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Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Sea ice: Out of the mouths of WUWT-ers

Sou | 3:06 AM One comment so far. Add a comment

Thought I'd post a few of the comments from WUWT.  These are from justthefactswuwt's article about global sea ice (archived here).  No, I'm not going to comment on the fact that justthefactswuwt thinks that the world has "stopped warming".  Well, maybe I'll just show one of the charts he uses as evidence, with my own notations as an animated gif. I suggest clicking on the chart for the larger version because it's very wide:

Adapted from Cryosphere Today

From the WUWT comments


Contorted thinking from Robin Hewitt who says (excerpt, my bold italics):
October 21, 2013 at 6:45 am
I rather hope the ice does not stick around. If we get a big ice anomaly year then that puts up the average ice cover that all subsequent years will have to match. The sceptics get one chance to thumb their noses at the catastrophists and then have to pay for ever more.
I think Robin is saying that even if the ice didn't melt as much one year, it's on a downward spiral in the medium term.


David in Cal has never heard of coupled ocean-atmosphere general circulation climate models.  I wonder what he'd say if he learnt about the earth system models, which include not just the ocean and the atmosphere but biogeochemical cycles like the carbon cycle, the sulphur cycle, and ozone.  David in Cal writes:
October 20, 2013 at 10:52 pm
To say that extra heat is hiding in the oceans is to admit that all the climate models are wrong. After all, no climate model specifically includes heat moving into and out of the oceans (as far as I know.)


DR thinks the greenhouse effect is old hat and says:
October 20, 2013 at 10:28 pm
Funny how the Warmastrologists want to change what was actually predicted when this all came to the forefront. When things didn’t work out as predicted, they simply make it up as they go along. The “greenhouse effect” was all the rage back then. Today they’d just wish it would go away because it just ain’t happening the way we were told it would.


MrX says "they always come back baffled" but I'm guessing it's not for the reason he thinks:
October 20, 2013 at 8:28 pm
Jimbo says: October 20, 2013 at 1:32 pm I kept trying to explain to Warmists that most sceptics are fervent proponents of climate change. The climate always changes.
——————
YES! I do the same. It’s amazing how much I get asked “What? You don’t believe in climate change?” And I always respond back, “Climate change is a skeptical position. Of course I believe in climate change. Unprecedented and catastrophic global warming is your side’s position. If it isn’t unprecedented, then it’s happened before (aka climate change) and it’s natural and not catastrophic. Nothing to worry about.”
They always come back baffled and completely confused about their own position. Sometimes they’ll throw a word in about not liking the fact that used “global warming” or some other nonsense. But they never know how to argue against the fact that it can only be climate change if it’s not unprecedented.


How's this for logic and understanding?  RACookPE1978 goes for a "cool - cool" argument:

October 20, 2013 at 9:02 pm

Chris B says: October 20, 2013 at 8:33 pm So the argument that, a decade of reductions in Arctic Sea Ice Extent indicates we are on the verge of Dangerous Warming, is unsupported then?
True. The false arguments about Arctic amplification – the fears that a continued loss of Arctic sea ice from its current extents is dangerous – ARE unsupported and ARE wrong.

The numbers show that, additional loss of arctic sea from today’s sea ice extents from mid-August through mid-April cause more loss of heat from the newly exposed ocean areas than can be absorbed from the sun. More Arctic ice loss from today’s levels means more cooling in August, September and October. More snow on the land surfaces around the Arctic as well..

On the other hand, the INCREASED Antarctic sea ice at minimum AND maximum extents all year DOES reflect more heat energy and DOES cause increased cooling of the planet.


There's a heap more convoluted thinking going on in that thread.  If you're bored you can read the archived version here.

1 comment:

  1. Good grief! There seems to be nothing like sea ice to highlight the magical thinking - or just plain wrongness - of the wattards...

    Just a few off the top of my head from the quotes above (I couldn't bring myself to actually read the whole thing):

    I wonder if Robin Hewitt appreciates the reverse is true - that every year the sea ice has been anomalously low makes subsequent above average years more likely? In any case most of the noise is about the Arctic minimum being above recent years, and that is not baselined to 1979 - present, like the global graph, it is baselined to 1979 - 2008, and this years result makes no different to next years.

    But RACook takes the biscuit: "On the other hand, the INCREASED Antarctic sea ice at minimum AND maximum extents all year DOES reflect more heat energy and DOES cause increased cooling of the planet."
    Antarctic Sea Ice at minimum has no significant trend. So it cannot cause increased cooling. Antarctic Sea Ice at maximum is trending slowly up. And in stunning news, according to RACook, that will reflect more heat energy even though it occurs in winter when there is no sunlight falling on it!

    Magic!

    In fact the total area at minima (ie Sept in the Arctic + Feb in the Antarctic) has fallen by ~30% in 30 years, from 10.5 Mkm^2 to around 7. And unlike in the dark of winter, that is when it makes a difference to the radiation budget. RACook simply dismisses Amplification (with capital letters too!) - but declining albedo is why he is exactly wrong.

    FrankD

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