Arctic Ice Loss Driven By Natural Swings, Not Just Mankind, Says Study (reuters.com)

Alister Doyle, reporting for Reuters: Natural swings in the Arctic climate have caused up to half the precipitous losses of sea ice around the North Pole in recent decades, with the rest driven by man-made global warming, scientists said on Monday. The study indicates that an ice-free Arctic Ocean, often feared to be just years away, in one of the starkest signs of man-made global warming, could be delayed if nature swings back to a cooler mode. Natural variations in the Arctic climate "may be responsible for about 30-50 percent of the overall decline in September sea ice since 1979," the U.S.-based team of scientists wrote in the journal Nature Climate Change. Sea ice has shrunk steadily and hit a record low in September 2012 -- late summer in the Arctic -- in satellite records dating back to 1979. The ice is now around the smallest for mid-March, rivaling winter lows set in 2016 and 2015. The study, separating man-made from natural influences in the Arctic atmospheric circulation, said that a decades-long natural warming of the Arctic climate might be tied to shifts as far away as the tropical Pacific Ocean.

Comments

We know this, everyone in the world says.

[Anonymous Coward]

The natural swings are evident with the seasons, periodic shifts based on geo-solar geometry, probably sun cycles and everything else in the universe - *BUT the base/background temperature before those variations *IS* increasing *AS* we have measured C02 and greenhouse insulating gases, methane etc, reaching historic (in paleological terms, during all of human civilization and a long time before that, millions of years) proportions of our atmosphere. We know we've caused some acidifying of the oceans, which with warming dissolves further frozen/captured methane and such gasses at the bottom of the ocean and brings that into our atmosphere in a positive feedback loop which we can never control...

What of this one study exonerates BILLIONS of tailpipes in the world and TRILLIONS of tons of coal burned ongoing? None of it.

But watch them try to run with this deliberate, intentional misunderstanding of what actually was confirmed by this study. Watch and see.

Re:We know this, everyone in the world says.

[reginaldo]

I agree. This is something of a glass-half-full study. So 30-50% of arctic ice cap melt is natural. What of the other 50-70%? It is already misunderstood. It's interesting how different media sources are covering this study: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sci...

Re:I smell a rat...or alternative facts

[Dr_Terminus]

Just a bad summary... this article is better: https://www.sciencedaily.com/r...

"Anthropogenic forcing is still dominant -- it's still the key player," said first author Qinghua Ding, a climate scientist at the University of California Santa Barbara who holds an affiliate position at the UW, where he began the work as a research scientist in the UW's Applied Physics Laboratory. "But we found that natural variability has helped to accelerate this melting, especially over the past 20 years." ...

"In the long term, say 50 to 100 years, the natural internal variability will be overwhelmed by increasing greenhouse gases," Ding said. "But to predict what will happen in the next few decades, we need to understand both parts."

percentages

[OlRickDawson]

Finally a study that shows percentages.The politicals have have claimed that climate change is either 100% man-made or 100% natural, depending upon which side of the argument they were on. Reasonable people knew that it had to be a bit of both, but there never seemed to be any studies that showed what the percentages of each it was.

Re:percentages

[quantaman]

Finally a study that shows percentages.The politicals have have claimed that climate change is either 100% man-made or 100% natural, depending upon which side of the argument they were on. Reasonable people knew that it had to be a bit of both, but there never seemed to be any studies that showed what the percentages of each it was.

Globally almost 100% man-made is accurate because natural climate variations simply aren't that fast enough to be a big contributor.

However, local climates are more variable, particularly the Arctic, so percentages come into play. From the article it sounds like previous research simply didn't have enough data to make useful percentage estimates.

Re:Scary stuff

[Computershack]

One question I have is: At what point does global warming become so evident that there is no more argument as to whether it is occurring, and the argument becomes what do we do about it? I'm pretty sure we should already be there, but we aren't.

Harldy anyone disputes the fact there is global warming. The dispute is over how much of it we're causing and whether or not its actually abnormal given that in the history of the planet it has been far warmer many many times over the millennia. Then there's what we should do about it and given how almost every other month something new is being found out about our climate and what affects it I hardly think we're in a position to be deliberately messing about with it. Sure reduce/eliminate what we put in the air etc but when you start doing things like schemes to reflect the sun, artificially forcing rain etc then we may find we're doing more harm than good.

Re:I smell a rat...or alternative facts

[Gadget_Guy]

Guestimation of ranges based on no science what-so-ever. Good one.

What? It's based on the study that is being discussed here. Based on the article, I don't have enough details about the study to find how they came up with those figures, but neither do you have enough information to say that it was based on "no science what-so-ever".

Re:Scary stuff

[demonlapin]

FWIW, air conditioning in hot climates is substantially less energy-intensive than heating in cold ones.

Snow storm?

[number6x]

Very low rates of commenting today. Could it be the blizzard on the east coast keeping everyone busy?

Good to see it's not all robots posting here.

Back on topic, it's an interesting read. 30-50% may be natural climate trend and the rest man made (50-70%) man made.

It may be good science, but showing 50-70% man made probably won't go down well with the current administration. <sarcasm> Prepare to have the budget cut for this "U.S.-based team of scientists", unless they get their alt-facts corrected.</sarcasm>

Re:Snow storm?

[Midnight_Falcon]

I'm pretty sure I learned in high school (graduated 2002) in Earth Science (1998, freshman year) that global warming was part of a tropical age-ice age cycle, an ice age being defined as there being ice at the poles of the Earth. That said, I was also taught that climate change is due to greenhouse gases etc causing this to accelerate far faster than the historical record for transition into a tropical age.

So, I don't know what's new about this theory aside from the fact it can be diced up into "alternative facts" that say hey! look! climate change (somewhat) natural! ... but we've known all along manmade climate change is most of the problem.

Re:Snow storm?

[cbeaudry]

The problem is you graduated in 2002. If you had graduated in 1972, this propaganda had not yet been introduced to the education system.

not alt-facts, just a reasonable statement.

[number6x]

Read the article...

30-50% of the warming is due to natural, not man made, effects.

Or, as scientists have been saying for decades, the majority of the warming (50 - 70%) is due to man made effects.

This includes scientists at shell oil and Exxon-Mobil. I remember debate class in high school, fall of 1979, our team was 'pro' nuclear power. We used research from oil companies about the dangers of global warming as one one the arguments in favor of expanding nuclear power use. We won the debate, despite the fact that the 3 mile island accident happened in spring of '79. That made it a very tough debate to win the pro nuclear side of the argument.

Direct link to paper

[Namarrgon]

Ding Q, J. M. Wallace, D. S. Battisti, E. J. Steig, A. J. E. Gallant, H. J. Ki, L Geng: Tropical forcing of the recent rapid Arctic warming in northeastern Canada and Greenland, [PDF] Nature, 509, 209-212, (2014)

Re:Direct link to paper

[the phantom]

This is not the paper described in the summary, but rather an older paper with some of the same authors. The paper referenced in the summary was published online yesterday in Nature Climate Change. I'm sorry that I can't give a direct link to a .pdf (yay for paywalls keeping all of the non-ivory tower plebs out! huzzah!), but for those with access, the paper can be found at Influence of high-latitude atmospheric circulation changes on summertime Arctic sea ice. For those without access to an academic library, the first author provides an email contact. One presumes that a polite request would yield the full text of the paper.

Re:Scary stuff

[narf0708]

propose a solution that doesn't bounce us into the dark ages please.

Nuclear energy. It's clean, it's safe, and it would be cheap if it weren't for paranoid over-regulation. Yes, some safety regulation is needed, but the nuclear industry has far more than it needs, which only restricts its much needed development.

Science versus politics

[Okian Warrior]

I think you mean arguing against facts, because that's all that xkcd comic was. Which sounds exactly like something an anonymous coward would do.

As much as people like to insult and deride the other side, there are valid concerns there. The concerns are so large and looming that the "correct" side has lost a lot of credibility. I think a lot of the public is noticing the elephant in the room, and this is giving the deniers leverage in the minds of the people.

Rather than continue to insult and deride, perhaps it's time to address the credibility gaps.

Point 1: Scott Adams pointed out that when asked the question "how much of global warming is caused by humans, and how much is natural" in debates and televised interviews, no scientist had an answer. Specifically, Bill Nye, who is the global warming champion, didn't have an answer to that question.

Point 2: Another Scott Adams observation is about the models. Why is there more than 1 model? Shouldn't scientists agree on the best model and just use it? Shouldn't scientists agree on the best *data* and just use it?

Point 3: Also from Scott Adams is the observation that NO other complex model has ever had predictive value, and why should we believe that this one does?

Point4: From my view, climate change is closely tied with the actions that "we must do to save ourselves!", and those actions are always a) part of the liberal agenda, b) involve reducing our standard of living, and c) negatively impact most people while further lining the pockets of the rich and powerful.

Nowhere do we see proposals that make more electricity available to more people, nowhere does anyone point out that 85% of all resources are used by industry (therefore reducing home electricity consumption is less effective), no one proposes solutions for a decentralized grid, or reducing consumption by giving everyone fast internet access (doing things online generally uses much fewer resources than in person), or changing tax rules to promote telecommuting, or any of a hundred other easy changes that would make our lives better while being more efficient. It's always about enduring more hardship.

Point5: From my view, the "correct side" has lost a lot of credibility simply by their actions over the last 3 months.

If "that side" will riot over the outcome of a fair election, headline unsubstantiated lies, leak secret information for political assassination, call for literal assassination, how is it that they have any credibility over other issues?

Leonardo DiCaprio flies an eyebrow artist 7,000 miles to do his eyebrows, and we're supposed to believe him about global warming?

It's not that I don't believe in the science behind global warming, I do.

I just don't believe in the politics of global warming, that's all.

Re:Science versus politics

[Immerman]

If all you've heard is "we need to lower everyone's quality of life", then I suspect you've been listening primarily to sources contributing to the smear campaign, because I've heard a great deal of things along the lines of "let's promote transitioning to other energy sources" and "Let's move government subsidies from fossil fuels to emerging alternatives".

The science of anthropogenic global warming itself is actually quite simple - adding more insulation slows heat loss, and the planet has to get hotter until it resumes radiating heat as fast as it's getting it from the sun.

Crude back of the napkin calculations ignoring all subtleties and knock-on effects (the vast majority of which will make things worse): water vapor and CO2 combined are responsible for the vast majority of the greenhouse effect. There's about 10x as much water vapor in the atmosphere as CO2, so assuming both molecules are similarly potent infrared scatterers, CO2 is responsible for about 10% of the total planetary insulation. Human activity since the industrial revolution is clearly responsible for about 25% of the CO2 in the atmosphere, meaning we've increased total planetary insulation by about 2.5%. To restore the energy balance, the planet must therefore radiate about 2.5% more energy. Thermal radiation increases with the 4th power of temperature, so we can therefore expect planetary temperature to increase by a factor of (1.025)^(1/4) = 1.0062, or 0.62%. Current average temperature of the planet is 289K, so that translates to an increase of 1.8C, or 3.2*F, possibly not enough to be devastating on it's own, but quite sufficient to potentially allow normal variability to push things past a tipping point so that the planet transitions back to a tropical/desert state, probably killing most life in the process (a warm Earth is potentially more hospitable, but the transition periods have generally not been kind). And of course that's also only the expected change if we managed to completely halt the increase of CO2 today, which is all but impossible.

Where the model gets complicated is trying to make it predictive in the face of a chaotic system - there's *lots* of different forces in play, and to actually become meaningfully predictive you have to take into consideration at least the overwhelming majority (by effect weight). You don't need any of that to know that "doing X is going to be very bad", but you *do* need it if it's clear that "doing X" will continue despite your warnings, and you want to be able to predict what exactly "very bad" is likely to mean so that you can start preparing for it.

Basically, most of the climate science for the last few decades or so has had little to do with proving human responsibility - that was already done many decades ago and the observations are continuing to support those crude predictions relatively well. Current research is trying to make the model usefully predictive so that we can pinpoint where exactly the tipping point is (have we passed it already? Is there realistic hope for avoiding it?), as well as giving us as much warning as possible as to what we need to prepare for.

For example, over a decade ago I attended a talk by a group who had run by far the most detailed simulation of expected climate change effects in California over the next few decades - which predicted that within ~30 (50? I forget) years California would no longer have any substantial snow pack, meaning their water would come almost entirely as floods. Their recommendation was to start building dams immediately since due to the engineering and political challenges, dams have an expected 20+ year lag between when the decision to build them is made, and when they're actually completed. Got to start the process today if you want to have them finished in time to be useful. Thus far, their predictions seem to be holding up fairly well.

As for DiCaprio's hygiene choices - so he's a hypocrite, so what? So am I for that matter, though I don't have the resources to be nearly so excessive

Re:Science versus politics

[pointybits]

Point 1: Scott Adams pointed out that when asked the question "how much of global warming is caused by humans, and how much is natural" in debates and televised interviews, no scientist had an answer.

Getting your climate science from people yelling at each other on TV (or Scott Adams for that matter) is a bad idea.

From IPCC AR5, back in 2013: It is extremely likely that more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to 2010 was caused by the anthropogenic increase in greenhouse gas concentrations and other anthropogenic forcings together. The best estimate of the human-induced contribution to warming is similar to the observed warming over this period.

Re:I smell a rat...or alternative facts

[Gadget_Guy]

The article doesn't need to prove anything, other than cite the study, because it isn't science. It is just news about the science. I am sure that the study itself, which was made by scientists and published in a scientific journal, would actually show their workings; otherwise they would not get published. But the fact that we haven't seen the study is not itself evidence that the figures were based on "no science what-so-ever".

If you walk into a room with your eyes closed, you cannot definitively say that there isn't a red ball in the room. All you can say is that you can't see a red ball. Similarly, if you haven't read the paper, you can't say that the percentages are unproven. All you can say is that you haven't seen the proof.

Should the original poster have read the study before discussing the percentages? If this were an academic discussion or an official policy document then absolutely. But this is just a forum on the internet, occupied by deniers who make no effort to prove their own claims. Regurgitating figures from the article is a step up for a lot of people around here who never get past reading the headlines.