“Steven Goddard” is a pseudonym used by an anonymous climate denialist crank, so incredibly sloppy that he even embarrassed arch climate denier Anthony Watts, as shown in this link, and as I showed in one of last year’s “sea ice wrap-up” videos.
At least Chris Monckton has a medical condition that explains his break with reality. As for this “Goddard” character, well, I have to let you see this headline to believe it.
Which he chose to illustrate with the graph below –
What’s really refreshing and amusing is how “Goddard” was immediately taken to task by none other than Julienne Stroeve, National Snow and Ice Data Center researcher whose iconic graph of accelerated sea ice loss I recently featured in a post. See here:
“Steve chose a graph that shows what he wants to portray while ignoring all the other institutions that show either a record low for 2011 or a “tie” with 2007. University of Bremen already announced it is a new record low. In my opinion, given the error margin of the measurement and algorithms, 2007 and 2011 basically tied in their extent this year. NSIDC will likely show 2011 as the second lowest, but again it’s within the error margin (which is about 50,000 sq-km).”
The arm waving we’ll be seeing this year, if NSIDC does not declare a new record, and U. Bremen does, will all be over a distinction without a difference, which is further evidence for my theory that climate denial is a form of autism -deliberately losing itself in a maze of details and completely unable to grasp a gestalt.
Stroeve tagged an addendum to her post, with an assessment of current ice conditions (as of Sept 12)
Remember last September though it looked like the minimum had been reached and then it went down further again. So best to be patient a few more days…
For now, a look at one of the most telling of ice graphs, the ice volume picture from the Polar Science Center at the University of Washington.
I’ll be featuring more examples of off-the-reality-rails rants from climate deniers in my sea ice update, which I’ll post as soon after the minimum as I can crank it out.
For more from Stroeve, see the video here:
And saving energy is even cheaper.
:rolleyes:
Did y’all notice this news, about the increase in Baltic sea ice, the last couple of years, and the trouble all the extra ice is causing for climate researchers?
http://tinyurl.com/frozenGWresearch
Uh, ice still exists on Earth; what is your point? You are taking a quite opinionated stance on just about any evidence that suggests global warming. Do you not trust scientists or well-respected bodies such as the National Academy of Sciences (NAS)? The NAS states very clearly that the best peer-reviewed evidence shows that human emissions are very likely the primary driver of climate change, with prompt action recommended.
http://nationalacademies.org/onpi/06072005.pdf
Are the solutions presented to mitigate climate change in conflict with your political views or what you feel is best for the world?
JAXA data confirms that Stroeve (and greenman) are wrong and Goddard is right. Arctic ice extent bottomed out early this year; its low point was lower than last year, but higher than 2007:
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/Slide6.JPG
DMI shows the same thing:
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover.uk.php
Hmmm… I found Stroeve’s remarks, from which Peter quoted, and look what Peter didn’t bother to quote!
“NSIDC will likely show 2011 as the second lowest, but again it’s within the error margin.” In reply, Steven posted a link to the graph, and then Stroeve admitted, “it certainly could be the minimum has been reached” — i.e., that Steven was probably right.
Kudos to Stroeve for admitting she was wrong. But will Peter do the same?
I guess Peter will do the same after publishing a post about NASA’s “Pothole on Road to Higher Seas” (Aug 2011) – you know, the press release that doesn’t really make sense given that, according to our Host, the sea level rise _is_ “accelerating” (Jun 2011).
As for the appeal to the authority of the NAS, I thought we were well past that. Maybe we aren’t.
BTW, here’s the NSIDC page, showing Arctic ice extent now well above 2007 level, and equal to 2008 level:
http://www.arctic.io/2011/9/daily-nsidc-september-sea-ice-extent
Of course, these fluctuations in Arctic ice are really driven by weather, especially wind, not by CO2-driven climate change.
It’s kinda getting unreal here…
You explain us please how the loss in sea ice over the decades is solely related to weather and wind.
This graph shows a steady sea level rise of an average 3.2 mm per annum for the last two decades => http://sealevel.jpl.nasa.gov/files/ostm/2001108-1a-640.jpg
What else than humanmade global warming would be the cause?
My primary point, Charles, was simply that Steven Goddard was right, and Peter Sinclair was wrong, about this year’s minimum Arctic sea ice extent. It was a low sea ice year, but it did not get as low as 2007.
That means Peter owes Steven an apology.
My secondary point was about why it is unsurprising that Arctic sea ice can vary so much, and even come near to an 18yr low, when sea ice in other locations shows no sign of disappearing.
Sea level is a different matter entirely. The oceans float on a relatively thin layer of solid crust, which rests on a big ball of molten magma, which is sloshing! So it is entirely unsurprising that sea level changes. It’s going up in some places, and down in others, because the crust of the earth is going down in some places and up in others. (Additionally, when people drill wells and remove water, oil & natural gas from the earth, it causes local subsidence of the earth’s surface, which causes local increases in apparent sea level, most noticeable at places like Galveston, TX.)
Your graph is of satellite measurements of sea level in the mid-ocean, which only go back ~18 years. We have coastal sea level data from tide stations going back well over 100 years at many locations. At some locations (about 1/4 of the GLOSS-LTT tide stations) sea level is slowly falling, but at most it is slowly rising.
But here’s the key point: from the coastal tide station data we can tell that the rate of sea level rise has not increased at all in response to over half a century of anthropogenic CO2 emissions. A 24% increase in atmospheric CO2 over the last half century has not resulted in any acceleration in rate of sea level rise at all.
Yet your graph of 18 years of satellite measurements shows no sign of acceleration in rate of rise, either. In fact, it shows deceleration.
The conclusion is inescapable: anthropogenic CO2 emissions do not cause accelerated sea level rise. We know that because we’ve done the experiment, and measured the results.
s/18yr/32yr/
sorry
If increases in CO2 are not causing modern day global warming then two things must be true:
1) Something unknown is suppressing the well-understood greenhouse effect (and doing so during massive increases in greenhouse gases).
2) Something unknown is causing the warming that mirrors the greenhouse effect.
So we can accept what we know to be true (anthropogenic global warming) or we accept two unknowns.
(Powell, 2010)
It could be bigfoot. Bigfoot in a flying saucer with a ray-gun.
No, Charles, the well-understood greenhouse effect of CO2 is readily quantifiable, and, because there’s already enough CO2 in the atmosphere to make it almost completely opaque to the relevant wavelengths of light, the effect of additional CO2 is small. E.g., MODTRAN calculations indicate that the first 83 ppm of CO2 reduce output intensity by 23.4 W/sq-M, but the 5th 83 ppm increment will only reduce output intensity by 1.0 W/sq-M.
That means additional CO2 cannot, by itself, cause enough warming to be worrisome. Nobody serious disputes that fact.
Q: So why are many people nevertheless worried about CAGW?
A: because they fear “positive feedbacks” which they think will amplify the effect of the additional CO2.
Chief among these positive feedbacks is water vapor, which is a much more important greenhouse gas than CO2. Another positive feedback is surface albedo. Another, more speculative, is the possibility of tundra melt causing methane emissions.
However, there are also negative feedbacks, which tend to stabilize temperatures and reduce the warming effect of CO2. These include things like increased heat transport from the surface due to the evaporation/condensation/rain cycle, and (probably) clouds.
Quantifying these effects is essential to understanding whether or not there’s anything to worry about from additional atmospheric CO2. Only if the net effect of all the positive and negative feedback mechanisms is strongly positive could CO2 cause worrisome warming.
However, you are mistaken in your belief that warming “mirrors” the “greenhouse effect” (by which I think you mean the increase in CO2 levels). The match is good only for the last quarter of the 20th century.
For one thing, measurements indicate that the earth ceased (or at least paused) its warming over a decade ago.
Of all the actual temperature records (as opposed to so-called “proxies,” which are far less reliable), the records which showed the most warming were the surface station measurements, the most complete record of which are from the USA, where we’ve been making such measurements since 1880.
Argo buoys (deep ocean temperature measurements), radiosonde (atmospheric temperature measurements), sea surface temperature measurements, and satellite-based measurements all failed to show much if any warming (or at least they failed to show warming until the people discredited by Climategate “corrected” the data). But, we were told, the surface station measurements nevertheless proved the warming.
But now we know of widespread problems with the surface stations, which cause them to significantly overstate warming (see Watts’ surfacestations web site). And then McIntyre discovered a major blunder by NASA, which had caused them to misreport 21st century surface station temperatures as warmer than they actually were. (And he found it despite the inexcusable fact that NASA/Hansen wouldn’t allow him access to the raw data!!!)
When NASA corrected that error 4 years ago, it made 1934 the warmest year on record in the U.S. “lower 48.”
That’s right. Not 2008. Not 2007. Not even 1998. 1934!
According to NASA, the six warmest recorded years in the USA’s “lower 48” were: 1934, 1998, 1921, 2006, 1931, & 1999. (I chose the “six warmest,” instead of five or ten, because it happens that these six years are the warmest on record in all the versions of the NASA temperature table which I could find, though the order of the six varies according to which version of the table you use; to see the whole table, google for “Contiguous 48 U.S. Surface Air Temperature Anomaly” in quotes.)
Unexplained “corrections” subsequently made by NASA/Hansen on the U.S. surface station data bumped 1934 back down to 3rd-warmest. The surface station data for the USA keeps getting revised in suspicious ways by Hansen & Co. at NASA. Yet, even if their numbers are now correct (which is doubtful), it still shows that 5 of the 6 warmest (we used to say “mildest”) years on record since 1880 were more than a decade ago, and 3 of the 6 warmest were 75+ years ago!!!
Facts like that kind of make the current warming hysteria seem silly, don’t they?
For the rest of the world, the surface station data was in the tender care of Phil Jones & the UEA CRU, who apparently “lost” much of the raw data.
The bottom line is that the overwhelming weight of the evidence indicates that:
1) The leading climate change alarmists are utterly untrustworthy. And,
2) In the last quarter of the 20th century the earth was, indeed, warming, though not as much as the alarmists would have you believe. However,
3) Temperatures peaked about 1998, and have plateaued since then. And,
4) The “settled science” nonsense predicting accelerating warming is totally discredited.
Those are the facts.
(Facts #3 & #4 should be cause for rejoicing, BTW, for anyone who cares more about the welfare of mankind and her planet than about being right!)
Now, there are many possible explanations for fact #3 (the end or pause of warming a decade ago). None of them change the fact that the IPCC/alarmist models have been falsified. But there are still plausible scenarios for resumed warming, and continued concern.
One possibility is that the models greatly underestimated the effects of the sun, and the unexpectedly long lull in the solar cycle caused a cooling effect that is masking an underlying warming trend.
Another possibility for which there is evidence is that the models grossly underestimated the effects of CFCs. CFC levels are now declining, which could be the cause of the temperature decline. If that is the case, then warming will not resume when the solar cycle resumes.
Or it could be a combination of both of those causes, and/or some others.
But, regardless of what happens, the Kyoto/Copenhagen/cap-and-tax schemes can’t possibly be a solution. Even if additional CO2 actually threatened a “tipping point” scenario of catastrophic warming (which is very, very unlikely), there is no possibility that these schemes could do more than slightly delay the effects. After all, China is bringing another new huge coal-fired power plant online every few weeks and there is little chance that they will stop doing so anytime soon.
Even Hansen realizes that. He’s a true believer in CO2 as the main AGW villain (I think he’s wrong), but he recognizes that the slight CO2 reductions achievable by these schemes can’t solve the problem. He said the Copenhagen approach is “fundamentally wrong,” and hoped the talks would collapse.
Like a stopped clock, even James Hansen is accidentally right once in a while.
That’s what Hansen said: “This is analagous to the indulgences that the Catholic church sold in the Middle Ages. The bishops collected lots of money and the sinners got redemption. Both parties liked that arrangement despite its absurdity. That is exactly what’s happening,” he says.
In Hansen’s view, the only way to cut emissions is through an ever-increasing tax on carbon emissions. He believes that the “carbon tax” should start at around $1 per gallon of petrol, with revenue returning directly to the public purse, according to the UK’s Times Online.
There’s no room for compromise, Hansen says.
“This is analogous to the issue of slavery faced by Abraham Lincoln or the issue of Nazism faced by Winston Churchill. On those kind of issues you cannot compromise. You can’t say let’s reduce slavery, let’s find a compromise and reduce it 50% or reduce it 40%.”
And these are the global temperatures => http://www.newscientist.com/data/images/ns/cms/dn11639/dn11639-2_808.jpg
Here the last 2,000 years (up to 2004) => http://www.atmo.arizona.edu/students/courselinks/spring06/atmo336/lectures/sec5/2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png
Here a correleation between temp, CO2 and sun activity => http://www.logicalscience.com/skeptic_arguments/solar/600px-Temp-sunspot-co2.svg.png
Arctic temperature over the last 2000 years => http://images.sodahead.com/profiles/0/0/2/0/7/6/2/8/5/arctic-26532520417.jpeg
Sea levels don’t show any decline => http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0f/Recent_Sea_Level_Rise.png/300px-Recent_Sea_Level_Rise.png
The assumption of Anthony Watt (BEST) that weather stations would misreport 21st century surface station temperatures was disproven by Watt’s friend, Dr. Richard Muller.
And we are talking about manmade global warming => 2010 Tied For Warmest Year on Record
None of your assumptions is in consensus with the worldwide climate science.
And here what you find when you search for “sun causing global warming” => http://www.skepticalscience.com/search.php?Search=sun+causing+global+warming&x=0&y=0
This here was reported by Reuters already in 2007 (before the tied year 2010): No Correlation Between the Sun and Global Warming
Even CERN does not disprove AGW as so many blog sites are claiming at current times => Are cosmic rays causing global warming?
Also => What do the CERN experiments tell us about global warming?
Charles, aren’t you even a little bit uneasy with graphs of data that doesn’t exist?
I mean, seriously: we don’t even have reliable temperature data for the USA before 1880, let alone Arctic temperatures for the last 2000 years!
Although we don’t have good temperature data for most of the 19th century, we do have some good sea level data. E.g., here’s a graph of mean sea level from the tide gauge at Wismar, Germany, from 1848 to 2003:
http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_global_station.shtml?stnid=120-022
If the alarmists were right, then there should have been a noticeable increase in rate of sea level rise coinciding with the big increase in atmospheric CO2 in the last half of the 20th century. (In fact, Rahmstorf claims, apparently with a straight face, that the first derivative of sea level should be proportional to the temperature level!)
So, where is it? Where’s the acceleration in rate of sea level rise at Wismar?
I didn’t say “acceleration”. I said “rise”. You cannot deny the increase of sea levels. And it comes from global warming. Reliable modern records of climate only began in the 1880s. Temperatures from earlier times are proxies from different sources (as seen in the graphs I posted) such as ice cores, tree rings, boreholes, corals, lake and ocean sediments…
96% of world climatologists agree that CO2 emissions are driving global warming.
So again:
If increases in CO2 are not causing modern day global warming then two things must be true:
1) Something unknown is suppressing the well-understood greenhouse effect (and doing so during massive increases in greenhouse gases).
2) Something unknown is causing the warming that mirrors the greenhouse effect.
So we can accept what we know to be true (anthropogenic global warming) or we accept two unknowns.
End of story.
Charles wrote, “I didn’t say ‘acceleration’. I said ‘rise.'”
That’s good. So, have I convinced you that anthropogenic CO2 doesn’t cause acceleration in rate of sea level rise?
Sea levels change for many reasons unrelated to climate. Sea levels were rising (in most places) or falling (in many other places) at the current rate long before there was significant anthropogenic CO2 in the atmosphere. Do you think that anthropogenic CO2 somehow retroactively caused warming and sea level rise before it (the anthropogenic CO2) existed? Do 96% of climatologists think that?
The last 75+ years of increasing atmospheric CO2 (up 24% in the last 53 years alone) has caused no change in the rate of sea level rise. Do you expect that the next 75 years of increasing atmospheric CO2 to have a different effect?
We have sea level records from the tide station at Aberdeen starting in 1862. They’ve been rising at the current rate of ~0.66 mm/year for the last 120 years. You can clearly see that increasing atmospheric CO2 from about 300 ppm to nearly 400 ppm has not caused any change in rate of sea level rise at Aberdeen.
Since raising CO2 from 300 ppm to 400 ppm caused no change in rate of sea level rise, I don’t think raising it to 500 ppm will cause a change in rate of sea level rise, either. Do you?
We could also talk LIA, why not…and mrsircharles could have a word or two with Peter about accelerating sea level rise… but this thread is losing its focus, what about arctic sea ice, where’s the apology to Steven Goddard? Where are the “ties” with 2007? Anybody care to show a picture of 2011 vs 2007?
Dunno what you mean with apology. Here are the ties:
=> http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8rD81MXB0RU/TekTlh8AMOI/AAAAAAAABt0/r6-dWKJQqbM/s1600/ArcticSeaIceExtent.2011.06.02.png
=> http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ZpsPWOaMvbU/TfumD3_d3YI/AAAAAAAABt8/Ur1WabWGGV8/s640/ArcticSeaIceExtent.2011.06.16.png
=> http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/AMSRE_Sea_Ice_Extent.png
=> RealClimate – Arctic sea ice discussions
More denial?
That was ice surface in km2. If we take a look at the sea ice volume we can see that the decline has indeed accelerated.
=> http://psc.apl.washington.edu/ArcticSeaiceVolume/images/IceVolAnomaly19792010.MarNov2.png
=> http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5100/5722990097_d378795bf8_z.jpg
=> Has Arctic sea ice returned to normal?
Good questions, omnologo, to which I could add, what about Southern Ocean ice, Baltic Sea ice, etc.?
But you’re right. Goddard is owed an apology. Arctic ice extent is now at 2008 levels, Steven Goddard was correct, Peter “greenman” Sinclair was wrong, and it’s time he offered Goddard the apology he is owed… and perhaps we might hope that in the future Peter will be a little less quick to ridicule the folks with whom he disagrees.
see my reply in today’s post.
by what reasoning is this week’s 4.33 million sq km “at 2008 levels”? (4.52 million sq km)
as you can read in the post, this site is about calling out liars and delusional cranks.
Right so. And you’re just exposing them 😉
judging by the comments on this thread – denialists are a little sensitive about their grasp on reality being questioned.
Like I say, at least Monckton has an organic syndrome….
I don’t know what you were looking at, Peter, but when I posted that NSIDC had the latest 2011 and same-day 2008 Arctic ice extent numbers the same, they were both at 4.6 million sq-km.
However, they are no longer the same. NSIDC now has the 2011 Arctic ice extent slightly greater than the 2008 extent:
http://www.arctic.io/2011/9/daily-nsidc-september-sea-ice-extent
DMI is similar.
NORSEX shows the latest 2011 Arctic ice extent equal to both 2008 and 2010 same-day extent, but ice area (which subtracts open water from partially iced-over sections of the ice extent) as a bit greater than 2008 same-day area.
Even Breman shows latest 2011 extent nearly equal to 2008 and 2010 same-day extent.
omnologos wrote: Anybody care to show a picture of 2011 vs 2007?
DMI has it here:
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover.uk.php
You can clearly see the “recovery” that Goddard was talking about. In early Spring, the 2011 ice extent numbers were tracking at or below previous lows for the same dates, but around mid-July you can see the “recovery” beginning, relative to 2007. Now (mid-Sept.) it appears from the DMI graph to have surged to over half a million square km above 2007 extent.
Goddard was right, so where’s that apology?
Where is that 3 or 4 days in climate history and the pseudonym “Steven Goddard” was right???
You guys are kicking the straw you’re sucking on out of the bottle.
=> http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5100/5722990097_d378795bf8_z.jpg#
Charles & Peter, do you understand that those ice volume numbers are dubious? They don’t come from actual measurements. They are computer model-generated, calculated using the Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System.
The ice extent numbers (since 1979) are much more meaningful, since they represent real measurements from real satellite photographic coverage.
Note, however, that even the ice extent numbers have some problems. They start in 1979, and the 1970s were a cold period, so any graph of either temperature or ice which starts in the 1970s is at risk of showing an illusory or exaggerated trend.