: "That leaves about 0.5°C as the anthropogenic effect. [from C02]"

-- so he is hardly arguing against AGW, is he?

He is hoping that it won't be too bad: After all, "As Vladimir Putin has said, "an increase of two or three degrees wouldn't be so bad for a northern country like Russia."

So that's all right then.

Polar ice? Lowered albedo & positive feedback? Disruption of Gulf stream? All in areas he sees warming as likely, but all with potentially worrying broader consequences.

Even if you believe his argument, it is hardly reassuriung.

But I don't.

1) How convenient we are at that saturation point. "Out of all the concentrations in the world, you happen to walk into mine"

Uhh... sorrry... got carried away there. But you get the point. Why *this* concentration? Why not 500pm? Or 800pm? Or 5000ppm

2) He alleges that we are between C & D. But there are no numbers, no maths - and no linkls.

By his own graphs, at low concentrations (between A & B) the effect is steep. We are far from saturation:(watrer vapour of 0.03 and CO2 of 0.0004) so I think (on the same evidence as he has) we are between A & B where it is steep.

Prove me wrong: give me a fact or two.

3) There is no saturation: there is a decrease in gradient. If this were only effect then all his point would prove is that the global warming would slow down - but will still be happening. But it isn't the only effect: so now we are hoping that (unkown/risky) negative feedback may be is stronger than (unknown/risky) positive. Uhh.. great.

4) But the atmosphere varies. At high altitudes it is dry, so it is nothing like saturated.

5) In a word "Venus". If there were saturation at low concentrations of CO2, the temperature there would not be what it is.

QED

zzzZZZzzz....

The only part interesting me in the whole global warming story is when my cost of living goes up because of some un-proven hypothesis. Then I start to care about global warming...

Sure, I care about the environment and preserving our water sources and farm lands, because I need to eat, and drink, as do my family, friends, and community, which I also care about. How am I going to sell a product when all of my consumers are dead from poisoned water supplies, or tainted soil?

Paris because she's never cold in her southern most regions...

@Dodgy Geezer (PS)

Here's a more detailed discussion

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/06/a-saturated-gassy-argument/

Apparently, the saturation point is about 10,000 times what we now have.

So it won't help any time soon (we'd suffocate long before then)

And as for my Venus point:

> The temperature of Venus (~ 100% CO2 atmosphere, at 10 bar)

> …..surface = 467C, (boiling sufur)

> …..but the expected value without a greenhouse effect = -42 C

> That ’strongly suggests’ the Earth’s CO2 level isn’t at a saturation value.

The comments do meander a lot, but the article and the links do a pretty good job of showing why Mr Watkins has over-simplified, and what he has missed in not calculating the actual numbers.

Saturation

"There is a saturation point, beyond which greater concentrations of CO2 cease to have any effect. You can play with some graphs here: http://www.applet-magic.com/radiativeff.htm"

Note three things:

1) Sea level concentrations. Increasing concentration increases scale depth and increases the depth of the insulating layer, reducing power losses to space.

2) Unsaturated bands. The edges of the bands will get thicker and the complete absorbtion band will widen. As you go UP the frequency scale, the energy you're keeping in goes up

3) Increasing by twofold has never been said to increase absorption twofold. That we get less than that doesn't mean it's increasing.

Increased variability

Climate change (global warming being a wrong term) only means "increased variability" i.e. an increase in extreme events. This is caused by the weakening, by human activity, of the earth's dampening effect due to pollution, deforestation, urbanisation, green-house gaz, etc.

The whole carbon story is over-estimated and now driven by a feed-back loop between policy makers, media and sicentists.

To my opinion, pollution (an its long term effect) is a far more important problem to tackle.

@ El Rupster et al

"re "Follow the money"

Absolutely. And, of course, Greenpeace is notoriorously far richer than Exxon.

/sarcasm."

Roy Spence reports:

"ExxonSecrets.org notes that I have given talks on global warming at conservative think tanks like the Marshall Institute, implying that I have some sort of financial relationship with them. In truth, I received no speaking fee for these talks -- but I HAVE been paid for giving talks for environmental organizations in several states. I wonder why ExxonSecrets.org doesn't mention this connection to "Big Environmentalism"? After all, they are the ones who have paid me speaking fees -- not the Marshall Institute."

It looks like the environmental organisations ARE richer than conservative think tanks? /sarcasm?

"Apparently, the saturation point is about 10,000 times what we now have."

The actual saturation point is an asymptote. The effect will become insignificant long before it is reached.

"Prove me wrong: give me a fact or two."

Well, I suppose the most obvious fact would be the published world temperatures. These are now plunging quite sharply, as we seem to have gone over the top of this cycle and started heading downwards. Have you seen the latest June MSU figures? We will have more sea ice this year than last. We are colder than 1988, when Hansen began his scare stories. These are what the whole sorry mess is about and the global warming predictions are now beginning to fail. Given the shortcomings of the computer models, that's not so suprising. You might like to read http://www.john-daly.com/guests/un_ipcc.htm#3 for a short summary of some of these...

Blatent Misrepresentation

"As shown in Figure 2-2 from the article, Hansen calculated that both the Arctic and Antarctic would warm by 5-6 degrees Centigrade. His predictions were largely incorrect, as most of Antarctica has cooled and sea ice has rapidly expanded. The evidence does not support the theory."

Except the whole paper is an examination of what is projected to happen after CO2 levels rise by a factor of two. We're several decades away from that, so how can you possibly claim that Hansen's predictions were wrong?

In fact the delayed response of the Antarctic is predicted by the models, and averaged overall the continent,inclduing the rapdily warming Antarctic Peninsula the last 40 years show a slight warming. (Bertler et al. 2004)

"while the Antarctic broke the record for the most sea ice area ever recorded. "

Nope - the highest since satellite measurements began perhaps but just lookkee at what happened prior to that ...http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/shwwzmu.JPG

Bit of an accuracy-free zone, this one.

JP.

@ TV News special - Wayland Sothcott

Wayland,

Indeed, it is deceitful, but I wouldn't read too much into this. It's a bit of 'Drop the Dead Donkey' - cameramen will always go for the best (worst) picture. When the Ice Age scare comes back they'll be taking pictures in deep freezes.

There have been lots of comments about pathetic seal and polar bear pictures that were faked. The 'Glaciers are melting' stories are invariably illustrated with a picture of ice falling into the sea - these shots only come from glaciers which are INCREASING in length! Glaciers which are melting back do not calve, and so don't present an impressive picture.

Incidentally, I note that there is a BBC item on the Perito Moreno glacier up at the moment. It says that it breaks up annually in winter and is now doing this in summer, implying that the glacier is shrinking. The Wiki says that the glacier is extending, and breaks up irregularly on about a 4-5 year cycle, when the trapped water gets too deep. Someone is lying, but I trust the Wiki on climate matters about as much as the BeeB. However, if the BBC is wrong, it's pretty blatent. I wonder if there's any point complaining....?

Your taxes at work

(from this thread):

"When a thread like this gets really depressing, I just insult the miniscule intelligence displayed. They weren't going to change their mind by persuasion, so insult them. It has two benefits: 1) they don't get the last (wrong) word 2) you get to tell them exactly what they are, which is cathartic"

- By Mark

"Stupid twat."

- By Mark

"Truly, you have a dizzying intellect."

- By Mark

"Maybe the Greeks were partially right, you do seem to be using your brain purely as an organ for cooling the blood..."

- By Mark

"Where did you get that "Dr"? Zaire Internet College???"

- By Mark

"Joint funding by the Department of the Environment and the UK Meteorological Office has allowed the creation of the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction..."

"The Hadley Centre’s work is carried out under contract to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Government Meteorological Research Programme, with additional funding from the European Commission and others."

All public funding.

So Mark is paid to sit at a computer all day and insult people on the web. And we have to pay for it?

Re: John Philips

There weren't any accurate records of Antarctic sea ice prior to satellites. We are on track to break the record again for most sea ice this year.

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.anom.south.jpg

According to NASA, most of Antarctica is cooling while CO2 increases.

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/Images/antarctic_temps.AVH1982-2004.jpg

According to Dr. Hansen and others, most of Arctic warming is due to soot - not CO2.

Northern hemisphere sea ice area is nearly 1,000,000 km2 greater than last year.

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.365.jpg

Chicken!!!!

Bwaark buck buck buck!

So you're too chicken to come out of the closet AC? Maybe because you're PaulM who has made the same scurrilous accusation. And STILL nothing from Steven Goddard?

Chickens the lot of you.

Well, you want categorical:

I do not and have never worked for DEFRA.

I am not and have never been a climate scientist (nor, indeed any other sort of scientist) for the Met Office.

Categorical statement.

Now, can the californian Steven Goddard tell us who he is? His paranoic delusion about death threats sound very much like Darl McBrides attempt to paint the FOSS crowd as a bunch of dangerous loonies. By lying, I might add. He's a vegetarian and he cycles rather than drives the car where he can.

And any AC out there had better put their names to the posting. Who knows WHO you work for!

Several responses - find your own!

"How about this year? Will this year be colder than 1998? If it's a cycle, it should be."

Umm...Yes it will be. Every year since 1998 has been colder. 1998 was a peak. I think maybe you have your axes confused..?

"How convenient we are at that saturation point. "Out of all the concentrations in the world, you happen to walk into mine"

Well, we have to hit it sometime.....

"And how exactly are these facts germane to the question of whether CO2 in our atmosphere has reached a saturation point for IR absorbtion?"

Um...I would have thought it was crucial. If the CO2 is still going up, and the temperature is not going up, then increased CO2 CAN'T be having the effect the AGW supporters claim. Saturation is one way they could save their proposal.

"Your claims of recent cooling are trumped by the multi-decadal warming trend in the observational record. Come back when they show up in the five-year mean and we can talk. Until then they are just a run of below trend observations - probably linked to the moderately strong La Nina that has been in force for the past year or so."

Well, it's been flat from 2001-2005 and dropping thereafter, so that shouldn't be long. Mind you, that's the longest La Nina I've seen. Perhaps increased CO2 stretches it out?

"In a word "Venus". If there were saturation at low concentrations of CO2, the temperature there would not be what it is."

This is a very interesting point to make. Remember, we don't know in detail what is happening in radiative interchange in our own atmosphere, though we can guess that the convective energy interchange via water vapour swamps any effect the CO2 is having. Exactly how the energy balance works is still being studied. And you have some some knowledge of how the Venusian system works? You shouldn't be posting here, quite a few NASA groups would be interested in this data...

"Saturation as your proposed mechanism for why additional CO2 is having no effect failed at the most preliminary reality check, so please try again."

Well, it's the commonest one to propose, which was why I gave it. The only other one is that CO2 concentration really does have very little effect. As you know, the effect due to CO2 is small, and so the models propose that this small effect is leveraged by increasing water vapour take-up. If that is not true (and it is an assumption) the whole basis on which 'runaway global warming' is based falls down. I repeat - your problem is that global temperatures are dropping while CO2 is rising. Postulating that CO2 saturation is occurring might save the AGW hypothesis that CO2 really is a dangerous gas which can have an excessive effect (at low concentrations). If you don't accept this, I am not sure how you will explain the temperature plateau and fall, except by ignoring it?

"Why isn't the additional CO2 in our atmosphere absorbing the IR as predicted by physics? Or alternatively, where is the absorbed IR energy going if it isn't showing up in the temperature data?"

See above. With the world getting colder it is really up to the AGW supporters to explain where the extra heat they expect is going.

Re: Doug and Mark

If you had read the article a little more carefully before you posted today, you would have seen that it includes the text "The author is not affiliated directly or indirectly with any energy industry, nor does he have any current affiliation with any university."

I do have an advanced engineering degree and extensive professional experience in several areas of science and engineering. I am not a climate scientist. Most of my work is independent and all is unrelated to the topics I write about for The Register.

Mark, are you saying that you don't work in any capacity for the Met Office? You made it clear only that you are not a climate scientist.

We all need to take an approach to life which minimizes our impact on the planet. I take my commitment seriously, and my personal energy usage is quite small - probably 70-80% less than most Europeans and Americans. Likewise, it is equally important to that our decisions are based on accurate information. That is the only way we will ever make good decisions about environmental priorities - based on facts. "Environmental priorities" sounds like a good topic for an article.

Both of you, if you have specific objections to text in the articles, please articulate them in detail. I'd be happy to discuss and if necessary correct anything specific which is shown to be in error. Personal attacks have no place here, nor do idle speculations about things you know absolutely nothing about.

More to Doug Bostrom

Doug - I found your postings on Real Climate, and again I ask you to ask questions here before making wild accusations on other sites. There are simple answers to your questions

I posted a response to you on RC - don't know if it will ever get printed but here it is.

--------------------------------

# Steven Goddard Says: Your comment is awaiting moderation.

8 July 2008 at 22:34

Response to Doug Bostrom -

First, it is scurrilous to reprint a private E-mail on a public forum without the author’s consent or knowledge. Then to call the other person a “liar” behind their back is quite remarkable behaviour. I have attempted to deal with you in a civil fashion, and you have violated all decorum.

Besides Doug, you are wrong on all points.

The first paragraph of the article in the Independent read on June 27 at 15:25 GMT when I took a zotero snapshot - “Exclusive: No ice at the North Pole Polar scientists reveal dramatic new evidence of climate change It seems unthinkable, but for the first time in human history, ice is on course to disappear entirely from the North Pole this year. ”

They have since changed the text, possibly as a result of my pointing out their inaccuracy. My piece contained the text from the Independent article exactly as it read at the time. A similar article with the same text appeared on Sky News at the same time, which has been removed completely. I have a zotero snapshot of that article as well. Instead of calling me a liar on RC, how about asking me first on The Register Forum where I would expect to see the question? There was a simple explanation - apparently Steve Connor chose to correct his story.

Also, you are misrepresenting Hansen’s paper.

In Hansen Nazarenko 2004, Hansen wrote that “Our estimate for the mean soot effect on spectrally integrated albedos in the Arctic … is about one quarter of observed global warming.”

i.e. Dr. Hansen said that one-fourth of all global warming (over the entire planet) is due to Arctic soot. The same paper shows the forcing of soot as 2XC02 at 4.05 W/m2 Figure 1 shows Arctic warming of as much as 2-3C due to soot. My statement was completely correct - By any reasonable interpretation Hansen did imply that most of the warming in the Arctic is due to soot.

http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2004/2004_Hansen_Nazarenko.pdf

Also as mentioned in my article, a more recent paper from the University of California says that up to 94% of Arctic warming is due to soot.

http://www.physorg.com/news100354399.html

Unlike your incorrect characterization, my article (”Are the ic caps melting”) was about both poles - not just the Arctic. Antarctic ice is completely relevant.

According to both UIUC and NSIDC, Arctic ice is greater than this date last year. I predicted in the article that the North Pole will not be ice free this summer. Check back in six weeks to see if I am wrong.

As mentioned in my article, Mark Serreze at NSIDC said in 2000 “There’s nothing to be necessarily alarmed about. There’s been open water at the pole before” During the summer of 2000 there was “a large body of ice-free water about 10 miles long and 3 miles wide near the pole”

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F00E3DD1E31F93AA1575BC0A9669C8B63

Doug Bostrom - instead of calling me a “liar,” how about engaging in civil conversation as I have attempted to do with you? Hint - you could start with an apology.

What a mishmash of half truths

This is a well crafted piece of disinformation. The real Icing on the cake is the last statement.

Amundsen did, in fact, finish his navigation the northwest passage (there are 7 of them and he did NOT navigate the main one), in 1905.

The missing piece of information is that he set out in the summer of 1903 and it took him 2.5 years of jumping between cracks in the shifting ice to get there.

Last year you could have taken an unstrengthened super tanker down the main channel which has never (in human memory) been open before. Just a little different.

Most of the channels of the NW passage were discovered by foot and dogsled over the Ice.

The Arctic ice began 1M SQ KM in extent higher than 2007. By mid June it had equalled 2007. Now it is about half a million sq km above 2007 as it has entered the traditional warming period for this time of year. However this is a much cooler year than 2007 (to date) yet the melt extent already exceeds 2007 by half a million sq km. Remember that it bean 1M higher and is now only 1/2 million higher.

In the last two days circa 250,000 sq km of ice just vanished. Leaving a triangle of melting ice pointing right into the North Pole.

http://iup.physik.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsr/arctic_AMSRE_nic.png

Oh yes, they were not talking about a few miles of open water at the pole. They were talking half a million sq km of open water. Your picture of a submarine would not have been possible because you would have needed a helicopter or another sub to take it as the whole area around it and way, way over the horizon would be open water.

I really hate it when someone who knows nothing about this cherry picks the sicence they wish to believe and then paints a completely false picture.