About the "recovering" arctic sea ice

[Erlinggra]

During this winter we had a nasty cold snap. This followed by a cold arctic spring lead many naysayers in the climate debate to beat their chest, declare victory and say the arctic sea ice is clearly recovering there is no need to worry. And global warming is a liar.

Now that we are back to the same levels we have been for the past 20 years, instead of an annoying anomaly I have a question to ask the naysayers.
Where is you recovering ice now?


image provided by National snow and ice data center

[Phier]

One, Two, Three, Four, I declare a graph war!







2006..... and now....



2010

Over the last three years, Arctic Ice has gained significantly in thickness. The graph above was generated by image processing and analysis of PIPS maps, and shows the thickness histogram for June 1 of each year since 2007.
The blue line represents 2008, and the most abundant ice that year was less than 1.5 metres thick. That thin ice was famously described by NSIDC as “rotten ice.” In 2009 (red) the most common ice had increased to more than 2.0 metres, and by 2010 (orange) the most common ice had increased to in excess of 2.75 metres thick.
We have seen a steady year over year thickening of the ice since the 2007 melt season. Thinner ice is more likely to melt during the summer, so the prognosis for a big melt looks much less likely than either of the previous two summers. More than 70% of the ice this year is thicker than 2.25 metres thick. By contrast, more than half of the ice was thinner than 2.0 metres in 2008.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/0...al/#more-20128

But even more seriously, so what? Does your graph really prove anything? Nope, its just another 'I don't understand science, but I have an opinion anyways!' thing.

Does it take into account winds, currents, the ending La Nina? Its just a single data set.

[PacSubCom]

Nope, its just another 'I don't understand science, but I have an opinion anyways!' thing.

Exactly. I don't have to look at your data to know that it says the exact opposite of what you're proposing. As always.

[Erlinggra]

But even more seriously, so what? Does your graph really prove anything? Nope, its just another 'I don't understand science, but I have an opinion anyways!' thing.

Says the man who found an article on whatsupwiththat.com that compares 2006 with 2010 and therefore I am right. (hint 4 years ago is not that long ago and is not a good reference point in an attempt to prove shrinking is not happening) better luck next time.

What my graphs proves? That your claims earlier this year "the sea ice is doing fine " are clearly wrong as it is clearly shrinking.

EDIT: i find it hysterically funny that the satellite image Mr. Watts uses (and you also use) as proof the ice is not shrinking shows the ice is shrinking.

[GrnEyedDvl]

All any of this proves is what we already know. The climate is NOT fixed, its cyclical. We have had ice ages before, we have had tropical climates over most of the world before. It will all happen again no matter what we do or do not do.

[GuineaPig]

All any of this proves is what we already know. The climate is NOT fixed, its cyclical. We have had ice ages before, we have had tropical climates over most of the world before.

No one is saying this doesn't happen.

But saying humanity has no impact on the world's climate is simply contrary to all observations.

And for the record Phier, here's a graph of sea ice over the last couple decades:





Arctic only:

[Phier]

So the world is warming, but the antarctic is stable, and the artic went down, which we all know, to a low in 2007, where your graph of course cuts off for obvious reasons.

Shows absolutely nothing about man there mate.

[GuineaPig]

So the world is warming, but the antarctic is stable, and the artic went down, which we all know, to a low in 2007, where your graph of course cuts off for obvious reasons.

Shows absolutely nothing about man there mate.

Well, climate scientists know (well, have a strongly supported hypothesis) why there is a slight cooling effect in the Antarctic. The Southern Hemisphere is composed mostly of ocean, which of course takes much longer to heat up, and the large land mass of Antarctica is partially protected by the ozone hole. Cooling in the Antarctic is predicted by scientists because of different geographical and atmospheric conditions to the Arctic.


As for the graph conveniently "cutting off", you should note that in the first graph 2007 is not included in the 5 year means. What's equally disconcerting is the decline in multi-year ice in the Arctic.

[chamaeleo]

Well, climate scientists know (well, have a strongly supported hypothesis) why there is a slight cooling effect in the Antarctic. The Southern Hemisphere is composed mostly of ocean, which of course takes much longer to heat up, and the large land mass of Antarctica is partially protected by the ozone hole. Cooling in the Antarctic is predicted by scientists because of different geographical and atmospheric conditions to the Arctic.

Actually, I think this has more to do with the circumpolar ocean circulation pattern, the belt of very cold water which flows around Antarctica...isolating the shelf from tropical waters, and driving gyre behavior in every other ocean on the planet.

Arctic ice really needs to be analyzed by volume, taking into consideration increased density with thickness, rather than simply area.

Again...anthropogenic or not, the steps required to mitigate any human-induced impact on climate behavior are identical to the steps needed to mitigate future cases of environmental disaster, resource motivated state aggression, energy crises, species extirpation, and so on. So long as it remains the most prudent course of action. I really care little for what we entitle the justification.

[GuineaPig]

Actually, I think this has more to do with the circumpolar ocean circulation pattern, the belt of very cold water which flows around Antarctica...isolating the shelf from tropical waters, and driving gyre behavior in every other ocean on the planet.

Arctic ice really needs to be analyzed by volume, taking into consideration increased density with thickness, rather than simply area.

Again...anthropogenic or not, the steps required to mitigate any human-induced impact on climate behavior are identical to the steps needed to mitigate future cases of environmental disaster, resource motivated state aggression, energy crises, species extirpation, and so on. So long as it remains the most prudent course of action. I really care little for what we entitle the justification.

Yeah, the circumpolar current is a big reason the Antarctic is not warming, but I was trying to explain why there is cooling in the Antarctic. The circumpolar current is a large part of way global temperature increases do not affect the Antarctic in the same why, but does not account for the experienced cooling there.

As for measuring volume of Arctic ice, it's simply not feasible. It would be the best measure (of course) for showing how warming affects the Arctic, but it just can't be done. That's why we have to settle with area and age.

And you hit the nail on the head in the last paragraph. There's a lot more at stake than a couple of degrees of temperature; and there's plenty of impetus for action.

[chamaeleo]

As for measuring volume of Arctic ice, it's simply not feasible. It would be the best measure (of course) for showing how warming affects the Arctic, but it just can't be done. That's why we have to settle with area and age.

We have area and thickness maps. Really, has nobody thought to integrate the two? That'd prolly be an ideal second-semester GIS project...

[Phier]

I don't think you are getting it, it shows nothing about man there mate.

Shocking also when ice melts and then refreezes its not as old.

La Nina is ending but we are overdue for a period of solar activity (take a guess when the last one was, think 'hottest year'). Should be fun times of correlation = causation.

[GuineaPig]

I don't think you are getting it, it shows nothing about man there mate.

Shocking also when ice melts and then refreezes its not as old.

La Nina is ending but we are overdue for a period of solar activity (take a guess when the last one was, think 'hottest year'). Should be fun times of correlation = causation.

Don't be dense. It's an image, not an article. As for the age of the ice, it is very important. Older ice is denser, more rugged, and takes much longer to melt than newer ice. If you look at ice age for the low in 2007, the core area (the 4 million squared or so kilometers remaining) is all multi-year ice. There's a reason why. But that core area of multi-year ice has fallen off quite sharply, which is very bad news.

And once again, you continue to make assertions that no one else agrees with. Sure the 11 year sunspot cycle has an impact on insolation, but you're vastly overimplying its role in temperatures.

[GrnEyedDvl]

Again, there is no evidence about man. Its all theory, and I might add highly subjective theory. The data models used have holes in them miles wide, and not one single time have I ever seen a single "climatologist" publish what their margin of error is.

For instance, radio carbon dating has a magin of error +/- 4000 years give or take a decade. These climate idiots running around telling us the world has risen 2 degrees over the last 30 years and neglect to tell you that the margin of error is +/- 5 degrees. With an error factor larger than the results they publish the world could have, by their own numbers, actually cooled by 3 degrees over the same period.

The simple fact is that two scientists, running the exact same test on the exact same ice core, will not get exactly identical results. When you extrapolate that over a 2 billion year time period you are going to get results that are all over the chart, which is exactly what we have. For every graph and piece of data you post here, I can find another one from another "expert" that says the complete opposite.

Yes the world climate is changing. It always has and always will. The question is whether its changing faster now than it did in the past, and if man is a significant reason why that change is occuring faster. Measuring something like this is more guess than educated guess, there are a million variables that have not been taken into consideration. For instance the plant species that were around a million years ago processed carbon and oxygen a bit differently than the species we have today. Spread that over the entire surface of the planet and it could be a huge factor. Oh and speaking of that the surface of the world looked a lot differently too. The continents were in different places, which meant that ocean currents were not even close to what they are today. And if you dont think that had an effect on ice formation then you are just not thinking it through, which is typical of global warming advocates.

We assume, again we do not know, that salinity in the ocean currents changed because of heightened volcanic activity coupled with a low in solar activity caused the Little Ice Age. This was only 3-400 years ago and we do NOT know for certain every single factor that contributed, and the global warming "experts" want us to believe all this crap they put out about what was going on 2 million years ago. Its absurd.

Since you are so fond of graphs, lets show this one about the Little Ice Age. As you can see the Medieval Warm Period was nearly as warm as it was in 2004 before it went into its cooling cycle, the difference is .2 degrees celsius. I assume all the cars and oil powered factories were the cause of this?

The number of lines on that graph only goes to illustrate my earlier point about two scientists running the same tests on the same data and getting different conclusions. Each of those lines is the guesstimate of a different scientist about what happened 300 years ago. You will note that some of them are quite different. For instance the light green line, published in 2002, shows a swing bigger than any of the others, and the orange line published in 2004 shows nearly the opposite. And these are both modern publications using nearly the same methods and equipment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:20...Comparison.png

[Wilder]

Again, there is no evidence about man. Its all theory, and I might add highly subjective theory. The data models used have holes in them miles wide, and not one single time have I ever seen a single "climatologist" publish what their margin of error is.

That is because you have never looked. Here is a paper on calculating global temperature over the past 100 years, and they spend the majority of the text explaining their error margins.

These climate idiots running around telling us the world has risen 2 degrees over the last 30 years and neglect to tell you that the margin of error is +/- 5 degrees. With an error factor larger than the results they publish the world could have, by their own numbers, actually cooled by 3 degrees over the same period.

Odd how in one paragraph you claim that no climatologist has produced a margin of error and then you confidently claim that it was 5 degrees... I'm curious where that number came from. It certainly didn't come from the paper I just presented, as that margin of error was less than .01 degrees for the 1970's and presumably has only dropped since then.

The simple fact is that two scientists, running the exact same test on the exact same ice core, will not get exactly identical results. When you extrapolate that over a 2 billion year time period you are going to get results that are all over the chart, which is exactly what we have. For every graph and piece of data you post here, I can find another one from another "expert" that says the complete opposite.

Yes the world climate is changing. It always has and always will. The question is whether its changing faster now than it did in the past, and if man is a significant reason why that change is occuring faster. Measuring something like this is more guess than educated guess, there are a million variables that have not been taken into consideration. For instance the plant species that were around a million years ago processed carbon and oxygen a bit differently than the species we have today. Spread that over the entire surface of the planet and it could be a huge factor. Oh and speaking of that the surface of the world looked a lot differently too. The continents were in different places, which meant that ocean currents were not even close to what they are today. And if you dont think that had an effect on ice formation then you are just not thinking it through, which is typical of global warming advocates.

We assume, again we do not know, that salinity in the ocean currents changed because of heightened volcanic activity coupled with a low in solar activity caused the Little Ice Age. This was only 3-400 years ago and we do NOT know for certain every single factor that contributed, and the global warming "experts" want us to believe all this crap they put out about what was going on 2 million years ago. Its absurd.

Since you are so fond of graphs, lets show this one about the Little Ice Age. As you can see the Medieval Warm Period was nearly as warm as it was in 2004 before it went into its cooling cycle, the difference is .2 degrees celsius. I assume all the cars and oil powered factories were the cause of this?

The number of lines on that graph only goes to illustrate my earlier point about two scientists running the same tests on the same data and getting different conclusions. Each of those lines is the guesstimate of a different scientist about what happened 300 years ago. You will note that some of them are quite different. For instance the light green line, published in 2002, shows a swing bigger than any of the others, and the orange line published in 2004 shows nearly the opposite. And these are both modern publications using nearly the same methods and equipment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:20...Comparison.png

This is clear obfuscation of theorizing why certain changes happened in the past, and whether or not humans are producing enough CO2 to effect global temperature. It is true that we cannot know for certain what happened, in much the same way that paleontologists don't always know how certain fossils are related. We weren't there, the data is limited, but to suggest that means that evolution is fake is absurd. Likewise, Climatologists do have to engage in a fair amount of conjecture to explain x t historical temp phenomena, but that does not change the fact (and a fact it is, experimentally proven) that an increased CO2 proportion in air increases the air's radiative heat retention.

The reality is that we CAN account for all the modern factors, because we are here, paying attention. Case in point, your suggestion that organisms may be metabolizing gases differently. That is a fine hypothesis for historical aberrations, but we are standing here on earth, paying attention to the plants and animals, and we can say with a high degree of certainly that they are not doing anything differently right now, biologically speaking, so that does not explain the modern warming trend.

Any way, you should check out the other thread I started, watch those videos, and see where your opinions stand then. After I sat through the "global warming swindle", I'm rather disappointed that the skeptics here who so readily accuse me of being dogmatic and ascribing to AGW theory like it is a a religion are, rather ironically, unwilling (apparently) to really dig deep and try and understand the issue at hand here.

[Big War Bird]

I am looking forward to day that the fabled Northwest Passage is a permanent reality.

[GuineaPig]

Why?

[Big War Bird]

Why?

Imagine you are in Sweden and need to ship heavy machinery to Japan. Right now you would have to send that ship through the Panama Canal, or if it is something really big, the way around Cape Horn. An ice free Northwest Passage would save thousands of miles or travel, weeks of lead time and tens of thousanf of gallons of fuel.. It would be a huge economic benefit to the world.

[Phier]

Temps are currently below normal in the arctic but hey in case you were wondering how bad its gotten in the last 20 years.

[GuineaPig]

Phier, when are you going to face that most of your "arguments" against AGW are intellectually dishonest?