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Stronger Winds Explain Puzzling Growth of Sea Ice In Antarctica
vinces99 writes "As NOAA announces a new record for the extent of sea ice in Antarctica, a new modeling study to be published in the Journal of Climate shows that stronger polar winds lead to an increase in Antarctic sea ice, even when Earth's overall climate is getting warmer. The study (abstract) by Jinlun Zhang, a University of Washington oceanographer, shows that stronger westerly winds swirling around the South Pole can explain 80 percent of the increase in Antarctic sea ice volume during the past three decades. The polar vortex that swirls around the South Pole is not just stronger than it was when satellite records began in the 1970s, it also shoves the sea ice together to cause ridging. Stronger winds also drive ice faster, which leads to still more deformation and ridging. This creates thicker, longer-lasting ice, while exposing surrounding water and thin ice to the blistering cold winds that cause more ice growth. A computer simulation that includes detailed interactions between wind and sea shows that thick ice — more than 6 feet deep — increased by about 1 percent per year from 1979 to 2010, while the amount of thin ice stayed fairly constant. The end result is a thicker, slightly larger ice pack that lasts longer into the summer."
It was predicted through regression to the mean.
Now ignorant people are cherry picking it as if a predicted single even undermine all other data.
For fuck sake stop this ignorant nonsense.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
So it's still code as buggery down there?
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Smells like "Snowball Earth" scenario.
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
I really did believe in global warming, but now even I am beginning to wonder about the way every event that seems to discount climate change predictions is attributed to an outlying event, while everything that seems to prove climate change is attributed to human caused global warming...
No it's real my friend. You just need to believe.
Now put these flowers in your hair and come dance with us.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
Look up the difference between "weather" and "climate."
The world is stranger than we can image.
is his inability to imagine he cannot explain every single thing. No matter where you mark time in history, you may rest assured that thinking men were fairly smug regarding the technology and science of their day.... there will hopefully always be much we have yet to comprehend.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
You never will accept because what you are saying is until they can predict the weather a year out you will not trust climate models.
Look up the meaning of average and standard deviation.
So wait, all this time I thought Global Warming and the melting of the arctic ice caps was due to CO2. But now I know, it's just the fact the northern hemisphere hasn't been very windy.
I mean if wind is responsible for 80% of the growth in the anarctic, then the arctic decline must be due to wind. If not, we can fix it by building huge fans in Alaska. Or just send all of the Tim Tebow and Miley Cyrus fans up that way.
All that damage control.
I don't understand why all the libs are butthurt, though. If you want an excuse to shut down industry, then you are looking in the wrong place. Ocean acidification is definitely real, and isn't disproved by a simple analysis of the IR and Raman spectra of CO2.
Seriously. Ocean acidification is far more dangerous than AGW could ever have been. Fisheries are already in a state close to collapse. Additional pressure from acidification could push them over the line and into extinction. That would be monumentally bad, on par with, say, the extinction of rice.
The Northern summer sea ice is still in sharp decline. This article about the southern ice. At least the pig fuckers who study this can read.
I'd settle for predicting the weather 5 days out. I am lucky if they can get it right two days out.
You are not winning your argument here.
Look up the meaning of variation. Prediction. Accuracy.
Both the weather and climate are vary and fluctuate greatly. Both are unpredictable. Both have a habit of showing mankind's predictions to always be wrong.
Weather: the state of the atmosphere where you are today.
Climate: change over time. Length of time? Whatever's convenient to your argument.
There's nothing puzzling about it.
I think the Coward was referring to this here, which curiously is about the northern ice.
This is what will happen when the Arctic ice recedes too far. It will be surrounded in water, the winds will circle it again, just like it does in Antarctica, and the ice will come back.
Antarctica was a lush rain forest before it split from Australia.
And I thought they moved the goal posts too much in AI research, sheesh.
Why can't you comprehend that it just doesn't matter. Laws related to reducing global warming are good for the environment so it does not matter a damn what the data says. It is morally and ethically right to support global warming with or without the data. You're just trying to be a jerk and hurtful by arguing the position. It's like CONservatives arguing against food stamps. It doesn't matter that it is morally wrong to take money at gun point to give to another group because the other group includes children. As long as we are feeding children, they have no right to keep more than they need.
I work in a government remote-sensing role, where we generate a lot of derived data (backed up by ground truth data we collect in the real world to compare against).
We've got a bit of an unspoken law about models: they're shit.
No matter how hard you try, when you attempt to model/simulate large-scale natural phenomena - where you have so many different systems affecting one another, and so much to keep track of - you end up with a realistic workload of dozens of man years of scientific development just to come up with the mathematical model (ignoring the software side to actually simulate it on a computer).
The end result of this is: People simplify, and then simplify again - to take what should take the better part of a couple years, and do it in 6 months to get reviewed and presented at their next conference of choice; ultimately coming up with useless results - which on the surface if they're lucky may look valid, but just end up proving to be horribly incorrect in a different spatial or temporal domain (eg: on another continent, or in your case - a year later...)
There's are of course a few exceptions to this rule (typically around radiative transfer models, and flood plain modeling - and a few other places where you're either working at such a low level and scale or an incredibly well studied field (eg: radiation/light physics has centuries of scientific backing)).
Needless to say though, 'climate change' is a worst case scenario here - large scale, many complicated systems, and in aggregate everything needed to model this accurately doesn't have the solid scientific understanding.
...and I'll believe your bullshit ranting when you learn some geography.
There's nothing insightful about the AC's comment. Instead it just demonstrates a very shallow understanding of of the subject that shows the AC has no idea what they are talking about.
While last year was a new record low for Arctic sea ice very few people in the cryology field thought it "would be gone in a few years with cataclysmic results". It's true though that late summer Arctic sea ice could be gone sometime in the 2020's and it's impossible to rule out cataclysmic results from that at this time. This summer the Arctic sea ice is no where near a record high but has merely moved back to the general declining path it's been on after last year's exceptional melt.
Climate scientists are trying to predict climate, not weather. The World Meteorological Organization's definition of climate is:
Climate in a narrow sense is usually defined as the "average weather," or more rigorously, as the statistical description in terms of the mean and variability of relevant quantities over a period of time ranging from months to thousands or millions of years. The classical period is 30 years, as defined by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). These quantities are most often surface variables such as temperature, precipitation, and wind. Climate in a wider sense is the state, including a statistical description, of the climate system.
To expect them to predict in detail the weather next year or even in 10 years is expecting too much. What they're predicting is what the average weather will be over a 30 year period given a specific input scenario. If you don't understand that in the first place you have no business commenting on the subject.
I predict humans will observe the earth warming, then cooling, then warming, etc.. in a cycle that repeats itself over and over again with varying frequencies and amplitudes until such time humans become extinct and are replaced by a more evolved species that lacks the pretense of understanding a system as complex as the earth's macro climate.
I seem to recall Superman having the ability to create ice by blowing a strong wind. Yep, must be Superman.
It looks rather like the "global-warming-is-man-made-sound-the-alarms" people have been cherry picking
No, this is not cherry-picking. There's not question that the earth is warming due to the enhanced greenhouse effect. The oceans are expanding. The surface temperatures are increasing.
This paper looks at the response in the Antarctic Sea Ice, and has found a possible improvement to its understanding.
No cherry picking involved.
Then when the temperatures did not support their theories, it was "well global warming causes extreme weather!".
It was always suspected that global warming would increase extreme weather events because hurricane intensity is highly related to sea surface temperature when they form, and more energy in the atmosphere gives more evaporation so heavier rainfall.
But the theories are thermodynamics, fluid mechanics and optics. They are not challenged if warming is only 0.1C per decade for a decade instead of the long term trend of 0.16C per decade.
When THAT got disproven, it was "look-look-look, all the ice is melting!" Now that THAT part of the scam is getting clobbered by the earth itself, what will the GW people predict next?
The northern sea ice is in steep decline. The Antarctic Ice Sheet and Greenland Ice Sheet are in accelerating decline.
How on god's green earth do you manage to get to "THAT part of the scam is getting clobbered by the earth itself" for there?
Carbon dioxide is NOT a pollutant. It is stupid to treat it that way.
You've not heard of the greenhouse effect then?
actually. no. Please find 1 - just one - study that claimed that the polar ice was going to increase. What you will find is that study after study explains why what has already happened does not match what was predicted. Plain and simple - find the "om the good news side" part of the study. The weather is better in some plain in Chile. Some small part of Africa gets better... But you won't find it. All worse everywhere. All the time. Oh - those record hurricanes, both in frequency and size... well, actually now the models predict decreased hurricanes .....
got my tinfoil hat at the ready LOL
The reason for this mess is that some climatologists fail to distinguish between their personal beliefs or gut feeling and what the scientific method really allows them to state with precision. They regularly claim that their observations "prove" their preferred interpretation despite the absence of any validly predictive theories in this area yet. All we have today are piecemeal components for some future theory.
The GCMs of climatology are helpful and fun, but they're just extremely rough approximations and full of known kludges (generously called 'shortcuts') to make the extraordinarily complex natural systems computable this side of eternity. The GCMs are certainly not accurate physical simulations of Earth's systems. The unknowns in our models are utterly vast.
It'll require many hundreds of years of further research before we have a deep understanding of how the biosphere and many circulatory systems operate and interact, not to mention the similarly complex effects introduced by humans. We're barely on the first rung of the ladder at the moment.
Right now climatologists are just handwaving, and can't be expected to do more than just handwave. Their observed data is very valuable as input, but any interpretations they might make are totally unsafe in a scientific sense, because the necessary foundation of a predictive Theory of Climatology that combines all the parts of the puzzle in a valid scientific way just doesn't exist yet.
Making conclusions in advance of predictive theory is not how the scientific method works. The honest scientists in the field know that, and they don't pretend otherwise.
Apparently I'm the only one that noticed this article is about Antarctica and not the Arctic. Different side of the globe. The predictions for what will happen in the Arctic do not apply to Antarctica...
Any time "experts" flawlessly explain occurances after the fact, even when it contradicts their predictions, it makes me believe they have no idea what they are talking about
Correcting your theories after they've been proven incomplete or incorrect is part of the scientific process. The alternative, declaring reality wrong if it disagrees with you, would be religion.
I guess this is why people seem to listen to religious experts more often than scientific experts.
To all the idiots who modded this up: just one key mistake from the last few weeks is that there are no record ice caps, just that the growth from summer minimum has been going at an unusually high pace. We're still way below average ice coverage and volume.
And this is how you lie to ignorant people and make them believe whatever you want: tell them something that is close enough to the truth that they sort of remember something like it and that tells them they are going to be alright. They won't catch the error, happily repeat it to everyone, and then wonder why WW2 broke out.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
until such time humans become extinct and are replaced by a more evolved species that lacks the pretense of understanding a system as complex as the earth's macro climate.
Why wait?
I already understand earth's macro climate... it's very simple: When God cranks up the thermostat, the temperature increases. When God thinks it's too hot, he lowers the thermostat, and the temperature decreases. If he feels particularly sneaky one day; he lowers it a little more than usual, thus creating an ice age.
Nope, it isn't. In fact this summer sea ice extend in the arctic was much higher (60%) than 2012. Do you call that decline?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2415191/Global-cooling-Arctic-ice-caps-grows-60-global-warming-predictions.html
Who even read anything from these 'climate experts' clowns anymore.
Everyone knows by now these 'experts' either have no idea wtf they're on about, or is lying to please the TPTB who approved their funding, or both.
Laws related to reducing global warming are good for the environment so it does not matter a damn what the data says.
Evey now and then these people say what they really think and show their true intentions. The whole AGW thing is merely a cover for their agenda.
Do it because "it's for the children".
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
They aren't correcting anything. They are making up new ones: A causes B. OK, except when it doesn't because C is happening...maybe.
So what is the p-value of the simulation compared to observational measurements? [Very likely 0.5 i.e. a 50 50 chance that the 'result' is a fluke.]
Ah. Don't know (!) ... and can't figure it out! ... just Not smart enough!
Just another 'near-miss' that misses the entire target ... and full fail.
These zombie paper things come along at this time of the year at a Dime A Dozen per day.
Truth Quark was just examining one of the arguments between inaction and action in a logical way. Put explicitly, climate change is a sufficient condition for reducing emissions, but not a necessary one. If an Oracle appeared and told you climate change was definitely not happening, would you stop trying to reduce pollution?
Slashdot likes car analogies, so here's one: When your mechanic says he can't find a problem, it doesn't necessarily mean your car is fine.
Plan My Week for iPhone
With earthquakes and volcanic activity on a steep rise,
With cometary activity increasing,
With the sun acting really oddly,
We know something is going on, and sure, the climate is also acting up, but with all those other factors included in our consideration, we can probably strike automotive exhaust of the list of probable culprits.
So what is going on, really then?
Here comes the Wave.
So what you are saying is they change the models to fit what happens? But that is science! You've stumbled onto the scientific method.
But it must be declining. If the temperature is like 20 degrees hotter than it was a decade ago the ice has to melt. Doesn't it? Oh, now I'm so confused.
The data shows that after a spike in Earth's surface temperature two decades ago the temperature has stopped rising for 16 years. Even the British Meteorological Office has finally been forced to concede that the warming predicted from climate models has not occurred. Rather than confess that Global Warming is and always was based on poor science, the British Met Office now says warming has "paused" (as if they knew the future, which they clearly don't, since they've been wrong so far).
Then we have climate 'scientists' like James Hansen and Michael Mann who have been fraudulently manipulating NOAO and NASA data that didn't fit their climate warming alarmist hypothesis.
Yes, I know this information will be a big surprise for many of you. Before you call me a "loon" (or the favorite word of the anti-scientific climate alarmists, a "denier") or mod me down, I urge you to consider the science and analysis displayed here (mixed in with other articles): http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/
As an example, check out some of these graphs:
Arctic Sea Ice up 67% this year:
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/09/14/in-praise-of-nasa/ [This graph is excellent, easy to see how the reported changes reported at the minimum exaggerate the change, good if you intend to freak people out]
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/cgi-bin/seaice-monitor.cgi?lang=e
Fraudulent scientist James Hansen's predictions vs observation:
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/09/16/hansen-forecast-0-6oc-warming-from-1997-to-2013/
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/09/15/arctic-gains-seven-hundred-million-hockey-rinks-of-ice-since-last-year/
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/09/14/the-specious-long-term-trend/
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/09/14/earth-gains-a-record-amount-of-sea-ice-in-2013/
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/09/12/monthly-ncdc-us-fraud-update/ [examples of data tampered with by climate scientists]
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/09/12/tennessee-summers-have-cooled-dramatically-since-the-1920s/
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/09/10/arctic-ice-experts-say-the-arctic-is-past-the-point-of-no-return/
If anyone has any questions about the graphs, or data that contradicts them then I'll be interested to hear it. I have an open mind - I'm just following the Scientific Method and going where the data leads. I hope you do too :)
The simplest explanation for the observed ice cap data, Antarctic ice growth, lack of any hurricanes in the US this August, drop in wildfires in the Continental US, many US States recording below average winter temperatures, etc etc is simply that the predicted "Global Warming" has not continued. In fact, there appears to be a very slight cooling (especially in the Southern Hemisphere). The weather has simply been going up and down as it always does on a year-to-year basis, with no real trend over the hundred year timescale.
Why does it matter? because the current meme of "Global Warming" is out of dat
We have to pass it to find out what's in it.
What has the study of rocks got to do with it?
I just have a hard time with people who piss on my leg and tell me it's raining.
Very Scientific! Brilliant!
If an Oracle appeared and told you climate change was definitely not happening, would you stop trying to reduce pollution?
Ooh, I like this question and how it is phrased. Of course I would continue to advocate reducing pollution; however, CO2 wouldn't be defined as a pollutant as a corollary to the Oracle's statement.
No reason not to use fossil fuels then, unless scientists discover that the underground reservoirs of petroleum are reducing the Earth's density and are the only thing keeping our planet floating in space. Then I would advocate reducing consumption to fight Global Sinking.
it is funny to see you criticize the "species" for arrogance when you yourself implicitly claim to know more than the smartest researchers it has, and do so without a shred of evidence in your support.
Flamebait??!!
When did slashdot become a stronghold of science-denialist crackpots?
There are about ZERO scientific organizations: (as of 2007, when the American Association of Petroleum Geologists released a revised statement, no scientific body of national or international standing rejected the findings of human-induced effects on climate change), and about ZERO scholarly papers (Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position ) that support your denialist bullshit.
The OP is a perfectly scientific discussion of a finding about the changes in Antarctic Sea Ice. How the hell did the average IQ in here drop so far that this became a George-C-Marshall deniomatic thread.
The problem is that it's tough to decide which outcome is preferable -- avoiding the next ice age, or making it inevitable. As the southern ice sheets expand, more solar radiation is reflected back out, and when a tipping point is reached the ice age takes full hold until it basically exhausts itself of the ability to increase further and bounces back the other way. Which is more survivable? My money is on warmer.
The point is that if your theory does not have predictive power then perhaps it is not such a good theory. Given a data set you can always do a backwards analysis that comes up with correlations for what happened. That isn't science.
How about a slightly different one.
If an Oracle popped up and said that increases in atmospheric carbon levels and reduction in atmospheric oxygen levels would not change the global climate one bit.
Would you continue felling trees and burning fossil fuels until the ratio of oxygen to carbon dioxide would kill a human being.
No, you've mistaken science with tossers faffing about with Math and Computers, two items they have scant if any qualification that might indicate that they have a clue.
About as much as Geology.
What is closer than the study of rocks; is the study of where things are.
Everything in access is pollution and if an Oracle appeared and stated that climate change would not happen no matter the amount of CO2 we added to the atmosphere, the Oracle should be treated like if she stated gravity didn't exist. Anyone can do the experiment that shows CO2 is a greenhouse gas and we have the example of Venus. All the Oracle could state was that we've put negligible CO2 into the system so far.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
No one trusts scientists anymore... The climate change people jumped the gun and are going to make us all look bad.
This summer the Arctic sea ice is no where near a record high but has merely moved back to the general declining path it's been on after last year's exceptional melt.
Unfortunately, Earth is on that "general declining path" since the planet formed from frozen gases and other debris a few billion years ago. But I guess if we take our last money away from our children and give it to some salesmen, we can fix this problem in less than a century or two! Where do I sign up?
The villager: Tell me, the learned Haji Nasruddin, is it true that you agreed to teach Emir's donkey to speak in ten years, and took a sack of gold for that?
Haji: Yes, this is true.
The villager: But, Haji, this is surely impossible!
Haji: It is impossible indeed. But I gather that in ten years either the donkey dies, or Emir dies, or, Allah forbid, I die.
And how soon did the climate change news stories start after the study of climatology began? (less than 30 years)
Have you actually sat down and talked with an actual scientist in the field?
Instead of only reading laymans interpretations of what they say?
You might be surprised that they can actually answer all of the dumb questions.
Deniers usually attack a simplified view made to explain extremely complex things to layman and then find some holes in the simplificiation and then deny everything based on it.
They aren't correcting anything. They are making up new ones: A causes B. OK, except when it doesn't because C is happening...maybe.
This works out just fine when C leads to predictions and can be tested.
I hate Microsoft as much as the next geek, but blaming global cooling on Oracle and MS Access is going a bit too far don't you think?
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Any time "experts" flawlessly explain occurances after the fact, even when it contradicts their predictions, it makes me believe they have no idea what they are talking about.
So let me get this straight: In you mind, the offering of a science based explanation for some phenomena is reason to distrust science, because the phenomena was observed before the explanation is offered? That the very explanatory power of science is the reason to distrust it?
I note that the industry funded denial PR campaign, in contrast, does not offer explanations for any phenomena, nor, when it's predictions are contradicted by observation, does it seek to explain this discrepancy, or retract it's statements: e.g:
"It's not getting warmer" contradicted by observation, discrepancy not explained and statements not retracted.
"It's the sun" contradicted by observation, discrepancy not explained and statements not retracted.
"It's cosmic rays/gravitational lensing" contradicted by observation, discrepancy not explained and statements not retracted.
"It's too complicated" contradicted by observation, discrepancy not explained and statements not retracted.
"It's natural but there's no way to explain it using science (i.e it's magic)" contradicted 150 years ago, discrepancy not explained and statements not retracted.
I'm guessing you would have us believe them on the basis that they have no explanatory power?
I will believe these pig fuckers when they can accurately predict what will happen next year. Otherwise, why would I believe what they say will happen 10 years from now.
Your error is that you assume that it matters what you believe.
... got to keep the 'man made global warming' - sorry - 'climate change' - myth alive...
www.climatedepot.com
www.wattsupwiththat.com
I will believe these pig fuckers when they can accurately predict what will happen next year. Otherwise, why would I believe what they say will happen 10 years from now. Computer models are only as accurate as the assumptions programmed into them.
And this got voted insightful?!
Let me give you an analogy. I am going to write a simple computer model that predicts how many sixes you'll get if you roll a die 1000 times. In fact, here's the source code (Python 2 compatible):
print 1000.0/6
By your argument, this is wrong because it can't tell me whether the next roll of the die will be a six.
...then the older wind patterns must have been tending to make the ice diminish.
Only of course we know that when the ice diminishes it's because of naughty human activity, while any occasion when ice increases is due to natural variability.
Can I have my Global Warming grant now?
I think this shows one big problem in climate science and in science in general: There are only certain things that get funding, and there is no incentive to research other things that are as important and interesting.
Climate science gets funding for research into things that are potentially dangerous. So they look for effects that make climate change worse. But they would never get much attention for a report on a mechanism that slows down the temperature rise, like growing antarctic ice that will increase reflection of sunlight. So we only see reports on effects that emphasize the temperature changes, but not on the ones that slow it down, even though these should exist in a comparable number.
...Computer models are only as accurate as the assumptions programmed into them. Sorry if this challenges the religious beliefs of the climate change worshippers....
You are a denier and should be banned from publishing any of your thoughts.
That is how climate change science is done...
Not only does your model fail to predict the next number, it is also wrong and fails to predict how many sixes you will get if you roll the dice 1000 times. I don't think it is reasonable to change the way the entire world lives their lives based on your model.
Your model predicts a fractional result, that will not happen.
It also fails to take into consideration that different sides of the dice have different weighs due to the dots. This may or may not be insignificant but given a sample size of 1000 I think that it might actually change the outcome. To verify if the model is good enough one has to test it with actual data.
When you claim "I really did believe in global warming" I really REALLY doubt you're telling the truth.
If the Antartic gains 5% sea ice extent and loses 8% land ice, then what's happening to total ice? What's happening when you report only on sea ice extent?
If one end gains 5% sea ice extent and the other end loses 80% sea ice extent, what's happening to total sea ice extent? What's happening when you report only the Antartic sea ice extent?
Please look in a dictionary because not only do you not understand science, you don't understand english.
Sea ice extent.
What does that say about temperatures?
Ice melts in the cold when the sun shines on it, but freezes when the sun does not shine, as in a polar winter WHICH THE ANTARTIC IS EXPERIENCING.
And what does sea ice extent when measured as "at least 15% of the area in a satellite image pixel is ice" means to total sea ice?
Well if you took fully compacted ice and broke it up and spread it around you could see a nearly seven-fold increase in sea ice extent.
So an increase in sea ice extent has around one seventh the predictive power of actual thermometer measurements in that area for predicting temperatures around the boundary of 0C.
So when we have thermometers saying "it's warming" and sea ice extent increasing, there's a minor query. If it's warming and the sea ice extent is decreasing (like it does in the minima in summer) then it's merely another small point proving the thermometer measurements.
Energy in globally over the majority of the holocene period for climatological timescales has been within a few ppm equal.
Currently, we're something like a hundred times that out of balance, up to maybe 0.1%.
That's the same imbalance as takes the sun evolving another few million years toward red giant stage produces.
YOUR definition of equilibrium would never EVER be attained, therefore making the word useless.
Either, then, the word is useless despite widespread and uncontroversial use, or your definition of it is worthless. Occam.
the various decadal cycles over 30 years removes most of the trend. Inter-annual variation is around 0.5C globally. You can measure that with school-level maths. If the trend predicted is +0.2C/decade then you need 30 years to make the trend greater than the noise. Again, high-school maths. That means that you cannot prove or refute a 0.2C trend with less than about 30 years data.
30 years.
WMO decided that decades ago.
Learn something before you spout off about it in ignorance and anger.
"We've got a bit of an unspoken law about models: they're shit."
Except you ARE speaking about it. So I REALLY do think you're lying.
Two other things
1) Just because YOUR model for something else "is shit" doesn't mean every model "is shit". The Newtonian model of gravitational attraction IS A MODEL. Just like a computer one. Indeed you can write a computer about it. They've done one ages ago: Lunar Lander. Kerbal Space Program is a newer one, with a computer model of gravity, just like NASA use to get their probes 40 AU away and hit a spot a micro arc second across. So *even if* you really do know your models are shit, your inability to write one makes no odds to anyone else's.
2) Models from 1981 have been within a whisker of being correct (Hansen). His model had a sensitivity of 3.4C per doubling and if it had been 3.2C per doubling, with the emissions that actually ensued and the reduction in solar output that had happened, the model run would have been spot on.
And that chemical smog just makes you feel comfy?
NO. Both will kill you.
So given that the coal reserves alone are enough to make the atmosphere 1000ppm CO2 and that indoors it will easily reach 1500ppm that is the level at which you will die within hours, the burning of coal is to be continued without abatement?
Moreover, you seem ENTIRELY fine with denier talking points that say "It's cooling" then say "The sun is making it hotter" and any of a hundred or more different and mostly incompatible statements in ABC (Anthing But Carbon) but when the EU say that there are more benefits to stopping GHG production than merely avoiding AGW, you're suddenly found "Teh Smoking Gnu!" *proving* AGW is all a scam?
My god you're a gullible dribbling moron.
To add to that, real scientists are almost never on the tee vee talking about their research because they fail to give answers that can fit in the weakest link's attention span.
What do you call the theory of natural selection as it relates to human evolution? There's no predictive power there. Are you suggesting Darwin was not a scientist?
Furthermore, a lot of medical research these days are screens, people dumping random chemicals on cells to find one that works. Is that not science? The theory they have in advance, if there is one, would be something like "If I keep testing chemicals, eventually I'll find one that works."
Perhaps science is not as simple and neat as you imagine it to be, and there are multiple ways of doing science.
Edit: I realize, looking back at my original post, that I'm a bit of a hypocrite here... Sorry for the cheekiness. I shouldn't have said "THE alternative." Jesus, I'm an arrogant prick.
ITT: Human arrogance. I love how humans think that they are so important that they can "effect" the earth. We aren't that important. Stop thinking so. The earth will rid herself of us if she chooses so, and continue on after us. I'm sure that previous species on the planet thought that they were just as important as we do today. Stop being so arrogant. You didn't do anything to the earth, nor did you change the climate... You morons.
Is there anything about CO2 that would make it pollution outside of the scope of AGW? If so, what is the impact of CO2? If there's no other area where CO2 is a pollutant, then why should we support restricting emissions when there's no harm coming from it? Why should we be increasing energy prices, which would impact the lower classes more, when there's no gain from it if CO2 doesn't affect AGW?
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
Yes.
Also, ditto on arctic sea ice volume, which is a more meaningful metric
... explain why environmentalists are usually lisping, limp-wristed, flaming queers? I mean, what's up with that?
Hey it only took a week for them to come up with a excuse since Farage brought up the NASA photos in EU parliament. So we are supposed to believe that "winds" have increased the ice 60%? Last time I checked winds break up ice and blow it out, certainly if it supposed to be warmer. It's called the thermocline and is it is supposedly warmer, then a thermocline would melt the ice, not produce more, and certainly not 60% more over a year ago. What they are saying is at odd with each other. But hey what do I know, I have only observed this "phenomenon" for about 35 years of ice fishing and living in a cold climate.
Did you really just use Science and Wikipedia in the same sentence?
But the earth hasn't warmed any in 15 years so what's up with this? We're now seeing 21st century "science" at its worst as researchers fear becoming irrelevant
Any time "experts" flawlessly explain occurances after the fact, even when it contradicts their predictions, it makes me believe they have no idea what they are talking about.
This is the same kind of bellyaching people do about "revisionist history". It's actually the job of historians to revise history; history isn't what happened, which of course is fixed; it's the set of *our beliefs* about what happened, which ought to change as we learn more. Likewise it is the job of scientists to incorporate new data into the scientific consensus, either by retracting part of that consensus, or elaborating part of that consensus.
This case called for elaboration, since that was the explanation that fit the facts best. Your beef seems to be that the explanation fits the facts too well.
By the way you are confusing arctic and antarctic ice caps. This year's *arctic* (northern) ice cap had a greater minimum extent than last year's, but still very low by historic standards. If you are using *last year's* minimum arctic ice extent as a baseline, that's disingenuous because last year was a historic low. This is like the way denialists try to prove climate is not warming by choosing 1998 as their baseline; that's dishonest because '98 was a record high year (it has since dropped to third place).
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
In other words you completely missed the point.
Scientists always explain surprise occurrences after the fact, which indicates that they don't know everything and have to keep adapting theory to observation. There's tons of things that contradicted details of more general theoretical predictions without invalidating the general theory. However flawed, science is our best way of figuring things out, and has a very impressive track record in producing useful things. The scientific consensus is almost always reasonably accurate for things well within the limits of measurement. The scientific consensus is that we're warming the planet, and this is shown by a lot of measurable evidence.
Last year was a record low for arctic ice, but I doubt any real scientist seriously suggested doing a linear projection. The climate being complicated, there's lots of things that vary from year to year on top of longer-term trends. 1998, for example, was an extremely hot year for the late 90s, and idiots have been drawing lines from it for years and claiming it disproves a general warming trend.
What this means is that it isn't really possible to predict what will specifically happen next year, but predictions of trends over decades are much more reliable. 2023 is probably going to be warmer than 2013, but it might be an exceptionally cold one for the 2020s and therefore be cooler than 2013. It's much more likely that the 2020s will be warmer than the 2010s, unless the species takes some action.
What that means is that I have no fricking idea how you got (+5, Insightful), except insofar as there are idiots with mod points.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
No, the scientific method is you change the model to fit what happens and you get a better model that more closely predicts what happens next. If your model predicts something and it doesn't happen and then you change your model and predict something and it doesn't happen, and you again change your model and it doesn't happen, etc what you have is a bad model and what you are trying to predict isn't true.
If you then continue to insist that your model is right and want to force everyone to accept that based on faith, what you have is religion, or at its most ideological cultism.
No its the job of the historian to discover history. History is what happened. The beliefs of the people involved are irrelevant to the facts of the occurrence. Lee either retired from the Battle of Antietam or he didn't. Julius Caesar was either assassinated or he wasn't. The progressive revisionist view of history is a socialist tool. We revise our books and papers as unknown facts are reveal to us, but the existence of the facts themselves are independent of our knowledge of them.
I love how climate change true believers ignore that 1934 was the hottest year on record, so that they can pretend that world wide temperature is trending up.
The NYT link does not back up your side of the story. In fact, it explicitly debunks the other two links.
Emphasis mine. Every time someone says "global temperatures are not going up" - literally, every single time - it is because they use 1998 as the starting point. 1998 sets off all kinds of alarm bells, because it's a cherry-picked date.
Worse, it's not even proper statistics. These people are using high-school-level point-slope form; (Y2-Y1) = m(X2-X1). That's the only way you can get "flat". If you do a proper undergraduate-level Least Squared Linear Regression, even using 1998 as your starting point isn't enough to claim "flat". If you don't feel capable of performing undergraduate statistics, you can always use Excel, or any number of free online spreadsheets, to do the Linear Regression for you.
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No, the scientific method is you change the model to fit what happens and you get a better model that more closely predicts what happens next. If your model predicts something and it doesn't happen and then you change your model and predict something and it doesn't happen, and you again change your model and it doesn't happen, etc
Luckily that isn't the case for the climate models, which get the majority of their predictions (especially the big trends) right. It's just that "climate models again shown to be mostly right" is a pretty boring headline and the media instead jump on every small detail that is predicted incorrectly, which makes climate scientists look like hacks in the eyes of the general public that doesn't know any better.
So it's not just me. I'm more and more getting the feeling that slashdot moderation seems to have acquired a mean right-wing "-1 disagree" streak over the last several weeks on a diverse set of issues including but not limited to climate change. Call me paranoid, but it looks like someone has figured out a way to game the system. Which is not all that surprising as such; if you think about it a bit, it more becomes a question of "what took them so long?" Maybe the site admins were not always asleep at the steering wheel?
Trying to restrict your analogies to the physics that you learned in the classroom and not what you learned while smoking a waterpipe and watching Star Trek on an unside-down TV would help you give an impression of credibility.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Geology has little to do with it, but if you spend some time studying geography, you might be able to tell the difference between the Arctic and Antactic.
Global warming is being blamed for thicker and stronger ice in Antarctica, now I really have heard everything.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Modeling an open system with innumerable variables and then claiming it has any accuracy is the problem. Computer models are crude tools but useful occasionally. In this example it seemed to lead to an answer about Antarctic ice. There are lies, damned lies, statistics, computer models, and opinion surveys of scientists - B. Disraeli responding to a time traveling interviewer
Chill out (ha...ha...). The alarmists are just as active in downmodding their opponents as flamebait, too.
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
Mod the parent up!
Oh, he's "being a jerk and hurtful" by disagreeing with you. This is what the alarmists fall back on. "You big meanie! You just hate trees!"
Hey AC, if we bankrupt the world economies, a lot more children will suffer--and adults too. (Why is it more acceptable for adults to suffer than children? The majority of human life is lived as an adult. And one could argue that children are more adaptable, and therefore in some circumstances suffer less psychologically than adults.)
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
1. Nice strawman. He talked specifically about climate models, not something simple like Newtonian physics.
2. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
Yes, I did.
Wiki is a reliable enough source, as encyclopedias go.
But if you think that there are some scientific organizations of National or International standing that do reject the findings of human-induced effects on climate change, feel free to post them here.
Unfortunately that in itself will undermine any claims of inaccuracy in wiki, as I will update the wiki page if you do.
"Alarmist?"
WTF is that?
Climate conspiracy theorist terminology for someone who thinks science and the scientific process is probably making okay use of observations and data?
These are the two graphs that I would have responded with.
The amount of polar ice on the time scales you are talking about are a weather phenomenon. Many global warming advocates are certainly guilty of catastrophism and it does make their case harder to swallow, but you are throwing the baby out with the bathwater.