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

Paul Rumelhart godshatter at yahoo.com
Wed Jun 30 22:45:39 PDT 2010


You'll have to forgive me, I didn't have the time to reply to everything 
in your post.  So I replied to a portion of it that interested me.  But, 
since you've called me out for my opinion on Von Walden's quote, I feel 
obliged to give it.

Here's the quote, for reference:

“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.”

Well, I agree with him for the most part.  There really is no debate 
that we are "perturbing" our atmosphere.  We've changed the gas ratios 
by a few parts per million.  As for global warming, I would protest the 
words "is beginning to occur".  From what I've seen, it appears that 
global warming has been going on for a long time, starting recently with 
a recovery from the Little Ice Age.  So, basically, we're having an 
impact on the atmosphere and global warming is occurring, at least on 
larger time scales.  The real question is, how closely are those two 
statements related?  That's probably where we differ the most in our 
opinions.

Also, as a side note, how closely have we watched the Arctic in the 
past?  Is it possible that the arctic has been changing quickly much of 
the time, but we just weren't watching it that closely?  We have better 
technology now, and we have reason to watch it more closely than ever. 

My tired brain suggests to me that changes in arctic sea ice thickness 
and extent are more dramatically tied to the vagaries of the global air 
currents and global ocean currents than they are to a thickening of the 
CO2 blanket.  Take this last winter as an example.  The air currents 
changed far more greatly than I ever remember (though I doubt I paid as 
much attention years ago) and caused some anomalous weather patterns.  
We got off easy, much of the rest of the country got hammered with 
snowfall.  Do we have a good handle on what caused such a shift in the 
jet stream and the other currents?  Could we predict such a thing 
again?  Do those geniuses working for MIT even have such things 
programmed into their climate models?  It's my understanding that those 
models don't handle wind, clouds, and precipitation well, though I 
haven't gone through their code to try to verify that.

Anyway, as usual, I'm running late and need to cut this short.  Hope the 
above helped.

Paul


Ted Moffett wrote:
> Please address the specifics of my post.  I have no clue why you 
> ignore my specific comment on the "climate change skeptics 
> confirmation bias filtered website" I referenced.  I implied that the 
> following website was describing the "recovery" in Arctic sea ice 
> through a bias confirmation filter.  This statement from this website 
> is an expression of what I meant:
>  
> http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/29/another-arctic-sea-ice-milestone/
>  
> "...the indications are that we’ll have another summer extent that is 
> higher than the previous year, for the third year in a row."
>  
> Note that this statement was posted on April 29, 2010.  I doubt that 
> any competent climate scientist would issue such a statement at that 
> time of the year, knowing full well that many different variables 
> between April 29 and the final September maximum low Arctic sea ice 
> extent, could alter the outcome, so that the 2010 maximum low Arctic 
> sea ice extent might be either higher or lower than the previous 
> year.  The statement under discussion from this anthropogenic climate 
> warming skeptic web site amounts to nothing more than wishful 
> thinking, inspired by the well known bias of this website.
>  
> I will not hesitate to point out a confirmation bias filter when it is 
> clear someone is apparently under the spell of one. 
>  
> You do not address any of the other content in my post, such as U of I 
> climate scientist Von Walden's statement on the Arctic, or the MIT 
> Integrated Global System Model climate predictions. 
>  
> I am requesting you specifically address the quote from U of I climate 
> scientist Von Walden on the Arctic.  Either disagree or agree with his 
> statement.  It is worded so strongly that a clear agreement or 
> disagreement is not such a difficult request. 
>  
> Also, the scientists at MIT are geniuses, and I'm certain they are 
> aware of Chaos Theory and how it can apply to climate science.
> I suggest you contact the authors of the MIT study referenced and 
> clarify to them the reasons why they are exaggerating (if this is your 
> view) the probability of the temperature predictions in their study. I 
> would be happy to discover the MIT scientists are wrong.  Maybe you 
> could publish a paper refuting their work?  A peer reviewed paper, of 
> course.
> ------------------------------------------
> Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
>  
> On Mon, Jun 28, 2010 at 7:27 AM, Paul Rumelhart <godshatter at yahoo.com 
> <mailto:godshatter at yahoo.com>> wrote:
>
>
>     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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