Arctic Sea Ice Watch

Gaoth Laidir

riffmongous wrote: »

There was already a rebuttal to an earlier version of the Bates paper a few years ago, questioning the method it's based on (Lindzen and Choi), which was already pretty much discredited due to it's assumptions

https://www.dropbox.com/s/wr7nr8m4v4kwhc8/BatesResponse.docx?dl=0

And that rebuttal has since been discredited.

riffmongous

Gaoth Laidir wrote: »

And that rebuttal has since been discredited.

Can you share the link?

Gaoth Laidir

It is dealt with in Bates 2016. Discredited is a wrong choice of word on my part, rather addressed.

pauldry

NW passage beginning to open

So is Beaufort

This doesnt happen many Arctic Summers

3 or 4m definite minimum this year with top 4 definite

Top1 3/1
Top 2 evens
Top 3 1/5

RobertKK

We know from ice melt in the Alps that around the time of the Roman empire there was far less ice in the Alps.

The biggest player on the Earth's climate is caused by the sun, not humans. A lack of sun spots is associated with very cold winters and a negative NAO in north western Europe.
El Nino and la nina effects the global climate, more and more urban areas affect the global climate - just watch the weather on the BBC and they say it will be warmer in the cities and much colder in rural areas.
CO2 levels are not at their highest in the history of this planet.

Climate change has been used by government as a means to gather tax. I personally don't care if one believes in man made climate change or not, the whole approach is wrong, I think most people would agree that it is not good to be polluting the environment.
One should remember the most polluting events in Earth's history have not come from humans but from the Earth itself with exploding volcanoes that even caused snow in summer, skies around the world polluted with ash and gas, forest fires caused by lightning.

The worst pollution humans are doing is all the rubbish in the oceans.
Rubbish needs to be dealt with better, and technology down through history always changed, we are in a process where we are being weaned from the over dependence on oil.

When it comes to the Arctic, it was once an ice free zone. Life did not cease on the planet.

Akrasia

RobertKK wrote: »

We know from ice melt in the Alps that around the time of the Roman empire there was far less ice in the Alps.

I presume you're referring to Schluchter's paper about roman coins and 4000 year old wood found in the melted ice after glaciers retreated in the alps.

This paper does nothing to disprove global warming. 1. The romans could have dropped the coins while they were traversing the glaciers, 2 even if these specific glaciers had been in retreat 4000 years ago, that only represents regional climactic variation, and as the rest of your post talks about the sun, the fact that glaciers are currently retreating while solar activity is in a lower than average state means that there is something other than solar forcing that is causing the current record breaking global temperatures

The biggest player on the Earth's climate is caused by the sun, not humans. A lack of sun spots is associated with very cold winters and a negative NAO in north western Europe.
El Nino and la nina effects the global climate, more and more urban areas affect the global climate - just watch the weather on the BBC and they say it will be warmer in the cities and much colder in rural areas.
CO2 levels are not at their highest in the history of this planet.

Human carbon emissions are the dominant factor in the current climate change.
Urban heat island effects only affect cities and towns because concrete is a good store of heat and black roofs, roads, car parks etc have a stronger albido than grasses or woodlands. They are local effects. The vast majority of land surface area is still unpaved and not subject to the heat island effect.

CO2 levels in primoreal earth were certainly higher than today, and there were no ice caps back then and sea levels were hundreds of metres higher than today. Do you seriously want us to flood almost all the inhabited places on earth?

Climate change has been used by government as a means to gather tax.

Governments use all kinds of excuses to increase tax, just because cigarettes are taxed doesn't mean tobacco isn't dangerous. Just because you don't like taxes, doesn't mean you get to deny global warming is real and caused by Carbon emissions

I personally don't care if one believes in man made climate change or not, the whole approach is wrong, I think most people would agree that it is not good to be polluting the environment.
One should remember the most polluting events in Earth's history have not come from humans but from the Earth itself with exploding volcanoes that even caused snow in summer, skies around the world polluted with ash and gas, forest fires caused by lightning.

The worst pollution humans are doing is all the rubbish in the oceans.
Rubbish needs to be dealt with better, and technology down through history always changed, we are in a process where we are being weaned from the over dependence on oil.

When it comes to the Arctic, it was once an ice free zone. Life did not cease on the planet.

Life didn't cease to exist, but there weren't any advanced civilisations back then. Action on global warming is about human self preservation, the planet itself will be fine.

Akrasia

Gaoth Laidir wrote: »

I think maybe you're the type of person who believes the Daily Express-type headlines and takes everything at face value. It seems that you see something bad happen and link it to obvious agw. Your evidence has done nothing to support your point.

I never read the Daily express or any of the red-top rags or gutter blogs that are so popular among global warming deniers.

When I look for a source for scientific claims, I prefer good science journalism that accurately reflects good quality peer reviewed science papers.I am strident in my position here because this argument is over and has been over for more than 10 years. The people who still cling to the idea that there is even a debate about it, are the ones who get their news from the telegraph (James Delingpole for example, one of the least credible 'journalists' working anywhere in the UK) or from denialist blogs like 'Watts up with that' or the dozens of other propaganda blogs set up and funded by the energy industry to spread misinformation about the science behind global warming (eg, Anthony Watts is employed by 'The Heartland institute')

Yes, Arctic ice is on a decline. No doubt about it. However, 10 years ago many were reckoning that we could see ice-free summers by 2020. That's not going to happen. They were wrong.

'Many' may have been wrong about the exact date, but the scientific papers deal in probabilities, and it is very probable that not long after 2020, there will be ice free summers in the Arctic. A few years doesn't change the long term trend and that fact that the trend is consistent with the science behind AGW

Likewise with the hurricanes. You say they're complex. Of course they are, but Katrina fed the hype and went down as another "example" of our effect on the climate. "Expect more of them", we were warned. Yet the US has gone its longest spell without a major hurricane since records began. It's been widely known for decades that global teleconnections are the biggest influence on hurricane activity, far outweighing ghg signals. And there's nothing "unusual" about the El Niatterns recently. The last one was a big one but it's happened before and will happen again.

Katrina was a 1 in century storm. Global warming says that these storms are likely to be more common, but it's not like they're going to happen every year or even every 10 years.

There have been plenty of record breaking hurricanes other than Katrina recently, but none that had the unhappy coincidence of hitting a city with serious infrastructure deficits on the scale of New Orleans. Hurricane Sandy happened in 2012 and killed hundreds of people and caused 75 billion dollars worth of damage.
Last year Matthew caused massive destruction, killing over 600 people...

Since the IPCC reports there has been new evidence to indicate that climate sensitivity is not what it was believed to be. I have referenced thay paper by Ray Bates and I attended his lecture on it. Sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 is only about half of what the IPCC previously believed. Read that paper a few posts ago and see what you think.

One, not particularly eminent scientist working for an industry lobby group does not overturn the scientific consensus with one paper that disagrees with dozens of other peer reviewed papers. Why do you believe Bates but not the other scientists who disagree with his analysis?
Bates model is, by other accounts, based on incorrect assumptions for non-Planck Feedbacks on satelite measurements of surface temperatures. Until Bates can demonstrate convincingly that these material assumptions are accurate, then his paper has no value.

The warming has not been an upward-curving graph. The FORECASTS were for that but it has not transpired that way. Bates' paper explains this in detail and accounts for the 15-year flatter trend than forecast. Yes the oceans will store this heat but my point is that we are continually seeing unexpected trends that the go against the "consensus" ones.

As more data comes in, the models will be upgraded and become more accurate over time, but they will never be perfect. The trend for upward curving temperatures is still the scientific consensus, especially in the business as usual scenario, and if you look at the graph over a short time frame, you will see periods of reduced temperature increases, and other periods of rapid temperature increases. (un-forseen events are not included in short term trends eg, There were volcano eruptions wildfire season has been getting longer and more destructive https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2315/study-fire-seasons-getting-longer-more-frequent/ which may have had impacts on warming.) When you step back and look at the overall graph, it definitely is an upward trending u shaped curve

The population of the world is growing rapidly so thousands of deaths from an event (if these deaths can be definitely attributed to it) needs to be see in perspective. As Oneiric said, this is nothing new. Heatwaves have occurred before. 50 degrees in SW USA is nothing new. The grounded flights you refer to were only CRJ aircraft, which have limited hot-and-high performance capabilities. What you didn't state is that all other flights (Boeings, Airbus, etc.) were not affected. Maybe you didn't read past the headline...

The deaths were a warning that extreme heatwaves are something we should do everything to avoid.
Heatwaves have always been a feature of weather in many parts of the world, but global warming will make them more intense, more frequent, and more widespread than they have been in human history. The event of 2003 if it was to be replicated this summer probably wouldn't kill as many people because more places are better equipped to ride out the heat with technology. The fact that it was so unexpected is why it killed so many people, and it was unexpected because it was way outside the normal range for these parts of Europe.

What I fail to understand is why all possible consequences of warming are invariably "devastating", "catastrophic: or "bad news". We are told that the poorest nations will see more droughts. The horn of Africa has forever been most affected by ENSO setups and other teleconnections. Again, it's nothing new. The deserts of the world are where they are because of the Hadley Circulation, not because of agw. Countries in the Sahel have always been in a precarious position, given the natural variability of the rain seasons, etc. That's why they have these problems. Is there anywhere you see that could benefit from the changes you believe in? If there are losers on one side then there must be beneficiaries on the other. It can't all be doom and gloom.

The catastrophic effects of global warming are so dangerous because by the time we experience them, it will probably already be too late to prevent things from getting much worse. Global warming at 2 degrees above industrial temperatures will be very disruptive to a lot of people and ecological systems, but the fear is that beyond 2 degrees it becomes runaway warming as feedback loops amplify warming and then you can pick your favourite post apocalyptic scenario and try to re-create that because it's gonna be a roller-coaster ride trying to adapt to a new geography (both physical and political)

Gaoth Laidir

Akrasia wrote: »

'Many' may have been wrong about the exact date, but the scientific papers deal in probabilities, and it is very probable that not long after 2020, there will be ice free summers in the Arctic. A few years doesn't change the long term trend and that fact that the trend is consistent with the science behind AGW

How long after is "not long" after? 2025? 2050? 2100?

The few years are actually half a climatic period. The models didn't predict the relative flattening. Bates' 2016 paper explains it.

Katrina was a 1 in century storm. Global warming says that these storms are likely to be more common, but it's not like they're going to happen every year or even every 10 years.

There have been plenty of record breaking hurricanes other than Katrina recently, but none that had the unhappy coincidence of hitting a city with serious infrastructure deficits on the scale of New Orleans. Hurricane Sandy happened in 2012 and killed hundreds of people and caused 75 billion dollars worth of damage.
Last year Matthew caused massive destruction, killing over 600 people...

Which record-breaking ones are you refering to? The US hasn't had a Cat 3 or higher hurricane landfall for 12 years. This is unprecedented since 1850.

One, not particularly eminent scientist working for an industry lobby group does not overturn the scientific consensus with one paper that disagrees with dozens of other peer reviewed papers. Why do you believe Bates but not the other scientists who disagree with his analysis?

I don't judge a paper on the basis of who wrote it but on its content. Apparently this is not the case for you. Have you read the 2016 paper? I'm not talking about earlier ones.

As more data comes in, the models will be upgraded and become more accurate over time, but they will never be perfect. The trend for upward curving temperatures is still the scientific consensus, especially in the business as usual scenario, and if you look at the graph over a short time frame, you will see periods of reduced temperature increases, and other periods of rapid temperature increases. (un-forseen events are not included in short term trends eg, There were volcano eruptions wildfire season has been getting longer and more destructive https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2315/study-fire-seasons-getting-longer-more-frequent/ which may have had impacts on warming.) When you step back and look at the overall graph, it definitely is an upward trending u shaped curve.

I'm talking about observational data, not forecasts. I don't see a U-curve. Increasing, yes, but the early century warming is approximately the same slope as the late century (even before the recent 15 years' flattening)

The deaths were a warning that extreme heatwaves are something we should do everything to avoid.
Heatwaves have always been a feature of weather in many parts of the world, but global warming will make them more intense, more frequent, and more widespread than they have been in human history. The event of 2003 if it was to be replicated this summer probably wouldn't kill as many people because more places are better equipped to ride out the heat with technology. The fact that it was so unexpected is why it killed so many people, and it was unexpected because it was way outside the normal range for these parts of Europe.

Which such amazing technological advances have appeared in the last 14 years?

The catastrophic effects of global warming are so dangerous because by the time we experience them, it will probably already be too late to prevent things from getting much worse. Global warming at 2 degrees above industrial temperatures will be very disruptive to a lot of people and ecological systems, but the fear is that beyond 2 degrees it becomes runaway warming as feedback loops amplify warming and then you can pick your favourite post apocalyptic scenario and try to re-create that because it's gonna be a roller-coaster ride trying to adapt to a new geography (both physical and political)

More Daily Express-type language. So, as I asked before, do you not see ANY winners from GW? I saw the forecast for Ireland to 2100 and there's really not much difference to today. Certainly nothing "catastrophic". Does that make us a winner or loser? Slightly warmer winter nights? I'll take that! Slightly heavier summer rainfall? As long as we stop building new developments on flood plains and ensure we look after our natural drainage in urban areas well be grand.

pedigree 6

If there's money to be made from climate change.
The Tyndall centre for climate change will make it.;)

http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/about
http://tyndallcentre.fudan.edu.cn/en/

Trogdor

Gaoth Laidir wrote: »

How long after is "not long" after? 2025? 2050? 2100?

The few years are actually half a climatic period. The models didn't predict the relative flattening. Bates' 2016 paper explains it.

Models by their nature are just that, models. Our best approximation based on our understanding of the physics and observations. They're not going to account for year to year natural variances and will only point towards the expected trend and we can see that the trend is downwards and if continued as expected will lead to an ice-free arctic:



I'm not sure of the point which is trying to be made with reference to when this will occur. There have been many different models run all of which point towards decreasing ice in the arctic with most estimates of an ice-free arctic falling between 2020 and 2050. The estimate of 2020 (assuming that this refers to Maslowski (2010)) was based off an assumption that the melting of arctic sea ice may actually be occurring more rapidly than global climate models predict, however, we are still on track to see an ice-free arctic in the summer time based on the global climate model estimates of between now and 2050.

Gaoth Laidir wrote: »

I don't judge a paper on the basis of who wrote it but on its content. Apparently this is not the case for you. Have you read the 2016 paper? I'm not talking about earlier ones.

The paper talks about seeing a ~1°C warming for a doubling of CO2, however, we have already seen ~1°C of warming and have not yet seen in a doubling of CO2. It would seem that the conclusions from the paper are already disagreeing with observations.

Gaoth Laidir wrote: »

I'm talking about observational data, not forecasts. I don't see a U-curve. Increasing, yes, but the early century warming is approximately the same slope as the late century (even before the recent 15 years' flattening)

The trend over recent decades certainly looks to be more increasing faster than in previous decades to me



Also with regard to the comments about hurricanes/heatwaves, when dealing with events that are already rare in nature we simply do not have enough data from recent years to verify this and trying to identify individual events as being caused by global warming does not make much sense. If we see a once in a century event increase in frequency to once every 90 years, it is going to take at least many centuries worth of data to show this kind of trend given the statistical noise present in these kind of observations. Would you not agree that if you input more energy into a system it is likely to see events which are more frequent and energetic than previously? Comparing landfalls of hurricanes/death rates from these events also further complicates matters further as these can depend on further independent variables and noise.

Gaoth Laidir wrote: »

More Daily Express-type language. So, as I asked before, do you not see ANY winners from GW? I saw the forecast for Ireland to 2100 and there's really not much difference to today. Certainly nothing "catastrophic". Does that make us a winner or loser? Slightly warmer winter nights? I'll take that! Slightly heavier summer rainfall? As long as we stop building new developments on flood plains and ensure we look after our natural drainage in urban areas well be grand.

I agree that there will certainly be certain people/businesses/areas of world which stand to benefit from the warming of the planet, I think it would be ignorant to say otherwise. But at the same time we are talking about throwing ecological systems into chaos - change in season timings, changing migration patterns, loss of habitat, coral bleaching events etc.. Regardless of the degree of impact which is being caused, should we really be allowing oil (and other fossil fuel based) companies to dictate the composition and temperature of our atmosphere?

irishgeo

An ice free artic maybe that's the way the earth is supposed to be. We are in an inter glacial period. Anyone around for the last one? Ahh yes I thought not. So no one has a clue what the normal earth when not coming out of an ice age looks like.

Some landmasses are still recovering their normal height above sea level after all weight of the ice has been removed . Maybe glaciers on the mountains should be retreating or not exist at all.

Sure humans are doing some damage to the climate but is it as bad as it's made out. We will never know.

I do think that we need to move away from oil etc and it's good it's started to go that way.

Gaoth Laidir

Trogdor wrote: »

Models by their nature are just that, models. Our best approximation based on our understanding of the physics and observations. They're not going to account for year to year natural variances and will only point towards the expected trend and we can see that the trend is downwards and if continued as expected will lead to an ice-free arctic:



I'm not sure of the point which is trying to be made with reference to when this will occur. There have been many different models run all of which point towards decreasing ice in the arctic with most estimates of an ice-free arctic falling between 2020 and 2050. The estimate of 2020 (assuming that this refers to Maslowski (2010)) was based off an assumption that the melting of arctic sea ice may actually be occurring more rapidly than global climate models predict, however, we are still on track to see an ice-free arctic in the summer time based on the global climate model estimates of between now and 2050.

Yep, and that's my point. There are widely-varying forecasts. I've no doubt that if the trend continues at some point it must hit zero, but I hear scaremongering on how quickly this will happen.

The paper talks about seeing a ~1°C warming for a doubling of CO2, however, we have already seen ~1°C of warming and have not yet seen in a doubling of CO2. It would seem that the conclusions from the paper are already disagreeing with observations.

The paper deals only with CO2 sensitivity. Not all of the warming has been down to CO2. There has been a background warming trend since 1850 which is not due to humans. For future projections a climate sensitivity of around half of that generally accepted (though the IPCC stopped stating an upper limit on its range in the FAR) will have a large affect on the future trend. Are you saying Bates' 1-degree figure is wrong?

The trend over recent decades certainly looks to be more increasing faster than in previous decades to me

If you include the last 2 El Niño years then it's a similar spike to 1997. The underlying trend, however, is almost the same as 100 years ago.

Also with regard to the comments about hurricanes/heatwaves, when dealing with events that are already rare in nature we simply do not have enough data from recent years to verify this and trying to identify individual events as being caused by global warming does not make much sense.

My point exactly.

If we see a once in a century event increase in frequency to once every 90 years, it is going to take at least many centuries worth of data to show this kind of trend given the statistical noise present in these kind of observations. Would you not agree that if you input more energy into a system it is likely to see events which are more frequent and energetic than previously? Comparing landfalls of hurricanes/death rates from these events also further complicates matters further as these can depend on further independent variables and noise.

I agree, yet this is what Akrasia has done.

I have no doubt that increased energy input -》increased output at some point. What I was merely pointing out again was the scaremongering of imminent doom that occurred after the 2005 season. It's ironic that the opposite has occurred.

I agree that there will certainly be certain people/businesses/areas of world which stand to benefit from the warming of the planet, I think it would be ignorant to say otherwise. But at the same time we are talking about throwing ecological systems into chaos - change in season timings, changing migration patterns, loss of habitat, coral bleaching events etc.. Regardless of the degree of impact which is being caused, should we really be allowing oil (and other fossil fuel based) companies to dictate the composition and temperature of our atmosphere?

Absolutely not. I am 100% behind the idea of weaning us off fossil fuels and cannot fathom why we are not going full-on behind renewable energy. It just makes complete sense. I just have a problem with the scaremongering that goes with this. Ecosystems have survived before and will adapt. In a lot of cases this scaremongering has turned out to be grossly overdone. Don't get me wrong, I'm not denying that observational data show a warming trend (however there is a signal from increased urbanisation from stations), however the exact level of human contribution is still not virtually certain imo.

Akrasia

Gaoth Laidir wrote: »

How long after is "not long" after? 2025? 2050? 2100?

The few years are actually half a climatic period. The models didn't predict the relative flattening. Bates' 2016 paper explains it.

I don't know what you mean by climatic period. Climate oscillates on the scale of thousands of years between ice ages, or several years between La nina el nino cycles (which are irregular). A few years is statistical noise in terms of climatic trends. If the first fully ice free year is 2030 it's still consistent with the global warming hypothesis, The experts in this field know how chaotic the arctic ice system is and due to this, the American GeoPhysical Union have said that they can't confidently predict the first ice free arctic summer within about 20 years, but it could happen sooner than this. It's too chaotic. Ice free is defined as less than 1 million square km of ice in the arctic. If there is 1.1 million km of ice in the arctic this won't count officially, but for all practical purposes, there's no real difference.

Which record-breaking ones are you refering to? The US hasn't had a Cat 3 or higher hurricane landfall for 12 years. This is unprecedented since 1850.

Something must be changing in the climate to have disrupted the normal hurricane patterns!
Seriously though, there are still plenty of Cat 5 storms especially in the pacific where Patricia, 2 years ago was an absolute monster with sustained wind speeds reaching 215Mph.

Hurricanes can be affected by global warming in many different ways, look at the various hurricane systems to see the variation between the North Atlantic, the eastern pacific, the western north pacific ocean, the north indian ocean etc etc... All of these locations have different climactic conditions driving the frequency, intensity and longevity of these storms. When climate change 'skeptics' point at hurricanes and say 'there hasn't been a cat 5 hitting landfall in continental USA in x number of years, that's one cherrypicked data point. Why don't they talk about the increased frequency of storms in the atlantic, or the monster storms in the eastern pacific. It's far too complex for a non expert to assess whether climate change is causing storm systems to get worse on balance given the number of variables that need to be accounted for. Instead of bloggers taking individual data points that they think support their position, they should be referring to published peer reviewed studies.

I don't judge a paper on the basis of who wrote it but on its content. Apparently this is not the case for you. Have you read the 2016 paper? I'm not talking about earlier ones.

I am not a climate scientist, i am not qualified to review his paper. Other climate scientists have criticized his findings, and given that he bases his findings on discredited research done by Lindzen and Choi, I'm inclined to believe them. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/01/lindzen-and-choi-unraveled/

LC09 incorrectly compute the climate sensitivity
By not allowing for the black body radiation (the Planck function) in their feedback parameter, LC09 underestimate climate sensitivity. Using the correct equations, LC09 should obtain a feedback parameter and climate sensitivity of -0.125 and 0.82 K, respectively, rather than their values of -1.1 and 0.5 K. In contrast, TFOW results yield a positive feedback parameter and greater sensitivity estimate, though we also caution that this approach is not a valid technique for estimating sensitivity, as a closed and therefore global domain is essential (though not by itself sufficient). Lastly, LC09 fail to account for variability in forcings in estimating sensitivity.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/01/lindzen-and-choi-unraveled/

I'm talking about observational data, not forecasts. I don't see a U-curve. Increasing, yes, but the early century warming is approximately the same slope as the late century (even before the recent 15 years' flattening)

Which such amazing technological advances have appeared in the last 14 years?

Air conditioning. It hasn't been invented recently, but if a french nursing home didn't have air conditioning before 2003, it probably does now.

More Daily Express-type language. So, as I asked before, do you not see ANY winners from GW? I saw the forecast for Ireland to 2100 and there's really not much difference to today. Certainly nothing "catastrophic". Does that make us a winner or loser? Slightly warmer winter nights? I'll take that! Slightly heavier summer rainfall? As long as we stop building new developments on flood plains and ensure we look after our natural drainage in urban areas well be grand.

Its a global problem. Ireland could be hit by sea level rises of about 1 meter by 2100 (it could be much worse if the less optimistic scenarios unfold) This will be enough to flood large parts of limerick, Ennis, Galway, Cork and the coast of Dublin would be severely impacted. But Ireland would get off relatively lightly, just as long as all the globally displaced populations behave themselves and die peacefully in their heatwaves floods and famines. The refugee crisis we see now is only a fraction of what is predicted as climate change gets worse.

RobertKK

Akrasia wrote: »

I presume you're referring to Schluchter's paper about roman coins and 4000 year old wood found in the melted ice after glaciers retreated in the alps.

This paper does nothing to disprove global warming. 1. The romans could have dropped the coins while they were traversing the glaciers, 2 even if these specific glaciers had been in retreat 4000 years ago, that only represents regional climactic variation, and as the rest of your post talks about the sun, the fact that glaciers are currently retreating while solar activity is in a lower than average state means that there is something other than solar forcing that is causing the current record breaking global temperatures



Human carbon emissions are the dominant factor in the current climate change.
Urban heat island effects only affect cities and towns because concrete is a good store of heat and black roofs, roads, car parks etc have a stronger albido than grasses or woodlands. They are local effects. The vast majority of land surface area is still unpaved and not subject to the heat island effect.

CO2 levels in primoreal earth were certainly higher than today, and there were no ice caps back then and sea levels were hundreds of metres higher than today. Do you seriously want us to flood almost all the inhabited places on earth?


Governments use all kinds of excuses to increase tax, just because cigarettes are taxed doesn't mean tobacco isn't dangerous. Just because you don't like taxes, doesn't mean you get to deny global warming is real and caused by Carbon emissions


Life didn't cease to exist, but there weren't any advanced civilisations back then. Action on global warming is about human self preservation, the planet itself will be fine.

We had a medieval warm period, then centuries later the little ice age, and since then it has been in a warming phase - even if one takes into account anything humans may have done to warm the climate.
Maybe with satellites we can measure much better now.

More CO2 in the atmosphere also makes plants grow faster. The higher levels of CO2 will not lead to runaway climate change. Earth is not going to turn into a Venus where CO2 makes up over 96% CO2, Earth has 0.04% CO2 which is vital for plant life.
NASA say the increased levels of CO2 on Earth has led to a greener Earth.
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2436/co2-is-making-earth-greenerfor-now/

A quarter to half of Earth’s vegetated lands has shown significant greening over the last 35 years largely due to rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change on April 25.

One could argue with the human population continuing to rise the higher levels of CO2 in the atmosphere are needed if we want to feed everyone, if it is leading to more vegetation.

Current climate change is not a definite science, humans are not the driver of the climate, the sun is, human impact on specific weather events is impossible to measure. There is an interesting that most of the warming is seen in night time temperatures, I would speculate the increase in humans populations and subsequent buildings and buildings, roads, man made surfaces absorb the heat during the day and the heat absorbed during the day is released as temperatures fall when the sun goes down.
As I said in my previous post, you see it all the time on the BBC weather, it will be much cooler in rural areas...
Here in Kilkenny we lost our weather station as buildings were built closer and closer to the weather station. Met Eireann said the buildings were causing an effect on the temperatures and making them not accurate.

We will not lose our ice caps, ice has receded and grown over the centuries and that will continue.

To answer your last paragraph, does the Earth actually need human life, does it still need the dinosaurs that once ruled?
If not, then why is there so much breeding going on?
The best way to reduce pollution and CO2 is not to breed. Much more effective than tax.

Nabber

Akrasia wrote: »

I'm so fed up with global warming deniers. You're no better than moon landing deniers but at least that's harmless

AGW deniers.... Even the wording is geared towards making the other side appear wrong before the debate even begins.
Healthy debate is good for both sides.

My issue is the handling of AWG, real or not, it has been marketed very poorly. It is also a victim of its own phenomenon.

All weather extreme wether is associated with AGW, which would lead one to believe that the planet 500 years ago was mild and calm, with no extreme weather.

AGW - "Expect major event X to become yearly"
New record, major event X hasn't happened in 10 years, which is a new record
AGW - Global warming has distorted weather patterns hence why Major Event Xs are less common.

Associating all extreme weather and making outlandish claims turned me off AGW. Too much scandal, too much investments.

I'll continue to be open to both sides. Even if there turns out to be no AGW, I'll still recycle, I'll still compost, I'll avoid the car where possible...

Statistically it's more likely there are aliens than the likelyhood Humans are causing global warming.
I'm fed up with people saying there are no aliens

pauldry

This thread is called Arctic Sea Ice watch but its just an argument about Climate change and Global Warming

Oneiric 3

Akrasia wrote: »

The refugee crisis we see now is only a fraction of what is predicted as climate change gets worse.

Are you saying that the current refugee crisis is a result of climate change?

This is where I find a problem with many pro-climate change advocates. (not aimed at you Akrasia) They hijack events that have nothing to do with climate change and to me, this just confirms their general lack of knowledge of politics and political history. I am becoming more convinced by the day that many use climate change as a smokescreen to disguise their political and cultural ignorance. With them, global disarray is nearly always a future problem but something we must address right now. Meanwhile, the world of politics and the cultural and intellectual upheaval that comes with it is happening all around them, every day. In other words, it is a clever way, of what usually are quite privileged and sheltered suburbanites, feigning concern about the state of the socio-political issues, without actually having to deal with anything that really matters.

Oneiric 3

pauldry wrote: »

This thread is called Arctic Sea Ice watch but its just an argument about Climate change and Global Warming

To coin what is rather ostentatious terminology, the two are not mutually exclusive.

Gaoth Laidir

Akrasia wrote: »

I don't know what you mean by climatic period.

I mean the 30-year period over which climate averages are taken (1981-2010, etc ).

Something must be changing in the climate to have disrupted the normal hurricane patterns!
Seriously though, there are still plenty of Cat 5 storms especially in the pacific where Patricia, 2 years ago was an absolute monster with sustained wind speeds reaching 215Mph.

So Patricia was due to AGW? You can tell?

We are not yet 40 years into our modern satellite era, which has allowed us to monitor storm pressures and windspeeds remotely, something that was never done before. Microwave sounding allows us to look at many different layers of the storm in good detail, something we couldn't dream of before. Did storms like Patricia form in the deep Pacific before the satellite era? Maybe. Maybe not. I can't say for sure that they did, but likewise you can't say for sure that they didn't. Geostationary satellites go back further but they show just one view of the CDO and not much else. What went on under that opaque layer was largely unknown unless a storm happened to make landfall. Now we have polar-orbiting satellite 10-m wind data and surface data buoys located along the tropical belt, so our observations have become many times better than 50 years ago. Point is, we cannot say that this is unprecedented.

Hurricanes can be affected by global warming in many different ways, look at the various hurricane systems to see the variation between the North Atlantic, the eastern pacific, the western north pacific ocean, the north indian ocean etc etc... All of these locations have different climactic conditions driving the frequency, intensity and longevity of these storms. When climate change 'skeptics' point at hurricanes and say 'there hasn't been a cat 5 hitting landfall in continental USA in x number of years, that's one cherrypicked data point. Why don't they talk about the increased frequency of storms in the atlantic, or the monster storms in the eastern pacific. It's far too complex for a non expert to assess whether climate change is causing storm systems to get worse on balance given the number of variables that need to be accounted for. Instead of bloggers taking individual data points that they think support their position, they should be referring to published peer reviewed studies.

Yes, different regions, different climatologies. Further complicate that with PDO-AMO-MJO, etc. phases that themselves can last as long as our modern satellite era has and we see that the permutations pile up and it becomes difficult to see the wood for the trees. But of course there are some who can see it clearly.

I am not a climate scientist, i am not qualified to review his paper.

Ah, so you chose not to read his paper...

Other climate scientists have criticized his findings, and given that he bases his findings on discredited research done by Lindzen and Choi, I'm inclined to believe them. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/01/lindzen-and-choi-unraveled/

...but you are qualified to read theirs. Is that what you mean by cherrypicking? If you checked the paper I quoted from 2016 you would see that Bates addresses these issues, but as you are not qualified to read it I suppose those findings will go in the bin.

Air conditioning. It hasn't been invented recently, but if a french nursing home didn't have air conditioning before 2003, it probably does now.

So that's the basis of your argument? Wow.

Its a global problem. Ireland could be hit by sea level rises of about 1 meter by 2100 (it could be much worse if the less optimistic scenarios unfold) This will be enough to flood large parts of limerick, Ennis, Galway, Cork and the coast of Dublin would be severely impacted. But Ireland would get off relatively lightly, just as long as all the globally displaced populations behave themselves and die peacefully in their heatwaves floods and famines.

Ireland's sea levels are actually rising at at well below the average due to Geological reasons so I think your metre is stretching it more than a bit.

The refugee crisis we see now is only a fraction of what is predicted as climate change gets worse.

You are joking, right? You didn't just bring political refugees into the climate debate!? :rolleyes:

Akrasia

RobertKK wrote: »

We had a medieval warm period, then centuries later the little ice age, and since then it has been in a warming phase - even if one takes into account anything humans may have done to warm the climate.
Maybe with satellites we can measure much better now.

More CO2 in the atmosphere also makes plants grow faster. The higher levels of CO2 will not lead to runaway climate change. Earth is not going to turn into a Venus where CO2 makes up over 96% CO2, Earth has 0.04% CO2 which is vital for plant life.
NASA say the increased levels of CO2 on Earth has led to a greener Earth.
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2436/co2-is-making-earth-greenerfor-now/

One could argue with the human population continuing to rise the higher levels of CO2 in the atmosphere are needed if we want to feed everyone, if it is leading to more vegetation.

You make your points as though the climate scientists haven't already considered them.

The mini ice age, the medieval warm period etc, these are not news to climate science. They've all been accounted for in the science and the conclusions are that the current warming is not explained by any of the factors that caused these regional climatic events.

Everyone knows that CO2 is plant food but there is a point where extra co2 doesn't increase yield and there are other factors such as nitrogen plateau, availability of water and other essential requirements for plant growth. Your own NASA link says that the boost to plant growth is not sustainable.
Arguing that more co2 is better from agriculture is a post hoc fallacy. Nobody has ever advocated geo-engineering the atmosphere to increase co2 for better plant growth. The only people who argue that more co2 is good because it's plant food are those looking for rationalisation for their pre-existing political beliefs.

Current climate change is not a definite science, humans are not the driver of the climate, the sun is,

No science is definite other than perhaps pure maths. All science has some level of uncertainty. The physics of the greenhouse effect is known and proven, but there is still doubt about how a system as complex as the Earth with so many drivers, feedbacks, mitigating circumstances, phase changes, carbon and heat sinks etc, all interacting together to determine the energy balance of the light we receive from the sun. It is true that we get almost all our heat from the sun. It is ignorant to deny the importance of the biosphere in determining how much heat is retained on our planet.

The same amount of sunshine hits the moon as hits the earth (pro rata) The reason the moon has a daily temperature variation of 300 degrees Celsius is because the atmosphere of the earth regulates the temperature. If we change the atmospheric composition, that matters. It's a concept so simple that even my 8 year old son understands it.

human impact on specific weather events is impossible to measure.

Every single drop of rain that falls on our planet is impacted by humans. We are a factor in the chaotic climate system. When we change the atmospheric composition, we influence every weather event. The question is about statistical anomalies, and we are seeing statistically significant changes in the frequency of storms, the frequency and intensity of heatwaves and droughts, the frequency of record high temperatures being recorded around the world (and a reduction in the number of record cold temperatures being recorded)

There is an interesting that most of the warming is seen in night time temperatures, I would speculate the increase in humans populations and subsequent buildings and buildings, roads, man made surfaces absorb the heat during the day and the heat absorbed during the day is released as temperatures fall when the sun goes down.

You're almost right. The reason the night time temperatures are increasing faster is because CO2 traps heat all day long, and at night it prevents more of that heat from escaping into space. The greenhouse effect. It's why your geenhouse is still warm at night time

As I said in my previous post, you see it all the time on the BBC weather, it will be much cooler in rural areas...

Scientists knew about urban heat islands long before you noticed it on BBC weather and they have been very careful to adjust for this effect, and there have been studies showing that while urban areas are usually warmer, the growth in temperatures closely mimics rural locations. They have also studied trends in rapidly urbanising locations like China, and have noticed that the warming trends are the same whether in urban or rural settings.

Rural areas are cooler than urban areas, but they're still warmer at night than they used to be.
https://www.skepticalscience.com/urban-heat-island-effect-intermediate.htm

Here in Kilkenny we lost our weather station as buildings were built closer and closer to the weather station. Met Eireann said the buildings were causing an effect on the temperatures and making them not accurate.

Weather stations cannot be close to concrete structures, but they can still be inside cities, as long as there's a bit of distance between them and the nearest buildings. the Phoenix park has a weather station.

To answer your last paragraph, does the Earth actually need human life, does it still need the dinosaurs that once ruled?
If not, then why is there so much breeding going on?
The best way to reduce pollution and CO2 is not to breed. Much more effective than tax.

Fine, lets put a lot of energy into population control, birth control, education of women etc, but as a back up plan, we should also rapidly move to a carbon neutral economy just in case your genius 'stop breeding' plan doesn't work straight away.

Akrasia

Oneiric 3 wrote: »

Are you saying that the current refugee crisis is a result of climate change?

No. I am saying that a regional conflict is capable of producing a refugee crisis that is on the verge of bringing down the EU (through the rise of nationalistic parties and border controls)> this is small compared the the refugee crisis that will happen once climate change causes mass displacement of people

Gaoth Laidir

Akrasia wrote: »

No. I am saying that a regional conflict is capable of producing a refugee crisis that is on the verge of bringing down the EU (through the rise of nationalistic parties and border controls)> this is small compared the the refugee crisis that will happen once climate change causes mass displacement of people

Absolutely nonsense. To compare an acute emergency such as a war to a very gradual event over a century such as increasing sea levels illustrates the hyperbole that seems to exist in serious climate debate. You're likening sea level rises to a tsunami...

Akrasia

Gaoth Laidir wrote: »

Absolutely nonsense. To compare an acute emergency such as a war to a very gradual event over a century such as increasing sea levels illustrates the hyperbole that seems to exist in serious climate debate. You're likening sea level rises to a tsunami...

Climate change is a 'gradual' event but the mass displacements will be prompted by crisis events like droughts, famines, resource wars, floods as well as the steady flood of economic migration.

According to the UN, Today there are already about 21 million people a year displaced due to severe weather. These are predicted to get worse as climate change gets worse. Climate change is also a 'force multiplier' which means that conflicts that may have happened anyway, are worse due to the added strain imposed by climate change.
The UN says that there are about 150 million people at risk of being displaced by climate change over the next 30 years.

Where these people end up, or where they are locked out of, will have a massive impact on geo-politics.

RobertKK

The 30 year period from the 1940s to the early 1970s, the following link puts warming at the start and the end of the 20th century down to solar activity and CO2.
They put the cooling period period down to lack of solar activity and WW2. Which raises the question, what happened to the CO2 that was already there

https://skepticalscience.com/global-cooling-mid-20th-century.htm

The thing is one never sees this point being made about global population over the 20th century, population in billions:
1900 1.65
1910 1.75
1920 1.86
1930 2.07
1940 2.30
1950 2.52
1960 3.02
1970 3.70
1980 4.44
1990 5.27
2000 6.06

Then think of all the new man made surfaces with buildings, paved roads for cars, the use of concrete, and how this would lead to heat absorption during the day, which would lead to heat being released at night, so technically nights should be warmer as artificial surfaces release heat.
to quote the above article:

Minimum night-time temperatures, on the other hand, are more affected by greenhouse gases and therefore should not be affected by aerosols. Were these differences observed? The answer is yes: maximum day-time temperatures fell during this period but minimum night-time temperatures carried on rising.

No mention that increased urban areas due to human population rising at the fastest pace in human history would be a source of heating.

Akrasia

Gaoth Laidir wrote: »

So Patricia was due to AGW? You can tell?

No more than any other storm. You made a point that there haven't been many strong storms, so I just pointed out that there are still powerful storms, just that they don't all meet a very narrow criteria that you decided to cite

We are not yet 40 years into our modern satellite era, which has allowed us to monitor storm pressures and windspeeds remotely, something that was never done before. Microwave sounding allows us to look at many different layers of the storm in good detail, something we couldn't dream of before. Did storms like Patricia form in the deep Pacific before the satellite era? Maybe. Maybe not. I can't say for sure that they did, but likewise you can't say for sure that they didn't. Geostationary satellites go back further but they show just one view of the CDO and not much else. What went on under that opaque layer was largely unknown unless a storm happened to make landfall. Now we have polar-orbiting satellite 10-m wind data and surface data buoys located along the tropical belt, so our observations have become many times better than 50 years ago. Point is, we cannot say that this is unprecedented.

No, there is uncertainty where we rely on modern measurements that don't have a historical basis. This is why nobody seriously argues that climate change is real because of all the storms. We argue that Climate change is real because of the increase in CO2, which is a known greenhouse gas, and because of the observed increases in ocean and surface temperatures, and that a prediction of climate science is that it will result in either more frequent storms, or more powerful storms, or a mixture of both. More energy in the oceans and atmosphere directly feed into weather events.

Yes, different regions, different climatologies. Further complicate that with PDO-AMO-MJO, etc. phases that themselves can last as long as our modern satellite era has and we see that the permutations pile up and it becomes difficult to see the wood for the trees. But of course there are some who can see it clearly.

Its horribly complex, but the fundamental drivers of cyclones are warm ocean surface temperatures and warm air near the ocean surface, so by warming the oceans, we fuel storms.

Ah, so you chose not to read his paper...

I don't have the time and even if I did, I wouldn't be qualified to review it properly.

...but you are qualified to read theirs. Is that what you mean by cherrypicking? If you checked the paper I quoted from 2016 you would see that Bates addresses these issues, but as you are not qualified to read it I suppose those findings will go in the bin.

Those findings go into the body of scientific evidence. The IPCC is currently working on AR6. I'm sure Bates will make submissions. If his findings are robust then they will be taken on board. Other than that, I'll go with the best available evidence which are included in the AR5 reports

If Bates is correct, great, but he is in a small minority, employed by an industry lobby group and in poor company with Lindzen in particular being a long standing climate change denier who was previously a denier of tobacco's link to lung cancer.

So that's the basis of your argument? Wow.

You don't get it. Why does Ireland grind to a halt when we get an inch of snow, but Stockholm can carry on with several feet of snow? Because the climate of stockholm means that it makes sense for swedish people to prepare for cold weather. In Central Europe, there had been no need to prepare for 40 degrees sustained heatwaves, so air conditioning was uncommon, but now that the climate is shifting, the need to prepare for hot weather is more obvious.

Ireland's sea levels are actually rising at at well below the average due to Geological reasons so I think your metre is stretching it more than a bit.

If we manage to keep the temps to below 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels, we might get away with a half meter rise by 2100, but if we don't act quickly enough temps could be 4.5 degrees higher and this would see much higher sea level rises.

You are joking, right? You didn't just bring political refugees into the climate debate!? :rolleyes:

Political conflict linked to climate change is one of the main concerns of a warming planet.

Oneiric 3

Akrasia wrote: »

No. I am saying that a regional conflict is capable of producing a refugee crisis that is on the verge of bringing down the EU (through the rise of nationalistic parties and border controls)> this is small compared the the refugee crisis that will happen once climate change causes mass displacement of people

The rise in nationalist sentiment in Europe is as much down to what many see as EU interference in national affairs as it is migration, which in itself, has nothing to do with climate change.

It is interesting that the numbers you cite come from the UN, since it is the UN that is more that partly responsible for the chronic political and cultural destabilisation in Libya in recent years that has led to the influx of economic migrants into Europa. It also has been the competing interests of various UN members that has led to the appalling situation in the Middle East, which directly led to millions of deaths; the incomprehensible regression of civil liberties, the displacements of millions more and, of course, the rise of Deash. This problem is only going to get worse as the 'West' continues to 'divide and conquer' the M.E region. To turn this around and say this will be because of 'climate change' is absolute nonsense and nothing more than a way of throwing blame from where it rightly belongs onto something so abstract and meaningless, that it quite justifiably warrants the contempt that it deserves.

Gaoth Laidir

Akrasia wrote: »

No more than any other storm. You made a point that there haven't been many strong storms, so I just pointed out that there are still powerful storms, just that they don't all meet a very narrow criteria that you decided to cite

No I didn't say that. I said there have been no Cat 3 or higher hurricane landfalls in the US in 12 years. I didn't say there have been no strong storms (anywhere else). Please don't misquote me.

No, there is uncertainty where we rely on modern measurements that don't have a historical basis. This is why nobody seriously argues that climate change is real because of all the storms.

Sorry but you did argue that when you pointed out Patricia in the context of increased storm severity due to agw.

We argue that Climate change is real because of the increase in CO2, which is a known greenhouse gas, and because of the observed increases in ocean and surface temperatures, and that a prediction of climate science is that it will result in either more frequent storms, or more powerful storms, or a mixture of both. More energy in the oceans and atmosphere directly feed into weather events.

Round and round we go. We've been over that.

Its horribly complex, but the fundamental drivers of cyclones are warm ocean surface temperatures and warm air near the ocean surface, so by warming the oceans, we fuel storms.

And upper air temperatures, winds, etc.

I don't have the time and even if I did, I wouldn't be qualified to review it properly.

You don't have the time, yet you do have the time to read all the pro-AGW papers in what seems to be a lot of detail. You do seem to have time to try to discredit the author, though. Seems unfair if you haven't bothered to read his paper.

Those findings go into the body of scientific evidence. The IPCC is currently working on AR6. I'm sure Bates will make submissions. If his findings are robust then they will be taken on board. Other than that, I'll go with the best available evidence which are included in the AR5 reports.

OK, sit it out and wait for AR6. A lot of water has gone under the bridge since 5.

If Bates is correct, great, but he is in a small minority, employed by an industry lobby group and in poor company with Lindzen in particular being a long standing climate change denier who was previously a denier of tobacco's link to lung cancer.

Which lobby group is that? Please point it out from the list here.

http://www.raybates.net

You don't get it. Why does Ireland grind to a halt when we get an inch of snow, but Stockholm can carry on with several feet of snow? Because the climate of stockholm means that it makes sense for swedish people to prepare for cold weather. In Central Europe, there had been no need to prepare for 40 degrees sustained heatwaves, so air conditioning was uncommon, but now that the climate is shifting, the need to prepare for hot weather is more obvious.

So is there a link for evidence of all the extra air con units installed in Europe since 2003?

If we manage to keep the temps to below 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels, we might get away with a half meter rise by 2100, but if we don't act quickly enough temps could be 4.5 degrees higher and this would see much higher sea level rises.

You mean in Ireland? Check again. Much of Northern Europe is seeing very low sea level rises and Scandinavia is seeing a fall due to GIA. On current trends were talking maybe 10 cm rise by 2100.

Much of the coast of the US is sinking by 10 mm per annum due to the same problem, ignoring any sea level rise. They have a problem already.

Political conflict linked to climate change is one of the main concerns of a warming planet.

Well it seems to be for some but not everyone.

Akrasia

Gaoth Laidir wrote: »

OK, sit it out and wait for AR6. A lot of water has gone under the bridge since 5.

Since ar5 was released we have had the 3 hottest years on record by a significant margin.

I don't think AR6 will conclude that climate change isn't as bad as we think it is.

Gaoth Laidir

Akrasia wrote: »

Since ar5 was released we have had the 3 hottest years on record by a significant margin.

I don't think AR6 will conclude that climate change isn't as bad as we think it is.

The 1997 El Niño causes a similar local spike at the time to that of 2015-16. Also, it's no surprise that the warmest years are more recently because we are on an underlying upward trend that started 170 years ago. It would be difficult for 2016 NOT to be warmer than 1916, so posting dazzling charts pointing out the obvious doesn't strengthen your position.

Akrasia

It's up to you to show that natural warming would lead to such a rapid change during a time when the sun is in an inactive phase

According to NASA, naturally it would take 5000 years to warm about 5 degrees. We have already warmed .7 degrees in the past 100 years, that's 10 times faster than natural warming, and are on track to have between 2 and 6 degrees of warming over the next century, which is something that is unprecedented over since humans have existed as a species.

Its not just the levels of warming, it's how fast it's happening that are alarming to climate scientists