I am worried by a wider trend that science is gradually being influenced by political views
And there's the rub. Whether or not the pressure is systematic and preconceived (which, given the climategate emails, there is *some* evidence of that), the pressure is there and it *stops* science in its tracks.
Science is not about "the message" - that's clearly a political issue. To get back to science, it needs to be about the necessary and sufficient falsifiable hypothesis statement, and the earnest attempt to falsify even one's own pet theories - being "on message" is a corruption of the scientific method, period.
The pressure to conform is a bad thing but it's something you'd expect regardless of the truth of AGW. They're still doing good science, they could do better science, but you can't politically charge an issue, attack the scientists, and then blame them when they start considering political messaging.
There was just another story about that very scientist. Turns out his paper was rejected because it sucked, all he did was point out inconsistency in some data that wasn't expected to be consistent, presumably so he could imply the data sets were junk.
Bengtsson also later said "I do not believe there is any systematic 'cover-up' of scientific evidence on climate change or that academics' work is being 'deliberately suppressed', as the Times front page suggests. I am worried by a wider trend that science is gradually being influenced by political views".
The narrative I take from this is Bengtsson got the rejection, which he wrongly interpreted as political rather than scientific. He then joined a denialist group, to which some scientists were definitely opposed. It's wrong if some tried to pressure him, but the fact that a minority tried to pressure him doesn't mean that AGW is wrong. Also note a bunch also supported him after the story came out, and his feelings of pressure were likely heightened by the misinterpretation of the paper rejection.
Here's the thing - say you're coordinating a message about things you "already agree with". What happens to the first guy who re-evaluates the information, and changes his mind? What happens to the guy who goes "off message"?
Of course they do, they're human. The difference is they aren't just brainstorming. If someone can justify why he's going off message with good evidence he gets a publication out of it.
Here's the point - your retort is applicable for *any* prediction thus made by AGW supporters. Like astrologists, you throw a bunch of stuff against the wall, ignore the failures, and then focus on whatever "hits" you get.
Put another way - what predictions have to be wrong in order for AGW to be wrong? Flat temperatures and continually rising CO2 for over 20 years? What gaps in knowledge *would* be meaningful?
This is about a predicted consequence of AGW, not a prediction of AGW. If this prediction is wrong is carries consequences for the sea level rise, it doesn't mean the earth isn't getting hotter.
We always say weather != climate, but consider weather as an example. We have science that can predict the weather with surprising accuracy, but we can still be wrong. When the weather network predicted sun and you instead got rain does that mean all their models are completely wrong, or does it mean they just got something wrong.
Multiyear ice is receding all over the planet. There's a few subsystems that don't perform exactly as we expect, single year sea ice extent is one of them, that doesn't mean we're completely wrong, just that we're not completely right.
Yes, it does. The purpose of science isn't to put forth a "coordinated message" -> that's *politicks*. The purpose of science is to draw closer to the truth through the application of the scientific method, through the rigorous application of skepticism to ones' own preferred hypotheses. The moment you've decided to coordinate a message, rather than seek the truth, you've exited the realm of science.
But the coordinated message is just how they're communicating it to the public, internally they're just as rigorous as before. And even then they're only coordinating the message about things they already agree with. The fact that all physicists describe relativity in relatively the same way doesn't mean they're not aggressively questioning other matters.
But the fact that it contradicts their predictions means that their central conceit is wrong...except they won't admit it, and ignore the observations in contrast to their models.
If you're claiming they don't have a complete understanding of every aspect of the climate no one will disagree. But you've failed to explain why this particular gap in knowledge is critical. Temperatures are warmer, that much is certain. Lots of ice is melting, that is expected. More yearly ice is forming on open sea water, that is unexpected but not particularly meaningful.
Sorry, but to be honest, it was ridiculous before the simplification - and you come pretty close to admitting it, acknowledging the spin and overplayed certainty. And *this* is what poisons the well - you're quoting people who are positing a convoluted explanation for observations inconsistent with their original predictions in order to preserve their dubious central conceit, and when you get past the song and dance, the reduction of their position is clearly contradictory.
I'll admit the salt layering explanation sounds convoluted, the less salty ice one marginally less so, that doesn't mean either is false, it's actually not an issue I've got a ton of experience with. I do know that part of the ocean is apparently lower salinity than usual, whether that's related to (or the right scale of) the explanation that was posted I don't know. And the wind explanation actually does sound more logical to me.
At the end of the day there's warmer air temperatures, larger ice extents, and lower ice volumes. Whatever the mechanism it's clearly possible to have that combination of factors. And even if your alternative model of water driving the larger extents was accurate why would that help? The effect is clearly not maintaining the ice volume which is the critical factor.
Any "consistent message" is a political one, and you know it. There is broad disagreement on climate sensitivity, impacts, drivers, and the role of natural variation. Science isn't about *messages* - it's about necessary and falsifiable hypothesis statements, and the earnest attempt to find those falsifications.
The fact they're trying to coordinate their message doesn't mean the coordinated message is wrong. Even with all the individual disagreements they can agree on the main story. It's a mild form of the game creationists use when they frame every controversy in biology as evidence that evolution is falling apart.
"For the latter, the issue is reconciling the observed expansion of Antarctic sea-ice extent during the satellite era with robust modelling evidence that the ice should melt as a result of stratospheric ozone depletion (and increases in GHGs)."
So to be clear, the "robust modeling evidence" was what predicted increased antarctic ice extent - but the nature of a non-falsifiable hypothesis, such as AGW, means that even when observations are *opposite* of predictions, ad hoc special pleadings are made. In this case, the ad hoc special pleading "we didn't really mean ice extent, what counts is ice mass".
So, if measuring extent is misleading, let's at least admit that this bad path was the very one mapped out by GCMs:)
There's four main possibilities to the increasing ice extent:
1) Scientists largely expected it and weren't really surprised.
2) Scientists were uncertain but were well able to understand when it happened
3) Scientists were uncertain are don't quite understand why
4) Scientists were surprised and still don't understand why
It's probable something from 2-4. Some stuff I saw suggested 2-3, this paper suggests 3-4.
But what you've shown doesn't suggest any goalpost moving from volume to extent, in fact I can remember years back they were always concerned about the ice caps entering the ocean and causing sea level rise, and to a lesser extend the Greenland ice cap changing the jet stream to Europe. Even if the ice extent is a surprising result it's not changing the thing they were worried about.
You are *literally* asserting that warmer temperatures decrease salinity, and therefore cause a mitigation of the typical freezing point depression, and therefore cause more ice.
That's correct (there were other factors too). What I objected to was your insistence on me agreeing to the phrasing "So, warm air makes ice". To me that sounds like you're trying to get to agree to a ridiculous sounding simplification just for the purpose of making me sound ridiculous.
As for the media I'll acknowledge that there was some inappropriate hyping in the fact that the reports underplayed the timeline and overplayed the certainty. The expected rise in the next century timeframe should have been much better communicated, and the fact is that every new paper is reported as fact and uncertainties are overridden.
But that doesn't mean the consistent message given by climate scientists is just hype. They're working in the literature, not the media, the media conversation is fairly irrelevant to their research.
And I'll still come back to the original assertion you made, about the increasing extent, is itself misleading compared to the decreasing volume.
Dogs have co-evolved with humans for hundreds of years... Cats haven't been around as long, but cats are generally solitary to begin with so might do better with isolation.
Dogs were first domesticated by humans something like 15,000 years ago. Cats were kept as pets by the Egyptians almost 4,000 years ago.
So, um, your numbers are a bit off;)
The bad news is I write slashdot comments when I've very sleepy.
The good news is that my memory of writing that post happened while I was awake, so I didn't have a dream about posting on slashdot!
I don't think it's the confinement. Wolves which range hundreds of miles are kept in captivity by humans in small areas (dogs), and they live far longer with humans than in the wild.
I think it's the water quality. Dog poop and urine don't mix with the air, they don't breathe it in. Marine animals on the other hand, DO breathe their own feces. Which is why it's essential to have a large volume of water per animal, as happens in nature.
I have guppy fish in a 30 gallon tank. They almost never live past 2 years in captivity. In nature however, guppies live 5 years or more.
I've been thinking of doing an experiment for quite a while. Take two groups of guppies, one in a common aquarium environment, say 10 guppies in a 10 gallon tank (1 inch of fish per gallon). The other group would live in a far less dense tank, maybe 5 guppies in a 200 gallon tank. (5 would be the minimum number since guppies are communal fish and they don't do well mentally unless they're in a group). And compare the fish lifespan in the the 2 groups.
Dogs have co-evolved with humans for hundreds of years. We'd expect them to be fairly well adapted though they can still get some serious psychological issues.
Cats haven't been around as long, but cats are generally solitary to begin with so might do better with isolation.
Orca are highly social, perhaps moreso than humans. And an aquarium can hardly compare to the ocean in sensory complexity. It's basically like sticking a human in solitary confinement, it's inhumane and they tend to go crazy.
I love the idea of going to an aquarium and seeing Orca swimming around. But I can't imagine a way of doing so that doesn't essentially amount to torturing the poor animals, Seaworld and the like should absolutely be shut down.
What does "obsolete" mean? If his writing instrument does what he needs it to do and he's happy using it, then more power to him. Who's to tell him he can't use it, or an IBM Selectric, or even a quill pen and vellum? Nothing is obsolete if it still works for your needs.
Presumably almost everything works for your needs when you first start using it. So assuming almost anything except web browsers can continue to maintain that functionality then what possible things can go obsolete?
Btw, I wouldn't really consider a quill pen and vellum to be obsolete because there are purposes for which they work best. But if you wanted to set up a new machine to do something like WordStar on DOS that would be quite possible, hence WordStar on DOS is obsolete.
And according to your hypothesis, this warmer air causes more ice to form because salinity is reduced. So, warm air makes ice.
Let me get this. You're trying to get me to agree to a ridiculous sounding oversimplification of my position so you can then turn around and say that sounds ridiculous?
Over a period of hundreds, if not thousands of years:) The changes in sea ice and land ice are driven by forces other than atmospheric temperature.
Like gravity, without the sea ice to hold it in place it starts flowing towards the ocean.
So now you're saying that the heat from the atmosphere magically concentrates and targets a very small portion of the ice to melt it down, the way a bullet transfers its kinetic energy to just one small spot on a human's body?:)
No, I'm saying that comparing numbers from two different things is irrelevant without understanding how those things interact.
Can you at least admit that the article over hyped the issue?
No. They said it's going to be fairly slow for the next century or so and didn't hide the fact. How is that hype?
If you take the position you've already conceded and add to it weight enough to offset a reasonable amount of media bias, you're already well within 'equal' bad acts from outside forces.
Unless you feel you're getting the whole, truthful story from the Western press?
I'm already factoring in western media bias, what reasonable amount of media do you think I'm missing that would make them equal?
Did Russia not invade Crimea? Were all those Maidan snipers really XE/Blackwater contractors? If anything the Western media has been effectively biased towards Russia.
For example in their obsession with appearing objective by showing both sides of every story they're presenting the referendums as a case of he said/she said. It's blatantly obvious to anyone paying attention that the referendum results are wholesale fabrications. But because the media is reluctant to flat out contradict one side people end up thinking that the truth is somewhere inbetween. Similarly with the fascists in Kiev. They're a tiny fraction less influential than most other European countries, but Russia keeps saying Fascist, the western media repeats, and readers end up thinking "ok, they're probably not all fascists but there's enough for the Russians to be legitimately scared".
That's the brilliance of Putin's propaganda. Take advantage of the Western media's obsession with being unbiased by shifting the Overton window so you look defensible.
You can't just throw a bunch of money at a problem and expect a solution to come out. You have to decide on a solution and then throw a bunch of money at it.
It sounds like there were a ton of problems in New Jersey. Crumbling schools? Spend the $100 million fixing infrastructure. Kids have trouble at home? Spend the money on councillors and after-school programs. Poor teachers? Spend it on recruiting.
It seems like they went in with a lot of money and a grand poorly defined plan, a huge institution isn't just going to jump in and implement someone's poorly defined scheme, so instead of spend everybody was busy fighting over details and figuring out where the money should go. The result is the money is wasted in paperwork and of the stuff that got spent no one knows what actually worked.
Do I believe that the Maidan protests were fundamentally a genuine expression of Ukrainian outrage with Yanokovych? Yes.
I don't deny that the protests and organizations involved had some Western support, a few Western politicians stopping by to give speeches, and had official contact with Western groups and governments. But that doesn't mean that over 100,000 protesters in Kiev weren't representative of the population of Kiev.
In contrast do I think that the protests in Crimea and Donetsk were a genuine expression of East Ukrainian outrage with the Euromaidan? Yes. And they did have cause to be angry because despite his power grab Yanokovych had still won an election.
That being said Russia is also driving the protests, if not through intelligence agents (for which there's some evidence) then through propaganda and the implication that they're willing to invade to make sure the separatists stay in charge. Just look at the number of people here who think Kiev is run by neo-Nazis, imagine how bad it must be when all your news sources are controlled by the Kremlin.
Another difference is that the focus of the Maidan was massive numbers of people peacefully protesting and expressing outrage, the small amount of violence was an unavoidable consequence of the numbers involved and the eventual overthrow was a result of the fact they had so much power they couldn't really restrain themselves.
In contrast the focus of the Eastern protests was violence, intimidation, and seizing power from the beginning. So a mob of hundreds in a city of 2 million can easily take over if they're willing to use force.
Moreover, it's not clear what is the goal of the western sanctions as their goal is often amorphously described as "deescalate the situation in Ukraine". What does this mean? Russians think that annexation of Crimea is a done deal. Not just Putin, average Russians too. They certainly won't back away from that. As for the instability in east Ukraine, it's not clear how you prove who is escalating what right now? The locals in East Ukraine are certainly as pissed off at Kiev as it gets, specially after deadly Odesa clashes and the coup in Kiev. I don't think they need a lot of encouragement from Putin at this point.
I don't think anybody believes that Russia is giving Crimea back. I suspect that's why the sanctions are targeted at individuals, an economic sanction means you have to take it off at some point, and if at that point Russia still has Crimea then you've lost. But if you're targeting individuals you can leave those sanctions in place until they die.
My hope is that the US and EU have told Russia that an invasion of East Ukraine will trigger massive Iran level sanctions. They won't say it publicly since they don't want Putin to feel pressure to respond, but that is something that would be effective. Even if Putin did invade it would take a while to establish control and major sanctions could pressure him to declare victory and go home.
If that's the case then the Russian army is still there to intimidate but they won't enter. It's mainly a question of whether Ukrainian troops can reenter the cities and establish order without killing too many protesters and escalating the situation.
Honest government. Yes. Everyone wants that. Too bad that *both* the "west backed" and the "east backed" governments did the same thing - rob national coffers for their own gains. Both are completely incompetent.
This can't be said enough. Both sides are the same. Each wants to influence the government using processes other than democracy. Their methods wouldn't matter even if you could distinguish one from another, and you only just barely can.
Two sides of the same coin. Heads Ukraine loses, tails Ukraine loses.
Anyone who sees the anti-Russian side as some kind of benefactor is either stupid or drinking the Kool Aid.
Yeah, one side overthrew a President who after attempting to steal a previous election, won a legitimate election but then forced judges to throw out the constitution so he'd get more power.
The other side invaded a sovereign nation, held a referendum at gunpoint, then used the made up results to seize part of that nation. They then started stirring up a civil war in another part of the nation, took over several cities with armed thugs, and held another fake referendum with fake results.
As long as you ignore all the details the sides are virtually identical.
Honest government. Yes. Everyone wants that. Too bad that *both* the "west backed" and the "east backed" governments did the same thing - rob national coffers for their own gains. Both are completely incompetent.
So now you have 2 sides - one that wants integration with Europe in hope to fix the political issues. Kind of backward thinking.
The other side, wants closer integration with Russia because many of them are Russian. They want Russia to impose stability and they view Putin as some sort of a hero despite his faults.
One side had 2 revolutions already that seemed to have worked for their end. Why can't the other side have their own revolution too? And to be very frank, when people *vote* and their vote is then called "illegal" by the so-called "democracies", all it does is harden their stance.
The west backed was bad, but the east backed was worse.
As for elections while the east was in charge they stole a Presidential election in '04. After massive protests they agreed to hold a new election but with a new constitution that limited the power of the president, which the west won. The west did a poor job of governing and had a free election which they lost, Yanokovych got in and pressured judges to toss out the new constitution giving him a ton more power. After a bunch more power plays using a mandate that wasn't really his massive numbers of western protesters threw him out. (making a couple boneheaded moves in the process)
Russia then invades and seizes Crimea with a fake referendum with fake results then encourages the east to do the same. They also have fake referendums and fake results and people in charge only because they have guns and fists and a willingness to use them.
I won't claim the west is innocent and perfect, but the actions of the people running the east are absolutely injustifiable.
salt water freezes If the warmer temperatures led to the water having lower salinity that could cause more ice.
So warmer temperatures will magically cause more ice?:) Really?
I posted a mechanism and an article that gave a credible explanation and your response is to ignore it and post a snide remark.
As for the article you posted
First, air has such a low heat capacity that it doesn't hold enough heat to influence water or the ice within it significantly. Secondly, heat moves upward, not downward, which prevents it from moving from air to water or ice on water.
CO2 traps energy in the atmosphere heating up the air, the warmer the air is the less energy is transferred from the water or ground into the air
There are an infinite number of complexities stemming from the fact that no one can describe exactly what is happening or produce a consistent theory for what is supposed to happen. For example, where is the heat supposed to be located? The 0.6C is supposed to be near the earth's surface. How much heating is there supposed to be in the higher atmosphere? None can be detected, yet it is supposed to be back-radiating to heat the surface.
My fuzzy recollection is that the upper atmosphere is cooler or at least not warmed because the heat hasn't radiated up there because of CO2. But that's kind of irrelevant to the topic at hand. That the author sees fit to rant about it anyways is telling.
Not all of the Arctic ice has been melted, but alarmists claim that it will. If all of the atmospheric heat caused by humans were circulated to the Arctic and melted ice, there would have to be 7.25 times as much heat, which is 0.6 x 7.25, which is 4.35C. But much of the ice is thicker than two meters, which would require more heat to melt it.
First no one claims the Arctic ice is simply going to melt in place, the ice sheets are going to break up and float into areas where they can melt. But the thing to worry about is the land ice sheets which he ignores. Without the thick sea ice surrounding them the land sheets will flow into the oceans and raise sea levels.
The rest of article is a bunch of calculations based on strawman assumptions. I might as well write an article about how guns can't kill people because the kinetic energy in a bullet is nothing compared to the mass of a human.
and freezing point depression, making ice form at 0C
I assume this was a typo as salt water freezes well below 0.
In what world can you have a *warmer* temperature form more ice?
If the warmer temperatures led to the water having lower salinity that could cause more ice. Also if warmer temperatures or other factors cause higher winds the wind pushes existing ice packs from very cold areas into less cold areas which increases total ice production.
This article seems to make the most sense of what I've seen.
Are you now really arguing that there is no such thing as freezing point depression and boiling point elevation when making water saltier?:)
No. You misunderstood entirely.
In either scenario the salt water freezes. But when it gets colder later on the cold drives the salt out of the ice making the water underneath saltier.
It doesn't require a colder temperature to form the ice, if anything the forming temperature would be warmer.
In both conditions the initial ice is the same salinity as the water, but in the colder years the temperature then drives salt out of the ice causing the changeover). If the changeover doesn't occur the upper water might actually have less salinity making ice formation easier.
I don't claim for a second that this effect sounds bizarre and counterintuitive and I'm sure there's other factors at work. I'm honestly not sure how well established the understanding of this particular phenomena is.
Of course whatever the mechanism we know the air temperature is increasing, the ice surface area is growing on the sea, but the total volume is decreasing on land (and in the multiyear regions of the sea). The decreasing volume of on land and the multiyear sea ice is the part that really breaks your theory of water being the driver. It's also the thing to worry about with sea levels. The sea ice extant is an interesting phenomena but doesn't really affect much directly. The multiyear ice is responding as anticipated and that's a problem.
Basically you were right about the heat capacity of the water being important. It sounds like the slightly warmer air and upper ocean means the new sea ice is a lot saltier (cold drives the salt out). Normally salt gets squeezed out by the cold, it makes the water underneath extra salty, that cold salty water sinks and it replaced by new warmer water. This new warmer water accelerates the melting process.
When the air is slightly warmer the salt stays in the ice and the changeover doesn't occur to the same degree. Instead of warmer water to melt the ice all you have is warmer air.
you're making a huge assumption that the magnitude of energy absorbed by melting ice is large enough to make a significant difference to the global temperature, and even if it were so what?
Not an assumption - pretty simple math when it comes to understanding the mass of water vs. the mass of atmosphere and their specific heats.
As for "so what", if *water* is driving *atmosphere*, wouldn't it be silly to look at *atmosphere* as the driver of the *water*? Causality starts somewhere specific:)
Unless you think the ocean is somehow causes winter I'm not sure what your point is. Yeah the ocean has a lot of stored energy (and that was one theory for the recent subdued warming), that doesn't mean that's where energy is entering the system.
Question: are you claiming your entire point since your original post was a claim that the decreasing volume as opposed to extent is evidence that warming is coming from the ocean or ground and not CO2?
On the endothermic front you're making a huge assumption that the magnitude of energy absorbed by melting ice is large enough to make a significant difference to the global temperature, and even if it were so what?
As for your talk about magical heat you're obscuring the basic fact that whatever the mechanism decreasing volume and increasing surface area is actually happening. If I make up a stupid theory about magical bunnies driving the moon around the earth that doesn't actually stop the moon in its tracks.
Who was talking about the endothermic nature of the reaction?
The assertion that temperature must *not* be stable in order for ice to melt is refutable with the simplest countertop experiment - put ice in water. Let temperature stabilize. Watch the ice continue to melt without changing water temperature. Q.E.D.
Huh? That's not what endothermic means.
Endothermic means that the process absorbs energy, it takes energy to transform ice into water.
If you did do an experiment with ice, water, and no other energy transfer, the average temperature of the final system would be less than the initial system because energy was used turning the ice into water.
That still doesn't explain why you were talking about it in the first place. It's a complete non-sequitur.
Slashdot Mirror
And there's the rub. Whether or not the pressure is systematic and preconceived (which, given the climategate emails, there is *some* evidence of that), the pressure is there and it *stops* science in its tracks.
Science is not about "the message" - that's clearly a political issue. To get back to science, it needs to be about the necessary and sufficient falsifiable hypothesis statement, and the earnest attempt to falsify even one's own pet theories - being "on message" is a corruption of the scientific method, period.
The pressure to conform is a bad thing but it's something you'd expect regardless of the truth of AGW. They're still doing good science, they could do better science, but you can't politically charge an issue, attack the scientists, and then blame them when they start considering political messaging.
There was just another story about that very scientist. Turns out his paper was rejected because it sucked, all he did was point out inconsistency in some data that wasn't expected to be consistent, presumably so he could imply the data sets were junk.
Bengtsson also later said "I do not believe there is any systematic 'cover-up' of scientific evidence on climate change or that academics' work is being 'deliberately suppressed', as the Times front page suggests. I am worried by a wider trend that science is gradually being influenced by political views".
The narrative I take from this is Bengtsson got the rejection, which he wrongly interpreted as political rather than scientific. He then joined a denialist group, to which some scientists were definitely opposed. It's wrong if some tried to pressure him, but the fact that a minority tried to pressure him doesn't mean that AGW is wrong. Also note a bunch also supported him after the story came out, and his feelings of pressure were likely heightened by the misinterpretation of the paper rejection.
So, are you saying with a straight face that they don't pressure people who don't adhere to the "message"?
http://www.thegwpf.org/matt-ri...
Here's the thing - say you're coordinating a message about things you "already agree with". What happens to the first guy who re-evaluates the information, and changes his mind? What happens to the guy who goes "off message"?
Of course they do, they're human. The difference is they aren't just brainstorming. If someone can justify why he's going off message with good evidence he gets a publication out of it.
Here's the point - your retort is applicable for *any* prediction thus made by AGW supporters. Like astrologists, you throw a bunch of stuff against the wall, ignore the failures, and then focus on whatever "hits" you get.
Put another way - what predictions have to be wrong in order for AGW to be wrong? Flat temperatures and continually rising CO2 for over 20 years? What gaps in knowledge *would* be meaningful?
This is about a predicted consequence of AGW, not a prediction of AGW. If this prediction is wrong is carries consequences for the sea level rise, it doesn't mean the earth isn't getting hotter.
We always say weather != climate, but consider weather as an example. We have science that can predict the weather with surprising accuracy, but we can still be wrong. When the weather network predicted sun and you instead got rain does that mean all their models are completely wrong, or does it mean they just got something wrong.
Multiyear ice is receding all over the planet. There's a few subsystems that don't perform exactly as we expect, single year sea ice extent is one of them, that doesn't mean we're completely wrong, just that we're not completely right.
Yes, it does. The purpose of science isn't to put forth a "coordinated message" -> that's *politicks*. The purpose of science is to draw closer to the truth through the application of the scientific method, through the rigorous application of skepticism to ones' own preferred hypotheses. The moment you've decided to coordinate a message, rather than seek the truth, you've exited the realm of science.
But the coordinated message is just how they're communicating it to the public, internally they're just as rigorous as before. And even then they're only coordinating the message about things they already agree with. The fact that all physicists describe relativity in relatively the same way doesn't mean they're not aggressively questioning other matters.
But the fact that it contradicts their predictions means that their central conceit is wrong...except they won't admit it, and ignore the observations in contrast to their models.
If you're claiming they don't have a complete understanding of every aspect of the climate no one will disagree. But you've failed to explain why this particular gap in knowledge is critical. Temperatures are warmer, that much is certain. Lots of ice is melting, that is expected. More yearly ice is forming on open sea water, that is unexpected but not particularly meaningful.
Sorry, but to be honest, it was ridiculous before the simplification - and you come pretty close to admitting it, acknowledging the spin and overplayed certainty. And *this* is what poisons the well - you're quoting people who are positing a convoluted explanation for observations inconsistent with their original predictions in order to preserve their dubious central conceit, and when you get past the song and dance, the reduction of their position is clearly contradictory.
I'll admit the salt layering explanation sounds convoluted, the less salty ice one marginally less so, that doesn't mean either is false, it's actually not an issue I've got a ton of experience with. I do know that part of the ocean is apparently lower salinity than usual, whether that's related to (or the right scale of) the explanation that was posted I don't know. And the wind explanation actually does sound more logical to me.
At the end of the day there's warmer air temperatures, larger ice extents, and lower ice volumes. Whatever the mechanism it's clearly possible to have that combination of factors. And even if your alternative model of water driving the larger extents was accurate why would that help? The effect is clearly not maintaining the ice volume which is the critical factor.
Any "consistent message" is a political one, and you know it. There is broad disagreement on climate sensitivity, impacts, drivers, and the role of natural variation. Science isn't about *messages* - it's about necessary and falsifiable hypothesis statements, and the earnest attempt to find those falsifications.
The fact they're trying to coordinate their message doesn't mean the coordinated message is wrong. Even with all the individual disagreements they can agree on the main story. It's a mild form of the game creationists use when they frame every controversy in biology as evidence that evolution is falling apart.
"For the latter, the issue is reconciling the observed expansion of Antarctic sea-ice extent during the satellite era with robust modelling evidence that the ice should melt as a result of stratospheric ozone depletion (and increases in GHGs)."
So to be clear, the "robust modeling evidence" was what predicted increased antarctic ice extent - but the nature of a non-falsifiable hypothesis, such as AGW, means that even when observations are *opposite* of predictions, ad hoc special pleadings are made. In this case, the ad hoc special pleading "we didn't really mean ice extent, what counts is ice mass".
So, if measuring extent is misleading, let's at least admit that this bad path was the very one mapped out by GCMs :)
There's four main possibilities to the increasing ice extent:
1) Scientists largely expected it and weren't really surprised.
2) Scientists were uncertain but were well able to understand when it happened
3) Scientists were uncertain are don't quite understand why
4) Scientists were surprised and still don't understand why
It's probable something from 2-4. Some stuff I saw suggested 2-3, this paper suggests 3-4.
But what you've shown doesn't suggest any goalpost moving from volume to extent, in fact I can remember years back they were always concerned about the ice caps entering the ocean and causing sea level rise, and to a lesser extend the Greenland ice cap changing the jet stream to Europe. Even if the ice extent is a surprising result it's not changing the thing they were worried about.
You are *literally* asserting that warmer temperatures decrease salinity, and therefore cause a mitigation of the typical freezing point depression, and therefore cause more ice.
That's correct (there were other factors too). What I objected to was your insistence on me agreeing to the phrasing "So, warm air makes ice". To me that sounds like you're trying to get to agree to a ridiculous sounding simplification just for the purpose of making me sound ridiculous.
As for the media I'll acknowledge that there was some inappropriate hyping in the fact that the reports underplayed the timeline and overplayed the certainty. The expected rise in the next century timeframe should have been much better communicated, and the fact is that every new paper is reported as fact and uncertainties are overridden.
But that doesn't mean the consistent message given by climate scientists is just hype. They're working in the literature, not the media, the media conversation is fairly irrelevant to their research.
And I'll still come back to the original assertion you made, about the increasing extent, is itself misleading compared to the decreasing volume.
Dogs have co-evolved with humans for hundreds of years...
Cats haven't been around as long, but cats are generally solitary to begin with so might do better with isolation.
Dogs were first domesticated by humans something like 15,000 years ago. Cats were kept as pets by the Egyptians almost 4,000 years ago.
So, um, your numbers are a bit off ;)
The bad news is I write slashdot comments when I've very sleepy.
The good news is that my memory of writing that post happened while I was awake, so I didn't have a dream about posting on slashdot!
I don't think it's the confinement. Wolves which range hundreds of miles are kept in captivity by humans in small areas (dogs), and they live far longer with humans than in the wild.
I think it's the water quality. Dog poop and urine don't mix with the air, they don't breathe it in. Marine animals on the other hand, DO breathe their own feces. Which is why it's essential to have a large volume of water per animal, as happens in nature.
I have guppy fish in a 30 gallon tank. They almost never live past 2 years in captivity. In nature however, guppies live 5 years or more.
I've been thinking of doing an experiment for quite a while. Take two groups of guppies, one in a common aquarium environment, say 10 guppies in a 10 gallon tank (1 inch of fish per gallon). The other group would live in a far less dense tank, maybe 5 guppies in a 200 gallon tank. (5 would be the minimum number since guppies are communal fish and they don't do well mentally unless they're in a group). And compare the fish lifespan in the the 2 groups.
Dogs have co-evolved with humans for hundreds of years. We'd expect them to be fairly well adapted though they can still get some serious psychological issues.
Cats haven't been around as long, but cats are generally solitary to begin with so might do better with isolation.
Orca are highly social, perhaps moreso than humans. And an aquarium can hardly compare to the ocean in sensory complexity. It's basically like sticking a human in solitary confinement, it's inhumane and they tend to go crazy.
I love the idea of going to an aquarium and seeing Orca swimming around. But I can't imagine a way of doing so that doesn't essentially amount to torturing the poor animals, Seaworld and the like should absolutely be shut down.
What does "obsolete" mean? If his writing instrument does what he needs it to do and he's happy using it, then more power to him. Who's to tell him he can't use it, or an IBM Selectric, or even a quill pen and vellum? Nothing is obsolete if it still works for your needs.
Presumably almost everything works for your needs when you first start using it. So assuming almost anything except web browsers can continue to maintain that functionality then what possible things can go obsolete?
Btw, I wouldn't really consider a quill pen and vellum to be obsolete because there are purposes for which they work best. But if you wanted to set up a new machine to do something like WordStar on DOS that would be quite possible, hence WordStar on DOS is obsolete.
And according to your hypothesis, this warmer air causes more ice to form because salinity is reduced. So, warm air makes ice.
Let me get this. You're trying to get me to agree to a ridiculous sounding oversimplification of my position so you can then turn around and say that sounds ridiculous?
Over a period of hundreds, if not thousands of years :) The changes in sea ice and land ice are driven by forces other than atmospheric temperature.
Like gravity, without the sea ice to hold it in place it starts flowing towards the ocean.
So now you're saying that the heat from the atmosphere magically concentrates and targets a very small portion of the ice to melt it down, the way a bullet transfers its kinetic energy to just one small spot on a human's body? :)
No, I'm saying that comparing numbers from two different things is irrelevant without understanding how those things interact.
Can you at least admit that the article over hyped the issue?
No. They said it's going to be fairly slow for the next century or so and didn't hide the fact. How is that hype?
If you take the position you've already conceded and add to it weight enough to offset a reasonable amount of media bias, you're already well within 'equal' bad acts from outside forces.
Unless you feel you're getting the whole, truthful story from the Western press?
I'm already factoring in western media bias, what reasonable amount of media do you think I'm missing that would make them equal?
Did Russia not invade Crimea? Were all those Maidan snipers really XE/Blackwater contractors? If anything the Western media has been effectively biased towards Russia.
For example in their obsession with appearing objective by showing both sides of every story they're presenting the referendums as a case of he said/she said. It's blatantly obvious to anyone paying attention that the referendum results are wholesale fabrications. But because the media is reluctant to flat out contradict one side people end up thinking that the truth is somewhere inbetween. Similarly with the fascists in Kiev. They're a tiny fraction less influential than most other European countries, but Russia keeps saying Fascist, the western media repeats, and readers end up thinking "ok, they're probably not all fascists but there's enough for the Russians to be legitimately scared".
That's the brilliance of Putin's propaganda. Take advantage of the Western media's obsession with being unbiased by shifting the Overton window so you look defensible.
You can't just throw a bunch of money at a problem and expect a solution to come out. You have to decide on a solution and then throw a bunch of money at it.
It sounds like there were a ton of problems in New Jersey. Crumbling schools? Spend the $100 million fixing infrastructure. Kids have trouble at home? Spend the money on councillors and after-school programs. Poor teachers? Spend it on recruiting.
It seems like they went in with a lot of money and a grand poorly defined plan, a huge institution isn't just going to jump in and implement someone's poorly defined scheme, so instead of spend everybody was busy fighting over details and figuring out where the money should go. The result is the money is wasted in paperwork and of the stuff that got spent no one knows what actually worked.
Do I believe that the Maidan protests were fundamentally a genuine expression of Ukrainian outrage with Yanokovych? Yes.
I don't deny that the protests and organizations involved had some Western support, a few Western politicians stopping by to give speeches, and had official contact with Western groups and governments. But that doesn't mean that over 100,000 protesters in Kiev weren't representative of the population of Kiev.
In contrast do I think that the protests in Crimea and Donetsk were a genuine expression of East Ukrainian outrage with the Euromaidan? Yes. And they did have cause to be angry because despite his power grab Yanokovych had still won an election.
That being said Russia is also driving the protests, if not through intelligence agents (for which there's some evidence) then through propaganda and the implication that they're willing to invade to make sure the separatists stay in charge. Just look at the number of people here who think Kiev is run by neo-Nazis, imagine how bad it must be when all your news sources are controlled by the Kremlin.
Another difference is that the focus of the Maidan was massive numbers of people peacefully protesting and expressing outrage, the small amount of violence was an unavoidable consequence of the numbers involved and the eventual overthrow was a result of the fact they had so much power they couldn't really restrain themselves.
In contrast the focus of the Eastern protests was violence, intimidation, and seizing power from the beginning. So a mob of hundreds in a city of 2 million can easily take over if they're willing to use force.
Moreover, it's not clear what is the goal of the western sanctions as their goal is often amorphously described as "deescalate the situation in Ukraine". What does this mean? Russians think that annexation of Crimea is a done deal. Not just Putin, average Russians too. They certainly won't back away from that. As for the instability in east Ukraine, it's not clear how you prove who is escalating what right now? The locals in East Ukraine are certainly as pissed off at Kiev as it gets, specially after deadly Odesa clashes and the coup in Kiev. I don't think they need a lot of encouragement from Putin at this point.
I don't think anybody believes that Russia is giving Crimea back. I suspect that's why the sanctions are targeted at individuals, an economic sanction means you have to take it off at some point, and if at that point Russia still has Crimea then you've lost. But if you're targeting individuals you can leave those sanctions in place until they die.
My hope is that the US and EU have told Russia that an invasion of East Ukraine will trigger massive Iran level sanctions. They won't say it publicly since they don't want Putin to feel pressure to respond, but that is something that would be effective. Even if Putin did invade it would take a while to establish control and major sanctions could pressure him to declare victory and go home.
If that's the case then the Russian army is still there to intimidate but they won't enter. It's mainly a question of whether Ukrainian troops can reenter the cities and establish order without killing too many protesters and escalating the situation.
Honest government. Yes. Everyone wants that. Too bad that *both* the "west backed" and the "east backed" governments did the same thing - rob national coffers for their own gains. Both are completely incompetent.
This can't be said enough. Both sides are the same. Each wants to influence the government using processes other than democracy. Their methods wouldn't matter even if you could distinguish one from another, and you only just barely can.
Two sides of the same coin. Heads Ukraine loses, tails Ukraine loses.
Anyone who sees the anti-Russian side as some kind of benefactor is either stupid or drinking the Kool Aid.
Yeah, one side overthrew a President who after attempting to steal a previous election, won a legitimate election but then forced judges to throw out the constitution so he'd get more power.
The other side invaded a sovereign nation, held a referendum at gunpoint, then used the made up results to seize part of that nation. They then started stirring up a civil war in another part of the nation, took over several cities with armed thugs, and held another fake referendum with fake results.
As long as you ignore all the details the sides are virtually identical.
Honest government. Yes. Everyone wants that. Too bad that *both* the "west backed" and the "east backed" governments did the same thing - rob national coffers for their own gains. Both are completely incompetent.
So now you have 2 sides - one that wants integration with Europe in hope to fix the political issues. Kind of backward thinking.
The other side, wants closer integration with Russia because many of them are Russian. They want Russia to impose stability and they view Putin as some sort of a hero despite his faults.
One side had 2 revolutions already that seemed to have worked for their end. Why can't the other side have their own revolution too? And to be very frank, when people *vote* and their vote is then called "illegal" by the so-called "democracies", all it does is harden their stance.
The west backed was bad, but the east backed was worse.
As for elections while the east was in charge they stole a Presidential election in '04. After massive protests they agreed to hold a new election but with a new constitution that limited the power of the president, which the west won. The west did a poor job of governing and had a free election which they lost, Yanokovych got in and pressured judges to toss out the new constitution giving him a ton more power. After a bunch more power plays using a mandate that wasn't really his massive numbers of western protesters threw him out. (making a couple boneheaded moves in the process)
Russia then invades and seizes Crimea with a fake referendum with fake results then encourages the east to do the same. They also have fake referendums and fake results and people in charge only because they have guns and fists and a willingness to use them.
I won't claim the west is innocent and perfect, but the actions of the people running the east are absolutely injustifiable.
pure water freezes at 0C
salt water freezes If the warmer temperatures led to the water having lower salinity that could cause more ice.
So warmer temperatures will magically cause more ice? :) Really?
I posted a mechanism and an article that gave a credible explanation and your response is to ignore it and post a snide remark.
As for the article you posted
First, air has such a low heat capacity that it doesn't hold enough heat to influence water or the ice within it significantly. Secondly, heat moves upward, not downward, which prevents it from moving from air to water or ice on water.
CO2 traps energy in the atmosphere heating up the air, the warmer the air is the less energy is transferred from the water or ground into the air
There are an infinite number of complexities stemming from the fact that no one can describe exactly what is happening or produce a consistent theory for what is supposed to happen. For example, where is the heat supposed to be located? The 0.6C is supposed to be near the earth's surface. How much heating is there supposed to be in the higher atmosphere? None can be detected, yet it is supposed to be back-radiating to heat the surface.
My fuzzy recollection is that the upper atmosphere is cooler or at least not warmed because the heat hasn't radiated up there because of CO2. But that's kind of irrelevant to the topic at hand. That the author sees fit to rant about it anyways is telling.
Not all of the Arctic ice has been melted, but alarmists claim that it will. If all of the atmospheric heat caused by humans were circulated to the Arctic and melted ice, there would have to be 7.25 times as much heat, which is 0.6 x 7.25, which is 4.35C. But much of the ice is thicker than two meters, which would require more heat to melt it.
First no one claims the Arctic ice is simply going to melt in place, the ice sheets are going to break up and float into areas where they can melt. But the thing to worry about is the land ice sheets which he ignores. Without the thick sea ice surrounding them the land sheets will flow into the oceans and raise sea levels.
The rest of article is a bunch of calculations based on strawman assumptions. I might as well write an article about how guns can't kill people because the kinetic energy in a bullet is nothing compared to the mass of a human.
and freezing point depression, making ice form at 0C
I assume this was a typo as salt water freezes well below 0.
In what world can you have a *warmer* temperature form more ice?
If the warmer temperatures led to the water having lower salinity that could cause more ice. Also if warmer temperatures or other factors cause higher winds the wind pushes existing ice packs from very cold areas into less cold areas which increases total ice production.
This article seems to make the most sense of what I've seen.
Are you now really arguing that there is no such thing as freezing point depression and boiling point elevation when making water saltier? :)
No. You misunderstood entirely.
In either scenario the salt water freezes. But when it gets colder later on the cold drives the salt out of the ice making the water underneath saltier.
It doesn't require a colder temperature to form the ice, if anything the forming temperature would be warmer.
In both conditions the initial ice is the same salinity as the water, but in the colder years the temperature then drives salt out of the ice causing the changeover). If the changeover doesn't occur the upper water might actually have less salinity making ice formation easier.
I don't claim for a second that this effect sounds bizarre and counterintuitive and I'm sure there's other factors at work. I'm honestly not sure how well established the understanding of this particular phenomena is.
Of course whatever the mechanism we know the air temperature is increasing, the ice surface area is growing on the sea, but the total volume is decreasing on land (and in the multiyear regions of the sea). The decreasing volume of on land and the multiyear sea ice is the part that really breaks your theory of water being the driver. It's also the thing to worry about with sea levels. The sea ice extant is an interesting phenomena but doesn't really affect much directly. The multiyear ice is responding as anticipated and that's a problem.
As a matter of fact I do have a theory! This is a bit clearer.
Basically you were right about the heat capacity of the water being important. It sounds like the slightly warmer air and upper ocean means the new sea ice is a lot saltier (cold drives the salt out). Normally salt gets squeezed out by the cold, it makes the water underneath extra salty, that cold salty water sinks and it replaced by new warmer water. This new warmer water accelerates the melting process.
When the air is slightly warmer the salt stays in the ice and the changeover doesn't occur to the same degree. Instead of warmer water to melt the ice all you have is warmer air.
So it takes you 6 posts to reach the point you claim you were talking about at the start.
And it doesn't even fit the facts. Warmer air temperatures at the poles isn't a theory, it's a well documented fact.
Not an assumption - pretty simple math when it comes to understanding the mass of water vs. the mass of atmosphere and their specific heats.
As for "so what", if *water* is driving *atmosphere*, wouldn't it be silly to look at *atmosphere* as the driver of the *water*? Causality starts somewhere specific :)
Unless you think the ocean is somehow causes winter I'm not sure what your point is. Yeah the ocean has a lot of stored energy (and that was one theory for the recent subdued warming), that doesn't mean that's where energy is entering the system.
Question: are you claiming your entire point since your original post was a claim that the decreasing volume as opposed to extent is evidence that warming is coming from the ocean or ground and not CO2?
On the endothermic front you're making a huge assumption that the magnitude of energy absorbed by melting ice is large enough to make a significant difference to the global temperature, and even if it were so what?
As for your talk about magical heat you're obscuring the basic fact that whatever the mechanism decreasing volume and increasing surface area is actually happening. If I make up a stupid theory about magical bunnies driving the moon around the earth that doesn't actually stop the moon in its tracks.
If you're actually interested bunratty posted a relatively short and understandable explanation but I have no interest in debating your magical heat theories.
The assertion that temperature must *not* be stable in order for ice to melt is refutable with the simplest countertop experiment - put ice in water. Let temperature stabilize. Watch the ice continue to melt without changing water temperature. Q.E.D.
Huh? That's not what endothermic means.
Endothermic means that the process absorbs energy, it takes energy to transform ice into water.
If you did do an experiment with ice, water, and no other energy transfer, the average temperature of the final system would be less than the initial system because energy was used turning the ice into water.
That still doesn't explain why you were talking about it in the first place. It's a complete non-sequitur.