[Vision2020] National Snow Ice Data Center: Arctic Sea Ice Decline During June Continues Below Record 2007 Low Extent

[Paul Rumelhart]

I'd suggest hesitating before describing some climate change skeptics as 
having confirmation bias filters.

Take a look at the daily sea ice extent page at the joint International 
Arctic Research Center and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) page:

http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm

Follow the light green line (2006).  If it was after 2007, we would have 
been saying at this point in the cycle that it was way below the 2007 
sea ice extent numbers and that anybody who thought that it wasn't going 
to break the 2007 record low had severe confirmation bias filters on.  
Take a look at the Sep-Oct time frame, though.  The data was much higher 
than in 2007.

Will 2010 (the red line) follow 2006 and be higher than the 2007 
numbers?  Or will it follow 2007 and be a new record low?  Or will it do 
something different?  I have no idea, and I doubt that many of our 
scientists could predict that with much certainty.  It's akin to 
predicting the weather as opposed to predicting climate.  Who knows what 
any given year will be like?  I'll be interested to see what happens in 
late July where the 2007 line had crossed the 2006 one.  That should 
give a better indication of what's going to happen in the September to 
October time frame.

As for "confirmation bias filters", I would be careful lest you find 
them on your own nose.  Myself and (I presume) many other skeptics are 
of the opinion that we simply don't know as much about the climate as 
climate scientists would like us to believe.  Thus, confirming our bias 
is easy.  All it takes is something surprising happening somewhere in 
the world with respect to climate.  Surprising things happen all the 
time in a system that the Chaos Theory was originally inspired from.  
That doesn't mean that it should be taken as confirmation that anthropic 
global warming is definitely wrong, just that there is more room for 
debate than climate scientists and policy makers would like us to believe.

On the other hand, AGW promoters tend to jump on graphs like the one at 
the NSIDC website and laugh at anyone that thinks the situation could 
change from what climate scientists predict.

Paul

Ted Moffett wrote:
> During June 2010, Arctic sea ice decline has continued at a pace below 
> the record low 2007 year (  
> http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/ , http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_stddev_timeseries.png 
> ). 
>  
> The data on Arctic sea ice extent is updated daily on the NSIDC 
> website, with a one day lag.  Of course, this trend could change so 
> that 2010 does not exceed the 2007 record low Arctic sea ice extent.  
> Note this is not a discussion of ice volume, or thickness.
>  
> Arctic sea ice extent is now on June 27 more below the record 2007 
> rate of decline than it was May 31, 2010.  So much for the Arctic sea 
> ice extent "recovery" promoted by some climate change skeptics 
> confirmation bias filtered websites ( 
> http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/29/another-arctic-sea-ice-milestone/ ) 
> as evidence to question the seriousness of anthropogenic climate 
> warming.  As U of I climate scientist Von Walden, who does field work 
> in the Arctic and Antarctic, as the following September 2009 
> Spokesman Review article described, phrased it:
>  
> http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2009/sep/29/ui-professor-joins-ice-melt-research/
>
> “Things are changing very quickly in the Arctic right now,” Walden 
> said. “There’s really no debate that we’re perturbing our atmosphere 
> and global warming is beginning to occur.”
>
> ---------------------------------------
> Von Walden's certainty, given how this quote is worded, regarding 
> human impacts on warming Earth's climate, no doubt raises the ire of 
> some anthropogenic warming skeptics.  I think a more temperate 
> assessment, as the scientifically conservative IPCC has indicated, is 
> that the science indicates over 90 percent odds that human impacts are 
> the primary drivers of the rapid and profound climate warming 
> occurring, more than probable enough given the magnitude of probable 
> impacts (ocean coastal flooding alone would be a massive global 
> disaster), to justify quick and significant action to reduce CO2 
> emissions, and other impacts.
>  
> However, the MIT Integrated Global System Model indicated in 2009 that 
> with a "No-Policy Case" scenario regarding human impacts on climate, 
> the odds of global average temperatures increasing less than 3 degree 
> Celsius by 2100, are less than 1 percent.  In other words, the odds of 
> extreme climate change (most climate scientists would agree that a 3 
> degree Celsius or higher increase in global average temperatures will 
> result in extreme climate change) by 2100 with business as usual human 
> activity, is over 99 percent.  MIT's Global System Model predictions 
> from 2003 are lower than the 2009 predictions, and the 2009 
> predictions are higher than IPCC predictions.  As MIT has improved the 
> model, it is indicating climate change of greater magnitude than 
> previously.  To quote from the published article abstract on the MIT 
> Integrated System Model 2009 (Journal of Climate 2009; 22: 5175-5204):
>  
> "The new projections are considerably warmer than the 2003
> projections; for example, the median surface warming in 2091–2100 is 5.1°C
> compared to 2.4°C in the earlier study."
> -----------------------------
> This conforms with the more recent findings during the past decade of 
> many climate scientists, that climate change is progressing faster 
> than previously predicted.  The rate of Arctic sea ice decline is one 
> major indicator that fits this faster trend  ( 
> http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/future/sea_ice.html 
> <http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/future/sea_ice.html> ).
>  
> I recall NASA Climate scientist James Hansen stating in an interview, 
> when pressed about the certainty of his general climate predictions, 
> that they are over 99 percent certain, within a given range of 
> possible temperature outcomes:
>  
> Info at websites below on the MIT Integrated Global System Model 
> probabilities for various global temperature increases by 2100
>  
> http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/2010-May/070133.html
>  
> http://globalchange.mit.edu/resources/gamble/no-policy.html
>  
> http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2009JCLI2863.1
>  
> ------------------------------------------
> Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
>  
>  
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