tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2313427464944392482.post7767577614595816864..comments2024-03-25T05:30:23.847+11:00Comments on HotWhopper: Time to look at the Arctic sea ice 2016Souhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08818999735123752034noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2313427464944392482.post-91863787055429166142016-08-29T16:23:40.876+10:002016-08-29T16:23:40.876+10:00NSIDC daily extent data to 28th Aug. suggest there...NSIDC daily extent data to 28th Aug. suggest there has been a further -0.564 million sq. km reduction in Arctic sea ice extent since Anthony posted his 'uptick' chart dated 22nd Aug. That's inside the top 10 biggest 5-day falls of the entire melt season so far.<br /><br />No official update yet at WUWT...DavidRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2313427464944392482.post-57956878979243935552016-08-28T05:56:18.880+10:002016-08-28T05:56:18.880+10:00"But about 3 years ago I realized the sea ice..."But about 3 years ago I realized the sea ice is going to disappear. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but gone it will be."<br /><br />Yes, and it will have significant, wide-ranging and as-yet poorly understood consequences for the climate, weather, and polar/circumpolar ecosystem.<br /><br />It's also one of the areas that our skeptical friends repeatedly misrepresent, playing up early forecasts by Maslowski and Wadham without including any of the caveats or details (OK, Wadhams doesn't put in many of those) as if this magically 'disproves' AGW.<br /><br />What they haven't bothered to realize is that whether Arctic summer sea ice first melts away in 2016 or 2036, it will be the first time in several millennia that that has happened, and this over a period of slightly declining Northern Hemisphere summer insolation.Magmanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2313427464944392482.post-45541346703169287082016-08-27T14:31:07.229+10:002016-08-27T14:31:07.229+10:00Magma - I've been casually following arctic se...Magma - I've been casually following arctic sea ice for a couple of decades and intently following it for 5 or 6 years. I was one of many downloading PIOMAS historical volume data and historical sea ice extent data and trying to tease out something new - patterns, trends, predictions, whatever.<br /><br />But about 3 years ago I realized the sea ice is going to disappear. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but gone it will be. The year it actually happens will catch many by surprise - but I see it now just as a matter of weather. Meanwhile the overall trend makes each year more likely to be *the* year.<br /><br />Given the overall state of the ice this year - with little or no cohesive pack ice essentially left - I will be very surprised if volume minimum doesn't come in lower than 2012. If it does, then Maslowski's prediction of 'virtually ice free' by 2016 +/- 3 years will also likely be true, since 2012 barely failed his decade old criteria (an 80% reduction in summer volume from pre-2000 baseline).<br /><br />These last few weeks before the sun finally sets in the arctic still look to be interesting and possibly full of surprises. Like you, I still think 2012 is within reach - which would really be rather amazing considering that 95% of those following sea ice on a regular basis would have laughed hysterically at the idea just a couple of weeks ago. It's still a longshot, but with the right compacting winds I think we could still see extent plummet.Kevin O'Neillhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15751040367339659805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2313427464944392482.post-1687861581549362122016-08-27T05:10:49.388+10:002016-08-27T05:10:49.388+10:00I have noticed, and I am no maths geek - in fact w...I have noticed, and I am no maths geek - in fact we aware of my own DK in that area<br /><br />That deniers struggle with the twin concepts of "global" and "average"Tadaaahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07736188830660481871noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2313427464944392482.post-1953901523293268792016-08-27T00:41:37.363+10:002016-08-27T00:41:37.363+10:00Bernard, in my case it's from my natural Nordi...Bernard, in my case it's from my natural Nordic tendencies to understatement. I could also note that the paper is not entirely without virtue. Or that, upon consideration, it does have some measure of merit.D.C.Pettersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05078422582348328238noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2313427464944392482.post-70751023887959203002016-08-27T00:33:22.721+10:002016-08-27T00:33:22.721+10:00In the end, it's all just D-K writ large.
Abs...<i>In the end, it's all just D-K writ large.</i><br /><br />Absolutely.<br /><br />I think the magnitude of numbers create problems for deniers as well, a specific kind of innumeracy. <br /><br />During their currently-dead "pause" meme, they went on about how there'd been "no global warming" in one specific data set for <i>someteen years!!!</i> as if that was a big number. Pretend, for a moment, that the "pause" existed. Compared to the many thousands of years previous, in which CO2 levels and global temperatures didn't approach the level of the last someteen years, the only salient point is that <i>the world is lots hotter now</i>. The length of the faux pause was a fraction of an eyeblink.<br /><br />For deniers who aren't yet out of their own teens, perhaps one can understand why the fauxpause seemed to be a long time. For anyone else, it is either intentional blindness or innumerate blunder.<br /><br />This number problem exists in other areas, as when deniers can't understand why the contiguous United States (or even the city where I live) shouldn't be taken as a proxy for the planet ("It is colder in Podunkville this year than last year! What do you mean, the Earth is warming??"). The difference in scale from a locale to a planet seems beyond their comprehension.<br />D.C.Pettersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05078422582348328238noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2313427464944392482.post-31546820464532696172016-08-26T23:54:37.539+10:002016-08-26T23:54:37.539+10:00I follow and (sparsely) comment on Neven's Arc...I follow and (sparsely) comment on Neven's Arctic sea ice site. It's interesting with many knowledgeable participants, but there may be a little too much of the "racing to a new record?" and focus on the day to day minutia on the part of some of the more enthusiastic commenters.<br /><br />This year is very hard to call. Warm peripheral water, record low winter ice extent, extensive breakup of even high latitude ice, failed satellites and data centers, and now long-lived storms that are making it difficult to obtain visual confirmation of what strong winds are doing to mix the thermocline under the broken-up ice make this season's forecast a challenge. For the benefit of any readers who don't already know, the Arctic differs from most other oceans in that because of annual ice freezing/melting cycles it has an extensive area of colder, less saline water stably perched on warmer, more saline water. If these are mixed by strong winds acting on a partly ice-free surface then the effect on late summer ice could be significant.<br /><br />There is a small possibility that this will push 2016 below 2012 for the lowest extent and area on record, and even a very small chance that one of Peter Wadham's predictions (open water at the North Pole this year) will be correct, even if largely fortuitously.Magmanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2313427464944392482.post-6758075025129063522016-08-26T20:39:23.734+10:002016-08-26T20:39:23.734+10:00ah, thank you Metzo for suddenly clarifying someth...ah, thank you Metzo for suddenly clarifying something for me re the importance of anomalies over a baseline period<br /><br />yes its obvious once it is pointed out - and another reason why the deniers like the satellite datasets<br /><br />Tadaaahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07736188830660481871noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2313427464944392482.post-68408358321389675382016-08-26T15:03:06.093+10:002016-08-26T15:03:06.093+10:00"Topical", "significant"... We..."Topical", "significant"... We're both being very terse with our observations of the import of this paper, DC!Bernard J.https://www.blogger.com/profile/16299073166371273808noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2313427464944392482.post-48053077067668340222016-08-26T10:09:45.969+10:002016-08-26T10:09:45.969+10:00Actually D.C., I just wasted a whole lot of verbia...Actually D.C., I just wasted a whole lot of verbiage there restating essentially what you just said: they don't understand trends :-)metzomagichttp://metzomagic.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2313427464944392482.post-69447296760512376422016-08-26T10:05:57.960+10:002016-08-26T10:05:57.960+10:00Part if it may be their inability to understand th...<i>Part if it may be their inability to understand the concept of "trends"...</i><br /><br />Yep. And they also don't understand anomalies. The reason the deniers are so fond of the satellite data sets is that, since the baseline period is more recent than that of the thermometer-based data sets, the anomalies are naturally smaller. The *trends* are essentially the same once you normalise the datasets, but they just don't get that. The smaller anomalies are all they see.<br /><br />In the end, it's all just D-K writ large.metzomagichttp://metzomagic.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2313427464944392482.post-53071397242508575992016-08-25T22:43:25.361+10:002016-08-25T22:43:25.361+10:00Bernard, I saw that too. Significant stuff.Bernard, I saw that too. Significant stuff.D.C.Pettersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05078422582348328238noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2313427464944392482.post-8058520090823957502016-08-25T22:42:07.515+10:002016-08-25T22:42:07.515+10:00Deniers seem to think that if we aren't at the...Deniers seem to think that if we aren't at the record lowest / hottest, then that means there's nothing to worry about. Somehow, the <i><b>second lowest Arctic sea ice extent ever</b></i> is less scary; "2015 wasn't as hot as 1998 in the UAH record" somehow means 2015 wasn't particularly hot.<br /><br />Part if it may be their inability to understand the concept of "trends", which is part of a larger difficulty with "context". When we're talking about a history of hundreds of thousands of years, having the top few dozen records happen within the last handful of decades is pretty significant. There's been a change.<br />D.C.Pettersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05078422582348328238noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2313427464944392482.post-86473417609879678212016-08-25T11:11:42.028+10:002016-08-25T11:11:42.028+10:00Off topic, but topical.
At current levels of reso...Off topic, but topical.<br /><br />At current levels of resolution, the ability to detect the anthropogenic signature on fossil carbon-forced climate change has been pinned as starting around the 1830s:<br /><br /><a href="http://theconversation.com/the-industrial-revolution-kick-started-global-warming-much-earlier-than-we-realised-64301" rel="nofollow">http://theconversation.com/the-industrial-revolution-kick-started-global-warming-much-earlier-than-we-realised-64301</a><br /><br />The paper itself:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v536/n7617/full/nature19082.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v536/n7617/full/nature19082.html </a><br /><br />It’s worth noting that the human influence on climate starts earlier than this, of course, through other agencies including forest destruction and ruminant domestication. For a background on this Bill Ruddiman’s <i>Plows, Plagues and Petroleum</i>, oft recommended by John Mashey, is definitely worth a look.<br />Bernard J.https://www.blogger.com/profile/16299073166371273808noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2313427464944392482.post-88601903628710901742016-08-25T01:45:43.416+10:002016-08-25T01:45:43.416+10:00Anthony also is probably unaware that NSIDC use a ...Anthony also is probably unaware that NSIDC use a 5-day trailing mean. They average the extent of a given day with those from the previous four days to produce a 5-day average. "So the value plotted for a day is the average of that day and the four previous days." http://nsidc.org/data/docs/noaa/g02135_seaice_index/#daily_graphs_format<br /><br />As of this moment the storm appears to be continuing in the Arctic. The full impact on Arctic sea ice extent won't be apparent in the NSIDC data until several days after the storm subsides.<br /><br />Anthony still has the advantage though, in that if extent does reach record low minimum levels, or even second lowest on record, he simply won't mention it again.DavidRnoreply@blogger.com