Too bad it doesn’t offer any comparison to previous years. Arctic ice is up considerably this year, and total global sea ice extent just hit a 21st century record high.
Those charts bear no resemblance whatsoever to what actually happened in the Arctic the last several years.
It is astonishing that anyone would have so little self-respect that they could blatantly fabricate data in such a way – or so much contempt for others that they would deliberately deceive the ignorant.
Since their graph extends back to 1979, you can see that the last time global sea ice extent was near to the recent spike was 1996.
It looks to me like 1996’s maximum sea ice extent might have been just slightly greater than 2013, but I’m not sure. They were very close. The 1996 minimum was quite a bit lower than 2013’s minimum.
It appears to me that the year that most closely resembles the 2013 record was 1981. Both the low and high peaks are just about identical for the two years.
1999 was also similar to 2013, and the “shape” of the two years’ graphs were very similar, but the 1999 minimum and maximum sea ice extents were both slightly lower than 2013’s.
I would hate to suggest that daveb is being dishonest and misleading us—-perhaps he is just confused (or maybe I am)—-but the U of Illinois arctic study group goes by the title “Polar Research Group”, not by “Arctic Climate Research Group” which is closer to the name of a wholly fictitious group that was at the center of some controversy a few years back—the Arctic Climate Research CENTER”. The “center” didn’t and doesn’t exist, even though its “research findings” were reported by deniers. Dave? What kind of horsepucky are you throwing against the wall? Who exactly are you talking about? You wouldn’t be trying to slip in fabricated data from a non-existent group under the camouflage of a slight name change, would you? (Conservatives don’t lie, remember)
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Sorry if I got the U. Illinois Research Group’s name wrong. I just went to their web site:
At the top of the page is says:
“Arctic Climate Research at the University of Illinois”
At the bottom of the page it says:
“contact the research group”
I think it strange, humbleoldguy, that you don’t know who I’m talking about or where the graph came from, since I gave you the URL.
If you look at their graph of global sea ice extent, you can see that both the minimum and the maximum sea ice extents for 2013 were just about identical to 1981.
You can also see that the shape of the 2013 graph looks a bit more like 1999, except that the 1999 minimum and maximum sea ice extents were both slightly lower than the 2013 minimum and maximum extents.
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Dave continues to blow smoke and evade responsibility. He simply refuses to read what others post and keeps on repeating his lies.
I believe that you did not mistakenly get the U. Illinois Research Group’s name wrong, Dave, and your visit to their web site and subsequent smoke blowing is just an attempt to cover up your dishonesty.
Anyone who visits the site will see that “Arctic Climate Research at the University of Illinois” is just a descriptive page heading and not a title. They do have an informal group that is called the “Polar Research Group”. As I said in the earlier comment, the “Arctic Climate Research CENTER” is a fictitious group.
If one googles that title, one will find reference to a controversy in 2009, in which climateprogress attacked a George Will article in the WashPost that quoted the center, stating: “According to the University of Illinois’ Arctic Climate Research Center, global sea ice levels now equal those of 1979.
Said climateprogress: “There is no such organization”.
“The Arctic climate is a research area of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s Department of Atmospheric Sciences, and the informal group of researchers does go by the label of the Polar Research Group”.
“However, “there is no such center at the University of Illinois,” the UIUC’s Dr. John Walsh has informed me in electronic correspondence. “There is a group of scientists and students working on Arctic climate, but no formal center.”
“The existence of such an organization was first fabricated out of whole cloth by DailyTech’s Michael Asher, in a 1/1/2009 blog post entitled “Sea Ice Ends Year at Same Level as 1979” What a surprise, a fictitious group that seems to support Dave’s contentions and has a name similar to a real group.
I hate to be harsh, but I am fast losing patience with Dave’s arrogant and deceitful behavior on this site. He has the nerve to say “I think it strange, humbleoldguy, that you don’t know who I’m talking about or where the graph came from, since I gave you the URL”. I know EXACTLY who you are talking about, Dave, and it’s not the folks at the U of Illinois. The URL led to an unattributed graph on a blog titled Suyt’s Space, the adequacy of which others have taken Dave to task over. (I thought conservatives didn’t lie?)
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Please stop this nonsense, old boy. I got the name of the U. Illinois group wrong, and I’m sorry for that, but at the same time that I used the wrong name I also posted the URL to the graph on their site. So I’m pretty sure that nobody except you was confused about where it came from.
To the best of my recollection, I’ve never even heard of this “Arctic Climate Research Center” that you keep going on about.
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Keep thrashing, Dave. Your original URL WAS to a graph on a looney-tune site, and that’s the one I was talking about. And I don’t believe you were “confused”—-I think you were deliberately trying to give some credibility to your “game” by misusing the good name of the U of Illinois climate scientists. Period.
“To the best of my recollection, I’ve never even heard of this “Arctic Climate Research Center”. Having been in a line of work that required me to have finely tuned “crap detectors”, that statement makes them wiggle. Dave doesn’t remember? I can’t tell you how many times I heard that one from others who sought to evade truth. As I said, keep thrashing, Dave—the whole world is watching.
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The trickery in the graphs aren’t to do with the data points/lines. As far as I can tell, they’re an accurate depiction of what’s happening.
The trickery lies in the short time period which is being shown. One graph only goes from ’01 to present; the other goes from ’04 to present. But the full graphs not shown go back to ’79. Anyone looking at the ’04 to present anomalies graph would be forgiven if they thought the particular amplitude of the curve was normal. That is until they look at the extended graph and find the colder days of yesteryear kept the anomalies at a smaller amplitude with none of the wild dips seen the 21st century. From about 2006 on, the volatility of the curve increases, the dips become more severe, so that a negative sloping regression line would fit the bill in the grander scheme of things.
Now look at the peaks and troughs on the ’79 to present extent graph. You have a click under 16M sq. miles being the norm for most of the 80’s. Then those troughs start getting lower as we move forward. By the 90’s there are troughs testing the 15M sq miles axis. By the 00’s you start seeing things getting mighty near the 14M sq miles axis and again you start seeing the wild, volatile swings between years.
The peaks on the other hand paint something of a converse picture. In the 1980’s/90’s you have the wild amplitude swings upward reaching past 23M sq miles. Then things calm down for the peaks in the 21st century: now they struggle to get above 22M sq miles with strong resistance at that point.
Andrew, thanks for posting something interesting, rather than the endless insults that characterize most of the comments here.
But there’s no “trickery” in using graphs for just the periods under discussion (such as the 21st century when explicitly talking about just the 21st century), especially since I also posted the link to a version of the graph that extends back to 1979.
The real trickery is starting the graphs in 1979, which was a peak year for ice extent. NSIDC even claims that “the satellite record only dates back to 1979.”
That’s not true. They’re dating the start of the satellite record to the launch of Nimbus-7, in late 1978. But Nimbus-5, Nimbus-6, and Seasat-1 all made sea ice measurements prior to 1979. Although NASA has lost the Nimbus-6 and Seasat-1 data, we still have good quality Nimbus-5 ESMR (passive microwave) measurement data from December 11, 1972 through May 16, 1977. (Nimbus-5’s ESMR instrument actually continued to operate in a degraded mode through March 1983, but I don’t know whether that 1977-1983 data still exists.)
The Nimbus-5 measurements showed that 1979 was a peak year for sea ice, which was reflected in graphs in the IPCC’s First and Second Assessment Reports (in 1990 and 1995, respectively), but omitted in later years’ Assessment Reports.
Starting the graphs with the 1979 peak maximizes the appearance of subsequent decline.
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More fundamental is the obfuscation caused by combining SUMMER sea ice extent at one pole with WINTER extent at the other.
What is so alarming about the dramatic crash in summer sea ice in the Arctic is that it demonstrates the global warming signal – especially in the oceans. But water does not magically stop freezing when planetary average temperatures go above a certain level; nor will it stop freezing at the poles until after there’s 75 meters of sea level added. It’s an obvious point, but showing
The decrease in albedo is an important concern for ARCTIC sea ice, since it is a positive feedback. The sea ice in Antarctica, on the other hand, mostly melts out in the summer – the increase in winter sea ice extent around the southern continent is in spite of the fact that the southern oceans have demonstrably warmed. But because there is little perennial sea ice around Antarctica, the energy balance of the earth is not affected by an increase in its WINTER sea ice, since it is not then receiving sunlight – it makes no difference to albedo there.
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Stephen, we’re now 3 weeks from the solstice, at which southern hemisphere sunlight is at it’s maximum, and there’s still 50% more sea ice in the Southern Ocean than there is in the Arctic.
Sea ice does not reach it’s maximums at the solstices, when “not then receiving sunlight [so it] it makes no difference to albedo.” Sea ice maximums are almost exactly at the equinoxes, so they make as much difference as the minimums do.
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Lol, can I smoke some of that stuff you are having?
“Arctic Sea Ice Minimum in 2013 is Sixth Lowest on Record”
I am sure if you slice that ice in small 1 cm thick slices it could cover all of the oceans and have your record extent. Which is exactly whats happening atm, the ice is getting very thin and there is hardly any multi year ice left.
Mass always tells us more about the state of the ice than extent ever will.
First, your youtube video is from a year ago. Things change. In your video at 1:25 you asked about current global ice extent compared to “30 years ago.” But 2012 was a record-low year for sea ice. “30 years ago” from 2012 would have been 1982, when global sea ice extent was, indeed, almost 10% higher, on average, than it was in 2012.
But that’s no longer true. 2013 is shaping up as hardly lower in average sea ice extent than 1983 (30 years prior). Eyeballing the U.IL graph, it looks like the 2012 ice extent will probably end up averaging only about 1% below 1983.
Another problem: in your video at 0:30 you said that every year sea ice around the south pole expands in southern winter, June to September. But that’s incorrect. The Southern Ocean sea ice expansion actually begins in late summer, and continues through Autumn and early Winter (from mid or late February through mid or late September).
NPR’s Richard Harris made more or less the same mistake starting at 3:35, in his discussion of sea ice albedo feedbacks, when he claimed that antarctic sea ice expansion “in the dark of winter” doesn’t have much effect, since the (perhaps surprising) truth is that Antarctic sea ice begins expanding during the southern summer, not winter.
Mr. Harris also erred in failing to note that since Southern Ocean ice is at less extreme latitudes than Arctic Ocean ice, sunlight hits it more direct (less acute) angles, so there’s more light per unit area, and less is reflected. That makes Southern Ocean ice more important to albedo than Arctic ice.
Also I found it interesting that at 4:35 Richard Harris says that global warming is increasing the temperature difference between the pole and the equator. But the usual claim is just the opposite: that global warming is greatest at the poles, which would mean that the temperature difference between the equator and the poles is decreasing, rather than increasing.
The discussion of the “ozone hole,” beginning at 5:45, was also interesting. It was my understanding that since CFC emissions have been curtailed, the ozone hole has shrunk. (Since CFCs are greenhouse gasses, declining CFC emissions and levels are among the explanations sometimes hypothesized for the ongoing hiatus in global warming.)
More yada-yada-yada and obfuscation from daveburton
WHEN are you going to stop talking about arctic sea ice EXTENT and start talking about what really matters, Dave?
Like the EXPONENTIAL decline in arctic sea ice VOLUME? There’s a reason it’s called the “arctic sea ice death spiral”, and you can’t keep ignoring it and trying to deflect discussion.
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1. Sea ice extent is what we have the best data for. Ice volume data is more limited, in both duration and trustworthiness.
2. If it turns out that there’s a significant albedo/feedback effect from sea ice, either positive or negative, it will almost certainly be more closely related to ice extent than volume.
Why do you think volume matters more than extent, old guy?
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No, Dave, sea ice EXTENT data is not our ‘best”, it is merely the data YOU like best as you continue to play your one-note symphony for us. Many others here have taken you to task for your “interpretations” of its significance, and have pointed out to you that ice will always form where it gets cold enough.
The sea ice VOLUME question that you simply refuse to address speaks to what the long term trend seems to be—progressively THINNER ice each year (regardless of its extent) can eventually lead to an ice-free summer in the arctic at some future point, and we all know what the albedo of ice versus open water is.
You say “IF it turns out that there’s a significant albedo/feedback effect from sea ice, EITHER POSITIVE OR NEGATIVE, it will almost certainly be more closely related to ice extent than volume”. It’s hard to believe you said this—have you not been reading the same “crock” posts that I have? You don’t know whether sea ice albedo feedback is positive or negative?
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daveburton wrote:
“1. Sea ice extent is what we have the best data for. Ice volume data is more limited, in both duration and trustworthiness.”
Thanks to CryoSat-2, we have an excellent confirmation of the PIOMAS data. I thought you liked altimetry?
daveburton wrote:
“2. If it turns out that there’s a significant albedo/feedback effect from sea ice, either positive or negative, it will almost certainly be more closely related to ice extent than volume.”
Turns out?? Yes, sea ice has a significant positive albedo. I am not aware of a serious scientific debate about this subject. Also, longwave radiation reflected out to space is not a feedback. Also, sea ice can accumulate snow, which has a higher albedo than ice, so its loss is not just the loss of the albedo from the ice itself.
On the other hand, your main point is a good one. Albedo, or the lack of it, is a function of covered versus open water, so extent is a better indicator of sunlight absorption by the ocean water.
daveburton wrote:
“Why do you think volume matters more than extent, old guy?”
I cannot speak for him, but sea ice volume is inarguably a better measure of how much total ice is actually left in the Arctic (it’s a much bigger issue for it than for the thinner Antarctic ice), so it’s a leading indicator of global warming. Extent in the Arctic is much more dependent on the weather, which may either break up or compact the pack ice.
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daveburton wrote:
“Why do you think volume matters more than extent, old guy?”; to which Stephen replied “I cannot speak for him, but….”
Stephen and anyone else here may feel free to speak truth in my name. I have tried to make the same point again and again. That “…sea ice volume is inarguably a better measure of how much total ice is actually left in the Arctic (it’s a much bigger issue for it than for the thinner Antarctic ice), so it’s a leading indicator of global warming. Extent in the Arctic is much more dependent on the weather, which may either break up or compact the pack ice”.
Others have also pointed out that ice always forms where it is cold enough, just as snow falls on the tops of mountains near the equator. Ice will still be forming at high latitudes in winter long after “6 feet above sea level” Miami is “awash” and the average daytime summer temperature there reaches 120 degrees.
Yes, Stephen has nailed it with “arctic sea ice volume is a leading indicator of global warming?. Too bad Dave can’t deal with that rather than trying to lead us off into swamps of statistics and outrageous links to nonsense.
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Why do you go about this daveburton? Do you have any idea how ridiculous these posts will look in the coming years? There is not change in the physical reasons for a continued melting of both Arctic sea ice as well as Greenland and Antarctica land ice. We are soon racing past 400ppm CO2 in the atmosphere and there is really no spectacular change besides a very low solar output as well as a bit more aerosols from coal over these past 10 years. The oceans are heating up at an incredible rate and very likely some upcoming El Ninõ’s will bring a lot of that heat out in the atmosphere and we get record highs again.
Both the return to mean (or even a bit more extent) for the Arctic as well as this sea ice in the cold season in the Antarctic is due to weather variations. Sometimes its colder on the poles even during the warm seasons, and sometimes its warmer when you get record melts like 2012.
But climate scientists perfectly know you cant draw any conclusion from any single year, even though you seem to indicate that this year everything changed for some magical reason… where is your physical proof for why there should be a gradual increase in ice again? Lizard people using their magic dust or whatever they do?
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“Oops, wrong link, sorry. Here’s the right one.”
~dave burton
Record for ‘this century’ huh. I’d say it’s a bit early to call the record for the 21st Century.
Jason would like to note that Antarctic sea ice is increasing in significant part because it’s being fed by melting glaciers.
I’m not sure why Dave Burton thinks this might be cause to celebrate.
Jason wrote, “Record for ‘this century’ huh. I’d say it’s a bit early to call the record for the 21st Century.”
Let me rephrase that: Total global sea ice extent just hit a record high for the 21st century so far. But I think you already knew that’s what I meant.
Jason also wrote, “Jason would like to note that Antarctic sea ice is increasing in significant part because it’s being fed by melting glaciers.”
Dave would like to note that melted water does not contribute to sea ice. I’m not sure where Jason got a different idea. (Also, ICESat measurements indicate that Antarctica is gaining mass, not losing it.)
daveburton wrote:
“Jason also wrote, “Jason would like to note that Antarctic sea ice is increasing in significant part because it’s being fed by melting glaciers.”
Dave would like to note that melted water does not contribute to sea ice. I’m not sure where Jason got a different idea.”
That’s not what he meant. Fresh water is more easily frozen (salt decreases the freezing point, down to -21.1 C at maximum saturation), and the freshening of the Southern Ocean from glacier melt (and, I might add, from the increased precipitation that results from warmer air temperatures) makes the surface water both less mixable with the deeper water, and more freezable.
Here is a study from 2007 that supports Jason’s claim:
From the abstract:
“Estimates of sea ice extent based on satellite observations show an increasing Antarctic sea ice cover from 1979 to 2004 even though in situ observations show a prevailing warming trend in both the atmosphere and the ocean…
“The reduced salt rejection and upper-ocean density and the enhanced thermohaline stratification tend to suppress convective overturning, leading to a decrease in the upward ocean heat transport and the ocean heat flux available to melt sea ice. The ice melting from ocean heat flux decreases faster than the ice growth does in the weakly stratified Southern Ocean, leading to an increase in the net ice production and hence an increase in ice mass. This mechanism is the main reason why the Antarctic sea ice has increased in spite of warming conditions both above and below during the period 1979–2004 and the extended period 1948–2004.”
Just discovered Bintanga, et al. 2013, which addresses the dynamics of sea ice formation from ice shelf meltwater.
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I wonder if you realize your statement itself ” just hits record high ” betrays a profound misunderstanding of mathematical statistics. The fact that a high happened this year or a low the year before is irrelevant, because single data points are statistically irrelevant. You continue to offer information and opinions that are questionable and do not conform with accepted scientific and mathematical practice. Given that you do not understand or accept such practice, it is hardly surprising that your conclusions are different. So I ask, given a set of data, what do you do to construct the trend line? What do you do to test if there changes in trend line? ( How is a change in trend line measured ) how do you determine how statistically significant a trend line is? Arguing all the rest is irrelevant if you don’t get this, because we will have no common ground until you display an understanding of the fundamental math principles. This is relevant, because you keep insisting that there is no acceleration in sea level over some period x. If we do not agree on a measure, there is no basis for discussion.
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You are either incorrect or are being disingenuous when you say that Antarctica is gaining mass. I suspect the latter since you support your claim with a link to WUWT. While there are differing values for the AIS mass balance in recent years, here is an excerpt from the Nature article from June 2013, Ice Sheet Mass Balance and Climate Change:
During the past 20 years, the AIS as a whole (East, West, and Antarctic Peninsula) has been losing mass, and this is certainly true of the GIS.
Did you really think your claim would go unchecked?
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Phillip Shaw, your information is out of date. ICESat measurements indicate that Antarctica is gaining, rather than losing, ice mass.
Earlier analyses of GRACE gravity measurements had suggested the opposite, but the ICESat measurements are the better indicator.
Some Antarctic “drainage systems” showed increases in mass, others showed decreases, but the net was an average gain in ice mass of 49 Gt/yr.
Of course, we know that globally averaged sea-level is continuing to rise, so it is clear that the increase in Antarctic ice mass is more than offset by decreases elsewhere. But that’s been going on for over a century, and there’s been no increase in the rate of sea-level rise in more than 80 years.
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I had earlier expressed annoyance at the games daveburton was playing with us and the truth. This post has made me go beyond that to being angry. Dave shows no respect for the goals of this site or to those of us who visit it and try to make positive contributions. He is here only to play with us and satisfy whatever sickness wracks his brain.
Dave talks about “not reading the top science blog on the web” and links us to the looney-tune site Suyt’s Space, which is part of the right wing-nut blogosphere and has little or no science content—is that the “top science site”, Dave? It would appear to be. Insulting!
Dave talks about “measurements indicate that Antarctica is gaining, rather than losing, ice mass”. Let’s look at the figures. Antarctica is estimated to have 26.5 million Km3 of ice. Since one Km3 of ice weighs ~.9 Gt, that’s a total weight of ~24 million Gt. Let’s use grade school math and write that out—-24,000,000 Gt. The measured increase in ice mass in the antarctic that Dave is saying is SO significant is 49 Gt, which is .000002 of the total. Equivalent to finding two pennies on the sidewalk when you have a million in your pocket. Dave will see them and “bend down” to pick them up, of course, even if none of the rest of us will.
Dave says “I didn’t just make this up”, and refers us to a NASA link. Of course Dave doesn’t specify what he DID or DIDN’T make up (always a problem with Dave), so we are forced to look at the link and try to parse its meaning. Luckily, one need go no further than the abstract to see that Dave is hoping no one else will.
YES, there has been that 2 parts in a million increase in antarctic ice, and it appears to be caused by the effects of AGW!—increased moisture in the atmosphere, more precipitation, changes in air and ocean currents,etc—as predicted. The abstract dwells more extensively on the negative long term outlook for antarctic sea ice, but Dave is hoping you won’t notice that. http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20120013495
Another interesting fact is that between 1992 and 2011, the Antarctic Ice Sheets overall lost 1350 Gt, at an average rate of 70 Gt per year (Gt/yr). So, this one year reversal of a 20 year trend has made up 70% of ONE year’s loss—big whoop, Dave!
Dave’s closing statement uses the classic propagandist’s ploy, stating “Of course, we know that globally averaged sea-level is continuing to rise, so it is clear that the increase in Antarctic ice mass is more than offset by decreases elsewhere”—a statement of truth to get us “on his side”.
Dave then reverts to form with “But that’s been going on for over a century, and there’s been no increase in the rate of sea-level rise in more than 80 years”. Dave has proven to us once again that NO horse is too dead to beat. Give it UP, Dave!
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daveburton wrote:
“Earlier analyses of GRACE gravity measurements had suggested the opposite, but the ICESat measurements are the better indicator.
Says who? Altimetry has its own issues. Fortunately we don’t have to rely on only one method, and in addition to gravimetrical there are also interferometrical measurements that may be folded into the altimetric data. The advantage of Shepherd, et al. 2013 (not an “earlier analysis”, n.b.) is that it reconciles the different methods.
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Stephen, it was my understanding that “interferometric” measurements are just radar altimetry, similar to ICESat’s laser altimetry except lower resolution. Is that not right?
These are useful links, but the “source” that daveburton is linking to is purporting to measure “Global Sea Ice Extent” – that is, somehow combining Arctic and Antarctic.
That in itself is fundamentally deceptive, since Antarctic sea ice melts almost completely in summer (February).
The argument that is being made is that the warming (and precipitous decline of sea ice) in the Arctic is balanced by cooling in the Antarctic; this is patently false.
Water freezes; this fact is not changed by global warming, and there will still be winter sea ice long after Miami is abandoned.
Antarctica is losing land ice at about 71 gt a year, according to this study:
“Between 1992 and 2011, the ice sheets of Greenland, East Antarctica, West Antarctica, and the Antarctic Peninsula changed in mass by –142 ± 49, +14 ± 43, –65 ± 26, and –20 ± 14 gigatonnes year.”
Miami averages about 6 feet above sealevel, so it might be awash sometime around 660 years from now (except that land accretion should extend that).
Nobody doubts that retreating glaciers, and probably Greenland, are contributing meltwater that is raising the oceans. (Studies of ICESat and GRACE measurements differ in whether Antarctica is also contributing meltwater.) But the rate of that rise is NOT increasing.
The 71 Gt of meltwater that worries you so is equivalent to only about 0.2 mm of sea level. Globally averaged coastal sea-levels are rising more than 1 mm/year, despite a calculated post-glacial sinking of the ocean floor that Peltier estimates should cause about 0.3 mm/yr decline in sea-level. If Peltier’s estimate is right, and actual average coastal sea-level change plus the Peltier adjustment come to about 1.5 mm/yr, that’s equivalent to over 140 cubic miles(!!!) of melted ice! Even if some of the water is coming from groundwater depletion, or other factors, it is still a LOT of melted ice, probably more than 100 cubic miles of it.
But that’s not the issue. The question is what effect have humanity’s CO2 (and CH4) emissions had? And the answer is “none that we can detect.”
That rate of ice melt clearly has not increased in more than 80 years. The oceans are rising no faster now than they were 80+ years ago. Yet the great preponderance of anthropogenic GHG emissions have occurred since the 1940s. That means there’s no evidence in the sea-level measurements that anthropogenic GHG emissions have increased the rate of sea-level rise at all.
Clarification: when I wrote “that rate of ice melt clearly has not increased in more than 80 years” I was referring to the the melt rate for grounded ice (which contributes to sea-level rise), not sea ice.
daveburton wrote:
“‘After Miami is abandoned?’ That’s just silly.”
I think that you didn’t understand what I was saying.
I wrote: “Water freezes; this fact is not changed by global warming, and there will still be winter sea ice long after Miami is abandoned.”
I’m not predicting when Miami will be – or even whether (separate discussion) it will be – abandoned; I’m saying that there would still be sea ice in winter even in a catastrophically hotter world – my point being, of course, that adding winter sea ice at one pole to summer sea ice at the other creates a chimera that hides the issues that matter to us.
The trend line you’re showing is not wrong, obviously – it is presumably a product generated by the same group at NOAA! But this view is more pertinent to the question at hand: is the rate of sea level increasing?
Better not to use your eyeballs when there is a more pertinent visualization of data available.
This is only Key West, of course. Church, et al., 2008 shows the long-term global picture:
Not behind a paywall, fortunately. The relevant illustrations are on page 12, figures 3a, b, and c.
The global trend at present is about 3.2 mm/year.
The atmosphere in here is toxic. I regret whatever role I played in promoting that, and I urge everyone to drop all the viciousness and alienation and just get back to climate science.
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Stephen says “The atmosphere in here is toxic. I regret whatever role I played in promoting that, and I urge everyone to drop all the viciousness and alienation and just get back to climate science”.
I agree with Stephen to a point. All of us here (but one) have been interested in exploring “climate science” and would like to get back to that. A “vicious” disregard for truth and a contempt for the intelligence of the majority is what is responsible for any “alienation” you observe. You should feel no regrets for pursuing truth, nor should you apologize for anything that certain individuals have brought upon themselves.
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Stephen Paré wrote, “The atmosphere in here is toxic. I regret whatever role I played in promoting that, and I urge everyone to drop all the viciousness and alienation and just get back to climate science.”
Amen to that, Stephen, and thank you!
I will add, however, that the reason I’m active here (when time permits), in spite of the toxicity, is that Peter is the only significant Climate Movement activist I know of who does not censor his blog to quash dissent. I stay polite, and he lets me say what I wish.
In my opinion, a blog which is a “forum” for just one side of an argument is of very limited usefulness.
Some leading skeptical climate blogs, like WUWT, also welcome competing opinions, politely expressed. But on the alarmist side of the fence, ClimateCrocks seems to be unique. RC, Tamino, YaleClimateForum, GreenGrok, SeaMonster, Gleick’s SignificantFigures, etc., are all censored.
Stephen wrote, “Also from NOAA, Key West, obviously not linear, 1915 to “present” … a more pertinent visualization of data…”
What you’re seeing there is the well-known 60-year cycle, which is visible along much of the Atlantic coast. Other than “noise” and the slight 60-year oscillation, it is quite linear. You may read more about the 60-year cycle here: http://sealevel.info/papers.html#howlong
E.g.,
6. Zervas, C. (2009), NOAA Technical Report NOS CO-OPS 053, Sea Level Variations of the United States, 1854 – 2006 (see p. xiii)
(especially note the last sentence of the highlighted text at the link)
Stephen wrote, “Church, et al., 2008 shows the long-term global picture …”
Thanks for the link. However, that paper predated their 2009 data — which I analyzed and found showed a slight net deceleration in sea-level rise for the 20th century and beginning of the 21st, even when the pre-1930 data was included, which Dr. Church confirmed in private communication to me. That slight net deceleration was despite the inclusion of the first 30 years of the 20th century, which included the mid- or late-1920s acceleration that Church & White (and others) had noted.
Stephen wrote, “The global trend [from Church, White, et al 2008] at present is about 3.2 mm/year.”
Do you know how they got that? Here’s a quote from their 2006 paper:
“An additional spatially uniform field is included in the reconstruction to represent changes in GMSL [Global Mean Sea Level]. Omitting this field results in a much smaller rate of GMSL rise…”
In other words, they added a fudge factor! That, along with GIA (which probably added 0.3 – 0.5 mm/yr to the rate of sea level rise), is apparently why their reported rates of sea level rise are so high.
BTW, I asked Church & White why they used the adjective “spatially” to describe the adjustment that they added. Surely, I assumed, since they were reporting acceleration trends, the “additional field” must at least have been temporally uniform.
Wrong! I’ve yet to understand what that “field” is, but Dr. Church told me that it was not temporally uniform.
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“WUWT, also welcome competing opinions, ”
to my knowledge, any links to my work are banned at WUWT.
Watts protected Lord Monckton from being destroyed in an online debate with
Peter Hadfield, using the excuse that Hadfield had a conversation with me.
Suggest you tell Watts to man up.
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Lol, leading skeptic blog WUWT?!? You again confirm we are not on the same planet.
WUWT and Anthony Watts is a right-wing paid shill for the fossil fuel industry who wouldn’t know science if he saw it. He isn’t a skeptic, he is a contrarian with 100% pure political motives. They frequently conjure up their own science and whatever Heartland and their NIPCC group of “scientists” manages to pull out of a hat. Not only that, they actively target real scientists in a way that looks very much like witch-hunting or something out of Nazi-Germany.
WUWT and Heartland is part of a systemic enterprise of anti-science right-wing propaganda on the web, discussion forums and media – and their methods is closely linked to that of the tobacco industry – and indeed a number of people behind the anti-science around tobacco is working actively now. Their whole goal is to spread doubt in the minds of average people.
Personally I am looking forward to the point where people like Anthony Watts and the people who pay him are taken to court for deliberately working towards dis-informing and stalling any real progress by the majority of people who really need to understand how important global warming is. Only this time the crimes to humanity is way way worse than the tobacco case.
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Well said!
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Dave says, “I will add, however, that the reason I’m active here (when time permits), in spite of the toxicity, is that Peter is the only significant Climate Movement activist I know of who does not censor his blog to quash dissent. I stay polite, and he lets me say what I wish”.
“When time permits”? LOL, Dave, when do you ever leave this site? I saw that you gave Peter a positive shout out on your website because of his ‘tolerance” (although I’m sure he doesn’t enjoy being listed among all those other nasty denier sites you tout there—I would be leery of an endorsement from one who also endorses so much “denier swill”).
May I also suggest that what you offer is not “dissent”, but denial, obfuscation, and misrepresentation of the worst sort? And that you are not “polite”? That you are actually insulting in your mockery of science and rational thought and the collective intelligence of all us “Crockers”??
I for one “wish” that Peter would NOT be so generous to you—he actually embarrasses himself a bit by his excessive tolerance. He HAS said in the past that, in effect, the best way to deal with your type is to let you hang yourself. IMO, it’s past time to cut down the body.
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daveburton wrote:
“Melting sea ice doesn’t contribute to sea-level rise, despite the NSF’s confusion on the topic.”
Actually it’s not so simple as that – the real world is not ice cubes in a glass. Sea ice and land ice are not so neatly separated. We saw a dramatic example of this a few years ago: after the Larsen B ice shelf collapsed in the space of a few weeks, the outflow of the glacier that it was buttressing increased.
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daveburton wrote:
“What you’re seeing there is the well-known 60-year cycle, which is visible along much of the Atlantic coast. Other than “noise” and the slight 60-year oscillation, it is quite linear. You may read more about the 60-year cycle here: http://sealevel.info/papers.html#howlong
E.g., 6. Zervas, C. (2009), NOAA Technical Report NOS CO-OPS 053, Sea Level Variations of the United States, 1854 – 2006 (see p. xiii)…”
The “well-known 60-year cycle” you refer to comes from the Loehle and Scafetta mathematical modeling paper, which finds a 60-year pulsation in the surface temperature record. They are not disputing “anthropogenic global warming”, by the way – they are proposing that that signal is superimposed on the natural rise and fall that their model predicts. Conveniently, the upward trend in their cycle corresponds to the rapid acceleration of CO2 emissions in the late 20th. Their argument is not against the human causes of global warming, but against the mainstream science consensus of climate sensitivity; they propose that it should be in the 1-1.5 C range for a doubling of CO2.
They are not proposing a physical cause for this pulsation; and the model breaks down substantially before 1850, and completely around the beginning of the 17th Century. Thus it is difficult to give any credence to it in the absence of something substantial.
The NOAA technical report that you cite does not provide any support for this “well-known” cycle, as you seem to suggest – doesn’t mention it at all, in fact.
Since the Loehle and Scafetta proposal has a “time stamp”, as it were, it’s likely that it will not be so “well-known” in 20 or 30 years.
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I wrote, “You may read more about the 60-year cycle here: http://sealevel.info/papers.html#howlong
E.g., 6. Zervas, C. (2009), NOAA Technical Report NOS CO-OPS 053, Sea Level Variations of the United States, 1854 – 2006 (see p. xiii)…'”
Stephen replied, “The ‘well-known 60-year cycle’ you refer to comes from the Loehle and Scafetta mathematical modeling paper… The NOAA technical report that you cite does not provide any support for this ‘well-known’ cycle, as you seem to suggest – doesn’t mention it at all, in fact.”
Unfortunately, Stephen, the WordPress theme that Peter uses makes only a very subtle the distinction between plain text and hyperlinks. So you probably didn’t notice that the “see p. xiii” link is a hyperlink to a citebite reference to the relevant section of the NOAA report. If you click on it you can read it for yourself. The final sentence is:
“None of the stations showed consistently increasing or decreasing 50-year MSL trends, although there was statistically significant multidecadal variability on the U.S. east coast with higher rates in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s and lower rates in the 1960s and 1970s.”
That’s from 2009. It didn’t come from Loehle & Scafetta’s 2011 paper.
As it happens, I attended a lecture by Dr. Scafetta a few weeks ago. You’re correct that they do not dispute the existence of anthropogenic warming (and neither do I), but they’ve found that the climate’s sensitivity to CO2 & CH4 forcings is much lower than the IPCC thinks. But you’re mistaken in your belief that their model breaks down before 1850.
(more technical) Scafetta, N. 2013. Discussion on climate oscillations: CMIP5 general circulation models versus a semi-empirical harmonic model based on astronomical cycles. Earth-Science Reviews 126, 321-357. http://people.duke.edu/~ns2002/pdf/EARTH_1890.pdf
(simpler) Scafetta N., 2013. Solar and planetary oscillation control on climate change: hind-cast, forecast and a comparison with the CMIP5 GCMs. Energy & Environment 24(3-4), 455–496. http://people.duke.edu/~ns2002/pdf/Scafetta_EE_2013.pdf
I just love Dave’s perseverance and dedication to the idea that sea level rise is not accelerating (yet). We have pointed out so many things that he could talk to us about—questions he refuses to answer, logic fails he won’t acknowledge, misleading statements he won’t clarify, lies he won’t take back. Why does he keep harping on the same old thing to the exclusion of so many other things related to AGW?
Could it be that his focus has become so narrow because of his job as “science adviser” to NC-20? Do they reward him that well? Could be—there’s an awful lot of $$$ sunk into that NC real estate that will soon be under water like Miami—they need to unload it on the suckers before that happens. They may think that whatever they pay Dave is money well spent.
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daveburton wrote:
“I wrote, “You may read more about the 60-year cycle here: http://sealevel.info/papers.html#howlong
E.g., 6. Zervas, C. (2009), NOAA Technical Report NOS CO-OPS 053, Sea Level Variations of the United States, 1854 – 2006 (see p. xiii)…’”
“Stephen replied, ‘The ‘well-known 60-year cycle’ you refer to comes from the Loehle and Scafetta mathematical modeling paper… The NOAA technical report that you cite does not provide any support for this ‘well-known’ cycle, as you seem to suggest – doesn’t mention it at all, in fact.’
“Unfortunately, Stephen, the WordPress theme that Peter uses makes only a very subtle the distinction between plain text and hyperlinks. So you probably didn’t notice that the “see p. xiii” link is a hyperlink to a citebite reference to the relevant section of the NOAA report. If you click on it you can read it for yourself. The final sentence is:
“‘None of the stations showed consistently increasing or decreasing 50-year MSL trends, although there was statistically significant multidecadal variability on the U.S. east coast with higher rates in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s and lower rates in the 1960s and 1970s.’
“That’s from 2009. It didn’t come from Loehle & Scafetta’s 2011 paper.”
I had no trouble following your link. It does not say what you claim for it, however, nor does if support the curve-fitting adventures of Loehle and Scafetta.
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Of course it does, Stephen. It is roughly synchronized with the AMO.
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There is no mention of DBs source. Just a file from a blog. It does not match any known data. Maybe its from Harry Potter.
The following is the best compilation I have ever seen: If you can’t find it here, you must be a professional with direct access. https://sites.google.com/site/arcticseaicegraphs/longterm
Looks bad for DB. For deniers, this is watching the noise, not the trend all over again. The trend looks awful for sea ice. I hate to think of what this is doing for the next generation.
Check out Neven for a great blog.
It is amazing to me that so many folks are so emotionally wedded to climate catastrophism that when they see real, encouraging data they adamantly refuse to believe it. In fact, rather than be thankful, they often even get angry or insulting to the bearers of good news.
Perhaps you would prefer some nice Thanksgiving music. This is a song about the Thanksgiving holiday, which is long enough to let a DJ go out and eat his Thanksgiving meal, and get back in time to put on the next song:
A fine set of graphic data from CA for those with eyes to view (and brains that will accept) to be concerned about. The one that scares me the most is the “Arctic Sea Ice Death Spiral” that is shown in one of the graphs and as a Youtube video—the video is compelling (and the music appropriate).
In contrast, we find good old daveb still clutching at straws, providing us with “data” from looney tune sites, and making great leaps of illogic. To point out my favorite one in this this thread, daveb states:
“Miami AVERAGES about 6 feet above sea level, so it might be awash sometime around 660 years from now (except that land accretion should extend that)”.
To extend that logic, the average elevation above sea level of the entire land mass of earth is around 2700 feet. So, according to daveb’s logic, we need not worry. If all the ice on the planet were to melt, NONE of the land on the planet would EVER be awash.
I will say it again, and more simply—-read more slowly and perhaps you will get the point. Your “Miami averages 6 feet above sea level” and therefore MIGHT be awash 660 years from now is illogical. If one half of Miami lies below the average of 6 feet (Yes? Is that not what average likely means in a locale as “flat” as Miami?) that half WILL be awash “around” 660 years from now IF, (a big IF), the rate of land ice melting does not increase. The worst case scenarios have Miami in serious “awash” trouble by the end of the century. Do you understand the logic now? And why my final paragraph is illogical also?
As I said in another comment, there is NO SUCH THING as the “U of IL Arctic Climate Research Group”. And if by NOAA, you’re referring to that one tide gauge in key West, I will point out that it has little relevance to the topic of this thread, the undeniable long term “death spiral” that we are seeing in the VOLUME of the arctic sea ice. That’s something you will attempt to obfuscate by talking about EXTENT instead, and throwing in the antarctic, but we are not buying it, Dave. Did you not read John Christian L’s thought about shaving down all the ice to 1 cm thick and spreading out to have a record EXTENT?
Don’t be silly, humbleoldguy. No scenario that passes the laugh test has Miami awash in a century, let alone “abandoned” altogether, which is the word what Stephen Paré used. Even the IPCC’s most extreme predictions don’t project anything near 6′ of sea level rise within the next century.
Here are the two most important facts that you need to know about sea-level:
1. Over the last 3/4 century average outdoor atmospheric CO2 levels have increased by about 100 ppm, from ~300 ppm to ~400 ppm. That period accounts for the vast majority of the anthropogenic increase in atmospheric CO2, in all human history.
2. We have excellent, reliable, long-term sea-level measurements from hundreds of locations, many of them with continuous or near-continuous readings extending back more than a century. The best of those sea-level measurements and the most comprehensive studies of those measurements show that there has been no measurable acceleration in the globally averaged rate of sea level rise in over 80 years.
In other words, that 100 ppm increase in atmospheric CO2 levels has not, thus far, resulted in any detectable increase in the rate of coastal sea level rise.
Albert Einstein supposedly defined insanity as doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results. We’ve done the experiment once, and we know the result. Adding 100 ppm of CO2 to the atmosphere has not caused any detectable increase in the rate of sea level rise. It would be very surprising if repeating the experiment were to result in a substantially different outcome.
Predictions that elevated atmospheric CO2 levels will result in wildly accelerated sea-level rise are unscientific nonsense, driven by political and pecuniary interests, rather than sound science.
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It’s deception. The year 2000 was chosen as a starting point. Since all data has noise and a trend line, the best place to start is a previous low. The topic started with yearly Arctic sea ice area minimum since 1979. Nothing refuted the facts shown by Peter. The subject drifted to combined Arctic and Antarctic sea ice area starting in the year 2000 and subtly shifted to annual maximum, not minimum. Deceptive. Then right into sea level rise, Dave’s obsession. Why don’t you just sell your beach front and stop worrying? Here is a real graph that shows Global sea ice extent over an extended period, not a cherry picked short time scale. http://www.skepticalscience.com/graphics.php?g=56
Even transient Global sea ice extent is lower than the last two decade averages. If Miami sea level averages six feet, does that mean none of it will flood when sea level rises a foot? There seems to be some sixth grade misunderstands of what averages imply. http://ss2.climatecentral.org/#12/25.7654/-80.2483?level=1&pois=show http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/11/09/3742641/rising-sea-levels-falling-real.html
“Not cherry picked,” Christopher? I guess the graphs are “real,” but the data is incomplete. Those graphs start about 6 years too late, and end about 1.7 years too early. Both omissions cause an exaggerated impression of ice loss, as does the severely magnified vertical axis.
To be fair, I don’t think John Cook & his friends omitted the early and late data to be intentionally deceptive. The pre-1979 data that they omitted was from earlier, less-precise measurement technology, which makes direct comparison to later data challenging (though the IPCC used it in their first two Assessment Reports). The missing recent data is probably just because that SkS page is at least 20 months out-of-date.
But the result is the same as if the deception were intentional. Their graphs start at a transient peak, and end at a transient valley. Both omissions (pre-1979 data and post-2011 data) result in an exaggerated portrayal of declining sea ice, as does displaying just 20% of the vertical axis for the N. & S. hemispheres, and just 10% of the vertical axis for the global sea ice graph.
Let’s look at the Key West data. http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?stnid=8724580
I never suspected this. Even though the data is plotted on a too small y axis, it’s easy to see that over a 20 year period starting in 1910, sea level hardly rose. Then it began rising and reached a plateau in the 40s. It rose only slightly up to about 1968, and then rose more quickly up to the present. Taking 20 year averages, sea level rise has increased. Simply put, sea volume is proportional to temperature and that record closely matches the temperature record(for Key West and globally, not every location)Subsidence or the opposite and prevailing winds and currents can affect sea level, so this is by no means a correct way to look at global sea level.
Christopher, seawater is liquid, and it sloshes. (So does the magma beneath the Earth’s crust, to a lesser extent!) It is well-established in the literature that about 60 years of coastal sea level measurements are required to establish a robust trend.
Properly smoothed, sea level at Key West shows a linear trend for over 80 years, just like the global average does (though with a slightly steeper rate of rise than the global average, due to subsidence).
Don’t be silly Dave. I am aware that seawater changes due to all sorts of things. If 60 years is necessary to establish a sea level trend, then how can you say there is no acceleration over that time period? Exactly how do you plot a trend line from a series of data points? Same data, same math, same answer. So show me the whole thing. And show me what you think a measure of acceleration is, i.e., your metric. Then we can compare. Show us. Show us exactly how you do the math.
Yes, it really is a ”swamp of arcane statistical mathematics”, and you would like nothing more than for us to wade around in it with you rather than talk about real “science”.
That’s understandable, since you are much more at home with computer statistical analysis programs than with the reality of AGW. It is actually quite “Darwinian” for you to seek such refuge, and I’m pleased to see that you DO obey some natural laws.
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In reply to daveburton at 1:22 AM (posted as a new comment to avoid excessive vertical “stretching”).
Dave is the one who is being silly as he twirls like the Tasmanian Devil, blows smoke, and flashes mirrors in an attempt to avoid responsibility for the outright untruths he keeps throwing out. For one, NO ONE has suggested on this thread that Miami will be “awash in a century” or “abandoned”.
Dave also attempts to mislead us by suggesting that an increase in CO2 levels from 400 to 500 ppm will not produce any deleterious effects (such as an ACCELERATED rate of sea level rise). Has Dave been reading any of the posts on this site? Or any other reliable site? Does Dave not think that the ever-increasing melt rate of ice masses on land due to AGW will not soon lead to ACCELERATED sea level rise? As most climate scientists and informed laymen believe? He does put a “thus far” in there as a qualifier, so perhaps he does, but of course he must continue to play his game.
Dave brings up the Albert Einstein definition of insanity—-it seems to be favorite of conservatives like Dave and appears often on the sites of the wacky right blogosphere—-the irony is that they are the ones that keep saying the same things over and over and expecting them to magically become truth.
Dave says: “We’ve done the experiment once, and we know the result. Adding 100 ppm of CO2 to the atmosphere has not caused any detectable increase in the RATE of sea level rise. It would be very surprising if repeating the experiment were to result in a substantially different outcome”. Now THAT’S insane. Anyone who has been paying attention knows what the predicted effects of another 100ppm rise in CO2 to 500 ppm is likely to mean. Has Dave never heard of the number 350?
And here Dave doubles down with politics driving another insane comment: “Predictions that elevated atmospheric CO2 levels will result in wildly accelerated sea-level rise are unscientific nonsense, driven by political and pecuniary interests, rather than sound science”. We must assume that Dave is again talking about liberals and those who want to get modestly rich from renewables rather than the fossil fuel interests who want to continue getting filthy rich from the status quo.
Here’s a hint. If you want to find a word on a web page, press ctrl-F (assuming your keyboard has a “ctrl” key), and you can search for the word. Then you can avoid making mistakes like the one you just made.
Ctrl-F and search for “abandoned” and you’ll find where Stephen Paré first used the word. Ctrl-F and search for “century” and you’ll find where you, yourself, said, “the worst case scenarios have Miami in serious ‘awash’ trouble by the end of the century.”
If you make the habit of doing ctrl-F and searching, before asserting that “no one” has said something, you’ll be a lot less likely to make such assertions when they obviously are not true.
Now you’ve contradicted yourself, saying, “NO ONE has suggested on this thread that Miami will be ‘awash in a century’ or ‘abandoned’.”
Stephen suggested that Miami would be “abandoned” due to sea-level rise, and you, yourself, said that Miami might be awash in “this century” (i.e., in the next 86 years). (Being the humble old guy that you are, do you consider yourself to be “no one?”)
It is true that I (and tens of thousands of other scientists) believe that another 100 ppm of CO2 will not produce any deleterious effects, such as significantly accelerated sea level rise. That’s because that’s what the evidence indicates.
The most important part of that evidence is that the previous 100 ppm increase in CO2 levels has had only positive effects: greatly (at least 15%) improved agricultural yields, accompanied by no increase at all in the rate of sea level rise, during a time of near ideal climate conditions.
You refer to “the ever-increasing melt rate of ice masses on land due to AGW,” but that’s a myth. The fact that the rate of sea-level rise hasn’t increased, despite increased groundwater depletion, and decreased dam-building, both of which should cause (slightly) accelerated sea-level rise, indicates that the net rate at which meltwater is raising the seas is apparently decreasing, not increasing.
Humbleoldguy, I can see that you’re not a physicist, so that might be why you don’t know that additional atmospheric CO2 has a diminishing effect on warming. The next 100 ppm will have less effect than the last 100 ppm. We are past the point of diminishing returns with CO2.
MODTRAN “tropical atmosphere” calculates that just 5% of current CO2 levels would give us fully 50% of the warming that we get from current CO2 levels, and the NCAR Radiation Code says 10%. Either way, we’re obviously way past the point of diminishing returns.
So, since the last 100 ppm didn’t cause any detectable increase in the rate of sea-level rise, it’s a lead pipe cinch that the next 100 ppm, with it’s reduced effect, will cause little, if any, acceleration in sea-level rise.
daveburton employs the old tactic of “shoot the messenger” rather than refute the message.
He begins with “Humbleoldguy, I never try to mislead” in an attempt to establish some sort of credibility for the main effort. I will respond that you most certainly DO “try to mislead”, Dave, and it rises to the level of blatantly lying.
He condescendingly gives us long-winded lessons on how to use the computer as he blows yet more smoke before our eyes. Dave also subscribes to the school of thought that says “bury them with BS and they will never see the truth”. His long winded string of BS refers to:
“….avoid making mistakes like the one you just made”.
“….search for “abandoned” and you’ll find where Stephen Paré first used the word”.
“….you’ll find where you, yourself, said, “the worst case scenarios have Miami in serious ‘awash’ trouble by the end of the century.”
All of that is the “evidence” he uses to support his “kill the messenger” final attack. as in—-“Now you’ve contradicted yourself, saying, “NO ONE has suggested on this thread that Miami will be ‘awash in a century’ or ‘abandoned’.” Dave seems to think that finding the APPEARANCE of a word through a word search is a substitute for actually READING the words and parsing their meaning. Anyone who cares to go back and look at what Stephen and I said will see that I have not contradicted myself, that “Miami MIGHT be in serious ‘awash’ problems (note quotation marks—they have meaning). My comments and Stephen’s mention of “abandonment” at some unspecified future date have been deliberately misused by Dave.
Dave also states: “It is true that I (and tens of thousands of other scientists) believe that another 100 ppm of CO2 will not produce any deleterious effects, such as significantly accelerated sea level rise”.
WHOA! TENS of thousands of OTHER scientists? Who are they, Dave? Got a link to that whopper?
And WHOA again! Another whopper with—“the previous 100 ppm increase in CO2 levels has had only POSITIVE effects: greatly (at least 15%) improved agricultural yields, accompanied by no increase at all in the RATE of sea level rise, during a time of near ideal climate conditions”. Dave has obviously been reading the work of the Idso’s, and he once again wants to to talk about the RATE of sea level rise—-boring.
And WHOA yet again! Dave turns up the smoke machine with talk of groundwater depletion and decreased dam-building, which have negligible influence on the water budget of the planet (unless, of course, Dave has some link he’d care to show us about that).
Dave condescendingly says he can see that I’m not a physicist, although he has no idea what my background is. I have googled Dave extensively and can find little about his background either, other than that he is an obvious denier and a member of the NC sea level rise advisory committee. (Nice tie, Dave, in your Youtube appearance). What’s your CV, Dave?—tell us why you are to be believed and why your “selection” of links is mote than propaganda?
Of course, we must finish with a reminder that the RATE of sea level rise is somehow relevant to a discussion of arctic sea ice with “it’s a lead pipe cinch that the next 100 ppm…will cause little, if any, acceleration in sea-level rise”. Love those “lead pipe cinches”, Dave—sort of like Dewey beats Truman?.
daveburton says, “I’m getting tired of your continual insults, old guy, but here are the links you requested—-I hope these references are helpful to you”.
Well, Dave, to tell the truth, I am getting EXCEEDINGLY tired of the continual insult to our collective intelligence that your postings on this thread have come to represent. You have the nerve to call these “references”? and say you hope they’re “helpful”? That’s what I mean by your insulting us—-you even seem to gloat as you throw this trash out there. You cannot be serious in thinking that they are helpful—-rational analysis says that you are either delusional or you are mocking us. If it’s the former, I apologize (unless you brought it on yourself somehow)—if the latter, you are digging yourself an even deeper hole on this site.
Let’s look at your “references”.
The “Petition” is very old news from 15 years ago and has long been discredited. I know it’s a favorite of deniers, but only the ignorant assign it any significance. For those who need reminding, the petition was signed by nearly 32,000 “scientists”, which constituted only .3% of those eligible to sign according to the criteria—-where are the other 99.7% who could have signed?. Nearly HALF of the signers were engineers of one sort or another, 3,000 were associated with “medicine”, and fewer than 600 were in fields that would even remotely allow them to be called “climate scientists”. That the signatures were not verified in any way does NOT add credibility. NOT a “helpful” reference. It’s actually a sign of either your ignorance (or desperation if you were serious about it) and I’m surprised that you would even try it on this forum.
An article on groundwater depletion from National Geographic? A popular treatment that doesn’t say much other than that we don’t know much but that we THINK it could be a problem and we’re looking at it? And a more “scientific” piece that says the phenomenon is poorly understood and has not been studied adequately, but DOES assert that “groundwater depletion is responsible for 1% (ONE PERCENT) of sea level rise from 1900 to 2008 (That’s 108 YEARS!)
A newspaper article about Freeman Dyson in the NJ Star-Ledger? (a paper I grew up with—it’s not exactly the NYT or WashPost). Dyson is generally known to be a 90-year-old physicist turned climate denier and crackpot.
And finally a reference to a “CO2 is good for you” site and an organization that has the Idso’s as president and vice-president. They are paid deniers of the worst sort and have been linked to the Heartlands Institute and fossil fuel interests. Laughable.
May I suggest that you do a web search BEFORE you make the kinds of bald assertions that you are trying to undo with this sloppy mess of “evidence”. Just as I admonished you with your misuse of word searches in another comment, a quick google hit, doesn’t mean that it will be “helpful” to your cause. You have hurt your credibility once again.
PS, Since you appear to be unfamiliar with the work of the Idso’s, I will give you my most favorite among their “55 Benefits of Atmospheric CO2 Enrichment”. Look it up—many others are just as entertaining, if not as illogical.
“#21. Human Longevity – The last 150 to 200 years have seen a significant degree of global warming, as the earth has recovered from the global chill of the Little Ice Age and transited into the Current Warm Period. Simultaneously, the planet has experienced a rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration that has taken it to levels not experienced for eons. Yet these much-maligned “twin evils” of the climate-alarmist movement have had no discernible negative influence on human health, as represented by perhaps the best integrative measure of their myriad possible influences, i.e., human lifespan. In fact, they may actually have helped to lengthen human lifespan”.
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Freeman Dyson is America’s preeminent living scientist. Even a critic of his wrote, “In the range of his genius, Freeman Dyson is heir to Einstein—a visionary who has reshaped thinking in fields from math to astrophysics to medicine.”
Dyson is smarter than everyone participating on this forum put together. Nobody sane would call him a “crackpot,” so I strongly encourage you to get back on your meds before you hurt yourself by trying to fly or something.
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Give it up, Dave—you are never, repeat NEVER, going to beat me in arguments on Crock, simply because I am smarter, better informed in general, FAR better educated in science, more logical in my thinking, and above all OPEN-minded, which your amygdala-centered Republican brain certainly is not. Freeman Dyson is America’s preeminent living scientist? Perhaps, if only because he IS 90 years old, and HAS outlived a lot of “preeminent” others. Even YOU will become the “smartest man alive” if you manage to outlive everyone else on the planet.
Yes, Dyson is a brilliant physicist and mathemetician, and he HAS been compared favorably to Einstein. He has made many major contributions in the AREAS OF HIS EXPERTISE. SO WHAT? He should have stopped while he was ahead and NOT gone headlong into commenting in an area in which he has little expertise—climate science, where many DO regard him as an old crackpot—-a Lord Monckton type who IS smart enough to know better. He has quite a few other way out ideas as well, particularly about space travel.
You question my sanity and prescribe “meds” for me so that I don’t hurt myself doing “…..or something”? LOL We can practice telepsychiatry on one another here if you wish—I have done it with O-Log and E-Pot. That is an area in which I am also far better trained and experienced than you are (unless you are the rare computer geek who minored in psychology).
Lets begin (gently). You state, “Dyson is smarter than everyone participating on this forum put together”. Really? Smarter than all 1377 of us put together? How should we characterize the “mental state” of someone who would make that statement?
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BTW, here’s a US Geological Survey map showing glacier extent at Glacier Bay, Alaska, in the 18th, 19th & 20th centuries: http://soundwaves.usgs.gov/2001/07/glacierbaymap.gif
Notice the large deceleration in rate of glacial retreat during the 20th century.
daveburton madly throws links at us in his attempt to cover up the fact that his horsepucky is not sticking to the wall. Now we are shown a map of glacier retreat that is supposed to mean something? I will not bring up the fact that the map is from 2001 and there just MIGHT be some interesting data to look at from the last 12 years.
I will instead suggest that Dave is blowing smoke yet again, since glacier retreat is highly dependent on many physical factors beyond global warming. Slope of the underlying substrate, narrowness and shape of the ice flow channels, amount of snow deposited “upstream” on the surface of the glacier that provides the “push”. Does Dave have a link for us that examines all that about Glacier Bay and discusses it? Of course not.
It doesn’t take a “rocket glacier scientist” to see that Dave is NOT one of them. He is merely a desperate denier thrashing around and cherrypicking whatever “data” he can to try to confuse the issue (which I will remind everyone is SEA ICE). Nice try, Dave, but no cigar for you—they are high carbon emitters anyway (Although we DO need to come up with some sort of award for Dave to recognize his “excellence”. Any ideas?)
daveburton asks. “Why do you folks get so peeved when I show you actual data?”
I can only speak for myself, Dave, but showing us irrelevant and meaningless “actual” data about glacier retreat in an attempt to confuse a discussion about the decline in arctic sea ice VOLUME is annoying (and dishonest).
To say nothing of the mindlessly condescending “attitude” you display with the grandparents-SUV’s-glacier retreat idiocy. Perhaps you know you have no credibility anymore and don’t care if you insult us? Sour grapes are for losers, Dave—are you a loser?:
Or are you just taking it out on me, and it’s really your great great great great grandparents who you’re mad at, for causing that dramatic glacier retreat at Glacier Bay in the 19th and late 18th centuries, by driving their SUVs so much?
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Tried to post a reply, but it disappeared. I will try again, with similar if not identical thoughts.
Dave asks why we get so peeved when he shows us “actual” data? Speaking for myself, I find it annoying when someone deliberately tries to cloud the issue by posting meaningless and irrelevant data about glacier retreat in a discussion of arctic sea ice.
It is also annoying when Dave oh-so-condescendingly tries to dismiss us all with bad jokes about grandparents, glaciers, and SUV’s. Perhaps he realizes that he has no credibility left and doesn’t care if he insults us? Sounds like sour grapes, Dave, and sour grapes are for losers—are you a loser?
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Old guy says, “I find it annoying when someone deliberately tries to cloud the issue by posting meaningless and irrelevant data about glacier retreat in a discussion of arctic sea ice.”
But I posted that data, showing the dramatic decrease in the rate of glacier retreat at Glacier Bay, because old guy wrote, “Does Dave not think that the ever-increasing melt rate of ice masses on land due to AGW will not soon lead to ACCELERATED sea level rise?”
Old guy, if you think the melt rate of glaciers is “meaningless and irrelevant” then why did you inject it into a discussion about sea ice?
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Dave, I know you are just playing your game, but YOU are the one who “injected the meaningless and irrelevant data” about mountain glacier melt into the discussion, not me.
I merely brought up the ever-increasing melt rate of ice masses on land IN GENERAL. Perhaps I should have been more specific and said that the major concern should be with Greenland, where enough water is stored in ice to raise sea level 20+ FEET if it all melts, since the changes in the arctic that are leading to the massive decline in arctic sea ice are also impacting the Greenland ice sheet.
I certainly don’t think the 15 or 18 INCHES of sea level rise that would result from the melting of ALL mountain glaciers compares to that. Hence, the tag of “meaningless and irrelevant” for your Glacier Bay distraction.
Since you’ve stepped forth to waste our time again, may I remind you that you have left some huge “whoppers” floating around on this thread? Will you ever address the questions I asked of you when you stated: “It is true that I (and tens of thousands of other scientists) believe that another 100 ppm of CO2 will not produce any deleterious effects, such as significantly accelerated sea level rise”.
WHOA! TENS of thousands of OTHER scientists? Who are they, Dave? Got a link to that whopper?
And ”the previous 100 ppm increase in CO2 levels has had only POSITIVE effects: greatly (at least 15%) improved agricultural yields…” That’s ONE (although NOT true except in very limited cases)—can you cite other “positive” effects of a 100 ppm increase?
My prediction? No, Dave will NOT properly address any of his outrageous assertions and logic fails. He will continue to tap dance his way through his alternate reality like the Airy Fairy Gwendolyn, blowing smoke and scattering rose petals of distraction and obfuscation as he goes.
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Old guy, I already answered your questions, here. But since you asked for references, I included five links, which triggered the automatic “moderation” feature, and and Peter is apparently on holiday. So you’ll have to wait for him to get back before you can read it.
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Can’t wait. I am dying with anticipation! Will daveburton finally answer questions that have been put to him? Will he speak truth for a change?
Sad to say, I think not. It looks like he is just sending us more links, and they will likely be just more irrelevant and meaningless “smoke blowing” by Dave.
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Dave, there are a myriad of things wrong with this. The most important is that it is a single glacier. You keep saying there needs to be averages, bout you keep doing the opposite. I also need a lot of data points to determine at trend. I ca notice anything you show me. Question is, what do you infer? You have not dip stated clearly. I can conclude very little from what you have shown.
Christopher, you are correct, but there’s no avoiding that problem because only a small percentage of glaciers have been studied.
From the habit of climate alarmists & the press of highlighting particular glaciers and claiming their recent retreats as evidence of anthropogenic global warming, many people have gotten the erroneous impression that those isolated examples prove that SUVs are killing the planet. My point is that that is deceptive. Dramatically retreating glaciers long predate significant anthropogenic GHGs.
But we know from the sea level trend that the net sum of meltwater added to the oceans from grounded ice, less the removal of water through precipitation, is not increasing. (I do understand that from that you cannot disambiguate the various sources, of course.)
Dave blathers on about “highlighting particular glaciers and claiming their recent retreats as evidence of anthropogenic global warming….the erroneous impression that those isolated examples prove that SUVs are killing the planet”.
I will ask Dave yet another question that he will not answer. We have not studied many glaciers? (Not true—we have not studied ALL, but we have gone to every place on Earth that has them, and looked at enough representative samples to talk about what is happening to all of them). Tell us Dave, which glaciers are GROWING and where? (And which TENS of thousands of scientists will support your contentions?)
What IS deceptive is cherrypicking ONE “dramatically retreating glacier” that “long predates significant anthropogenic GHGs” and dishonestly trying to make something of it. Be ashamed, Dave—YOU are doing exactly what you decried—highlighting a particular glacier to give an erroneous impression.
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Dave, you know that is not true. Glaciers have been studied all over the globe and the data is extensive. Why would you misrepresent that? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retreat_of_glaciers_since_1850
Glaciers have rapidly retreated in the last 30 years and there is extensive data that shows it.
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Christopher, we don’t even know how many glaciers there are, not even within a factor of two. We are a long, long way from being able to answer questions like:
* how many glaciers are advancing / retreating / gaining mass / losing mass, etc.?
* how do those changes compare with what was happening before the big post-WWII increase in anthropogenic GHG emissions?
How many glaciers do you think there are in the world, Christopher?
Now, for how many of those glaciers has the rate of advance/retreat, or mass gain/loss been studied for long enough and with sufficient detail to say with any confidence whether it is accelerating or decelerating?
I think you know as well as I do that it is a very tiny percentage.
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Dave continues to build his legacy of insane and inane comments on Crock. Perhaps the folks on the NC sea level advisory committee would like to know that he appears to have lost his mind?. Should we give them a “heads up” before he does some real damage to the work of that group?
Inanity #1 “Christopher, we don’t even know how many glaciers there are, not even within a factor of two”.
That’s just a throw-off idiocy to get the ball rolling. We likely DO know within a factor of two how many “glaciers” there are, and how MANY there are is NOT as important as knowing what is happening to them.
Inanity #2 “We are a long, long way from being able to answer questions…”
Only the cognitively dissonant like Dave are unable to see the forest for the trees here (or the glaciers for the melt water as the case may be). All his questions have been answered and continue to be examined. The data is clear and unequivocable, and even the average layman knows the answers. Why does Dave, a self-proclaimed “scientist” (who behaves very unscientifically) not know the answers while “Joe the Plumber” does?
Inanity #3 “How many glaciers are advancing / retreating / gaining mass / losing mass, etc.?”
Easy answer, Dave. It is generally accepted that about 90% of the world’s glaciers are retreating and losing mass. The remaining 10% are remaining stable or gaining, and that appears to be the result of increased precipitation due to the increase in water vapor in the atmosphere and changing weather patterns, both of those factors due to AGW. The decline is exponential, and a plot of the data resembles the upside down hockey stick of arctic sea ice volume decline.
Inanity #4 “How do those changes compare with what was happening before the big post-WWII increase in anthropogenic GHG emissions?”
In his usual sneaky and duplicitous manner, Dave is trying to trap someone here. Again, any well read Joe the Plumber would tell Dave that there was actually a RISE in glacier volume from 1950 to 1970, and that the precipitous decline began in 1970 and has been accelerating for 40 years.
Inanity #5 “How many glaciers do you think there are in the world, Christopher?”
I will answer that for Christopher. How many glaciers do you want there to be in the world, Dave? So that you lie about them? (and that’s assuming you haven’t made up your own definition of “glacier” so that you can quibble about their number)
Inanity #6 “Now, for how many of those glaciers has the rate of advance/retreat, or mass gain/loss been studied for long enough and with sufficient detail to say with any confidence whether it is accelerating or decelerating?
See comments on #2 and #3 above. This is the standard denier tactic of saying “BUT”, and trying to run the discussion in circles. Dave will deny the truth until every last glacier on the planet has been studied for decades. Unfortunately, they will nearly all be gone before very long—-will Dave notice?
Total Insanity #1 “I think you know as well as I do that it is a very tiny percentage”.
What Dave perceives as a crushing final statement to Christopher merely serves to illustrate what a “very tiny percentage” of his brain is in touch with reality (or the concepts of truth or honesty). Try not to laugh, Christopher.
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Old guy sez, “We likely DO know within a factor of two how many “glaciers” there are.”
Don’t keep us in suspense. How many are there?
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Give it up, Dave! As usual, you again prove my point by NOT saying anything of substance, instead trying to distract us from your many logic fails and outrageous untruths with a meaningless question.
I will repeat “how MANY glaciers there are is NOT as important as knowing what is happening to them”. Focus on that and stop your thrashing—-you embarrass yourself.
And we are still waiting for answers to the direct questions that have been put to you—why do you waste our time with inanities rather than answers?
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Oh, come on, old guy. Just admit that you don’t know how many glaciers there are on planet Earth, even roughly.
I don’t know, either. Nobody does.
Obviously, if you don’t even know approximately how many glaciers exist, not even within ±50%, you cannot have studied most of them, and if you haven’t studied them you don’t know what’s happening to them.
Perhaps you made the mistake of uncritically reading AR4’s nonsense about the Himalayan glaciers being almost gone by 2035, and extrapolated from regional nonsense to global nonsense?
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Let it be understood that I am NOT sitting at my computer just waiting for new comments to appear on Crock, as daveburton apparently is. I have a real life.
I am engaged in a home repair project that involves my walking by the computer with armloads of books taken down from nearly 50 linear feet of shelving so that we can get all the wall behind and moving furniture into the room that houses the computer. Since I am also tiredoldguy and am working up a sweat, I take frequent breaks as I pass the computer.
Dave says in another comment, “Oh, come on, old guy. Just admit that you don’t know how many glaciers there are on planet Earth, even roughly. I don’t know, either. Nobody does”. And that’s why I didn’t bother answering that inane question. I’ve seen estimates from 100,000 to 500,000, and once again will repeat “Who cares?”. And will say once again, that we HAVE studied enough around the globe to see what’s happening to them, and that’s what’s important (some countries HAVE identified and studied nearly all their glaciers—check out what is known about the Alps, for instance). There is an incomplete glacier registry out there—Dave knows this (we hope), but would rather waste our time.
“Obviously, if you don’t even know approximately how many glaciers exist, not even within ±50%, you cannot have studied most of them, and if you haven’t studied them you don’t know what’s happening to them”.
The logic fail of that statement is so apparent that I won’t even respond to it.
Dave closes with “stinging” comments about “silliness” and “nonsense”, blissfully unaware that he is viewed as the “silly one” and spewer of nonsense here. Such as the idea that a further increase of 100ppm in CO2 levels will have positive effects, just as the last 100ppm did. I have asked Dave several times to give us just one, and he refuses. (Hint, hint—the Idso book gives 55—want to hear my favorites?).
Cooled off, back to work. Later, Dave (and anyone else who is wasting time on this rather tired thread). It’s a horse that needs to be shot.
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Old guy wrote, “I’ve seen estimates from 100,000 to 500,000” glaciers in the world.
Correct. But that’s a factor of five difference, not a factor of two. So why did you say on Saturday, “We likely DO know within a factor of two how many” glaciers there are?
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Dave asks, “So why did you say on Saturday, “We likely DO know within a factor of two how many”; glaciers there are?”
Grasping at straws while upping the comment count on your “Troll Meter”, Dave? Planning to spend a lot this Christmas and need the extra bucks?
Just as Miami lies at an “average” of six feet above sea level, the number of glaciers is meaningless. You are just playing with us when you ask this irrelevant question and continue to ignore the science that has come out of whatever observations we have made on whatever percentage of however many glaciers there are. I will say again—give it up—you are embarrassing yourself so much that you’re embarrassing me and all others who value the “sapiens” part of our species name.
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That wasn’t an answer, old guy.
Do you not understand that “100,000 to 500,000” is a factor of five difference?
Or perhaps you only just learned there is that much uncertainty, and on Saturday, when you wrote, “We likely DO know within a factor of two how many” glaciers there are, you just didn’t know better?
There’s no shame in admitting that you made a mistake, old guy. The shame is in refusing to admit it, when you know it is true.
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Lord love a dozen ducks, Dave!
Do you not understand the overwhelming and incredible irony of you, daveburton, saying “There’s no shame in admitting that you made a mistake. The shame is in refusing to admit it, when you know it is true”
Especially when that is coupled with your refusal to deal with the many inaccuracies and logic fails on your part that I and others have pointed out to you? Like the “tens of thousands of scientists say” and “CO2 is good for you” and “ground water depletion is important to sea level rise”, to mention just three. You are like a dog obsessively chewing on a very small bone while mounds of very large bones are piled all around you.
I am going to busy today with my furniture moving, but I WILL stop by the computer whenever I can during breaks. It looks like this is going to be a day for Dave to attempt to set some new inanity records, and I wouldn’t want to miss that.
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That’s not an answer, either, old guy. Do you understand that “100,000 to 500,000” is not “within a factor of two?”
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You need to seek help, Dave. You are really losing it.
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Dave, if I want to know about glaciers, you’ll pardon me if I don’t go for amateurs on the internet, but follow someone who is a globally recognized expert on the subject, and who has spent a lifetime of hard physical and intellectual effort, risking his life, pursuing it.
Oh, wait – I did that..
What I find odd is that people like daveburton seems to think the ice in Antarctica during the cold season there “weight” up to the lack of ice on the opposite pole in the Arctic during the warm season there. Its a twisted logic that perhaps only their brains (or lack of) is able to make meaning from.
I keep repeating this every time the sea ice question pops up:
A) Sea ice only has meaning when the sun can reflect sun beams
B) Practically all the sea ice in Antarctica melts away every warm season there
We do have a problem if the sea ice in the Arctic does the same as that would essentially convert the north pole into deep blue sea when the sun is baking that place 24/7 – absorbing a lot of energy. So sea ice matters in the Arctic, but it doesn’t matter in Antarctica.
I’d be more concerned about the loss of land ice in Antarctica, which as many have pointed out is accelerating. And again as many have pointed out the majority of sea level increase we have had SO FAR is because of thermal expansion and not land ice melt – but that is about to change. Continued warming will accelerate the melting considerably and we can already witness a melt rate several times in magnitude compared to only a decade ago. A small number multiplied up still becomes a rather small number when we talk about sea level from land ice, but as anyone familiar with EXPONENTIAL curves, those numbers soon get very big – which is why we can expect low land areas to get into trouble in the latter part of this century.
Well said, JCL. There are ominous rumblings from the antarctic, but you have nicely pointed out that the immediate emphasis needs to be placed on the northern hemisphere and the arctic sea ice.
How daveburton can play his “global see ice extent” games and ignore what we see going on with arctic sea ice, the Greenland ice sheet, the circumpolar weather patterns, and all the other evidence that can only be due to AGW is beyond comprehension. (Unless, of course, he is a paid liar-denier and is only doing his job). (But he is a CONSERVATIVE, and conservatives don’t lie!—I get so confused sometimes)
John, I think I can help clear up some of your confusion.
1. You think that sea ice extent “doesn’t matter in Antarctica” because you think that most of the ice is melted when the sun shines there, anyhow.
That’s a misconception. Maximum and minimum sea ice extents actually occur at approximately the equinoxes, not the solstices. (In the Southern Ocean, the minimum ice extent occurs about a month before the March equinox, and the maximum occurs just about exactly at the September equinox.) So the notion that “only the minimums matter” is just plain wrong. The sun shines on the minimums and maximums almost equally.
Right now it’s just three weeks before the December solstice, there’s still 50% more sea ice in the Southern Ocean than in the Arctic Ocean: http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/
(click on that “Arctic” and “Antarctic” tabs)
2. Sea ice in the Southern Ocean is mostly at lower latitudes than the sea ice in the Arctic Ocean. That means the sun shines on Southern Ocean sea ice at a more oblique angle, which means there’s more sunlight per unit area, and less of it is reflected. So, if you think that solar absorption & Albedo are what matters, the Southern Ocean ice matters more than Arctic Ocean ice.
3. However, it is not clear that ocean ice albedo is even a positive feedback mechanism, anyhow.
Albedo is bidirectional: high albedo holds heat in as effectively as it keeps heat out. That’s why your space blanket is silvered.
A layer of ice keeps heat in, as well as it keeps heat out, and the net flow of heat in the Arctic is upward (from ocean to air), not downward. The primary source of warmth in the Arctic is not sunlight, it is ocean currents, which exchange frigid Arctic water for less-chilly water from lower latitudes.
One could easily determine whether sea ice albedo is a net positive or negative feedback mechanism, simply by comparing temperature profiles for water beneath the ice vs. water w/o ice cover, under otherwise similar conditions. If the water averages warmer under the ice, then my speculation is correct, and sea ice acts as a negative feedback mechanism, even in the Arctic summertime. Unfortunately, I can’t find anyone who knows whether that study has been done. I’ve asked that question on a couple of blogs, including this one, and nobody seems to know.
This is completely off-topic, but in case someone else is interested, I posed a question elsewhere about the phrase, “more oblique.” My question generated quite a discussion.
LOL Dave is NOT alone in the world! There are others who will mindlessly wrap themselves around an axle, and he has found them!
To add another irrelevant two cents, all of us old grunts know what “oblique” means. We learned it in the hot sun on the grinder, and learned it well—it is not wise to incur the wrath of DI’s.
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Clarification #2: by “lower latitudes” I meant “less extreme latitudes” or “more equatorial latitudes.” I didn’t mean “closer to the south pole.”
Dave, you continue to evade questions by changing the subject.
1. how do you plot a trend line given a set of data points?
2. How can you assert there is no sea level acceleration in an 80 year record, If a 60 year record is a minimum length required for a valid trend line?
Christopher, it disappoints me that you accuse me of “evading questions” in reply to a clarification of a message that you cannot have read yet, because it is still stuck “in moderation,” while Peter is on vacation.
However, in answer to these two new questions:
1. There are many ways, but a minimum-variance unbiased estimator linear fit is a good general-purpose approach to fitting a linear trend line to data points with error bars.
2. Likewise, there are many approaches for detecting acceleration or deceleration. The one Church & White used was minimum-variance unbiased estimator quadratic fit regression analysis. I’ve written Perl code to do that, which you may download from my web site.
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Dave, it disappoints ME that you would attempt to lead us into the swamp of arcane statistical mathematics rather than answer such simple questions as “Who are those TENS of THOUSANDS of scientists?” and “Give us examples of the POSITIVE effects of a 100ppm increase in CO2 levels?”, to cite just two.
You ARE evading substantial answers to nearly all questions put to you. Period.
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Ok Dave, if you know all that, and you know spikes and individual data points are of little statistical significance. Yet you keep referring to spikes and this years record. If you want to have any credibility you will have to act consistent with your understanding, not just have knowledge. That is where you have consistently failed. I am not asking for a reply, Dave. I already made my request for behavior consistent with your professed understanding of math and statistics. You have consistently done the following:
1. Used individual data points to make inference. This years sea ice, one glacier
2. Mixed different data types. Northern ice, southern ice
3. Inferred results from a record, you have yourself professed to be too short.
How can you prove a break ( acceleration) in sea ice over a period of 80 years if as you say, 60 years is necessary for a trend line. Rhetorical. Nobody can. You need two lengths of 60 years to establish two trend lines by your own rules.
There is a lot more that could be said, but it is a waste of time if you are going to keep abusing the basics. If you want anyone to take you seriously, stop referring to individual data points, tide gauges, annual minimums, single locations, and all of that.
There is one other. Very troubling matter. Your use of unattributed data. If you really want to prove anything, don’t base your data on a source no one recognizes. I suggest you start with large long term data sets from PIOMAS and sources that scientists respect as reliable. If you want to taken seriously as a scientist, you must act like one. It’s not enough to know math, you have to use it properly. And sorry, in science, excuses like there is not enough data (glaciers) don’t make it. If that’s true, you acknowledge it and call for more research. Saying we don’t know how many glaciers there are misses the point. Another example of misuse of statistics. We do not need to know how many there are, we only have to take a large enough sample. You should know that.
In order to be taken seriously here, you will have to show proper math for quite a while, to undo the impressions made by a long period of intransigence. This is not a rigorous site, and it allows many views. Skeptical Science would not tolerate your repeated thwarting of scientific discussion. I do not wish to speak for Peter, or the rest of the commenters, but I can say I believe this site tolerates such unscientific reasoning to provide proof that deniers are undisciplined or perhaps uninformed, and do not respond reasonably. In short, they are there own rebuttal. If you don’t want that, you need to conform to mathematical and scientific principles you claim you understand and know. My biggest rebuttal of your claims has nothing to do with any particular subject. It has to do with internal self consistency.
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Yes, Dave DOES give us nearly hourly proof that “deniers are undisciplined or perhaps uninformed, and do not respond reasonably. In short, they are there own rebuttal”. Well said, Christopher! (even if the whole paragraph was somewhat “oblique” and with a politeness that is wasted on Dave).
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Old guy, as I’ve already told you, my answers to those questions are stuck “in moderation” until Peter returns from his vacation. Please be patient.
As for the “swamp of arcane statistical mathematics” that bothers you, Christopher asked a pair of mathematical questions, and I gave him a pair of mathematical answers, complete with heavily-commented computer source code.
I know something about those things. I’m the guy who replicated the trend analysis from Church & White 2006, and found that when it was applied to their 2009 data it showed a slight 20th century sea-level rise deceleration, rather than acceleration. See doi:10.1007/s11069-012-0159-8; preprints are available at arXiv and Nature Precedings, and all the code and data is on my web site.
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Just stopping by the computer for a quick look—books all moved, starting on the furniture. I don’t have time to comment extensively right now, Dave, but I have looked at your website and in other places, and have indeed found that “you’re the guy” that you appear to be to the rest of us.
I will speak to your background, your involvement with NC-20 and the NC sea level committee, your good buddy John Droz, your “publications”, and your role as an “expert” reviewer for AR5 WGI.
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Christopher wrote, “Dave… You have consistently… 1. Used individual data points to make inference. This years sea ice, one glacier”
I did no such thing. You might be talking about the map of Glacier Bay, AK, where glacial retreat was much faster in the 18th and 19th centuries than in the 20th and 21st centuries. But there are about 20 glaciers at Glacier Bay, not just one, and I’ve also discussed (or linked to discussions about) many others, such as Heterogeneity in glacier response in the upper Shyok valley, northeast Karakoram, by Bhambri, et al.
Christopher wrote, “Dave… You… 2. Mixed different data types. Northern ice, southern ice”
Northern and southern sea ice are the same data type, measured in the same way by the same instruments, and citing a graph of global sea ice extent is not mixing apples-and-oranges.
OTOH, when people combine graphs of sea level measured by coastal tide gauges up to 20 years ago, spliced onto satellite altimetry for the last two decades, that’s definitely mixing apples-and-oranges — google “sea level nature trick” (in quotes) for discussions of that error.
Christopher wrote, “Dave… You… 3. Inferred results from a record, you have yourself professed to be too short. How can you prove a break ( acceleration) in sea ice over a period of 80 years if as you say, 60 years is necessary for a trend line… You need two lengths of 60 years to establish two trend lines by your own rules.”
No, you don’t. More data is better, but 80 years of data is not too short. If your data contains a 60-year cyclical component, then fitting a linear or quadratic to any 60 year subset of the total data record will eliminate the effect of the 60 year cycle.
What’s more, when water sloshes, and goes up in one place, it tends to go down in another. So with global measurement coverage, the effect of the cycles is reduced, compared to regional or single-location analyses. (It’s not reduced to zero, because global tide gauge coverage is not uniform, and because AMO effects are not limited to simple “sloshing,” but global analyses are less affected by cyclical processes than are things like Sallenger’s “hotspot” analysis of the U.S. Eastern seaboard.)
Christopher wrote, “There is one other. Very troubling matter. Your use of unattributed data. If you really want to prove anything, don’t base your data on a source no one recognizes.”
What unattributed data are you talking about?
I included many links to data sources (which is why some of my comments were stuck in moderation while Peter was vacationing).
Christopher wrote, “Saying we don’t know how many glaciers there are misses the point.”
No, but your complaint means that you missed my point.
It was claimed here that glacial retreat is accelerating, and that nearly all glaciers will be gone before very long. My point is that the former claim is unsubstantiated, and the later is both unsubstantiated and ridiculous.
Christopher wrote, “Another example of misuse of statistics. We do not need to know how many there are, we only have to take a large enough sample. You should know that.”
My point is that analyzing a single glacier’s ice mass trends, or even it’s advance/retreat, is a substantial amount of work, and that work has been done for only a minute fraction of the world’s glaciers. It is a lot easier to count glaciers than it is to analyze an adequate sample of them, and we haven’t even counted them.
We don’t know how many glaciers there are, nor, in most cases, where they are, how they are behaving, or how their behaviors are correlated.
Christopher wrote, “Skeptical Science would not tolerate your repeated thwarting of scientific discussion.”
If “thwarting of scientific discussion” means disagreeing with John Cook, then you’re right: he tolerates no substantive dissent on his blog, just like Tamino, YaleClimateForum, etc.
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Does Dave ever sleep?
More unscientific nonsense about oceans “sloshing” and such—the usual “Davisms” and not worth talking about.
What IS of interest is Christopher’s insightful comment. “Skeptical Science would not tolerate your repeated thwarting of scientific discussion.” Amen to that.
Perhaps that’s why Dave does NOT post comments on Skeptical Science? Because they have “banned” him or he knows that he would be eaten alive if he did post his “thwartings” on SkS, where real science lives?
If you care to work at it, you can find that Skeptical Science IS aware of Dave’s existence and his proper place in the world. A search there for “Madness over sea level rise in NC” will lead to a reference to Dave and NC-20. In part,
“…a small handful of advocates for junk sea level rise science were able to persuade the legislature to write and initially vote in favor of a pretty crazy bill. They SPOUT THE SAME DENIER SWILL that SkS has been debunking for years”.
Emphasis added because that “DENIER SWILL” links to guess who? Our very own “swill-spouter”—-daveburton!
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I dont think it is correct to sum the instantaneous sea ice extent from both hemispheres. The southern hemisphere sea ice minimum is always 180 degrees out of phase with the northern sea ice, thus always reducing changes in sea ice. A more correct way would be to align the data would be to account for the difference in phase.
Christopher, that is a good idea. I agree that it would be interesting to graph the sum of the two hemispheres’ sea ice extent with one hemisphere delayed by six months, so that we could see total sea ice graphed by season instead of by calendar date. If you construct (or find) such a graph, please consider sending it to Anthony Watts, or to Peter, to get it out in the blogosphere.
However, summing the instantaneous sea ice extent is certainly more correct than ignoring one entire hemisphere, as the folks who want to only talk about the Arctic do. Also, the long term average global ice extent trends would not be affected by applying a 6 month delay to one hemisphere’s data.
But if you want to calculate the effect of sea ice on total planetary albedo, to see if there are trends which could affect hypothetical “albedo feedback” on sunlight, you do need to take into account the latitude and time of year. A layer of ice warms the ocean (negative feedback!) at night, by reducing heat loss. But during daylight, if the sun is high enough in the sky, ice has the opposite effect, cooling the water (positive feedback!) by reflecting sunlight which would otherwise have been absorbed.
If you want to know whether a sea ice trend is causing warming or cooling of the oceans, you need to take those things into account, and you need to get a handle on the relative rates of energy transfer, up and down, under ice-covered and ice-free conditions.
It’s not going to be easy to calculate all that correctly, but because Southern Ocean ice is at less extreme latitudes, I think that if you do those calculations you’ll find that Southern Ocean ice matters more than Arctic ice.
If you want to know whether a sea ice trend is causing warming or cooling fo the planet (rather than just the oceans), it is even more challenging.
Another long-winded, condescending, and generally meaningless comment by Dave—not even worth dissecting.
What IS worthy of note is his closing—a link to a talk given by a METEOROLOGIST at the 2013 CPAC. That’s the CONSERVATIVE POLITICAL ACTION CONFERENCE, which is a hotbed of denial of ALL things scientific (as well as most of what this country stands for). Lord love a duck, Dave—you HAVE lost it.
When will Dave post a link to Sarah Palin reading info off her palm about AGW? At least she’s nice to look at if you mute the sound.
No Dave, summing the total sea ice extent while ignoring that the minimums occur 6 months apart is not better than looking at the Arctic independently. Its completely wrong. We want to know if the minima are decreasing. Please answer my questions further down the thread.
Christopher, the minima do not matter more than the maxima.
Look at the graph of Arctic Sea ice extent. Then look at the graph of Antarctic sea ice extent. What do you notice that they have in common?
1. The first thing you should notice is broad peaks and narrow valleys. In other words, the maxima last longer than the minima.
2. The second thing you should notice is that both maxima and minima are centered close to the equinoxes, not the solstices.
In Peter’s “Arctic versus Antarctic Sea Ice” video, both he and NPR’s Richard Harris mistakenly assume that ice peaks in the winter (when the sun doesn’t shine at all), and hits its minimum in the summer (when the sun shines all day). But they’re wrong.
Here’s a trivia question for you: In which of the four seasons does Antarctic ice extent begin increasing each year?
BTW, several of my comments here are languishing “in moderation” until Peter returns from his Thanksgiving vacation. This one should post immediately, because it contains no links. But I would ask those here who are complaining about my apparent failures to answer some of their questions to please be patient.
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“But I would ask those here who are complaining about my apparent failures to answer some of their questions to please be patient”
I’m sure I can speak for all when I say we are far too “patient” with you, Dave. I’ve said it before—-just stop sending us meaningless and misleading links, stop evading responsibility, and simply DEAL THE QUESTIONS that have been put to you.
You might regain a small measure of credibility and respect if you did so.
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Ooops! That’s “deal WITH the questions”
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I have been trying to get Dave to respond to the issue of polar sea ice minimum being opposite timing. This gives a false representation of global decline, because southern extent is at a maximum when northern is at a minimum.
To answer a snark with a snark, 42 is your IQ divided by two, Dave.
(Or is it the percentage of your comments that are dishonest divided by two? I get so confused at times)
I am guessing daveburton has had a trip too many with an improbability drive under his bonnet, as the science he comes up to seems otherworldly and highly improbable. But I guess that is the normal life of a gambler, only in this case its all our lives (and indeed all other critters on the planet) that are at stake.
But it sure is hard to discuss things with “opposing counsel” who just keeps pounding the table.
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You’re the “table pounder” here, Dave. We keep trying to explain that to you, but you just won’t listen.
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I did understand your answer. You tacitly admitted global ice is diminishing.
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There was nothing “tacit” about it, John, and it wasn’t an “admission.” As I wrote, the oceans are rising due to meltwater from grounded ice, probably more than 100 cubic miles of it (roughly the equivalent of Lake Erie!) every year.
But that’s not the issue. Although I got 8 thumbs-down to the comment in which I wrote that, nobody has disputed it. The question is what effect have humanity’s CO2 (and CH4) emissions had? And the answer is “none that we can detect.”
That rate of grounded ice melting and flowing into the oceans clearly has not increased in more than 80 years. The oceans are rising no faster now than they were 80+ years ago. Yet the great preponderance of anthropogenic GHG emissions have occurred since the 1940s. That means there’s no evidence in the sea-level measurements that anthropogenic GHG emissions have increased the rate of sea-level rise at all.
And, yes, I know (and said) that you understood my answer. But old guy didn’t.
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Dream on, Dave, because old guy DID understand your answer. You are trying to lead us into a very complicated “swamp” involving ENSO and other poorly understood phenomena as you cling to your mantra of “no increase in RATE of sea level rise”. That’s why no one wants to waste time “disputing” what you are throwing out there just to distract us from ARCTIC SEA ICE DECLINE.
“The question is what effect have humanity’s CO2 (and CH4) emissions had?” And the answer is “none that we can detect” is again misleading because of your narrow focus on RATE of sea level rise to the exclusion of all else.
Let’s look at another snapshot of RATE. Since mid-2011 the global oceans have risen approximately 20 millimeters, or 10 mm per year. This is over three times the rate of sea level rise during the time of satellite-based observations (currently 3.18 mm per year), from 1993 to the present. Is that as meaningful as your assertion that sea level rise has not accelerated? What does that portend for sea level rise over the next few years?
You remind me of the old joke about the gullible man who had a suit custom tailored by a rather inept tailor. At the final fitting, the various ill-fitting parts of the suit were dealt with by the tailor saying “No problem, just bend your leg a bit, tilt your head to the right, twist your body to the left, etc” until all parts “lined up”. As the man hobbled out of the shop in his “fit the suit” position, two old ladies spotted him.
One said, “Oh, look at that poor man—see how ‘crippled’ he is!”
The other replied, “Yes, it’s a shame, but doesn’t his suit fit well?”
Don’t keep trying to make us fit your suit, Dave.
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Old guy wrote, “Since mid-2011 the global oceans have risen approximately 20 millimeters, or 10 mm per year.”
No they haven’t. You’re confusing reality with “noise spikes” in one particular set of measurements (presumably Jason), and you’re exaggerating those noise spikes, and your information is out-of-date.
Here’s the latest Jason 2 graph. As you can see, there was a negative spike in early 2011, and a positive spike at the start of this year, with a difference between the two spikes of about 17 mm. But it’s been falling all year, and from mid-2011 to present it shows a rise of only about 11 mm, not 20:
Old guy asked, “What does that portend for sea level rise over the next few years?”
The answer, of course, is absolutely nothing.
For proof of that, see the coastal tide gauge measurements, which are vastly better than the satellite measurements. Here’s one with a good quality long record, for which Peltier estimates only a slight GIA/PGR bias:
As you can see, the trend is essentially linear, plus “noise.” No acceleration is apparent.
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Passing by the computer and taking a break. daveburton is still at it, now talking about “confusing reality with noise” and how my information is out of date because it doesn’t include data from the last few months (that, of course, he likes).
I asked “What does that portend for sea level rise over the next few years?” exactly because its significance is indeterminate (“noise”) at this time and means little (if not quite “absolutely nothing”). I’m glad we agree minimally on one small thing.
Still waiting for real answers to real questions, Dave. (and I love the fit of your suit).
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Dave, you are completely wrong about the minima being more important than the maxima. But you have not answered my questions. You keep dodging them. Are you hiding something? Simple questions.
Christopher, I’m not dodging anything. I have already explained to you why the sea ice extent minima are not more important than the maxima (as well as in this comment on Friday, which is still stuck in moderation). Did you overlook my answer?
I have been visiting Crock for only a few months, but the number of comments on this thread has got to be approaching whatever the record may be—-certainly it’s getting into “top ten” country. Also, the ratio of “thumbs up-thumbs down” ratings that daveburton has received versus that of all other commenters is also going strongly against Dave. Only E-Pot and O-Log seem to be in Dave’s league at garnering disapproval, which is surprising considering that Dave is fast proving to be the biggest prevaricator (or crackpot) visiting this site. It is surprising also because E-Pot and O-Log occasionally make some sense and speak some truth—Dave seldom does. Or perhaps everyone is being kind to Dave? When it is apparent who the village idiot is, some folks show charity by not pointing it out.
And before anyone points out that DOG is one that is pushing the comment total up here, let me say that I am conducting a two-fold exercise here:
1) I’m trying to add my limited knowledge and insights regarding arctic sea ice decline to the communal knowledge pot so that we can better understand the effects of AGW (and seeking the same from others)
2) Unfortunately, trying to accomplish 1) requires that daveburton’s insanities be addressed, often at length. There IS a plus there—using one’s brain is good anti-Alzheimer’s therapy. It would appear that Dave is just going to allow senility to overwhelm him.
Ha, ha, yeah, Dave knows a lot about ocean related topics. He’s the sea level chess master on this blog. It would take a lot of journal reading and study to figure out the exact points of divergence that make his interpretations different than the mainstream guys (on those points where they differ). Often these things come down to ideas whose dynamics are hard to quantify, including the weighting of multiple streams of evidence, and one’s uncertainty tolerance.
I write classical music to keep my mind sharp. It involves solving terrible abstract problems. I’ve won a few awards, been published, been performed here and there, but I don’t make much money doing it – I mostly just do it for the challenge…
But I’m pretty sure this is a new record for the comments number, at least for the year or so that I’ve been following the blog.
I don’t have any live recordings (Well, I have one of the Prague Radio Symphony, but the maestro totally messed up the tempo and ruined the character of the piece, so I won’t bring that one out of the vault). But I do put up my sample recordings of pieces on youtube so folks that i submit scores to will have an audio reference at hand. Some of my favorites include a little solemn piece for clarinet and piano:
There’s older stuff that I’ll eventually retire into my Juvenilia collection on my channel too – something called Winter Ashgrove Cottage that will be getting its premier with the Third Millennium Ensemble out of Maryland next season. Someday I’ll eventually put up some film music cues I’ve written just to attract more folks to my channel – right now it’s kind of bare…
Thanks for the interest!
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Andrew –
Listened to all of them. Especially liked the second m’v’t of the symphony. The clarinet at the beginning that leads to the harmonic turn/sting when other instruments come in is perhaps a distant cousin of the “Prelude to the Afternoon…” beginning (and aren’t those antique cymbals/crotales at the end, which Debussy uses at the end of his piece as well?); the French late 19th/early 20th quality is very congenial to me – it’s more Roussel than Ravel in your case, I think, with your classicizing phrase structure and “symphonism”, if you don’t mind the word. That it’s a “Symphony in C” might have been a tipoff to that, one would think!
Even the blues riffs in the third movement don’t take away from the cultural vibe, as they have a precedent in Ravel’s violin sonata, at least.
But I enjoyed all the pieces. Skillfully composed, cogently developed material, using some rich orchestral resources; the orchestration has clarity. I think I know how much work went into these pieces – and how much more you had to practice, listen, and contemplate in the years previous to make that work possible at all. Congratulations!
Sorry for the late response: I up-voted your comment the other day, but I’ve been entertaining an out-of-town guest over the last several (days), which has cut my internet time down considerably, and has left me exhausted at the end of the day…
Thanks for listening to the pieces – much appreciated – and for the kind words!
Yeah, the Prelude to the Afternoon… very well could have been the inspiration for the abrupt introduction of the other instruments at the top of the second movement of the symphony; I had never made the connection, but I have so many musical ideas floating around in my head i readily lose track of what originated from where and it’s like a big blur of information. Good call on that one! Oh, and that’s a glockenspiel near the end. The crotales tend to ring a bit long, so i use the glock, as it seems be able to accent a violin or w.w. melody without adding any odd dissonance that could occur secondary to that long ring. It’s pretty good at focusing the audience attention on what you would like them to be focusing on, especially if there are multiple ideas occurring on top of each other.
I haven’t listened to Roussel for ages but I can see how you made the connection: for instance, I remember him being quite liberal with his use of chromaticism regarding his harmonic language (at least on the pieces I own on disc), which also is prominent in a lot of my ideas. The ‘missing link’ between the French schools of composition from around the turn of the century and what I tend to shoot for is Arnold Bax.
Bax tended to use a broad mix of English, German, and French schools of thought in his composition, and I am somewhat obsessed with his music. I even try to mimic his sprawling, ‘undisciplined’ large scale form [Bax is actually quite structured, but his constant use of new ideas/textures throughout his pieces and how he turns the orchestra on a dime in places as if he’s scoring music to a cartoon makes it seem at though he is wandering about in a tone poem type format].
I remember perhaps a year+ ago, when I first started following Climate Crocks, we had a concert pianist who would post in the comments sections. I’m taking a long-shot guess here (again my mind is a bit fuzzy/blurry these days), but was that you? Your eloquent musical knowledge leads me that direction. In any case, again, I appreciate the fine words and I’ll see you back out on the comments sections when I get a bit more internet time happening!
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This is the thread that wouldn’t die!
I’m not the concert pianist fellow. I am a composer, however:
The first piece is preceded by a lengthy drone (we needed time for the dancers taking their places, and there is video going on that of course you cannot see…), so, please be a little patient at the very beginning.
I noticed that Youtube was suggesting various Bax videos when your own came up. Yes, it makes perfect sense. I am very attracted to his music, though my deviation from the Debussyan gravitational pull is more often toward the Stravinskyan.
I subscribed to your channel, and I hope that more of your music will become available. Glad to connect! I think that your orchestration is skillful, your musical arguments cogent, and your musical material concise and vivid.
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Very nice Stephen – rhythmically interesting – it’s almost a fusion of some vestige of serialism and a rhythmically based medium: it’s as if Pierre Boulez’s Derive I was a piece of glass that’s been shattered and the shards are hung up on a percussive backdrop, if that makes any sense. Though, I’m pretty unqualified to interpret modern music: my understanding of music kind of falls off a cliff with the death of Benjamin Britten in the 70’s.
Thanks again for the kind words and interest in my channel! Yes, nice to meet you! I’ll see you back out there…
Why only to Aug 15th? The melt season lasted another month.
Too bad it doesn’t offer any comparison to previous years. Arctic ice is up considerably this year, and total global sea ice extent just hit a 21st century record high.
Oops, wrong link, sorry. Here’s the right one.
You’re kidding.
Those charts bear no resemblance whatsoever to what actually happened in the Arctic the last several years.
It is astonishing that anyone would have so little self-respect that they could blatantly fabricate data in such a way – or so much contempt for others that they would deliberately deceive the ignorant.
Maybe sniffing an LP laced with goodies is a “record high”.
Those graphs are accurate. The data is not fabricated. Maybe you overlooked the word “global,” Stephen?
Here’s the same thing from the U. of Illinois Arctic Climate Research Group, but extending back further:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg
Since their graph extends back to 1979, you can see that the last time global sea ice extent was near to the recent spike was 1996.
It looks to me like 1996’s maximum sea ice extent might have been just slightly greater than 2013, but I’m not sure. They were very close. The 1996 minimum was quite a bit lower than 2013’s minimum.
It appears to me that the year that most closely resembles the 2013 record was 1981. Both the low and high peaks are just about identical for the two years.
1999 was also similar to 2013, and the “shape” of the two years’ graphs were very similar, but the 1999 minimum and maximum sea ice extents were both slightly lower than 2013’s.
I would hate to suggest that daveb is being dishonest and misleading us—-perhaps he is just confused (or maybe I am)—-but the U of Illinois arctic study group goes by the title “Polar Research Group”, not by “Arctic Climate Research Group” which is closer to the name of a wholly fictitious group that was at the center of some controversy a few years back—the Arctic Climate Research CENTER”. The “center” didn’t and doesn’t exist, even though its “research findings” were reported by deniers. Dave? What kind of horsepucky are you throwing against the wall? Who exactly are you talking about? You wouldn’t be trying to slip in fabricated data from a non-existent group under the camouflage of a slight name change, would you? (Conservatives don’t lie, remember)
Sorry if I got the U. Illinois Research Group’s name wrong. I just went to their web site:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/
At the top of the page is says:
“Arctic Climate Research at the University of Illinois”
At the bottom of the page it says:
“contact the research group”
I think it strange, humbleoldguy, that you don’t know who I’m talking about or where the graph came from, since I gave you the URL.
If you look at their graph of global sea ice extent, you can see that both the minimum and the maximum sea ice extents for 2013 were just about identical to 1981.
You can also see that the shape of the 2013 graph looks a bit more like 1999, except that the 1999 minimum and maximum sea ice extents were both slightly lower than the 2013 minimum and maximum extents.
Dave continues to blow smoke and evade responsibility. He simply refuses to read what others post and keeps on repeating his lies.
I believe that you did not mistakenly get the U. Illinois Research Group’s name wrong, Dave, and your visit to their web site and subsequent smoke blowing is just an attempt to cover up your dishonesty.
Anyone who visits the site will see that “Arctic Climate Research at the University of Illinois” is just a descriptive page heading and not a title. They do have an informal group that is called the “Polar Research Group”. As I said in the earlier comment, the “Arctic Climate Research CENTER” is a fictitious group.
If one googles that title, one will find reference to a controversy in 2009, in which climateprogress attacked a George Will article in the WashPost that quoted the center, stating: “According to the University of Illinois’ Arctic Climate Research Center, global sea ice levels now equal those of 1979.
Said climateprogress: “There is no such organization”.
“The Arctic climate is a research area of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s Department of Atmospheric Sciences, and the informal group of researchers does go by the label of the Polar Research Group”.
“However, “there is no such center at the University of Illinois,” the UIUC’s Dr. John Walsh has informed me in electronic correspondence. “There is a group of scientists and students working on Arctic climate, but no formal center.”
“The existence of such an organization was first fabricated out of whole cloth by DailyTech’s Michael Asher, in a 1/1/2009 blog post entitled “Sea Ice Ends Year at Same Level as 1979” What a surprise, a fictitious group that seems to support Dave’s contentions and has a name similar to a real group.
I hate to be harsh, but I am fast losing patience with Dave’s arrogant and deceitful behavior on this site. He has the nerve to say “I think it strange, humbleoldguy, that you don’t know who I’m talking about or where the graph came from, since I gave you the URL”. I know EXACTLY who you are talking about, Dave, and it’s not the folks at the U of Illinois. The URL led to an unattributed graph on a blog titled Suyt’s Space, the adequacy of which others have taken Dave to task over. (I thought conservatives didn’t lie?)
Please stop this nonsense, old boy. I got the name of the U. Illinois group wrong, and I’m sorry for that, but at the same time that I used the wrong name I also posted the URL to the graph on their site. So I’m pretty sure that nobody except you was confused about where it came from.
To the best of my recollection, I’ve never even heard of this “Arctic Climate Research Center” that you keep going on about.
Keep thrashing, Dave. Your original URL WAS to a graph on a looney-tune site, and that’s the one I was talking about. And I don’t believe you were “confused”—-I think you were deliberately trying to give some credibility to your “game” by misusing the good name of the U of Illinois climate scientists. Period.
“To the best of my recollection, I’ve never even heard of this “Arctic Climate Research Center”. Having been in a line of work that required me to have finely tuned “crap detectors”, that statement makes them wiggle. Dave doesn’t remember? I can’t tell you how many times I heard that one from others who sought to evade truth. As I said, keep thrashing, Dave—the whole world is watching.
The trickery in the graphs aren’t to do with the data points/lines. As far as I can tell, they’re an accurate depiction of what’s happening.
The trickery lies in the short time period which is being shown. One graph only goes from ’01 to present; the other goes from ’04 to present. But the full graphs not shown go back to ’79. Anyone looking at the ’04 to present anomalies graph would be forgiven if they thought the particular amplitude of the curve was normal. That is until they look at the extended graph and find the colder days of yesteryear kept the anomalies at a smaller amplitude with none of the wild dips seen the 21st century. From about 2006 on, the volatility of the curve increases, the dips become more severe, so that a negative sloping regression line would fit the bill in the grander scheme of things.
Now look at the peaks and troughs on the ’79 to present extent graph. You have a click under 16M sq. miles being the norm for most of the 80’s. Then those troughs start getting lower as we move forward. By the 90’s there are troughs testing the 15M sq miles axis. By the 00’s you start seeing things getting mighty near the 14M sq miles axis and again you start seeing the wild, volatile swings between years.
The peaks on the other hand paint something of a converse picture. In the 1980’s/90’s you have the wild amplitude swings upward reaching past 23M sq miles. Then things calm down for the peaks in the 21st century: now they struggle to get above 22M sq miles with strong resistance at that point.
Andrew, thanks for posting something interesting, rather than the endless insults that characterize most of the comments here.
But there’s no “trickery” in using graphs for just the periods under discussion (such as the 21st century when explicitly talking about just the 21st century), especially since I also posted the link to a version of the graph that extends back to 1979.
The real trickery is starting the graphs in 1979, which was a peak year for ice extent. NSIDC even claims that “the satellite record only dates back to 1979.”
That’s not true. They’re dating the start of the satellite record to the launch of Nimbus-7, in late 1978. But Nimbus-5, Nimbus-6, and Seasat-1 all made sea ice measurements prior to 1979. Although NASA has lost the Nimbus-6 and Seasat-1 data, we still have good quality Nimbus-5 ESMR (passive microwave) measurement data from December 11, 1972 through May 16, 1977. (Nimbus-5’s ESMR instrument actually continued to operate in a degraded mode through March 1983, but I don’t know whether that 1977-1983 data still exists.)
The Nimbus-5 measurements showed that 1979 was a peak year for sea ice, which was reflected in graphs in the IPCC’s First and Second Assessment Reports (in 1990 and 1995, respectively), but omitted in later years’ Assessment Reports.
Starting the graphs with the 1979 peak maximizes the appearance of subsequent decline.
More fundamental is the obfuscation caused by combining SUMMER sea ice extent at one pole with WINTER extent at the other.
What is so alarming about the dramatic crash in summer sea ice in the Arctic is that it demonstrates the global warming signal – especially in the oceans. But water does not magically stop freezing when planetary average temperatures go above a certain level; nor will it stop freezing at the poles until after there’s 75 meters of sea level added. It’s an obvious point, but showing
The decrease in albedo is an important concern for ARCTIC sea ice, since it is a positive feedback. The sea ice in Antarctica, on the other hand, mostly melts out in the summer – the increase in winter sea ice extent around the southern continent is in spite of the fact that the southern oceans have demonstrably warmed. But because there is little perennial sea ice around Antarctica, the energy balance of the earth is not affected by an increase in its WINTER sea ice, since it is not then receiving sunlight – it makes no difference to albedo there.
Stephen, we’re now 3 weeks from the solstice, at which southern hemisphere sunlight is at it’s maximum, and there’s still 50% more sea ice in the Southern Ocean than there is in the Arctic.
Sea ice does not reach it’s maximums at the solstices, when “not then receiving sunlight [so it] it makes no difference to albedo.” Sea ice maximums are almost exactly at the equinoxes, so they make as much difference as the minimums do.
Lol, can I smoke some of that stuff you are having?
“Arctic Sea Ice Minimum in 2013 is Sixth Lowest on Record”
http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/arctic-sea-ice-minimum-in-2013-is-sixth-lowest-on-record/
I am sure if you slice that ice in small 1 cm thick slices it could cover all of the oceans and have your record extent. Which is exactly whats happening atm, the ice is getting very thin and there is hardly any multi year ice left.
Mass always tells us more about the state of the ice than extent ever will.
http://neven1.typepad.com/.a/6a0133f03a1e37970b019b0133ecf1970c-pi
Seems to be more or less the same amount of ice as 2012 if you ask me, with some recovery in october (tracking 2010 now).
from actual working scientists
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPnj9eR7t0g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTUghG2Zwsk
global sea ice anomaly from University of Illinois Cryosphere today
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg
Years from now, as the arctic starts to refreeze from being completely open in the summer, we’ll hear from deniers, “Look, it’s recovering!”
Thanks for the vid link, Peter.
A few thoughts.
First, your youtube video is from a year ago. Things change. In your video at 1:25 you asked about current global ice extent compared to “30 years ago.” But 2012 was a record-low year for sea ice. “30 years ago” from 2012 would have been 1982, when global sea ice extent was, indeed, almost 10% higher, on average, than it was in 2012.
But that’s no longer true. 2013 is shaping up as hardly lower in average sea ice extent than 1983 (30 years prior). Eyeballing the U.IL graph, it looks like the 2012 ice extent will probably end up averaging only about 1% below 1983.
Another problem: in your video at 0:30 you said that every year sea ice around the south pole expands in southern winter, June to September. But that’s incorrect. The Southern Ocean sea ice expansion actually begins in late summer, and continues through Autumn and early Winter (from mid or late February through mid or late September).
NPR’s Richard Harris made more or less the same mistake starting at 3:35, in his discussion of sea ice albedo feedbacks, when he claimed that antarctic sea ice expansion “in the dark of winter” doesn’t have much effect, since the (perhaps surprising) truth is that Antarctic sea ice begins expanding during the southern summer, not winter.
Mr. Harris also erred in failing to note that since Southern Ocean ice is at less extreme latitudes than Arctic Ocean ice, sunlight hits it more direct (less acute) angles, so there’s more light per unit area, and less is reflected. That makes Southern Ocean ice more important to albedo than Arctic ice.
Also I found it interesting that at 4:35 Richard Harris says that global warming is increasing the temperature difference between the pole and the equator. But the usual claim is just the opposite: that global warming is greatest at the poles, which would mean that the temperature difference between the equator and the poles is decreasing, rather than increasing.
The discussion of the “ozone hole,” beginning at 5:45, was also interesting. It was my understanding that since CFC emissions have been curtailed, the ozone hole has shrunk. (Since CFCs are greenhouse gasses, declining CFC emissions and levels are among the explanations sometimes hypothesized for the ongoing hiatus in global warming.)
More yada-yada-yada and obfuscation from daveburton
WHEN are you going to stop talking about arctic sea ice EXTENT and start talking about what really matters, Dave?
Like the EXPONENTIAL decline in arctic sea ice VOLUME? There’s a reason it’s called the “arctic sea ice death spiral”, and you can’t keep ignoring it and trying to deflect discussion.
1. Sea ice extent is what we have the best data for. Ice volume data is more limited, in both duration and trustworthiness.
2. If it turns out that there’s a significant albedo/feedback effect from sea ice, either positive or negative, it will almost certainly be more closely related to ice extent than volume.
Why do you think volume matters more than extent, old guy?
No, Dave, sea ice EXTENT data is not our ‘best”, it is merely the data YOU like best as you continue to play your one-note symphony for us. Many others here have taken you to task for your “interpretations” of its significance, and have pointed out to you that ice will always form where it gets cold enough.
The sea ice VOLUME question that you simply refuse to address speaks to what the long term trend seems to be—progressively THINNER ice each year (regardless of its extent) can eventually lead to an ice-free summer in the arctic at some future point, and we all know what the albedo of ice versus open water is.
You say “IF it turns out that there’s a significant albedo/feedback effect from sea ice, EITHER POSITIVE OR NEGATIVE, it will almost certainly be more closely related to ice extent than volume”. It’s hard to believe you said this—have you not been reading the same “crock” posts that I have? You don’t know whether sea ice albedo feedback is positive or negative?
daveburton wrote:
“1. Sea ice extent is what we have the best data for. Ice volume data is more limited, in both duration and trustworthiness.”
Thanks to CryoSat-2, we have an excellent confirmation of the PIOMAS data. I thought you liked altimetry?
daveburton wrote:
“2. If it turns out that there’s a significant albedo/feedback effect from sea ice, either positive or negative, it will almost certainly be more closely related to ice extent than volume.”
Turns out?? Yes, sea ice has a significant positive albedo. I am not aware of a serious scientific debate about this subject. Also, longwave radiation reflected out to space is not a feedback. Also, sea ice can accumulate snow, which has a higher albedo than ice, so its loss is not just the loss of the albedo from the ice itself.
On the other hand, your main point is a good one. Albedo, or the lack of it, is a function of covered versus open water, so extent is a better indicator of sunlight absorption by the ocean water.
daveburton wrote:
“Why do you think volume matters more than extent, old guy?”
I cannot speak for him, but sea ice volume is inarguably a better measure of how much total ice is actually left in the Arctic (it’s a much bigger issue for it than for the thinner Antarctic ice), so it’s a leading indicator of global warming. Extent in the Arctic is much more dependent on the weather, which may either break up or compact the pack ice.
daveburton wrote:
“Why do you think volume matters more than extent, old guy?”; to which Stephen replied “I cannot speak for him, but….”
Stephen and anyone else here may feel free to speak truth in my name. I have tried to make the same point again and again. That “…sea ice volume is inarguably a better measure of how much total ice is actually left in the Arctic (it’s a much bigger issue for it than for the thinner Antarctic ice), so it’s a leading indicator of global warming. Extent in the Arctic is much more dependent on the weather, which may either break up or compact the pack ice”.
Others have also pointed out that ice always forms where it is cold enough, just as snow falls on the tops of mountains near the equator. Ice will still be forming at high latitudes in winter long after “6 feet above sea level” Miami is “awash” and the average daytime summer temperature there reaches 120 degrees.
Yes, Stephen has nailed it with “arctic sea ice volume is a leading indicator of global warming?. Too bad Dave can’t deal with that rather than trying to lead us off into swamps of statistics and outrageous links to nonsense.
Why do you go about this daveburton? Do you have any idea how ridiculous these posts will look in the coming years? There is not change in the physical reasons for a continued melting of both Arctic sea ice as well as Greenland and Antarctica land ice. We are soon racing past 400ppm CO2 in the atmosphere and there is really no spectacular change besides a very low solar output as well as a bit more aerosols from coal over these past 10 years. The oceans are heating up at an incredible rate and very likely some upcoming El Ninõ’s will bring a lot of that heat out in the atmosphere and we get record highs again.
Both the return to mean (or even a bit more extent) for the Arctic as well as this sea ice in the cold season in the Antarctic is due to weather variations. Sometimes its colder on the poles even during the warm seasons, and sometimes its warmer when you get record melts like 2012.
But climate scientists perfectly know you cant draw any conclusion from any single year, even though you seem to indicate that this year everything changed for some magical reason… where is your physical proof for why there should be a gradual increase in ice again? Lizard people using their magic dust or whatever they do?
“Oops, wrong link, sorry. Here’s the right one.”
~dave burton
Record for ‘this century’ huh. I’d say it’s a bit early to call the record for the 21st Century.
Jason would like to note that Antarctic sea ice is increasing in significant part because it’s being fed by melting glaciers.
I’m not sure why Dave Burton thinks this might be cause to celebrate.
Jason wrote, “Record for ‘this century’ huh. I’d say it’s a bit early to call the record for the 21st Century.”
Let me rephrase that: Total global sea ice extent just hit a record high for the 21st century so far. But I think you already knew that’s what I meant.
Jason also wrote, “Jason would like to note that Antarctic sea ice is increasing in significant part because it’s being fed by melting glaciers.”
Dave would like to note that melted water does not contribute to sea ice. I’m not sure where Jason got a different idea. (Also, ICESat measurements indicate that Antarctica is gaining mass, not losing it.)
daveburton wrote:
“Jason also wrote, “Jason would like to note that Antarctic sea ice is increasing in significant part because it’s being fed by melting glaciers.”
Dave would like to note that melted water does not contribute to sea ice. I’m not sure where Jason got a different idea.”
That’s not what he meant. Fresh water is more easily frozen (salt decreases the freezing point, down to -21.1 C at maximum saturation), and the freshening of the Southern Ocean from glacier melt (and, I might add, from the increased precipitation that results from warmer air temperatures) makes the surface water both less mixable with the deeper water, and more freezable.
Here is a study from 2007 that supports Jason’s claim:
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/zhang/Pubs/Zhang_Antarctic_20-11-2515.pdf
From the abstract:
“Estimates of sea ice extent based on satellite observations show an increasing Antarctic sea ice cover from 1979 to 2004 even though in situ observations show a prevailing warming trend in both the atmosphere and the ocean…
“The reduced salt rejection and upper-ocean density and the enhanced thermohaline stratification tend to suppress convective overturning, leading to a decrease in the upward ocean heat transport and the ocean heat flux available to melt sea ice. The ice melting from ocean heat flux decreases faster than the ice growth does in the weakly stratified Southern Ocean, leading to an increase in the net ice production and hence an increase in ice mass. This mechanism is the main reason why the Antarctic sea ice has increased in spite of warming conditions both above and below during the period 1979–2004 and the extended period 1948–2004.”
Just discovered Bintanga, et al. 2013, which addresses the dynamics of sea ice formation from ice shelf meltwater.
I wonder if you realize your statement itself ” just hits record high ” betrays a profound misunderstanding of mathematical statistics. The fact that a high happened this year or a low the year before is irrelevant, because single data points are statistically irrelevant. You continue to offer information and opinions that are questionable and do not conform with accepted scientific and mathematical practice. Given that you do not understand or accept such practice, it is hardly surprising that your conclusions are different. So I ask, given a set of data, what do you do to construct the trend line? What do you do to test if there changes in trend line? ( How is a change in trend line measured ) how do you determine how statistically significant a trend line is? Arguing all the rest is irrelevant if you don’t get this, because we will have no common ground until you display an understanding of the fundamental math principles. This is relevant, because you keep insisting that there is no acceleration in sea level over some period x. If we do not agree on a measure, there is no basis for discussion.
You are either incorrect or are being disingenuous when you say that Antarctica is gaining mass. I suspect the latter since you support your claim with a link to WUWT. While there are differing values for the AIS mass balance in recent years, here is an excerpt from the Nature article from June 2013, Ice Sheet Mass Balance and Climate Change:
During the past 20 years, the AIS as a whole (East, West, and Antarctic Peninsula) has been losing mass, and this is certainly true of the GIS.
Did you really think your claim would go unchecked?
Phillip Shaw, your information is out of date. ICESat measurements indicate that Antarctica is gaining, rather than losing, ice mass.
Earlier analyses of GRACE gravity measurements had suggested the opposite, but the ICESat measurements are the better indicator.
I didn’t just make this up. If your prejudices will not permit you to read the top science blog on the web, how about NASA?
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20120013495
Some Antarctic “drainage systems” showed increases in mass, others showed decreases, but the net was an average gain in ice mass of 49 Gt/yr.
Of course, we know that globally averaged sea-level is continuing to rise, so it is clear that the increase in Antarctic ice mass is more than offset by decreases elsewhere. But that’s been going on for over a century, and there’s been no increase in the rate of sea-level rise in more than 80 years.
I had earlier expressed annoyance at the games daveburton was playing with us and the truth. This post has made me go beyond that to being angry. Dave shows no respect for the goals of this site or to those of us who visit it and try to make positive contributions. He is here only to play with us and satisfy whatever sickness wracks his brain.
Dave talks about “not reading the top science blog on the web” and links us to the looney-tune site Suyt’s Space, which is part of the right wing-nut blogosphere and has little or no science content—is that the “top science site”, Dave? It would appear to be. Insulting!
Dave talks about “measurements indicate that Antarctica is gaining, rather than losing, ice mass”. Let’s look at the figures. Antarctica is estimated to have 26.5 million Km3 of ice. Since one Km3 of ice weighs ~.9 Gt, that’s a total weight of ~24 million Gt. Let’s use grade school math and write that out—-24,000,000 Gt. The measured increase in ice mass in the antarctic that Dave is saying is SO significant is 49 Gt, which is .000002 of the total. Equivalent to finding two pennies on the sidewalk when you have a million in your pocket. Dave will see them and “bend down” to pick them up, of course, even if none of the rest of us will.
Dave says “I didn’t just make this up”, and refers us to a NASA link. Of course Dave doesn’t specify what he DID or DIDN’T make up (always a problem with Dave), so we are forced to look at the link and try to parse its meaning. Luckily, one need go no further than the abstract to see that Dave is hoping no one else will.
YES, there has been that 2 parts in a million increase in antarctic ice, and it appears to be caused by the effects of AGW!—increased moisture in the atmosphere, more precipitation, changes in air and ocean currents,etc—as predicted. The abstract dwells more extensively on the negative long term outlook for antarctic sea ice, but Dave is hoping you won’t notice that.
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20120013495
Another interesting fact is that between 1992 and 2011, the Antarctic Ice Sheets overall lost 1350 Gt, at an average rate of 70 Gt per year (Gt/yr). So, this one year reversal of a 20 year trend has made up 70% of ONE year’s loss—big whoop, Dave!
Dave’s closing statement uses the classic propagandist’s ploy, stating “Of course, we know that globally averaged sea-level is continuing to rise, so it is clear that the increase in Antarctic ice mass is more than offset by decreases elsewhere”—a statement of truth to get us “on his side”.
Dave then reverts to form with “But that’s been going on for over a century, and there’s been no increase in the rate of sea-level rise in more than 80 years”. Dave has proven to us once again that NO horse is too dead to beat. Give it UP, Dave!
daveburton wrote:
“Earlier analyses of GRACE gravity measurements had suggested the opposite, but the ICESat measurements are the better indicator.
Says who? Altimetry has its own issues. Fortunately we don’t have to rely on only one method, and in addition to gravimetrical there are also interferometrical measurements that may be folded into the altimetric data. The advantage of Shepherd, et al. 2013 (not an “earlier analysis”, n.b.) is that it reconciles the different methods.
Stephen, it was my understanding that “interferometric” measurements are just radar altimetry, similar to ICESat’s laser altimetry except lower resolution. Is that not right?
Here are a couple more useful links, dave
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/charctic-interactive-sea-ice-graph/
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/schweiger/ice_volume/BPIOMASIceVolumeAnomalyCurrentV2_CY.png
These are useful links, but the “source” that daveburton is linking to is purporting to measure “Global Sea Ice Extent” – that is, somehow combining Arctic and Antarctic.
That in itself is fundamentally deceptive, since Antarctic sea ice melts almost completely in summer (February).
The argument that is being made is that the warming (and precipitous decline of sea ice) in the Arctic is balanced by cooling in the Antarctic; this is patently false.
Water freezes; this fact is not changed by global warming, and there will still be winter sea ice long after Miami is abandoned.
Antarctica is losing land ice at about 71 gt a year, according to this study:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/338/6111/1183
“Between 1992 and 2011, the ice sheets of Greenland, East Antarctica, West Antarctica, and the Antarctic Peninsula changed in mass by –142 ± 49, +14 ± 43, –65 ± 26, and –20 ± 14 gigatonnes year.”
“After Miami is abandoned?” That’s just silly.
There’s no GLOSS-LTT tide gauge at Miami, but here’s Key West:
http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?stnid=8724580
Just 2.3 mm/yr, with a trend line that’s obviously linear, all the way back to 1913.
Miami averages about 6 feet above sealevel, so it might be awash sometime around 660 years from now (except that land accretion should extend that).
Nobody doubts that retreating glaciers, and probably Greenland, are contributing meltwater that is raising the oceans. (Studies of ICESat and GRACE measurements differ in whether Antarctica is also contributing meltwater.) But the rate of that rise is NOT increasing.
The 71 Gt of meltwater that worries you so is equivalent to only about 0.2 mm of sea level. Globally averaged coastal sea-levels are rising more than 1 mm/year, despite a calculated post-glacial sinking of the ocean floor that Peltier estimates should cause about 0.3 mm/yr decline in sea-level. If Peltier’s estimate is right, and actual average coastal sea-level change plus the Peltier adjustment come to about 1.5 mm/yr, that’s equivalent to over 140 cubic miles(!!!) of melted ice! Even if some of the water is coming from groundwater depletion, or other factors, it is still a LOT of melted ice, probably more than 100 cubic miles of it.
But that’s not the issue. The question is what effect have humanity’s CO2 (and CH4) emissions had? And the answer is “none that we can detect.”
That rate of ice melt clearly has not increased in more than 80 years. The oceans are rising no faster now than they were 80+ years ago. Yet the great preponderance of anthropogenic GHG emissions have occurred since the 1940s. That means there’s no evidence in the sea-level measurements that anthropogenic GHG emissions have increased the rate of sea-level rise at all.
Clarification: when I wrote “that rate of ice melt clearly has not increased in more than 80 years” I was referring to the the melt rate for grounded ice (which contributes to sea-level rise), not sea ice.
Melting sea ice doesn’t contribute to sea-level rise, despite the NSF’s confusion on the topic. (Compare NSF “before” screenshot to the current version.)
daveburton wrote:
“‘After Miami is abandoned?’ That’s just silly.”
I think that you didn’t understand what I was saying.
I wrote: “Water freezes; this fact is not changed by global warming, and there will still be winter sea ice long after Miami is abandoned.”
I’m not predicting when Miami will be – or even whether (separate discussion) it will be – abandoned; I’m saying that there would still be sea ice in winter even in a catastrophically hotter world – my point being, of course, that adding winter sea ice at one pole to summer sea ice at the other creates a chimera that hides the issues that matter to us.
daveburton wrote:
“There’s no GLOSS-LTT tide gauge at Miami, but here’s Key West:
http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?stnid=8724580
Just 2.3 mm/yr, with a trend line that’s obviously linear, all the way back to 1913.”
Also from NOAA, Key West, obviously not linear, 1915 to “present” – looks like 2012 or 2013:
“Variation of 50-Year Mean Sea Level Trends”:
http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/50yr.shtml?stnid=8724580
The trend line you’re showing is not wrong, obviously – it is presumably a product generated by the same group at NOAA! But this view is more pertinent to the question at hand: is the rate of sea level increasing?
Better not to use your eyeballs when there is a more pertinent visualization of data available.
This is only Key West, of course. Church, et al., 2008 shows the long-term global picture:
http://academics.eckerd.edu/instructor/hastindw/MS1410-001_FA08/handouts/2008SLRSustain.pdf
Not behind a paywall, fortunately. The relevant illustrations are on page 12, figures 3a, b, and c.
The global trend at present is about 3.2 mm/year.
The atmosphere in here is toxic. I regret whatever role I played in promoting that, and I urge everyone to drop all the viciousness and alienation and just get back to climate science.
Stephen says “The atmosphere in here is toxic. I regret whatever role I played in promoting that, and I urge everyone to drop all the viciousness and alienation and just get back to climate science”.
I agree with Stephen to a point. All of us here (but one) have been interested in exploring “climate science” and would like to get back to that. A “vicious” disregard for truth and a contempt for the intelligence of the majority is what is responsible for any “alienation” you observe. You should feel no regrets for pursuing truth, nor should you apologize for anything that certain individuals have brought upon themselves.
Stephen Paré wrote, “The atmosphere in here is toxic. I regret whatever role I played in promoting that, and I urge everyone to drop all the viciousness and alienation and just get back to climate science.”
Amen to that, Stephen, and thank you!
I will add, however, that the reason I’m active here (when time permits), in spite of the toxicity, is that Peter is the only significant Climate Movement activist I know of who does not censor his blog to quash dissent. I stay polite, and he lets me say what I wish.
In my opinion, a blog which is a “forum” for just one side of an argument is of very limited usefulness.
Some leading skeptical climate blogs, like WUWT, also welcome competing opinions, politely expressed. But on the alarmist side of the fence, ClimateCrocks seems to be unique. RC, Tamino, YaleClimateForum, GreenGrok, SeaMonster, Gleick’s SignificantFigures, etc., are all censored.
Stephen wrote, “Also from NOAA, Key West, obviously not linear, 1915 to “present” … a more pertinent visualization of data…”
What you’re seeing there is the well-known 60-year cycle, which is visible along much of the Atlantic coast. Other than “noise” and the slight 60-year oscillation, it is quite linear. You may read more about the 60-year cycle here:
http://sealevel.info/papers.html#howlong
E.g.,
6. Zervas, C. (2009), NOAA Technical Report NOS CO-OPS 053, Sea Level Variations of the United States, 1854 – 2006 (see p. xiii)
(especially note the last sentence of the highlighted text at the link)
The Pacific looks different; e.g.:
http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/50yr.shtml?stnid=1612340
Stephen wrote, “Church, et al., 2008 shows the long-term global picture …”
Thanks for the link. However, that paper predated their 2009 data — which I analyzed and found showed a slight net deceleration in sea-level rise for the 20th century and beginning of the 21st, even when the pre-1930 data was included, which Dr. Church confirmed in private communication to me. That slight net deceleration was despite the inclusion of the first 30 years of the 20th century, which included the mid- or late-1920s acceleration that Church & White (and others) had noted.
Stephen wrote, “The global trend [from Church, White, et al 2008] at present is about 3.2 mm/year.”
Do you know how they got that? Here’s a quote from their 2006 paper:
“An additional spatially uniform field is included in the reconstruction to represent changes in GMSL [Global Mean Sea Level]. Omitting this field results in a much smaller rate of GMSL rise…”
In other words, they added a fudge factor! That, along with GIA (which probably added 0.3 – 0.5 mm/yr to the rate of sea level rise), is apparently why their reported rates of sea level rise are so high.
BTW, I asked Church & White why they used the adjective “spatially” to describe the adjustment that they added. Surely, I assumed, since they were reporting acceleration trends, the “additional field” must at least have been temporally uniform.
Wrong! I’ve yet to understand what that “field” is, but Dr. Church told me that it was not temporally uniform.
“WUWT, also welcome competing opinions, ”
to my knowledge, any links to my work are banned at WUWT.
Watts protected Lord Monckton from being destroyed in an online debate with
Peter Hadfield, using the excuse that Hadfield had a conversation with me.
Suggest you tell Watts to man up.
Lol, leading skeptic blog WUWT?!? You again confirm we are not on the same planet.
WUWT and Anthony Watts is a right-wing paid shill for the fossil fuel industry who wouldn’t know science if he saw it. He isn’t a skeptic, he is a contrarian with 100% pure political motives. They frequently conjure up their own science and whatever Heartland and their NIPCC group of “scientists” manages to pull out of a hat. Not only that, they actively target real scientists in a way that looks very much like witch-hunting or something out of Nazi-Germany.
Go to http://www.skepticalscience.com for a real skeptic discussion where they actually link peer reviewed science.
Also read this for some enlightenment:
http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/campaigns/global-warming-and-energy/polluterwatch/Dealing-in-Doubt—the-Climate-Denial-Machine-vs-Climate-Science/
WUWT and Heartland is part of a systemic enterprise of anti-science right-wing propaganda on the web, discussion forums and media – and their methods is closely linked to that of the tobacco industry – and indeed a number of people behind the anti-science around tobacco is working actively now. Their whole goal is to spread doubt in the minds of average people.
Personally I am looking forward to the point where people like Anthony Watts and the people who pay him are taken to court for deliberately working towards dis-informing and stalling any real progress by the majority of people who really need to understand how important global warming is. Only this time the crimes to humanity is way way worse than the tobacco case.
Well said!
Dave says, “I will add, however, that the reason I’m active here (when time permits), in spite of the toxicity, is that Peter is the only significant Climate Movement activist I know of who does not censor his blog to quash dissent. I stay polite, and he lets me say what I wish”.
“When time permits”? LOL, Dave, when do you ever leave this site? I saw that you gave Peter a positive shout out on your website because of his ‘tolerance” (although I’m sure he doesn’t enjoy being listed among all those other nasty denier sites you tout there—I would be leery of an endorsement from one who also endorses so much “denier swill”).
May I also suggest that what you offer is not “dissent”, but denial, obfuscation, and misrepresentation of the worst sort? And that you are not “polite”? That you are actually insulting in your mockery of science and rational thought and the collective intelligence of all us “Crockers”??
I for one “wish” that Peter would NOT be so generous to you—he actually embarrasses himself a bit by his excessive tolerance. He HAS said in the past that, in effect, the best way to deal with your type is to let you hang yourself. IMO, it’s past time to cut down the body.
daveburton wrote:
“Melting sea ice doesn’t contribute to sea-level rise, despite the NSF’s confusion on the topic.”
Actually it’s not so simple as that – the real world is not ice cubes in a glass. Sea ice and land ice are not so neatly separated. We saw a dramatic example of this a few years ago: after the Larsen B ice shelf collapsed in the space of a few weeks, the outflow of the glacier that it was buttressing increased.
daveburton wrote:
“What you’re seeing there is the well-known 60-year cycle, which is visible along much of the Atlantic coast. Other than “noise” and the slight 60-year oscillation, it is quite linear. You may read more about the 60-year cycle here: http://sealevel.info/papers.html#howlong
E.g., 6. Zervas, C. (2009), NOAA Technical Report NOS CO-OPS 053, Sea Level Variations of the United States, 1854 – 2006 (see p. xiii)…”
The “well-known 60-year cycle” you refer to comes from the Loehle and Scafetta mathematical modeling paper, which finds a 60-year pulsation in the surface temperature record. They are not disputing “anthropogenic global warming”, by the way – they are proposing that that signal is superimposed on the natural rise and fall that their model predicts. Conveniently, the upward trend in their cycle corresponds to the rapid acceleration of CO2 emissions in the late 20th. Their argument is not against the human causes of global warming, but against the mainstream science consensus of climate sensitivity; they propose that it should be in the 1-1.5 C range for a doubling of CO2.
They are not proposing a physical cause for this pulsation; and the model breaks down substantially before 1850, and completely around the beginning of the 17th Century. Thus it is difficult to give any credence to it in the absence of something substantial.
The NOAA technical report that you cite does not provide any support for this “well-known” cycle, as you seem to suggest – doesn’t mention it at all, in fact.
Since the Loehle and Scafetta proposal has a “time stamp”, as it were, it’s likely that it will not be so “well-known” in 20 or 30 years.
I wrote, “You may read more about the 60-year cycle here: http://sealevel.info/papers.html#howlong
E.g., 6. Zervas, C. (2009), NOAA Technical Report NOS CO-OPS 053, Sea Level Variations of the United States, 1854 – 2006 (see p. xiii)…'”
Stephen replied, “The ‘well-known 60-year cycle’ you refer to comes from the Loehle and Scafetta mathematical modeling paper… The NOAA technical report that you cite does not provide any support for this ‘well-known’ cycle, as you seem to suggest – doesn’t mention it at all, in fact.”
Unfortunately, Stephen, the WordPress theme that Peter uses makes only a very subtle the distinction between plain text and hyperlinks. So you probably didn’t notice that the “see p. xiii” link is a hyperlink to a citebite reference to the relevant section of the NOAA report. If you click on it you can read it for yourself. The final sentence is:
That’s from 2009. It didn’t come from Loehle & Scafetta’s 2011 paper.
As it happens, I attended a lecture by Dr. Scafetta a few weeks ago. You’re correct that they do not dispute the existence of anthropogenic warming (and neither do I), but they’ve found that the climate’s sensitivity to CO2 & CH4 forcings is much lower than the IPCC thinks. But you’re mistaken in your belief that their model breaks down before 1850.
Here’s a video recording of his lecture:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bW5-h9wn3OQ
The corresponding powerpoint slides are here:
http://www.duke.edu/~ns2002/pdf/Scafetta_18.November.2013_JohnLock.pdf
Here are a few related papers:
(more technical) Scafetta, N. 2013. Discussion on climate oscillations: CMIP5 general circulation models versus a semi-empirical harmonic model based on astronomical cycles. Earth-Science Reviews 126, 321-357.
http://people.duke.edu/~ns2002/pdf/EARTH_1890.pdf
(simpler) Scafetta N., 2013. Solar and planetary oscillation control on climate change: hind-cast, forecast and a comparison with the CMIP5 GCMs. Energy & Environment 24(3-4), 455–496.
http://people.duke.edu/~ns2002/pdf/Scafetta_EE_2013.pdf
Scafetta N., 2013. Multi-scale dynamical analysis (MSDA) of sea level records versus PDO, AMO, and NAO indexes. Climate Dynamics. in press.
http://people.duke.edu/~ns2002/pdf/10.1007_s00382-013-1771-3.pdf
Scafetta N., 2013. Discussion on common errors in analyzing sea level accelerations, solar trends and global warming. Pattern Recognition in Physics, 1, 37–57.
http://www.pattern-recogn-phys.net/1/37/2013/prp-1-37-2013.pdf
I just love Dave’s perseverance and dedication to the idea that sea level rise is not accelerating (yet). We have pointed out so many things that he could talk to us about—questions he refuses to answer, logic fails he won’t acknowledge, misleading statements he won’t clarify, lies he won’t take back. Why does he keep harping on the same old thing to the exclusion of so many other things related to AGW?
Could it be that his focus has become so narrow because of his job as “science adviser” to NC-20? Do they reward him that well? Could be—there’s an awful lot of $$$ sunk into that NC real estate that will soon be under water like Miami—they need to unload it on the suckers before that happens. They may think that whatever they pay Dave is money well spent.
daveburton wrote:
“I wrote, “You may read more about the 60-year cycle here: http://sealevel.info/papers.html#howlong
E.g., 6. Zervas, C. (2009), NOAA Technical Report NOS CO-OPS 053, Sea Level Variations of the United States, 1854 – 2006 (see p. xiii)…’”
“Stephen replied, ‘The ‘well-known 60-year cycle’ you refer to comes from the Loehle and Scafetta mathematical modeling paper… The NOAA technical report that you cite does not provide any support for this ‘well-known’ cycle, as you seem to suggest – doesn’t mention it at all, in fact.’
“Unfortunately, Stephen, the WordPress theme that Peter uses makes only a very subtle the distinction between plain text and hyperlinks. So you probably didn’t notice that the “see p. xiii” link is a hyperlink to a citebite reference to the relevant section of the NOAA report. If you click on it you can read it for yourself. The final sentence is:
“‘None of the stations showed consistently increasing or decreasing 50-year MSL trends, although there was statistically significant multidecadal variability on the U.S. east coast with higher rates in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s and lower rates in the 1960s and 1970s.’
“That’s from 2009. It didn’t come from Loehle & Scafetta’s 2011 paper.”
I had no trouble following your link. It does not say what you claim for it, however, nor does if support the curve-fitting adventures of Loehle and Scafetta.
Of course it does, Stephen. It is roughly synchronized with the AMO.
There is no mention of DBs source. Just a file from a blog. It does not match any known data. Maybe its from Harry Potter.
The following is the best compilation I have ever seen: If you can’t find it here, you must be a professional with direct access.
https://sites.google.com/site/arcticseaicegraphs/longterm
Looks bad for DB. For deniers, this is watching the noise, not the trend all over again. The trend looks awful for sea ice. I hate to think of what this is doing for the next generation.
Check out Neven for a great blog.
It is amazing to me that so many folks are so emotionally wedded to climate catastrophism that when they see real, encouraging data they adamantly refuse to believe it. In fact, rather than be thankful, they often even get angry or insulting to the bearers of good news.
Perhaps you would prefer some nice Thanksgiving music. This is a song about the Thanksgiving holiday, which is long enough to let a DJ go out and eat his Thanksgiving meal, and get back in time to put on the next song:
A fine set of graphic data from CA for those with eyes to view (and brains that will accept) to be concerned about. The one that scares me the most is the “Arctic Sea Ice Death Spiral” that is shown in one of the graphs and as a Youtube video—the video is compelling (and the music appropriate).
In contrast, we find good old daveb still clutching at straws, providing us with “data” from looney tune sites, and making great leaps of illogic. To point out my favorite one in this this thread, daveb states:
“Miami AVERAGES about 6 feet above sea level, so it might be awash sometime around 660 years from now (except that land accretion should extend that)”.
To extend that logic, the average elevation above sea level of the entire land mass of earth is around 2700 feet. So, according to daveb’s logic, we need not worry. If all the ice on the planet were to melt, NONE of the land on the planet would EVER be awash.
You think the U. of Illinois Arctic Climate Research Group and NOAA are “looney tune sites,” eh, humbleoldguy?
I will say it again, and more simply—-read more slowly and perhaps you will get the point. Your “Miami averages 6 feet above sea level” and therefore MIGHT be awash 660 years from now is illogical. If one half of Miami lies below the average of 6 feet (Yes? Is that not what average likely means in a locale as “flat” as Miami?) that half WILL be awash “around” 660 years from now IF, (a big IF), the rate of land ice melting does not increase. The worst case scenarios have Miami in serious “awash” trouble by the end of the century. Do you understand the logic now? And why my final paragraph is illogical also?
As I said in another comment, there is NO SUCH THING as the “U of IL Arctic Climate Research Group”. And if by NOAA, you’re referring to that one tide gauge in key West, I will point out that it has little relevance to the topic of this thread, the undeniable long term “death spiral” that we are seeing in the VOLUME of the arctic sea ice. That’s something you will attempt to obfuscate by talking about EXTENT instead, and throwing in the antarctic, but we are not buying it, Dave. Did you not read John Christian L’s thought about shaving down all the ice to 1 cm thick and spreading out to have a record EXTENT?
Don’t be silly, humbleoldguy. No scenario that passes the laugh test has Miami awash in a century, let alone “abandoned” altogether, which is the word what Stephen Paré used. Even the IPCC’s most extreme predictions don’t project anything near 6′ of sea level rise within the next century.
Here are the two most important facts that you need to know about sea-level:
1. Over the last 3/4 century average outdoor atmospheric CO2 levels have increased by about 100 ppm, from ~300 ppm to ~400 ppm. That period accounts for the vast majority of the anthropogenic increase in atmospheric CO2, in all human history.
2. We have excellent, reliable, long-term sea-level measurements from hundreds of locations, many of them with continuous or near-continuous readings extending back more than a century. The best of those sea-level measurements and the most comprehensive studies of those measurements show that there has been no measurable acceleration in the globally averaged rate of sea level rise in over 80 years.
In other words, that 100 ppm increase in atmospheric CO2 levels has not, thus far, resulted in any detectable increase in the rate of coastal sea level rise.
Albert Einstein supposedly defined insanity as doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results. We’ve done the experiment once, and we know the result. Adding 100 ppm of CO2 to the atmosphere has not caused any detectable increase in the rate of sea level rise. It would be very surprising if repeating the experiment were to result in a substantially different outcome.
Predictions that elevated atmospheric CO2 levels will result in wildly accelerated sea-level rise are unscientific nonsense, driven by political and pecuniary interests, rather than sound science.
It’s deception. The year 2000 was chosen as a starting point. Since all data has noise and a trend line, the best place to start is a previous low. The topic started with yearly Arctic sea ice area minimum since 1979. Nothing refuted the facts shown by Peter. The subject drifted to combined Arctic and Antarctic sea ice area starting in the year 2000 and subtly shifted to annual maximum, not minimum. Deceptive. Then right into sea level rise, Dave’s obsession. Why don’t you just sell your beach front and stop worrying? Here is a real graph that shows Global sea ice extent over an extended period, not a cherry picked short time scale.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/graphics.php?g=56
Even transient Global sea ice extent is lower than the last two decade averages. If Miami sea level averages six feet, does that mean none of it will flood when sea level rises a foot? There seems to be some sixth grade misunderstands of what averages imply.
http://ss2.climatecentral.org/#12/25.7654/-80.2483?level=1&pois=show
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/11/09/3742641/rising-sea-levels-falling-real.html
Christopher wrote, “Here is a real graph that shows Global sea ice extent over an extended period, not a cherry picked short time scale.”
http://www.skepticalscience.com/graphics.php?g=56
“Not cherry picked,” Christopher? I guess the graphs are “real,” but the data is incomplete. Those graphs start about 6 years too late, and end about 1.7 years too early. Both omissions cause an exaggerated impression of ice loss, as does the severely magnified vertical axis.
To be fair, I don’t think John Cook & his friends omitted the early and late data to be intentionally deceptive. The pre-1979 data that they omitted was from earlier, less-precise measurement technology, which makes direct comparison to later data challenging (though the IPCC used it in their first two Assessment Reports). The missing recent data is probably just because that SkS page is at least 20 months out-of-date.
But the result is the same as if the deception were intentional. Their graphs start at a transient peak, and end at a transient valley. Both omissions (pre-1979 data and post-2011 data) result in an exaggerated portrayal of declining sea ice, as does displaying just 20% of the vertical axis for the N. & S. hemispheres, and just 10% of the vertical axis for the global sea ice graph.
sorry about the missed </i>
Let’s look at the Key West data.
http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?stnid=8724580
I never suspected this. Even though the data is plotted on a too small y axis, it’s easy to see that over a 20 year period starting in 1910, sea level hardly rose. Then it began rising and reached a plateau in the 40s. It rose only slightly up to about 1968, and then rose more quickly up to the present. Taking 20 year averages, sea level rise has increased. Simply put, sea volume is proportional to temperature and that record closely matches the temperature record(for Key West and globally, not every location)Subsidence or the opposite and prevailing winds and currents can affect sea level, so this is by no means a correct way to look at global sea level.
Christopher, seawater is liquid, and it sloshes. (So does the magma beneath the Earth’s crust, to a lesser extent!) It is well-established in the literature that about 60 years of coastal sea level measurements are required to establish a robust trend.
Properly smoothed, sea level at Key West shows a linear trend for over 80 years, just like the global average does (though with a slightly steeper rate of rise than the global average, due to subsidence).
Don’t be silly Dave. I am aware that seawater changes due to all sorts of things. If 60 years is necessary to establish a sea level trend, then how can you say there is no acceleration over that time period? Exactly how do you plot a trend line from a series of data points? Same data, same math, same answer. So show me the whole thing. And show me what you think a measure of acceleration is, i.e., your metric. Then we can compare. Show us. Show us exactly how you do the math.
I’m posting this one twice because the graph you two are looking at is so difficult to interpret in the terms of this discussion:
http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/50yr.shtml?stnid=8724580
Christopher Arcus asked, “Show us exactly how you do the math.”
My reply is here. (Old guy calls it a”swamp of arcane statistical mathematics.”)
Follow the links and you’ll find all my heavily-commented computer source code, in Perl. No expensive statistical packages are required.
Yes, it really is a ”swamp of arcane statistical mathematics”, and you would like nothing more than for us to wade around in it with you rather than talk about real “science”.
That’s understandable, since you are much more at home with computer statistical analysis programs than with the reality of AGW. It is actually quite “Darwinian” for you to seek such refuge, and I’m pleased to see that you DO obey some natural laws.
In reply to daveburton at 1:22 AM (posted as a new comment to avoid excessive vertical “stretching”).
Dave is the one who is being silly as he twirls like the Tasmanian Devil, blows smoke, and flashes mirrors in an attempt to avoid responsibility for the outright untruths he keeps throwing out. For one, NO ONE has suggested on this thread that Miami will be “awash in a century” or “abandoned”.
Dave also attempts to mislead us by suggesting that an increase in CO2 levels from 400 to 500 ppm will not produce any deleterious effects (such as an ACCELERATED rate of sea level rise). Has Dave been reading any of the posts on this site? Or any other reliable site? Does Dave not think that the ever-increasing melt rate of ice masses on land due to AGW will not soon lead to ACCELERATED sea level rise? As most climate scientists and informed laymen believe? He does put a “thus far” in there as a qualifier, so perhaps he does, but of course he must continue to play his game.
Dave brings up the Albert Einstein definition of insanity—-it seems to be favorite of conservatives like Dave and appears often on the sites of the wacky right blogosphere—-the irony is that they are the ones that keep saying the same things over and over and expecting them to magically become truth.
Dave says: “We’ve done the experiment once, and we know the result. Adding 100 ppm of CO2 to the atmosphere has not caused any detectable increase in the RATE of sea level rise. It would be very surprising if repeating the experiment were to result in a substantially different outcome”. Now THAT’S insane. Anyone who has been paying attention knows what the predicted effects of another 100ppm rise in CO2 to 500 ppm is likely to mean. Has Dave never heard of the number 350?
And here Dave doubles down with politics driving another insane comment: “Predictions that elevated atmospheric CO2 levels will result in wildly accelerated sea-level rise are unscientific nonsense, driven by political and pecuniary interests, rather than sound science”. We must assume that Dave is again talking about liberals and those who want to get modestly rich from renewables rather than the fossil fuel interests who want to continue getting filthy rich from the status quo.
Humbleoldguy, I never try to mislead.
Here’s a hint. If you want to find a word on a web page, press ctrl-F (assuming your keyboard has a “ctrl” key), and you can search for the word. Then you can avoid making mistakes like the one you just made.
Ctrl-F and search for “abandoned” and you’ll find where Stephen Paré first used the word. Ctrl-F and search for “century” and you’ll find where you, yourself, said, “the worst case scenarios have Miami in serious ‘awash’ trouble by the end of the century.”
If you make the habit of doing ctrl-F and searching, before asserting that “no one” has said something, you’ll be a lot less likely to make such assertions when they obviously are not true.
Now you’ve contradicted yourself, saying, “NO ONE has suggested on this thread that Miami will be ‘awash in a century’ or ‘abandoned’.”
Stephen suggested that Miami would be “abandoned” due to sea-level rise, and you, yourself, said that Miami might be awash in “this century” (i.e., in the next 86 years). (Being the humble old guy that you are, do you consider yourself to be “no one?”)
It is true that I (and tens of thousands of other scientists) believe that another 100 ppm of CO2 will not produce any deleterious effects, such as significantly accelerated sea level rise. That’s because that’s what the evidence indicates.
The most important part of that evidence is that the previous 100 ppm increase in CO2 levels has had only positive effects: greatly (at least 15%) improved agricultural yields, accompanied by no increase at all in the rate of sea level rise, during a time of near ideal climate conditions.
You refer to “the ever-increasing melt rate of ice masses on land due to AGW,” but that’s a myth. The fact that the rate of sea-level rise hasn’t increased, despite increased groundwater depletion, and decreased dam-building, both of which should cause (slightly) accelerated sea-level rise, indicates that the net rate at which meltwater is raising the seas is apparently decreasing, not increasing.
Humbleoldguy, I can see that you’re not a physicist, so that might be why you don’t know that additional atmospheric CO2 has a diminishing effect on warming. The next 100 ppm will have less effect than the last 100 ppm. We are past the point of diminishing returns with CO2.
MODTRAN “tropical atmosphere” calculates that just 5% of current CO2 levels would give us fully 50% of the warming that we get from current CO2 levels, and the NCAR Radiation Code says 10%. Either way, we’re obviously way past the point of diminishing returns.
So, since the last 100 ppm didn’t cause any detectable increase in the rate of sea-level rise, it’s a lead pipe cinch that the next 100 ppm, with it’s reduced effect, will cause little, if any, acceleration in sea-level rise.
daveburton employs the old tactic of “shoot the messenger” rather than refute the message.
He begins with “Humbleoldguy, I never try to mislead” in an attempt to establish some sort of credibility for the main effort. I will respond that you most certainly DO “try to mislead”, Dave, and it rises to the level of blatantly lying.
He condescendingly gives us long-winded lessons on how to use the computer as he blows yet more smoke before our eyes. Dave also subscribes to the school of thought that says “bury them with BS and they will never see the truth”. His long winded string of BS refers to:
“….avoid making mistakes like the one you just made”.
“….search for “abandoned” and you’ll find where Stephen Paré first used the word”.
“….you’ll find where you, yourself, said, “the worst case scenarios have Miami in serious ‘awash’ trouble by the end of the century.”
All of that is the “evidence” he uses to support his “kill the messenger” final attack. as in—-“Now you’ve contradicted yourself, saying, “NO ONE has suggested on this thread that Miami will be ‘awash in a century’ or ‘abandoned’.” Dave seems to think that finding the APPEARANCE of a word through a word search is a substitute for actually READING the words and parsing their meaning. Anyone who cares to go back and look at what Stephen and I said will see that I have not contradicted myself, that “Miami MIGHT be in serious ‘awash’ problems (note quotation marks—they have meaning). My comments and Stephen’s mention of “abandonment” at some unspecified future date have been deliberately misused by Dave.
Dave also states: “It is true that I (and tens of thousands of other scientists) believe that another 100 ppm of CO2 will not produce any deleterious effects, such as significantly accelerated sea level rise”.
WHOA! TENS of thousands of OTHER scientists? Who are they, Dave? Got a link to that whopper?
And WHOA again! Another whopper with—“the previous 100 ppm increase in CO2 levels has had only POSITIVE effects: greatly (at least 15%) improved agricultural yields, accompanied by no increase at all in the RATE of sea level rise, during a time of near ideal climate conditions”. Dave has obviously been reading the work of the Idso’s, and he once again wants to to talk about the RATE of sea level rise—-boring.
And WHOA yet again! Dave turns up the smoke machine with talk of groundwater depletion and decreased dam-building, which have negligible influence on the water budget of the planet (unless, of course, Dave has some link he’d care to show us about that).
Dave condescendingly says he can see that I’m not a physicist, although he has no idea what my background is. I have googled Dave extensively and can find little about his background either, other than that he is an obvious denier and a member of the NC sea level rise advisory committee. (Nice tie, Dave, in your Youtube appearance). What’s your CV, Dave?—tell us why you are to be believed and why your “selection” of links is mote than propaganda?
Of course, we must finish with a reminder that the RATE of sea level rise is somehow relevant to a discussion of arctic sea ice with “it’s a lead pipe cinch that the next 100 ppm…will cause little, if any, acceleration in sea-level rise”. Love those “lead pipe cinches”, Dave—sort of like Dewey beats Truman?.
I’m getting tired of your continual insults, old guy, but here are the links you requested:
1. Tens of thousands of American scientists:
http://www.plantsneedco2.org/default.aspx?menuitemid=384
2. Groundwater depletion:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/05/120531-groundwater-depletion-may-accelerate-sea-level-rise/
http://www.acwa.com/news/groundwater/study-groundwater-depletion-us-contributing-sea-level-rise
3. At least 15% increase in agricultural productivity due to anthropogenic CO2:
http://pages.citebite.com/n1v3s5u9a2fex
http://www.co2science.org/data/plant_growth/plantgrowth.php
I hope these references are helpful to you.
daveburton says, “I’m getting tired of your continual insults, old guy, but here are the links you requested—-I hope these references are helpful to you”.
Well, Dave, to tell the truth, I am getting EXCEEDINGLY tired of the continual insult to our collective intelligence that your postings on this thread have come to represent. You have the nerve to call these “references”? and say you hope they’re “helpful”? That’s what I mean by your insulting us—-you even seem to gloat as you throw this trash out there. You cannot be serious in thinking that they are helpful—-rational analysis says that you are either delusional or you are mocking us. If it’s the former, I apologize (unless you brought it on yourself somehow)—if the latter, you are digging yourself an even deeper hole on this site.
Let’s look at your “references”.
The “Petition” is very old news from 15 years ago and has long been discredited. I know it’s a favorite of deniers, but only the ignorant assign it any significance. For those who need reminding, the petition was signed by nearly 32,000 “scientists”, which constituted only .3% of those eligible to sign according to the criteria—-where are the other 99.7% who could have signed?. Nearly HALF of the signers were engineers of one sort or another, 3,000 were associated with “medicine”, and fewer than 600 were in fields that would even remotely allow them to be called “climate scientists”. That the signatures were not verified in any way does NOT add credibility. NOT a “helpful” reference. It’s actually a sign of either your ignorance (or desperation if you were serious about it) and I’m surprised that you would even try it on this forum.
An article on groundwater depletion from National Geographic? A popular treatment that doesn’t say much other than that we don’t know much but that we THINK it could be a problem and we’re looking at it? And a more “scientific” piece that says the phenomenon is poorly understood and has not been studied adequately, but DOES assert that “groundwater depletion is responsible for 1% (ONE PERCENT) of sea level rise from 1900 to 2008 (That’s 108 YEARS!)
A newspaper article about Freeman Dyson in the NJ Star-Ledger? (a paper I grew up with—it’s not exactly the NYT or WashPost). Dyson is generally known to be a 90-year-old physicist turned climate denier and crackpot.
And finally a reference to a “CO2 is good for you” site and an organization that has the Idso’s as president and vice-president. They are paid deniers of the worst sort and have been linked to the Heartlands Institute and fossil fuel interests. Laughable.
May I suggest that you do a web search BEFORE you make the kinds of bald assertions that you are trying to undo with this sloppy mess of “evidence”. Just as I admonished you with your misuse of word searches in another comment, a quick google hit, doesn’t mean that it will be “helpful” to your cause. You have hurt your credibility once again.
PS, Since you appear to be unfamiliar with the work of the Idso’s, I will give you my most favorite among their “55 Benefits of Atmospheric CO2 Enrichment”. Look it up—many others are just as entertaining, if not as illogical.
“#21. Human Longevity – The last 150 to 200 years have seen a significant degree of global warming, as the earth has recovered from the global chill of the Little Ice Age and transited into the Current Warm Period. Simultaneously, the planet has experienced a rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration that has taken it to levels not experienced for eons. Yet these much-maligned “twin evils” of the climate-alarmist movement have had no discernible negative influence on human health, as represented by perhaps the best integrative measure of their myriad possible influences, i.e., human lifespan. In fact, they may actually have helped to lengthen human lifespan”.
Freeman Dyson is America’s preeminent living scientist. Even a critic of his wrote, “In the range of his genius, Freeman Dyson is heir to Einstein—a visionary who has reshaped thinking in fields from math to astrophysics to medicine.”
Dyson is smarter than everyone participating on this forum put together. Nobody sane would call him a “crackpot,” so I strongly encourage you to get back on your meds before you hurt yourself by trying to fly or something.
Give it up, Dave—you are never, repeat NEVER, going to beat me in arguments on Crock, simply because I am smarter, better informed in general, FAR better educated in science, more logical in my thinking, and above all OPEN-minded, which your amygdala-centered Republican brain certainly is not. Freeman Dyson is America’s preeminent living scientist? Perhaps, if only because he IS 90 years old, and HAS outlived a lot of “preeminent” others. Even YOU will become the “smartest man alive” if you manage to outlive everyone else on the planet.
Yes, Dyson is a brilliant physicist and mathemetician, and he HAS been compared favorably to Einstein. He has made many major contributions in the AREAS OF HIS EXPERTISE. SO WHAT? He should have stopped while he was ahead and NOT gone headlong into commenting in an area in which he has little expertise—climate science, where many DO regard him as an old crackpot—-a Lord Monckton type who IS smart enough to know better. He has quite a few other way out ideas as well, particularly about space travel.
You question my sanity and prescribe “meds” for me so that I don’t hurt myself doing “…..or something”? LOL We can practice telepsychiatry on one another here if you wish—I have done it with O-Log and E-Pot. That is an area in which I am also far better trained and experienced than you are (unless you are the rare computer geek who minored in psychology).
Lets begin (gently). You state, “Dyson is smarter than everyone participating on this forum put together”. Really? Smarter than all 1377 of us put together? How should we characterize the “mental state” of someone who would make that statement?
BTW, here’s a US Geological Survey map showing glacier extent at Glacier Bay, Alaska, in the 18th, 19th & 20th centuries:
http://soundwaves.usgs.gov/2001/07/glacierbaymap.gif
Notice the large deceleration in rate of glacial retreat during the 20th century.
daveburton madly throws links at us in his attempt to cover up the fact that his horsepucky is not sticking to the wall. Now we are shown a map of glacier retreat that is supposed to mean something? I will not bring up the fact that the map is from 2001 and there just MIGHT be some interesting data to look at from the last 12 years.
I will instead suggest that Dave is blowing smoke yet again, since glacier retreat is highly dependent on many physical factors beyond global warming. Slope of the underlying substrate, narrowness and shape of the ice flow channels, amount of snow deposited “upstream” on the surface of the glacier that provides the “push”. Does Dave have a link for us that examines all that about Glacier Bay and discusses it? Of course not.
It doesn’t take a “rocket glacier scientist” to see that Dave is NOT one of them. He is merely a desperate denier thrashing around and cherrypicking whatever “data” he can to try to confuse the issue (which I will remind everyone is SEA ICE). Nice try, Dave, but no cigar for you—they are high carbon emitters anyway (Although we DO need to come up with some sort of award for Dave to recognize his “excellence”. Any ideas?)
Why do you folks get so peeved when I show you actual data?
Or are you just taking it out on me, and it’s really your great great great great grandparents who you’re mad at, for causing that dramatic glacier retreat at Glacier Bay in the 19th and late 18th centuries, by driving their SUVs so much?
daveburton asks. “Why do you folks get so peeved when I show you actual data?”
I can only speak for myself, Dave, but showing us irrelevant and meaningless “actual” data about glacier retreat in an attempt to confuse a discussion about the decline in arctic sea ice VOLUME is annoying (and dishonest).
To say nothing of the mindlessly condescending “attitude” you display with the grandparents-SUV’s-glacier retreat idiocy. Perhaps you know you have no credibility anymore and don’t care if you insult us? Sour grapes are for losers, Dave—are you a loser?:
Or are you just taking it out on me, and it’s really your great great great great grandparents who you’re mad at, for causing that dramatic glacier retreat at Glacier Bay in the 19th and late 18th centuries, by driving their SUVs so much?
Tried to post a reply, but it disappeared. I will try again, with similar if not identical thoughts.
Dave asks why we get so peeved when he shows us “actual” data? Speaking for myself, I find it annoying when someone deliberately tries to cloud the issue by posting meaningless and irrelevant data about glacier retreat in a discussion of arctic sea ice.
It is also annoying when Dave oh-so-condescendingly tries to dismiss us all with bad jokes about grandparents, glaciers, and SUV’s. Perhaps he realizes that he has no credibility left and doesn’t care if he insults us? Sounds like sour grapes, Dave, and sour grapes are for losers—are you a loser?
Old guy says, “I find it annoying when someone deliberately tries to cloud the issue by posting meaningless and irrelevant data about glacier retreat in a discussion of arctic sea ice.”
But I posted that data, showing the dramatic decrease in the rate of glacier retreat at Glacier Bay, because old guy wrote, “Does Dave not think that the ever-increasing melt rate of ice masses on land due to AGW will not soon lead to ACCELERATED sea level rise?”
Old guy, if you think the melt rate of glaciers is “meaningless and irrelevant” then why did you inject it into a discussion about sea ice?
Dave, I know you are just playing your game, but YOU are the one who “injected the meaningless and irrelevant data” about mountain glacier melt into the discussion, not me.
I merely brought up the ever-increasing melt rate of ice masses on land IN GENERAL. Perhaps I should have been more specific and said that the major concern should be with Greenland, where enough water is stored in ice to raise sea level 20+ FEET if it all melts, since the changes in the arctic that are leading to the massive decline in arctic sea ice are also impacting the Greenland ice sheet.
I certainly don’t think the 15 or 18 INCHES of sea level rise that would result from the melting of ALL mountain glaciers compares to that. Hence, the tag of “meaningless and irrelevant” for your Glacier Bay distraction.
Since you’ve stepped forth to waste our time again, may I remind you that you have left some huge “whoppers” floating around on this thread? Will you ever address the questions I asked of you when you stated: “It is true that I (and tens of thousands of other scientists) believe that another 100 ppm of CO2 will not produce any deleterious effects, such as significantly accelerated sea level rise”.
WHOA! TENS of thousands of OTHER scientists? Who are they, Dave? Got a link to that whopper?
And ”the previous 100 ppm increase in CO2 levels has had only POSITIVE effects: greatly (at least 15%) improved agricultural yields…” That’s ONE (although NOT true except in very limited cases)—can you cite other “positive” effects of a 100 ppm increase?
My prediction? No, Dave will NOT properly address any of his outrageous assertions and logic fails. He will continue to tap dance his way through his alternate reality like the Airy Fairy Gwendolyn, blowing smoke and scattering rose petals of distraction and obfuscation as he goes.
Old guy, I already answered your questions, here. But since you asked for references, I included five links, which triggered the automatic “moderation” feature, and and Peter is apparently on holiday. So you’ll have to wait for him to get back before you can read it.
Can’t wait. I am dying with anticipation! Will daveburton finally answer questions that have been put to him? Will he speak truth for a change?
Sad to say, I think not. It looks like he is just sending us more links, and they will likely be just more irrelevant and meaningless “smoke blowing” by Dave.
Dave, there are a myriad of things wrong with this. The most important is that it is a single glacier. You keep saying there needs to be averages, bout you keep doing the opposite. I also need a lot of data points to determine at trend. I ca notice anything you show me. Question is, what do you infer? You have not dip stated clearly. I can conclude very little from what you have shown.
Christopher, you are correct, but there’s no avoiding that problem because only a small percentage of glaciers have been studied.
From the habit of climate alarmists & the press of highlighting particular glaciers and claiming their recent retreats as evidence of anthropogenic global warming, many people have gotten the erroneous impression that those isolated examples prove that SUVs are killing the planet. My point is that that is deceptive. Dramatically retreating glaciers long predate significant anthropogenic GHGs.
But we know from the sea level trend that the net sum of meltwater added to the oceans from grounded ice, less the removal of water through precipitation, is not increasing. (I do understand that from that you cannot disambiguate the various sources, of course.)
Dave blathers on about “highlighting particular glaciers and claiming their recent retreats as evidence of anthropogenic global warming….the erroneous impression that those isolated examples prove that SUVs are killing the planet”.
I will ask Dave yet another question that he will not answer. We have not studied many glaciers? (Not true—we have not studied ALL, but we have gone to every place on Earth that has them, and looked at enough representative samples to talk about what is happening to all of them). Tell us Dave, which glaciers are GROWING and where? (And which TENS of thousands of scientists will support your contentions?)
What IS deceptive is cherrypicking ONE “dramatically retreating glacier” that “long predates significant anthropogenic GHGs” and dishonestly trying to make something of it. Be ashamed, Dave—YOU are doing exactly what you decried—highlighting a particular glacier to give an erroneous impression.
Dave, you know that is not true. Glaciers have been studied all over the globe and the data is extensive. Why would you misrepresent that?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retreat_of_glaciers_since_1850
Glaciers have rapidly retreated in the last 30 years and there is extensive data that shows it.
Christopher, we don’t even know how many glaciers there are, not even within a factor of two. We are a long, long way from being able to answer questions like:
* how many glaciers are advancing / retreating / gaining mass / losing mass, etc.?
* how do those changes compare with what was happening before the big post-WWII increase in anthropogenic GHG emissions?
How many glaciers do you think there are in the world, Christopher?
Now, for how many of those glaciers has the rate of advance/retreat, or mass gain/loss been studied for long enough and with sufficient detail to say with any confidence whether it is accelerating or decelerating?
I think you know as well as I do that it is a very tiny percentage.
Dave continues to build his legacy of insane and inane comments on Crock. Perhaps the folks on the NC sea level advisory committee would like to know that he appears to have lost his mind?. Should we give them a “heads up” before he does some real damage to the work of that group?
Inanity #1 “Christopher, we don’t even know how many glaciers there are, not even within a factor of two”.
That’s just a throw-off idiocy to get the ball rolling. We likely DO know within a factor of two how many “glaciers” there are, and how MANY there are is NOT as important as knowing what is happening to them.
Inanity #2 “We are a long, long way from being able to answer questions…”
Only the cognitively dissonant like Dave are unable to see the forest for the trees here (or the glaciers for the melt water as the case may be). All his questions have been answered and continue to be examined. The data is clear and unequivocable, and even the average layman knows the answers. Why does Dave, a self-proclaimed “scientist” (who behaves very unscientifically) not know the answers while “Joe the Plumber” does?
Inanity #3 “How many glaciers are advancing / retreating / gaining mass / losing mass, etc.?”
Easy answer, Dave. It is generally accepted that about 90% of the world’s glaciers are retreating and losing mass. The remaining 10% are remaining stable or gaining, and that appears to be the result of increased precipitation due to the increase in water vapor in the atmosphere and changing weather patterns, both of those factors due to AGW. The decline is exponential, and a plot of the data resembles the upside down hockey stick of arctic sea ice volume decline.
Inanity #4 “How do those changes compare with what was happening before the big post-WWII increase in anthropogenic GHG emissions?”
In his usual sneaky and duplicitous manner, Dave is trying to trap someone here. Again, any well read Joe the Plumber would tell Dave that there was actually a RISE in glacier volume from 1950 to 1970, and that the precipitous decline began in 1970 and has been accelerating for 40 years.
Inanity #5 “How many glaciers do you think there are in the world, Christopher?”
I will answer that for Christopher. How many glaciers do you want there to be in the world, Dave? So that you lie about them? (and that’s assuming you haven’t made up your own definition of “glacier” so that you can quibble about their number)
Inanity #6 “Now, for how many of those glaciers has the rate of advance/retreat, or mass gain/loss been studied for long enough and with sufficient detail to say with any confidence whether it is accelerating or decelerating?
See comments on #2 and #3 above. This is the standard denier tactic of saying “BUT”, and trying to run the discussion in circles. Dave will deny the truth until every last glacier on the planet has been studied for decades. Unfortunately, they will nearly all be gone before very long—-will Dave notice?
Total Insanity #1 “I think you know as well as I do that it is a very tiny percentage”.
What Dave perceives as a crushing final statement to Christopher merely serves to illustrate what a “very tiny percentage” of his brain is in touch with reality (or the concepts of truth or honesty). Try not to laugh, Christopher.
Old guy sez, “We likely DO know within a factor of two how many “glaciers” there are.”
Don’t keep us in suspense. How many are there?
Give it up, Dave! As usual, you again prove my point by NOT saying anything of substance, instead trying to distract us from your many logic fails and outrageous untruths with a meaningless question.
I will repeat “how MANY glaciers there are is NOT as important as knowing what is happening to them”. Focus on that and stop your thrashing—-you embarrass yourself.
And we are still waiting for answers to the direct questions that have been put to you—why do you waste our time with inanities rather than answers?
Oh, come on, old guy. Just admit that you don’t know how many glaciers there are on planet Earth, even roughly.
I don’t know, either. Nobody does.
Obviously, if you don’t even know approximately how many glaciers exist, not even within ±50%, you cannot have studied most of them, and if you haven’t studied them you don’t know what’s happening to them.
That’s one of the reasons it was silly for you to claim that the glaciers “will nearly all be gone before very long.” (Here’s another.)
Perhaps you made the mistake of uncritically reading AR4’s nonsense about the Himalayan glaciers being almost gone by 2035, and extrapolated from regional nonsense to global nonsense?
Let it be understood that I am NOT sitting at my computer just waiting for new comments to appear on Crock, as daveburton apparently is. I have a real life.
I am engaged in a home repair project that involves my walking by the computer with armloads of books taken down from nearly 50 linear feet of shelving so that we can get all the wall behind and moving furniture into the room that houses the computer. Since I am also tiredoldguy and am working up a sweat, I take frequent breaks as I pass the computer.
Dave says in another comment, “Oh, come on, old guy. Just admit that you don’t know how many glaciers there are on planet Earth, even roughly. I don’t know, either. Nobody does”. And that’s why I didn’t bother answering that inane question. I’ve seen estimates from 100,000 to 500,000, and once again will repeat “Who cares?”. And will say once again, that we HAVE studied enough around the globe to see what’s happening to them, and that’s what’s important (some countries HAVE identified and studied nearly all their glaciers—check out what is known about the Alps, for instance). There is an incomplete glacier registry out there—Dave knows this (we hope), but would rather waste our time.
“Obviously, if you don’t even know approximately how many glaciers exist, not even within ±50%, you cannot have studied most of them, and if you haven’t studied them you don’t know what’s happening to them”.
The logic fail of that statement is so apparent that I won’t even respond to it.
Dave closes with “stinging” comments about “silliness” and “nonsense”, blissfully unaware that he is viewed as the “silly one” and spewer of nonsense here. Such as the idea that a further increase of 100ppm in CO2 levels will have positive effects, just as the last 100ppm did. I have asked Dave several times to give us just one, and he refuses. (Hint, hint—the Idso book gives 55—want to hear my favorites?).
Cooled off, back to work. Later, Dave (and anyone else who is wasting time on this rather tired thread). It’s a horse that needs to be shot.
Old guy wrote, “I’ve seen estimates from 100,000 to 500,000” glaciers in the world.
Correct. But that’s a factor of five difference, not a factor of two. So why did you say on Saturday, “We likely DO know within a factor of two how many” glaciers there are?
Dave asks, “So why did you say on Saturday, “We likely DO know within a factor of two how many”; glaciers there are?”
Grasping at straws while upping the comment count on your “Troll Meter”, Dave? Planning to spend a lot this Christmas and need the extra bucks?
Just as Miami lies at an “average” of six feet above sea level, the number of glaciers is meaningless. You are just playing with us when you ask this irrelevant question and continue to ignore the science that has come out of whatever observations we have made on whatever percentage of however many glaciers there are. I will say again—give it up—you are embarrassing yourself so much that you’re embarrassing me and all others who value the “sapiens” part of our species name.
That wasn’t an answer, old guy.
Do you not understand that “100,000 to 500,000” is a factor of five difference?
Or perhaps you only just learned there is that much uncertainty, and on Saturday, when you wrote, “We likely DO know within a factor of two how many” glaciers there are, you just didn’t know better?
There’s no shame in admitting that you made a mistake, old guy. The shame is in refusing to admit it, when you know it is true.
Lord love a dozen ducks, Dave!
Do you not understand the overwhelming and incredible irony of you, daveburton, saying “There’s no shame in admitting that you made a mistake. The shame is in refusing to admit it, when you know it is true”
Especially when that is coupled with your refusal to deal with the many inaccuracies and logic fails on your part that I and others have pointed out to you? Like the “tens of thousands of scientists say” and “CO2 is good for you” and “ground water depletion is important to sea level rise”, to mention just three. You are like a dog obsessively chewing on a very small bone while mounds of very large bones are piled all around you.
I am going to busy today with my furniture moving, but I WILL stop by the computer whenever I can during breaks. It looks like this is going to be a day for Dave to attempt to set some new inanity records, and I wouldn’t want to miss that.
That’s not an answer, either, old guy. Do you understand that “100,000 to 500,000” is not “within a factor of two?”
You need to seek help, Dave. You are really losing it.
Dave, if I want to know about glaciers, you’ll pardon me if I don’t go for amateurs on the internet, but follow someone who is a globally recognized expert on the subject, and who has spent a lifetime of hard physical and intellectual effort, risking his life, pursuing it.
Oh, wait – I did that..
What I find odd is that people like daveburton seems to think the ice in Antarctica during the cold season there “weight” up to the lack of ice on the opposite pole in the Arctic during the warm season there. Its a twisted logic that perhaps only their brains (or lack of) is able to make meaning from.
I keep repeating this every time the sea ice question pops up:
A) Sea ice only has meaning when the sun can reflect sun beams
B) Practically all the sea ice in Antarctica melts away every warm season there
We do have a problem if the sea ice in the Arctic does the same as that would essentially convert the north pole into deep blue sea when the sun is baking that place 24/7 – absorbing a lot of energy. So sea ice matters in the Arctic, but it doesn’t matter in Antarctica.
I’d be more concerned about the loss of land ice in Antarctica, which as many have pointed out is accelerating. And again as many have pointed out the majority of sea level increase we have had SO FAR is because of thermal expansion and not land ice melt – but that is about to change. Continued warming will accelerate the melting considerably and we can already witness a melt rate several times in magnitude compared to only a decade ago. A small number multiplied up still becomes a rather small number when we talk about sea level from land ice, but as anyone familiar with EXPONENTIAL curves, those numbers soon get very big – which is why we can expect low land areas to get into trouble in the latter part of this century.
Well said, JCL. There are ominous rumblings from the antarctic, but you have nicely pointed out that the immediate emphasis needs to be placed on the northern hemisphere and the arctic sea ice.
How daveburton can play his “global see ice extent” games and ignore what we see going on with arctic sea ice, the Greenland ice sheet, the circumpolar weather patterns, and all the other evidence that can only be due to AGW is beyond comprehension. (Unless, of course, he is a paid liar-denier and is only doing his job). (But he is a CONSERVATIVE, and conservatives don’t lie!—I get so confused sometimes)
John, I think I can help clear up some of your confusion.
1. You think that sea ice extent “doesn’t matter in Antarctica” because you think that most of the ice is melted when the sun shines there, anyhow.
That’s a misconception. Maximum and minimum sea ice extents actually occur at approximately the equinoxes, not the solstices. (In the Southern Ocean, the minimum ice extent occurs about a month before the March equinox, and the maximum occurs just about exactly at the September equinox.) So the notion that “only the minimums matter” is just plain wrong. The sun shines on the minimums and maximums almost equally.
Look at all this Southern Ocean ice in October, during the long days after the equinox:
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/s_extn.png
Right now it’s just three weeks before the December solstice, there’s still 50% more sea ice in the Southern Ocean than in the Arctic Ocean:
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/
(click on that “Arctic” and “Antarctic” tabs)
2. Sea ice in the Southern Ocean is mostly at lower latitudes than the sea ice in the Arctic Ocean. That means the sun shines on Southern Ocean sea ice at a more oblique angle, which means there’s more sunlight per unit area, and less of it is reflected. So, if you think that solar absorption & Albedo are what matters, the Southern Ocean ice matters more than Arctic Ocean ice.
3. However, it is not clear that ocean ice albedo is even a positive feedback mechanism, anyhow.
Albedo is bidirectional: high albedo holds heat in as effectively as it keeps heat out. That’s why your space blanket is silvered.
A layer of ice keeps heat in, as well as it keeps heat out, and the net flow of heat in the Arctic is upward (from ocean to air), not downward. The primary source of warmth in the Arctic is not sunlight, it is ocean currents, which exchange frigid Arctic water for less-chilly water from lower latitudes.
One could easily determine whether sea ice albedo is a net positive or negative feedback mechanism, simply by comparing temperature profiles for water beneath the ice vs. water w/o ice cover, under otherwise similar conditions. If the water averages warmer under the ice, then my speculation is correct, and sea ice acts as a negative feedback mechanism, even in the Arctic summertime. Unfortunately, I can’t find anyone who knows whether that study has been done. I’ve asked that question on a couple of blogs, including this one, and nobody seems to know.
Clarification: I think I used the word “oblique” wrong. By “more oblique” I meant “less acute” or “more direct.” Sorry for the confusion.
This is completely off-topic, but in case someone else is interested, I posed a question elsewhere about the phrase, “more oblique.” My question generated quite a discussion.
LOL Dave is NOT alone in the world! There are others who will mindlessly wrap themselves around an axle, and he has found them!
To add another irrelevant two cents, all of us old grunts know what “oblique” means. We learned it in the hot sun on the grinder, and learned it well—it is not wise to incur the wrath of DI’s.
Clarification #2: by “lower latitudes” I meant “less extreme latitudes” or “more equatorial latitudes.” I didn’t mean “closer to the south pole.”
(BTW, the message to which these clarifications apply is still in moderation; I assume that Peter is enjoying a nice holiday, and will “approve” it when he gets back.)
Dave, you continue to evade questions by changing the subject.
1. how do you plot a trend line given a set of data points?
2. How can you assert there is no sea level acceleration in an 80 year record, If a 60 year record is a minimum length required for a valid trend line?
Christopher, it disappoints me that you accuse me of “evading questions” in reply to a clarification of a message that you cannot have read yet, because it is still stuck “in moderation,” while Peter is on vacation.
However, in answer to these two new questions:
1. There are many ways, but a minimum-variance unbiased estimator linear fit is a good general-purpose approach to fitting a linear trend line to data points with error bars.
2. Likewise, there are many approaches for detecting acceleration or deceleration. The one Church & White used was minimum-variance unbiased estimator quadratic fit regression analysis. I’ve written Perl code to do that, which you may download from my web site.
Dave, it disappoints ME that you would attempt to lead us into the swamp of arcane statistical mathematics rather than answer such simple questions as “Who are those TENS of THOUSANDS of scientists?” and “Give us examples of the POSITIVE effects of a 100ppm increase in CO2 levels?”, to cite just two.
You ARE evading substantial answers to nearly all questions put to you. Period.
Ok Dave, if you know all that, and you know spikes and individual data points are of little statistical significance. Yet you keep referring to spikes and this years record. If you want to have any credibility you will have to act consistent with your understanding, not just have knowledge. That is where you have consistently failed. I am not asking for a reply, Dave. I already made my request for behavior consistent with your professed understanding of math and statistics. You have consistently done the following:
1. Used individual data points to make inference. This years sea ice, one glacier
2. Mixed different data types. Northern ice, southern ice
3. Inferred results from a record, you have yourself professed to be too short.
How can you prove a break ( acceleration) in sea ice over a period of 80 years if as you say, 60 years is necessary for a trend line. Rhetorical. Nobody can. You need two lengths of 60 years to establish two trend lines by your own rules.
There is a lot more that could be said, but it is a waste of time if you are going to keep abusing the basics. If you want anyone to take you seriously, stop referring to individual data points, tide gauges, annual minimums, single locations, and all of that.
There is one other. Very troubling matter. Your use of unattributed data. If you really want to prove anything, don’t base your data on a source no one recognizes. I suggest you start with large long term data sets from PIOMAS and sources that scientists respect as reliable. If you want to taken seriously as a scientist, you must act like one. It’s not enough to know math, you have to use it properly. And sorry, in science, excuses like there is not enough data (glaciers) don’t make it. If that’s true, you acknowledge it and call for more research. Saying we don’t know how many glaciers there are misses the point. Another example of misuse of statistics. We do not need to know how many there are, we only have to take a large enough sample. You should know that.
In order to be taken seriously here, you will have to show proper math for quite a while, to undo the impressions made by a long period of intransigence. This is not a rigorous site, and it allows many views. Skeptical Science would not tolerate your repeated thwarting of scientific discussion. I do not wish to speak for Peter, or the rest of the commenters, but I can say I believe this site tolerates such unscientific reasoning to provide proof that deniers are undisciplined or perhaps uninformed, and do not respond reasonably. In short, they are there own rebuttal. If you don’t want that, you need to conform to mathematical and scientific principles you claim you understand and know. My biggest rebuttal of your claims has nothing to do with any particular subject. It has to do with internal self consistency.
Yes, Dave DOES give us nearly hourly proof that “deniers are undisciplined or perhaps uninformed, and do not respond reasonably. In short, they are there own rebuttal”. Well said, Christopher! (even if the whole paragraph was somewhat “oblique” and with a politeness that is wasted on Dave).
Old guy, as I’ve already told you, my answers to those questions are stuck “in moderation” until Peter returns from his vacation. Please be patient.
As for the “swamp of arcane statistical mathematics” that bothers you, Christopher asked a pair of mathematical questions, and I gave him a pair of mathematical answers, complete with heavily-commented computer source code.
I know something about those things. I’m the guy who replicated the trend analysis from Church & White 2006, and found that when it was applied to their 2009 data it showed a slight 20th century sea-level rise deceleration, rather than acceleration. See doi:10.1007/s11069-012-0159-8; preprints are available at arXiv and Nature Precedings, and all the code and data is on my web site.
Just stopping by the computer for a quick look—books all moved, starting on the furniture. I don’t have time to comment extensively right now, Dave, but I have looked at your website and in other places, and have indeed found that “you’re the guy” that you appear to be to the rest of us.
I will speak to your background, your involvement with NC-20 and the NC sea level committee, your good buddy John Droz, your “publications”, and your role as an “expert” reviewer for AR5 WGI.
Christopher wrote, “Dave… You have consistently… 1. Used individual data points to make inference. This years sea ice, one glacier”
I did no such thing. You might be talking about the map of Glacier Bay, AK, where glacial retreat was much faster in the 18th and 19th centuries than in the 20th and 21st centuries. But there are about 20 glaciers at Glacier Bay, not just one, and I’ve also discussed (or linked to discussions about) many others, such as Heterogeneity in glacier response in the upper Shyok valley, northeast Karakoram, by Bhambri, et al.
Christopher wrote, “Dave… You… 2. Mixed different data types. Northern ice, southern ice”
Northern and southern sea ice are the same data type, measured in the same way by the same instruments, and citing a graph of global sea ice extent is not mixing apples-and-oranges.
OTOH, when people combine graphs of sea level measured by coastal tide gauges up to 20 years ago, spliced onto satellite altimetry for the last two decades, that’s definitely mixing apples-and-oranges — google “sea level nature trick” (in quotes) for discussions of that error.
Christopher wrote, “Dave… You… 3. Inferred results from a record, you have yourself professed to be too short. How can you prove a break ( acceleration) in sea ice over a period of 80 years if as you say, 60 years is necessary for a trend line… You need two lengths of 60 years to establish two trend lines by your own rules.”
No, you don’t. More data is better, but 80 years of data is not too short. If your data contains a 60-year cyclical component, then fitting a linear or quadratic to any 60 year subset of the total data record will eliminate the effect of the 60 year cycle.
What’s more, when water sloshes, and goes up in one place, it tends to go down in another. So with global measurement coverage, the effect of the cycles is reduced, compared to regional or single-location analyses. (It’s not reduced to zero, because global tide gauge coverage is not uniform, and because AMO effects are not limited to simple “sloshing,” but global analyses are less affected by cyclical processes than are things like Sallenger’s “hotspot” analysis of the U.S. Eastern seaboard.)
Christopher wrote, “There is one other. Very troubling matter. Your use of unattributed data. If you really want to prove anything, don’t base your data on a source no one recognizes.”
What unattributed data are you talking about?
I included many links to data sources (which is why some of my comments were stuck in moderation while Peter was vacationing).
Christopher wrote, “Saying we don’t know how many glaciers there are misses the point.”
No, but your complaint means that you missed my point.
It was claimed here that glacial retreat is accelerating, and that nearly all glaciers will be gone before very long. My point is that the former claim is unsubstantiated, and the later is both unsubstantiated and ridiculous.
Christopher wrote, “Another example of misuse of statistics. We do not need to know how many there are, we only have to take a large enough sample. You should know that.”
My point is that analyzing a single glacier’s ice mass trends, or even it’s advance/retreat, is a substantial amount of work, and that work has been done for only a minute fraction of the world’s glaciers. It is a lot easier to count glaciers than it is to analyze an adequate sample of them, and we haven’t even counted them.
We don’t know how many glaciers there are, nor, in most cases, where they are, how they are behaving, or how their behaviors are correlated.
Christopher wrote, “Skeptical Science would not tolerate your repeated thwarting of scientific discussion.”
If “thwarting of scientific discussion” means disagreeing with John Cook, then you’re right: he tolerates no substantive dissent on his blog, just like Tamino, YaleClimateForum, etc.
Does Dave ever sleep?
More unscientific nonsense about oceans “sloshing” and such—the usual “Davisms” and not worth talking about.
What IS of interest is Christopher’s insightful comment. “Skeptical Science would not tolerate your repeated thwarting of scientific discussion.” Amen to that.
Perhaps that’s why Dave does NOT post comments on Skeptical Science? Because they have “banned” him or he knows that he would be eaten alive if he did post his “thwartings” on SkS, where real science lives?
If you care to work at it, you can find that Skeptical Science IS aware of Dave’s existence and his proper place in the world. A search there for “Madness over sea level rise in NC” will lead to a reference to Dave and NC-20. In part,
“…a small handful of advocates for junk sea level rise science were able to persuade the legislature to write and initially vote in favor of a pretty crazy bill. They SPOUT THE SAME DENIER SWILL that SkS has been debunking for years”.
Emphasis added because that “DENIER SWILL” links to guess who? Our very own “swill-spouter”—-daveburton!
I dont think it is correct to sum the instantaneous sea ice extent from both hemispheres. The southern hemisphere sea ice minimum is always 180 degrees out of phase with the northern sea ice, thus always reducing changes in sea ice. A more correct way would be to align the data would be to account for the difference in phase.
Christopher, that is a good idea. I agree that it would be interesting to graph the sum of the two hemispheres’ sea ice extent with one hemisphere delayed by six months, so that we could see total sea ice graphed by season instead of by calendar date. If you construct (or find) such a graph, please consider sending it to Anthony Watts, or to Peter, to get it out in the blogosphere.
However, summing the instantaneous sea ice extent is certainly more correct than ignoring one entire hemisphere, as the folks who want to only talk about the Arctic do. Also, the long term average global ice extent trends would not be affected by applying a 6 month delay to one hemisphere’s data.
But if you want to calculate the effect of sea ice on total planetary albedo, to see if there are trends which could affect hypothetical “albedo feedback” on sunlight, you do need to take into account the latitude and time of year. A layer of ice warms the ocean (negative feedback!) at night, by reducing heat loss. But during daylight, if the sun is high enough in the sky, ice has the opposite effect, cooling the water (positive feedback!) by reflecting sunlight which would otherwise have been absorbed.
If you want to know whether a sea ice trend is causing warming or cooling of the oceans, you need to take those things into account, and you need to get a handle on the relative rates of energy transfer, up and down, under ice-covered and ice-free conditions.
It’s not going to be easy to calculate all that correctly, but because Southern Ocean ice is at less extreme latitudes, I think that if you do those calculations you’ll find that Southern Ocean ice matters more than Arctic ice.
If you want to know whether a sea ice trend is causing warming or cooling fo the planet (rather than just the oceans), it is even more challenging.
Another long-winded, condescending, and generally meaningless comment by Dave—not even worth dissecting.
What IS worthy of note is his closing—a link to a talk given by a METEOROLOGIST at the 2013 CPAC. That’s the CONSERVATIVE POLITICAL ACTION CONFERENCE, which is a hotbed of denial of ALL things scientific (as well as most of what this country stands for). Lord love a duck, Dave—you HAVE lost it.
When will Dave post a link to Sarah Palin reading info off her palm about AGW? At least she’s nice to look at if you mute the sound.
No Dave, summing the total sea ice extent while ignoring that the minimums occur 6 months apart is not better than looking at the Arctic independently. Its completely wrong. We want to know if the minima are decreasing. Please answer my questions further down the thread.
Christopher, the minima do not matter more than the maxima.
Look at the graph of Arctic Sea ice extent. Then look at the graph of Antarctic sea ice extent. What do you notice that they have in common?
1. The first thing you should notice is broad peaks and narrow valleys. In other words, the maxima last longer than the minima.
2. The second thing you should notice is that both maxima and minima are centered close to the equinoxes, not the solstices.
In Peter’s “Arctic versus Antarctic Sea Ice” video, both he and NPR’s Richard Harris mistakenly assume that ice peaks in the winter (when the sun doesn’t shine at all), and hits its minimum in the summer (when the sun shines all day). But they’re wrong.
Here’s a trivia question for you: In which of the four seasons does Antarctic ice extent begin increasing each year?
BTW, several of my comments here are languishing “in moderation” until Peter returns from his Thanksgiving vacation. This one should post immediately, because it contains no links. But I would ask those here who are complaining about my apparent failures to answer some of their questions to please be patient.
“But I would ask those here who are complaining about my apparent failures to answer some of their questions to please be patient”
I’m sure I can speak for all when I say we are far too “patient” with you, Dave. I’ve said it before—-just stop sending us meaningless and misleading links, stop evading responsibility, and simply DEAL THE QUESTIONS that have been put to you.
You might regain a small measure of credibility and respect if you did so.
Ooops! That’s “deal WITH the questions”
I have been trying to get Dave to respond to the issue of polar sea ice minimum being opposite timing. This gives a false representation of global decline, because southern extent is at a maximum when northern is at a minimum.
I already did, Christopher, . (I also posted some other relevant comments which are “in moderation” until Peter returns from vacation.)
If you add up all the ice, sea and land, the answer is clear.
42?
To answer a snark with a snark, 42 is your IQ divided by two, Dave.
(Or is it the percentage of your comments that are dishonest divided by two? I get so confused at times)
I am guessing daveburton has had a trip too many with an improbability drive under his bonnet, as the science he comes up to seems otherworldly and highly improbable. But I guess that is the normal life of a gambler, only in this case its all our lives (and indeed all other critters on the planet) that are at stake.
Well, at least John understood my answer.
But it sure is hard to discuss things with “opposing counsel” who just keeps pounding the table.
You’re the “table pounder” here, Dave. We keep trying to explain that to you, but you just won’t listen.
I did understand your answer. You tacitly admitted global ice is diminishing.
There was nothing “tacit” about it, John, and it wasn’t an “admission.” As I wrote, the oceans are rising due to meltwater from grounded ice, probably more than 100 cubic miles of it (roughly the equivalent of Lake Erie!) every year.
But that’s not the issue. Although I got 8 thumbs-down to the comment in which I wrote that, nobody has disputed it. The question is what effect have humanity’s CO2 (and CH4) emissions had? And the answer is “none that we can detect.”
That rate of grounded ice melting and flowing into the oceans clearly has not increased in more than 80 years. The oceans are rising no faster now than they were 80+ years ago. Yet the great preponderance of anthropogenic GHG emissions have occurred since the 1940s. That means there’s no evidence in the sea-level measurements that anthropogenic GHG emissions have increased the rate of sea-level rise at all.
And, yes, I know (and said) that you understood my answer. But old guy didn’t.
Dream on, Dave, because old guy DID understand your answer. You are trying to lead us into a very complicated “swamp” involving ENSO and other poorly understood phenomena as you cling to your mantra of “no increase in RATE of sea level rise”. That’s why no one wants to waste time “disputing” what you are throwing out there just to distract us from ARCTIC SEA ICE DECLINE.
“The question is what effect have humanity’s CO2 (and CH4) emissions had?” And the answer is “none that we can detect” is again misleading because of your narrow focus on RATE of sea level rise to the exclusion of all else.
Let’s look at another snapshot of RATE. Since mid-2011 the global oceans have risen approximately 20 millimeters, or 10 mm per year. This is over three times the rate of sea level rise during the time of satellite-based observations (currently 3.18 mm per year), from 1993 to the present. Is that as meaningful as your assertion that sea level rise has not accelerated? What does that portend for sea level rise over the next few years?
You remind me of the old joke about the gullible man who had a suit custom tailored by a rather inept tailor. At the final fitting, the various ill-fitting parts of the suit were dealt with by the tailor saying “No problem, just bend your leg a bit, tilt your head to the right, twist your body to the left, etc” until all parts “lined up”. As the man hobbled out of the shop in his “fit the suit” position, two old ladies spotted him.
One said, “Oh, look at that poor man—see how ‘crippled’ he is!”
The other replied, “Yes, it’s a shame, but doesn’t his suit fit well?”
Don’t keep trying to make us fit your suit, Dave.
Old guy wrote, “Since mid-2011 the global oceans have risen approximately 20 millimeters, or 10 mm per year.”
No they haven’t. You’re confusing reality with “noise spikes” in one particular set of measurements (presumably Jason), and you’re exaggerating those noise spikes, and your information is out-of-date.
Here’s the latest Jason 2 graph. As you can see, there was a negative spike in early 2011, and a positive spike at the start of this year, with a difference between the two spikes of about 17 mm. But it’s been falling all year, and from mid-2011 to present it shows a rise of only about 11 mm, not 20:
http://www.aviso.oceanobs.com/fileadmin/images/news/indic/msl/MSL_Serie_J2_Global_IB_RWT_NoGIA_Adjust.png
Old guy asked, “What does that portend for sea level rise over the next few years?”
The answer, of course, is absolutely nothing.
For proof of that, see the coastal tide gauge measurements, which are vastly better than the satellite measurements. Here’s one with a good quality long record, for which Peltier estimates only a slight GIA/PGR bias:
http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?stnid=1612340
As you can see, the trend is essentially linear, plus “noise.” No acceleration is apparent.
Passing by the computer and taking a break. daveburton is still at it, now talking about “confusing reality with noise” and how my information is out of date because it doesn’t include data from the last few months (that, of course, he likes).
I asked “What does that portend for sea level rise over the next few years?” exactly because its significance is indeterminate (“noise”) at this time and means little (if not quite “absolutely nothing”). I’m glad we agree minimally on one small thing.
Still waiting for real answers to real questions, Dave. (and I love the fit of your suit).
Dave, you are completely wrong about the minima being more important than the maxima. But you have not answered my questions. You keep dodging them. Are you hiding something? Simple questions.
Christopher, I’m not dodging anything. I have already explained to you why the sea ice extent minima are not more important than the maxima (as well as in this comment on Friday, which is still stuck in moderation). Did you overlook my answer?
Why do you think the minima are so important?
79 comments. What’s the record here?
I have been visiting Crock for only a few months, but the number of comments on this thread has got to be approaching whatever the record may be—-certainly it’s getting into “top ten” country. Also, the ratio of “thumbs up-thumbs down” ratings that daveburton has received versus that of all other commenters is also going strongly against Dave. Only E-Pot and O-Log seem to be in Dave’s league at garnering disapproval, which is surprising considering that Dave is fast proving to be the biggest prevaricator (or crackpot) visiting this site. It is surprising also because E-Pot and O-Log occasionally make some sense and speak some truth—Dave seldom does. Or perhaps everyone is being kind to Dave? When it is apparent who the village idiot is, some folks show charity by not pointing it out.
And before anyone points out that DOG is one that is pushing the comment total up here, let me say that I am conducting a two-fold exercise here:
1) I’m trying to add my limited knowledge and insights regarding arctic sea ice decline to the communal knowledge pot so that we can better understand the effects of AGW (and seeking the same from others)
2) Unfortunately, trying to accomplish 1) requires that daveburton’s insanities be addressed, often at length. There IS a plus there—using one’s brain is good anti-Alzheimer’s therapy. It would appear that Dave is just going to allow senility to overwhelm him.
Ha, ha, yeah, Dave knows a lot about ocean related topics. He’s the sea level chess master on this blog. It would take a lot of journal reading and study to figure out the exact points of divergence that make his interpretations different than the mainstream guys (on those points where they differ). Often these things come down to ideas whose dynamics are hard to quantify, including the weighting of multiple streams of evidence, and one’s uncertainty tolerance.
I write classical music to keep my mind sharp. It involves solving terrible abstract problems. I’ve won a few awards, been published, been performed here and there, but I don’t make much money doing it – I mostly just do it for the challenge…
But I’m pretty sure this is a new record for the comments number, at least for the year or so that I’ve been following the blog.
andrewfez:
How would I hear your music?
Hi Stephen,
I don’t have any live recordings (Well, I have one of the Prague Radio Symphony, but the maestro totally messed up the tempo and ruined the character of the piece, so I won’t bring that one out of the vault). But I do put up my sample recordings of pieces on youtube so folks that i submit scores to will have an audio reference at hand. Some of my favorites include a little solemn piece for clarinet and piano:
http://youtu.be/X6AD1hN1Kag
and I have a particular liking to the second movement of my string quartet (other movements are posted on my channel too):
http://youtu.be/SQaWUGWa0Mo
here’s also the last two movements to a symphony (the first movement needs revision which I plan to do in late 2014 or 2015):
http://youtu.be/hwYSWrSWhiI
http://youtu.be/RbGAIl3FrSw
Oh, here’s a piece for 4 violas that folks seem to like:
http://youtu.be/SQ2o9AdLBvM
There’s older stuff that I’ll eventually retire into my Juvenilia collection on my channel too – something called Winter Ashgrove Cottage that will be getting its premier with the Third Millennium Ensemble out of Maryland next season. Someday I’ll eventually put up some film music cues I’ve written just to attract more folks to my channel – right now it’s kind of bare…
Thanks for the interest!
Andrew –
Listened to all of them. Especially liked the second m’v’t of the symphony. The clarinet at the beginning that leads to the harmonic turn/sting when other instruments come in is perhaps a distant cousin of the “Prelude to the Afternoon…” beginning (and aren’t those antique cymbals/crotales at the end, which Debussy uses at the end of his piece as well?); the French late 19th/early 20th quality is very congenial to me – it’s more Roussel than Ravel in your case, I think, with your classicizing phrase structure and “symphonism”, if you don’t mind the word. That it’s a “Symphony in C” might have been a tipoff to that, one would think!
Even the blues riffs in the third movement don’t take away from the cultural vibe, as they have a precedent in Ravel’s violin sonata, at least.
But I enjoyed all the pieces. Skillfully composed, cogently developed material, using some rich orchestral resources; the orchestration has clarity. I think I know how much work went into these pieces – and how much more you had to practice, listen, and contemplate in the years previous to make that work possible at all. Congratulations!
Hi Stephen,
Sorry for the late response: I up-voted your comment the other day, but I’ve been entertaining an out-of-town guest over the last several (days), which has cut my internet time down considerably, and has left me exhausted at the end of the day…
Thanks for listening to the pieces – much appreciated – and for the kind words!
Yeah, the Prelude to the Afternoon… very well could have been the inspiration for the abrupt introduction of the other instruments at the top of the second movement of the symphony; I had never made the connection, but I have so many musical ideas floating around in my head i readily lose track of what originated from where and it’s like a big blur of information. Good call on that one! Oh, and that’s a glockenspiel near the end. The crotales tend to ring a bit long, so i use the glock, as it seems be able to accent a violin or w.w. melody without adding any odd dissonance that could occur secondary to that long ring. It’s pretty good at focusing the audience attention on what you would like them to be focusing on, especially if there are multiple ideas occurring on top of each other.
I haven’t listened to Roussel for ages but I can see how you made the connection: for instance, I remember him being quite liberal with his use of chromaticism regarding his harmonic language (at least on the pieces I own on disc), which also is prominent in a lot of my ideas. The ‘missing link’ between the French schools of composition from around the turn of the century and what I tend to shoot for is Arnold Bax.
Bax tended to use a broad mix of English, German, and French schools of thought in his composition, and I am somewhat obsessed with his music. I even try to mimic his sprawling, ‘undisciplined’ large scale form [Bax is actually quite structured, but his constant use of new ideas/textures throughout his pieces and how he turns the orchestra on a dime in places as if he’s scoring music to a cartoon makes it seem at though he is wandering about in a tone poem type format].
I remember perhaps a year+ ago, when I first started following Climate Crocks, we had a concert pianist who would post in the comments sections. I’m taking a long-shot guess here (again my mind is a bit fuzzy/blurry these days), but was that you? Your eloquent musical knowledge leads me that direction. In any case, again, I appreciate the fine words and I’ll see you back out on the comments sections when I get a bit more internet time happening!
This is the thread that wouldn’t die!
I’m not the concert pianist fellow. I am a composer, however:
http://soundcloud.com/stephen-par/sets/portfolio
The first piece is preceded by a lengthy drone (we needed time for the dancers taking their places, and there is video going on that of course you cannot see…), so, please be a little patient at the very beginning.
I noticed that Youtube was suggesting various Bax videos when your own came up. Yes, it makes perfect sense. I am very attracted to his music, though my deviation from the Debussyan gravitational pull is more often toward the Stravinskyan.
I subscribed to your channel, and I hope that more of your music will become available. Glad to connect! I think that your orchestration is skillful, your musical arguments cogent, and your musical material concise and vivid.
Very nice Stephen – rhythmically interesting – it’s almost a fusion of some vestige of serialism and a rhythmically based medium: it’s as if Pierre Boulez’s Derive I was a piece of glass that’s been shattered and the shards are hung up on a percussive backdrop, if that makes any sense. Though, I’m pretty unqualified to interpret modern music: my understanding of music kind of falls off a cliff with the death of Benjamin Britten in the 70’s.
Thanks again for the kind words and interest in my channel! Yes, nice to meet you! I’ll see you back out there…
Best,
Andrew Fez