One of the interesting things about being a scientist is seeing how unexpected observations can galvanize the community into looking at a problem in a different way than before. A good example of this is the unexpectedly low Arctic sea ice minimum in 2007 and the near-repeat in 2008. What was unexpected was not the long term decline of summer ice (this has long been a robust prediction), but the size of 2007 and 2008 decreases which were much larger than any model had hinted at. This model-data mismatch raises a number of obvious questions – were the data reliable? are the models missing some key physics? is the comparison being done appropriately? – and some less obvious ones – to what extent is the summer sea ice minimum even predictable? what is the role of pre-conditioning from the previous year vs. the stochastic nature of the weather patterns in any particular summer?
The concentration of polar expertise on the last couple of questions has increased enormously in the last couple of years, and the summer minimum of 2009 will be a good test of some of the ideas that are being discussed. The point is that whether 2009 is or is not a record-setting or near-record setting minimum, the science behind what happens is going to be a lot more interesting than the September headline.
In the wake of the 2007 minimum, a lot of energy went in to discussing what this meant for 2008. Had the Arctic moved into a different regime where such minima would become normal or was this an outlier caused by exceptional weather patterns? Actually this is a bit of false dichotomy since they aren’t exclusive. Exceptional patterns of winds are always going to be the proximate cause of any extreme ice extent, but the regime provides a background upon which those patterns act. For instance, in the paper by Nghiem et al, they showed the influence of wind patterns in moving a lot of thick ice out of the Arctic in early 2007, but also showed that similar patterns had not had the same impact in other years with higher background amounts of ice.
This ‘background’ influence implies that there might indeed be the possibility of forecasting the sea ice minimum a few months ahead of time. And anytime there is the potential to make and test predictions in seasonal forecasting, scientists usually jump at the chance. So it proved for 2008.
Some forecasting efforts were organised through the SEARCH group of polar researchers, and I am aware of at least two informal betting pools that were set up. Another group of forecasts can be found from the Arctic ice forecasting center at the University of Colorado. I personally don’t think that the intrinsic worth of a successful prediction of overall sea ice extent or area is that societally relevant – interest in open shipping lanes that might be commercially important need much more fine-grained information for instance – but I think the predictions are interesting for improving understanding of Arctic processes themselves (and hopefully that improved understanding will eventually feed into the models and provide better tests and targets for their simulations).
What was particularly interesting about last years forecasts was the vast range of forecasting strategies. Some were just expert guestimates, some people used linear regression on past data, some were simply based on persistence, or persistence of the trend. In more mature forecasting endeavours, the methods tend to be more clustered around one or two proven strategies, but in this case the background work is still underway.
Estimates made in June 2008 for the September minimum extent showed a wide range – from around 2.9 to 5.6 M km2. One of the lowest estimates assumed that the key criteria was the survivability of first year ice. If one took that to be a fixed percentage based on past behaviour, then because there was so much first year ice around in early 2008, the minimum would be very low (see also Drobot et al, 2008). This turned out not to be a great approach – much more first year ice survived than was predicted by this method. The key difference was the much greater amount of first year ice there was near the pole. Some of the higher values assumed a simple reversion to trend (i.e. extrapolation forward from the long-term trend to 2008).
Only a couple of the forecasts used physics-based models to make the prediction (for instance, Zhang et al, 2008). This is somewhat surprising until one realises how much work is needed to do this properly. You need real time data to initialise the models, you need to do multiple realisations to average over any sensitivity to the weather, and even then you might not get a range of values that was tight enough to provide useful information.
So how did people do? The actual 2008 September minimum was 4.7 M km2, which was close to the median of the June forecasts (4.4 M km2) – and remember that the 2007 minimum was 4.3 M km2. However, the spread was quite wide. The best estimates used both numerical models and statistical predictors (for instance the amount of ice thicker than 1m). But have these approaches matured this time around?
In this year’s June outlook, there is significantly more clustering around the median, and a smaller spread (3.2 to 5.0 M km2) than last year. As with last year, the lowest forecast is based on a low survivability criteria for first year ice and I expect that this (as with last year) will not pan out – things have changed too much for previous decades’ statistical fits on this metric to be applicable. However, the group with the low forecast have put in a ‘less aggressive’ forecast (4.7 M km2) which is right at the median. That would be equal to last year’s minimum, but not a new record. It would still be well below the sea ice trend expected by the IPCC AR4 models (Stroeve et al, 2008).
There is an obvious excitement related to how this will pan out, but it’s important that the thrill of getting a prediction right doesn’t translate into actually wanting the situation to get worse. Arctic ice cover is not just a number, but rather a metric of a profound and disruptive change in an important ecosystem and element of the climate. While it doesn’t look at all likely, the best outcome would be for all the estimates to be too low.
I think that #44 Steve L. makes a good point. In terms of albedo, isn’t the ice extent around the summer solstice the more important metric than minimum extent? I think that total mass is probably the most important metric, but wouldn’t Average June Extent be much more valuable than September Minimum?
Martin Vermeer (329), my math has tidal force proportional to the inverse cube of the distance from the geocenter of the moon (e.g.) and the point of delta_(m) on the earth’s surface, not the geocenter of the earth. Three howevers, however: 1) I didn’t complete the integration (taking the moon as a point mass but not the earth) — (and ’cause it was too hard!) and it’s conceivable in my gut that the integration might end up with the cube of the distance between centers. 2) the difference of the distances are noticeable but really small. 3) My math might be lousy!
This is picayune, but the torque and the friction are not the same thing, though as you say it is the friction that is behind the cause of the off-center bulge, and their effects are similar.
…wouldn’t Average June Extent be much more valuable than September Minimum
June’s not necessarily the right period – wouldn’t you want to choose something that’s symmetric around the solstice date? Average over June and July would be closer. Also, if you’re looking at albedo, wouldn’t you want to look at area rather than extent?
Really, I guess you want to integrate the product of (hours of sunlight) x (area) across the year as a whole, with a further correction for the angle of incidence.
Re: #344
Dear Wayne, the breakup of the ice arch is proceeding rapidly and is flooding the strait with large chunks to the extent that I would imagine that the Arctic Sunrise had to hightail it out of there.
This particular MODIS Rapidfire image from today shows the above, and it also shows what looks to be the start of the breakup of the Jakobshavn Glacier’s floating tongue — does it break up every year?
http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/realtime/single.php?2009208/crefl1_143.A2009208003000-2009208003500.250m.jpg
> seasons
It depends on your choice of definition;
biological spring observed, and changing. There’s an entire topic on that at RC not long ago.
Physical versus biological spring transition: 2005. P. Michael Kosro. College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences, Oregon State University, Corvallis, …
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2006/2006GL027072.shtml
Cited by 16
Biological spring coming sooner
Mar 19, 2006 … The calendar says spring begins next Tuesday, but a US environmental groups says biological spring arrived last Monday.
http://www.physorg.com/news11904.html
Dear Tenney, This break up is particularly large, unusually so, if memory serves me well, the largest ever. This is not an ice shelf, but something similar, which is disintegrating, extending the size of the usual polynia between Northern Greenland and Northern Ellesmere, which in itself disturbs everything including Narwhal migrations amongst other species. I am not familiar with local glaciers, luckily one is observed directly.
http://www.meltfactor.org/blog/
re 349: That plot is for smooth, pure water. The Arctic Ocean is never pure, and rarely smooth.
Another point is that there is more moisture in the air over open water than over continuous sea ice. Water vapor is an excellent greenhouse gas. Thus, not only is there an albedo feedback from loss of sea ice, there is also a greenhouse gas feedback from the loss of sea ice that helps slow the return of sea ice in the fall. This moisture also drifts over shore areas helping to keep them warmer than they would be under the dry air coming off of sea ice.
Such shore areas include ice shelves, permafrost, and Greenland.
This moisture also carries latent heat, which allows tranfer of the heat and the melting of other ice. Thus, loss of sea ice includes a drop in albedo, and increase in the ablility of the atmosphere to trap heat, and a way of transfering that heat to adjacent weather systems. It is an interesting process and worth understanding.
Re 354 & 356: Tenney & Wayne,
That certainly is a beautiful, but scary, image you linked to, Tenney, and wonder if either of you can help me interpret the image correctly. Near the top center of the image, just below (north) of Jacobshavn fiord, there is a large, irregular, pale blue area spotted with melt-ponds. Is the blue indicative of bare glacial ice? Or could it be snow cover saturated with melt-water? Or something else altogether?
I also want to thank you both for your many informative posts.
Phillip
Aaron Lewis (357), I didn’t follow the latent heat adding to ice melt. Can you explain?
Thanks Wayne Hamilton for the response. Interestingly, I find lay friends and neighbors have no trouble with the idea that we in Boston are getting the byproduct of northern melt. Fascinating site.
http://www.eh2r.com/
I’m wondering if this is duplicate information or adds to the information. I always find visual information easier to take in:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2537/3755670805_a15ce75903.jpg
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2579/3756450296_e03a0baa00.jpg
Now, I’ve stolen these both from an article at DailyKos:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/25/756980/-News-from-the-Arctic:-26-July-2009
There was lots more in the article, which also includes the images, but I follow Tenney’s site and there was some overlap. Don’t know if they add anything and also may not be sourcing the originals properly.
#358 Phillip, hard to say what location you are referring, but all I see on top of the ice is water puddles, essentially everywhere along the coast.
Susan, DailyKos didn’t do a bad job. Caution must be said about Arctic Ocean ice,
it moves a lot with winds, sea currents, tides, and other important factors, especially tempered by clouds, which play a huge role in where the greatest melts occur. Boston and essentially every other place on earth is linked, if there is an El-Nino, less Arctic ice, all so far away, Boston’s weather changes. The world’s climate is in transition right now, and these changes will appear more and more obviously.
http://blogs.nasa.gov/cm/blog/CASIE
re: 358
Dear Phillip,
The pale blue area was much whiter on the original — I added density because I was wanting to have a better look at the tongue’s breakup. Maybe if we could now have access to those military spy photos we could all have a much better idea.
“…wouldn’t Average June Extent be much more valuable than September Minimum”
No. Thermal inertia means that the months AFTER the longest day are warmer, just like it is coldest just before the dawn.
“If it makes you feel better to call it a “shorter freezing season” rather than “shorter winter”, cool”
How about “warmer winter average”?
Or, if you want to assume that “winter” means “the average weather over the winter period” (as opposed to “winter” being 2/3 Feb in the UK, where there was snow in London, hence there could be no warming and the weather men got the forecast wrong because they said a mild winter, when 2/3 Feb it was snowing. For these people, winter sure is short…)
Tenney Naumer Reur 333
Hi [edit]
I see that you have a strong interest in recent observations of ice melting in Greenland.
However, have you studied the substantial evidence from thermometer records that Greenland had similar or higher temperatures in the early 20th century? For instance, notably from various collating papers by Chylek et al.
Whilst there may be no reliable information on the extent of ice melt in those times, it should be considered that in those days, they were probably quite happy with the relative warmth, and not too troubled as to why it was so, whilst seeing nothing astonishing or unrelated in any increased ice melt that merited quantifying it. (Quite apart from the fact that reasonably meaningful spatial and temporal observation of ice and snow have only been available for ~30 years from satellites)
[Response: Remarkable: No information apparently implies extensive melt and happy greenlanders. (But check out the position of the Jacobshavn glacier just for fun). – gavin]
Kevin McKinney Reur 300, in part, you wrote concerning comparative albedos of water and ice:
I was intrigued by your reference to K & T ‘98, because it seems to be a very simplistic statement. So, I Googled around but could not find it. Could you please check your reference; is it the wrong year maybe? Also, Trenberth and his colleague Kiehl have independently authored other works …. ?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Something else I should mention about water absorption of infrared is that my recollection is that it absorbs extremely strongly in just the skin at its surface. Furthermore, Kirchhoff’s law (of radiation) states in effect that a good absorber (body) is an equally good emitter. (AOTBE; in equilibrium). Although the (fluid) oceans are a good heat-sink to visible light because of that spectra’s deepish penetration, any heat conduction downwards from infrared absorption, is slow and trivial compared with the instantaneous re-emission from the surface skin.
It is not easy to find a quick and easy reference to show you this, but I did find a rather academic QM paper* that does nevertheless include some handy graphics:
Absorption coefficients for water
http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/water/images/watopt.gif
Seawater is impure and rather variable in opacity etc, but it is generally taken that the blue part of the visible spectrum, (See the rainbow-band pattern on the graph) is extinguished at about 100 metres deep. On the other hand, per this graph, the absorption of visible red light is about 100 times stronger. (two orders of magnitude less penetrating) However, absorption of full infrared (~ the RH half of the graph) is a massive 7 orders of magnitude greater! (billionth)
ADDITIONALLY:
Comparison of the gas, liquid and solid spectra of the same amount of H2O
http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/water/images/vibrat.gif
Although I don’t understand why the ice data is given at such a low temperature, can you perhaps see that ice and presumably snow, may be better absorbers of infrared than water, depending on a few variables? (like ice is colder than water, grain size, and age etc)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So, what was K & T (?) on about?
Kevin, please clarify your sources.… I‘m very interested.
ANYONE: Do you disagree with the two graphics in the paper I cite, and if so, please give scientific details as to why you might think so.
* http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/water/vibrat.html
354 Tenny, 358 Phillip, et al.
On Jacobshavn: Nice photo of calving front of Jacobshavn glacier C2006.
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/3392822.jpg
This confirms the width of the calving face of about 8km back around then.
But the latest image of Jacobshaven in good old Google Earth dated 18 July 2008 shows the active calving face about 10km further east (“uphill”) and developing faces on the north and south of the channel as well as the primary face heading east.
And the image you point to in 354 Tenny shows the face has moved back another step since then.
The interesting thing is that the length of the calving face has therefore increased to more than 16km now – double that of a couple of years previously.
The final useful bit of data from the recent pix is that measuring the freeboard of the recently calved bergs near the face (using datetime hence local sun angle = 45 degrees hence freeboard from berg shadow = 40 metres) we see a total depth to bedrock of about 400 metres at the present calving line.
This thus presents us with a surface area of over 6 square kilometres washed by the warming sea, and every bit that falls off increases the area of face exposed to warm water, and to increased gradient for the remainder, and so to increased velocity, to increased fracturing, to increased exposure of deeper ice surfaces to warmer air, warmer surface meltwater and basal flows and intrusion of sea water, and, and, and so it goes on. Faster and faster, until.
But hey, I could be wrong.
Gavin
To your comment to Bob_FJ’s 366 that there is “no information” about retreating Arctic sea ice in the early 20th century (at the time of the Chylek et al. study on warming Arctic temperatures) check:
ftp://ftp.whoi.edu/pub/users/mtimmermans/ArcticSymposiumTalks/Smolyanitsky.pdf
Max
re: #366
Thanks Gavin, I posted that image for comparison, and it appears that the 2006 line has already been passed, but maybe not the 2005 line:
http://climatechangepsychology.blogspot.com/2009/07
Re: #369
The link was truncated for some reason — here is the complete link:
http://climatechangepsychology.blogspot.com/2009/07/jakobshavn-glaciers-floating-tongue.html
But let’s try a tinyurl to be on the safe side:
http://tinyurl.com/Jakobshavn-tongue
And, the Northeast Passage looks open again:
http://www.seaice.dk/iwicos/latest/
Nigel, then again you could be right.
However, the outflow from the glaciers may well be taking a back seat to the melting ice these days.
btw, it is “Tenney” — thanks, it has been spelled incorrectly by all and sunder my entire life.
#364 Mark,
I know that September will be warmer because of accumulated heat from the summer. My point is that for albedo purposes, a one million KM^2 difference in area in September won’t make nearly as much difference in the amount of sunlight absorbed as it will in June.
Rod B #352:
Yes, that’s what happens. A Taylor expansion with the Earth centre at the origin… (BTW what are you integrating for?)
In fact, proportional to the ratio r/d, in case of the Moon 1/60, i.e. 1.5%, relatively speaking. In case of the Sun, really really small. This is also the relative error in the tidal effect due to Taylor truncation.
Not if you got this far…
Don’t miss the CASIE site, link above.
Recent post there:
Update from the CASIE Science Team
Posted on Jul 24, 2009 02:45:02 PM | Matthew Fladeland
We had two productive back-to-back missions on Wednesday and today. I’m very impressed by the performance of the aircraft and the NASA team. Today, the SIERRA flew over 1000 km, which is what I’d hoped for but really expect would be possible. The ice conditions we’re seeing in the data are exactly the types of conditions I’d hoped we would encounter. Now, we just need to keep racking up the flight hours in conjunction with good performance from the sensors. Being in this location, with this aircraft, sensor package, and team, is a rare opportunity of which we hope to take full advantage. …
Re BobFJ — 24 July 2009 @ 2:20 AM
“I’m still flummoxed by some vague statements something like “massive melt ponds”, (but presumably in an unrelated dynamic on the Greenland icesheet?),…”
The point is that even on the Greenland ice sheet, where the edges are more restrained than ice shelves, and there aren’t tides to flex and crack the ice, when the surface temperatures are high enough for long enough, meltwater from the surface can penetrate cracks, NOT freeze, and create flow channels (moulins) through the thicker, more stable ice sheet. If surface melt water can penetrate cracks in the more mechanically stable Greenland ice sheet, and open up channels by continuously flowing away, it will certainly penetrate thinner and mechanically less stable ice shelves.
“…these mechanical hinging failures of ice shelves do not happen overnight, but perhaps over a decade or so.”
It’s not a simple hinging failure like a coat hanger repeatedly bent at a single point. The dynamics of ice sheet failure have more to do with the rheology of non-Newtonian viscous fluids than simple solid fracture mechanics. See ‘Numerical modelling and data assimilation of the Larsen B ice shelf, Antarctic Peninsula’. “In this study, the flow and rheology of pre-collapse Larsen B ice shelf are investigated by using a combination of flow modelling and data assimilation.” “Regarding the sensitivity of the stress field to rheology, the consistency of the model with the observed flow seems crucial for any further analysis…”http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/364/1844/1815.full
“So why would melt ponds suddenly appear shortly before break-up? ”
The question should be ” Why do ice shelves collapse shortly after the appearance of melt ponds?” As average temperature rises, the surface of ice shelves during the summer eventually warms enough that melting occurs, only for brief periods at first, but longer and more extensively in successive summers. The meltwater that remains for the next winter refreezes(and the expansion stresses the shelf, sometimes enough to expand existing cracks or create new ones, depending on the details of size, shape, aspect, etcetera of the melt ponds). Icebergs can break off without surface melting when other stresses break apart the ice shelves. Tidal flexing combined with ice rubble collapsing into cracks can lever them apart and cause them to propagate; combining this with seawater penetrating from below, or meltwater from the surface freezing and stabilizing the rubble into stiffer, larger chunks can enhance this effect. The heat of fusion of ice forming in cracks(crevasses, fissures whatever you want to call them) will also warm and weaken the ice. see http://scrippsnews.ucsd.edu/Releases/?releaseID=685.
The appearance of extensive melt ponds is indicative that significant warming of the shelf has occurred, from the top and from the bottom by seawater. The temperature gradient through an ice shelf goes from the average yearly temperature near the top surface to about -2 degrees, equilibrium with seawater, at the bottom. see http://nsidc.org/data/thermap/antarctic_deep_temps/j9/j9_1977.html. Mechanical stresses, and seawater intrusion into bottom cracks alone are sufficient to cause calving, or the breakoff of sometimes very large tabular ice islands, like the Filchner ice shelf case you cited, at temperatures too low for surface melt; When the temperatures are high enough for surface melt, extensive ponding, thinning from below by warmer ocean currents, and hydrostatic cracking, a threshold is passed and the ice shelf collapses over a large area.
Most of the time, dirt and rocks erode slowly off the mountains,and snowpack melts slowly but occasionally external events like extreme rainfall trigger avalanches, a huge spike in the rate of mass transfer; global warming is causing ice shelves to collapse and release “avalanches” of icebergs. We can trigger avalanches with dynamite; we could trigger ice shelf collapse with enough dynamite; we ARE triggering ice shelf collapse with the cumulative effects of AGW.
BobFJ (367), and Kevin. A couple of minor points. I don’t think the absorption of infrared is meaningful to the discussion of albedo: water emits more IR than it absorbs and while important in the overall radiation budget analysis, it’s not pertinent to the decrease (or lack thereof) in albedo going from ice or snow to water.
Someone smarter than me can correct me, but the fact that infrared is absorbed only in the skin is not significant. If a substance absorbs radiation it absorbs radiation and its energy — period. That the energy, after converting to temperature, doesn’t get distributed much in the ocean is not pertinent to the albedo question, IMHO. That the heated skin is more likely to release its heat/temperature back into the atmosphere with greater emission, evaporation and thermals might effect the albedo question, I think (I think…) it’s secondary.
You might include the words “radiation” or “energy” (better) and “budget” and maybe “global” in your search. btw, K&T issued a revision in 2004 with minor number corrections. K&T’s radiation budget diagram is pretty ubiquitous and might not be listed in their name or specific year.
Regarding the NE passage, any of the great polar explorers would go for it, and quite likely make it, but I certainly wouldn’t want to sail anything but an ice-breaker past Severnaya Zemlya just yet. Yes, there’s a lot of open water north of Komsomolets, and in the Vilitsky Strait. There’s also a lot of ice, which shifts around pretty quickly. You don’t want to get trapped between ice and a lee shore. As for the New Siberian Islands, there’s too much cloud to be really definite. This image from today show’s there’s still a lot of ice in the straits, and although it hints at open water north of the islands it’s obscured by heavy cloud.
Maybe in another few days, depending on what the winds do and on what is revealed once the clouds clear.
The coastal waters of the East Siberian Sea have always seemed a strange green colour on MODIS. Are they very shallow – like huge salt marshes? If so, we might have to wait another week or two before deeper, more navigable waters are clear.
Mark, my initial intent was the calculate the gravitational force (in tangential and radial components) by integrating the force on one delta mass from another delta mass rather than the standard of assuming both masses as point sources. Turns out there is good reason for that assumption — the integration requires at least a Feynman or two!
“My point is that for albedo purposes, a one million KM^2 difference in area in September won’t make nearly as much difference in the amount of sunlight absorbed as it will in June.
Comment by Consumer ”
OK. Problem is that the effect won’t appear until you get the September minimum because that extra warmth has to melt the ice and that takes time. But then if it’s meltier in June, less ice in September may increase the average albedo enough that the total infusion of solar energy is still higher than it was when the sun was more nearly overhead at noon…
Let’s just call it “complicated”.
“retreating Arctic sea ice in the early 20th century (at the time of the Chylek et al. study on warming Arctic temperatures) check:
Comment by manacker ”
The pre-1940 period being defined by a summary of a well known polar explorer’s personal notation and descriptions of artic navigation stories.
Oh, and a statistical model based on fitting atmospheric pressure to ice extent.
Sure.
Real accurate and complete…
And from that PDF:
“There is still a big gap between the amount of available factual information on ice extent before 1970s and amount of information assimilated in the climatic models”
Which could mean that there’s little factual information on sea ice extent before 1970.
Which sort of bolsters Gavin’s response to Bob…
Firstly, I want to congratulate you all on this site, especially now that it is easier to navigate around ! And the side bar seems to be back in its rightful place too – I’m using Ubuntu and Firefox.
I have learned a lot on here from all the contributors, except the most dodgy Denier types, of course. Keep up the good work and I look forward to reading more and using the information provided, as ammunition against the Deniers out there.
With that in mind, I wonder whether you are aware of the close connection between BobFJ and manacker, and whether you know how useless it is to have any debate with them because of their already pre-determined self-belief in themselves, their Denial and their abilities to prove it to themselves.
I realise manacker has already been outed on here as a Denier of old and many of his comments from other sites have already been shown, but he has also been making the same conspiracy, etc. comments on the SPECTATOR piece about Plimer’s latest fiction :
“The article starts out: “Imagine how wonderful the world would be if man-made global warming were just a figment of Al Gore’s imagination.”
In actual fact, it is.
But this figment is being sponsored by the powerful and rich of the world, with the ultimate aim of making them even more powerful and wealthier at the expense of everyone else.
Professor Plimer has it right. It’s a con trick.”
“This is all pretty clear to me (as it also was to the very cautious and careful court). AIT was full of errors, all of which were intended to cause alarm about AGW (from which Al Gore has already earned millions, and hopes to earn even more).”
“The UK court was very cautious and “politically correct” when it (nevertheless) lambasted Al Gore’s AIT sci-fi film and ruled that it should not be shown to school children as a factual report.”
http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/features/3755623/meet-the-man-who-has-exposed-the-great-climate-change-con-trick.thtml#comments
Two other Commenters on there (Robin Guenier and TonyN) are also fellow-Deniers of manacker and can be seen on the following website discussing tactics from time to time :
http://ccgi.newbery1.plus.com/blog/?p=63&cp=47#comment-24634
(The above link will lead to a lovely comment from BobFJ, which includes the following :
“I’ve been long-time amused at some of the nonsense that Serreze has issued forth as regular spokesman for NSIDC, but was stunned today to learn that he is now director of NSIDC!
Do they still have that expression in England, (as I knew thereof prior to 1969, when I Oz’d-off):
“Bullshit baffles brains”?”)
More BobFJ gems here :
“And, further to Max’s 6836, I can repeat/confirm that although we both read well over here, we are rather busy teasing Gavin Schmidt at RC, leaving less time to contribute here.
(But that’s nothing! Max has had a scolding from Mike, seemingly in an “executive” statement over the top of Gavin, and it seems apparent that this was from none-other than you-know-who, of Manna fame.)
I’ve not had that privilege, but can boast to have managed to get Bart Verheggen and Kevin McKinney, to crawl out of the woodwork to protest at some of my inconvenient comments. These two guys run their own alarmist websites, and appear to be at least guest contributors on RC, or at least VIP‘s there.
Oh, and BTW, some of the regular fruitcakes such as:
Dhogaza, Mark (aka “yeah whatever” suggested Jasper), Peter Martin, James, and David B Benson, seem to have gone rather quiet….. Apart from the odd irrelevant nonsense.”
http://ccgi.newbery1.plus.com/blog/?p=63&cp=46#comment-22845
“Well blow me! I was wanting to get on there early this morning to have some more fun, only to be greeted with a July 4 message something like: sorry we are updating our software momentarily.
No prob’s, I had already composed a new post, which was surprisingly rapidly accepted and commented on by Gavin.
The only thing is that his comments are startling absolute crap, as appended on my: https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/06/groundhog-day-2/#comment-129677
and I suspect that if I respond making any corrections, they will probably be deleted, leading other readers to think that I‘ve submitted to his nonsense.
I think I’ll let July 4 get out of the way, and meanwhile ponder how best to point out for example that Gavin contradicts NASA and others in principle concerning the terrestrial energy budget. (that is, in principle, not with the actual numbers)
My current thoughts are to work-up to it obliquely via a F/U enquiry to Kevin McKinney, who has gone silent on some points I asked him on the difference and on his understanding of EMR versus HEAT.”
http://ccgi.newbery1.plus.com/blog/?p=63&cp=46#comment-22949
“I would love to make enquiries of Gavin as to the functionality and reasonableness of the current and past models, but suspect that it would be like waving a red flag at a bull, and I might get seriously excommunicated, thus terminating the fun I’m having in a more prolonged gentle tease.
Why don’t you try for a moment of kamikaze glory over there?
Please, or delegate to Brute or Robin or someone!”
http://ccgi.newbery1.plus.com/blog/?p=63&cp=46#comment-23046
“All; anyone interested in trying a kamikaze job over at RC, in a day or two when they sort their apparent (?) software(?) problems (?) out?”
http://ccgi.newbery1.plus.com/blog/?p=63&cp=46#comment-23340
It’s worth keeping on eye on that site just to find out where they will be posting next and what their (poorly-developed) arguments are. I’ve noticed they like to post graphs of temperatures and ice-extent when they are going the way that they want them to go (so they don’t post them very often), and they like to see who has the best story about how cold, wet or snowy it is where they are or in some surprising place around the world.
Sorry if this is all a distraction from the serious business at hand (if it gets published) but I thought you should all be made aware of the ‘seriousness’ of some of these dodgy Commenters.
[Response: It’s worth pointing out now and again, but really, coming here and spouting nonsense only embarrasses them (although they probably don’t notice). I find it interesting that they see themselves as ‘kamikaze’ though – fanatically wrong pawns sacrificing themselves for no point whatsoever. It’s curiously apt. – gavin]
Wayne Hamilton, thanks again. I see I failed to mention that I keep it all in perspective, and was only interested in the likelihood of it being a contributory factor. No need to reply, just wanted to indicate that I am keeping an open mind (unlike our friends in the pseudo-skeptic camp).
—
Lately, there’s a new push by the denial cadres; they all ask for detailed scientific information backing up anything that contradicts their point of view. My take on this is that they wish to tie up good people’s time digging up details from the vast quantities of information available, give the impression it doesn’t exist, and are not at all interested in actually seeing it, because when it is provided, they ignore it. They have considerable communication skills, sometimes professionally honed and certainly professionally backed by a variety of organizations (like Heartland) with big money from entrenched industry – whose profits have continued to skyrocket while the rest of the economy has tanked. They constantly find new ways to turn the words of science against science. Scientific uncertainty, a certain asset, they regard as a gift and are good at exploiting it. Their certainty is very revealing if anyone takes the trouble to reflect on it.
Sadly, my recommendation is to ignore them as inaction works in their favor; but they will exploit that too. It is easier to destroy than to build.
[Response: Well put. – mike]
re my previous (not yet OK’d):
Wayne Davidson, oops, sorry, you are not Wayne Hamilton!
Re 378 we may have to wait a week or two for the North East Passage to open properly, and even then there may be danger from drifting ice. The fact that it is happening as early as this is amazing. Last year it was September before this happened.
“Turns out there is good reason for that assumption — the integration requires at least a Feynman or two!
Comment by Rod B”
I don’t think so. This WAS an undergraduate lab experiment. Second year for a course ON astrophysics, but still undergraduate.
I didn’t do it, but someone I know did. Well, we worked in pairs, so two someone’s.
I think it’s hard to get the right set of equations but once you have the right ones, it kind of falls out automagically. That’s my remembering of their explanation of it, anyway.
Susan,, it was OK, Wayne Hamilton sounded nice, :)… A second what mike wrote
Sorry, my 379 post should have been directed to Martin V; apologies to both Martin and Mark.
Mark, I appreciate your response anyway. I was exaggerating a bit — the integration was at least way beyond me!
JFJM Reur 383 and Gavin’s response thereon:
Well actually, the only time that I’ve felt embarrassed was when Martin Vermeer corrected me that altimetry data showing lowering of ice shelves referred to a reduction in freeboard, not total thickness…. A silly oversight on my part. (to which I agreed with Martin)
Taking just a few recent points, is it nonsense to point out:
1) That Greenland temperatures and their rate of change today should not be alarming when compared with those temperature records recorded in the early 20th century
2) That water has high reflectivity at high latitudes, (sun low in sky) contrary to the common assertion of seriously greater absorption when sea ice melts.
3) That ice/snow is an excellent absorber of infrared, which contradicts another more complex assertion made here.
4) That Antarctica is seriously colder than Greenland (according to Wiki’, including BTW that the hottest temperatures ever recorded there were back in 1974)
5) That goodly satellite observations of sea-ice and melt-ponds etc, have only been available since 1979, and that it is unscientific to assume that anything seen since 1979 is either the worst or best ever.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BTW, the reference to kamikaze (posts, not people), was meant to be humorous and should be understood in the context that RC had a PAST reputation for unfairly deleting some posts from sceptics. I must say though that the technical editing here is far better than that PAST reputation.
[Response: Since you put up a summary, it’s maybe worth pointing out in one place why you are confused. 1) There is plenty of evidence that glacier retreat on Greenland has exceeded levels earlier in the century (Jacobshavn, Liverpool land etc.). In fact, there is evidence that it has exceeded 1000 yr levels in places. Basing conclusions about ice on a few temperature stations from Southern Greenland is clutching at straws. 2) zenith angle affects do not cancel out ice-albedo feedbacks (since a) zenith angles are large enough a lot of the time for them not to matter and b) apply to ice surfaces as well). 3) When have we ever discussed snow NIR absorption? In any case the effect is real but small – visible snow albedo is ~95%, compared to the net albedo of about 80% (taking into account the distribution of solar radiation). Still much higher than water almost all of the time. 4) That is an argument for what? 5) Yup. No other evidence of the age of collapsing ice shelves and glaciers or indeed any other climate process can add any knowledge to the history of the planet because we didn’t have satellites before 1979. Brilliant.
[You might not think you are embarrassing yourself, but….. -gavin]
Chuckle. He doesn’t cast _himself_ as a kamikaze; he’s recruiting.
P.S.:
“… Today the cranking out of righteous indignation is a robust growth industry, and it threatens to do far worse than cloud our critical faculties. Help us to put the culture wars aside … ” Thomas Frank, in The Wall Street Journal JULY 28, 2009.
Re: #383–
A rather different tone from BobFJ than the lead in his email to me from July 25:
“Hi Kevin,
I like talking to you because you seem to be a reasonable guy, open to sensible debate.
Here are my last two posts at RC, which I have copy pasted after submission from the site itself for reference, below. . .”
Seems Bob can soft soap with the best of ’em, when it suits his purpose, then use phraseology like “crawl out of the woodwork.”
Reuters:
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE56F6N220090717
U.S. releases unclassified spy images of Arctic ice
Fri Jul 17, 2009
—-excerpt follows—-
The Arctic images have a resolution of about 1 yard (1 meter), a vast improvement on previously available pictures of sea ice, said Thorsten Markus of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
“These are one-meter-resolution images, which give you a big picture of the summertime Arctic,” Markus said on Thursday. “This is the main reason why we are so thrilled about it. One meter resolution is the dimension that’s missing.”
The next-best resolution for images of Arctic sea ice is 15 to 30 meters, Markus said by telephone. This risks missing small features that can have a big impact on warming in the area.
SMALL PUDDLES, BIG IMPACT
For example, during the summer months, pools of melted water form on top of Arctic ice floes, and these puddles can stretch across 30 meters. The water in the puddles is dark and absorbs heat, as opposed to the white ice all around them, which reflects heat.
Knowing about these melt pools is valuable to producing models of what might happen in the Arctic in the future, but with images that have a resolution of 30 meters or so, these pools might well be missed. While individual puddles are small, collectively they cover about 30 percent of the Arctic.
“The (forecasting) models do well at capturing the overall sea ice cover in the Arctic,” Markus said. “But there are certain processes that we cannot adequately model yet, mainly … because we don’t have enough data.”
Markus said the public release of these images was “a huge surprise — I expected after the report, months could go by until somebody moved.”
“That doesn’t happen every day,” said a person familiar with the government’s decision. “This is a great example of good government cooperation between the intelligence community and academia. In the science community, we call it a no-brainer.”
re: 378
Dear Nick,
You inquired about the Arctic Sea to the north of Eastern Siberia, I believe.
I don’t have a good link at hand, but if you use google earth, you can zoom in on that area.
It is like thousands of miles of tidal flats.
RE #383 – The good company they keep …
“Like rain. We believe it is a creation of god rather than an evaporation caused by the sun that condenses and becomes rain.
“Like saying the world is a sphere. If it runs contrary to the teachings of Allah, we reject it. We also reject the theory of Darwinism.”
Teachings by Nigerian Taliban leader Mohammed Yusuf, as reported by BBC yesterday. At least the issues have become known quite widely.
re #383: Thanks for pointing this out!
Fortunately most denialists are not very smart, and BobFJ’s combination of cock-sure assertions using lots of difficult words combined with elementary errors immediately got my neck-hairs up.
I wonder if he finally understood the silliness of using pictures that had solar limb darkening digitally removed in trying to prove it doesn’t exist… I sure hope the readership here got the message.
“I was exaggerating a bit — the integration was at least way beyond me!”
It’s beyond me now. I haven’t had to do serious maths for a LONG time now and you really DO need to just be immersed in it for some years to get back into being able to do integrations (differentiation is easy in comparison: the “by parts” and so on are just shortcuts around the basic idea of using a difference: you can swap knowledge for time and do things the first-principles way and take ages and still get the right answer with differentiation).
I *think* it starts with considering the earth-with-bulge as THREE bodies:
Earth
Bulge toward Moon
Bulge away from Moon
and because the bulges are the *same size* but the one further away has less of a pull on the moon is the clincher for the effect.
But the *detail* I have no pigging clue, I’ve just not been immersed in integration for too long to have the answers readily available to my mind.
They’re still IN there, pretty much, but a book will fill the specifics. But the immersion is how you remember WHEN YOU SHOULD APPLY A METHOD.
And that’s pretty much gone.
Mark, JFJM
Read this. It’s by a real climate expert. You might actually learn something new.
http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/2009/07/resisting-climate-hysteria
Max
[Response: I learned that even people who once had stellar scientific careers can end up dissembling, using baseless arguments and insulting all of their colleagues – all in the pursuit of a political agenda. A salutary (if sad) tale. Thanks for bringing it to our attention. – gavin]