Matt Ridley in The Australian explains how every man and his dog is forecasting the doom of the Arctic sea ice, and not only have they been wrong year after year, but they all assume that if the ice all melts it’ll be a global disaster. But Earth’s already been-there done-that, and for years, and it was no-biggie. Polar bears obviously got through it, as did seals. Humans without protective solar panels somehow spread far and wide, and generally flourished.
I suspect the main climate refugees from the Arctic would have names like Donner and Blitzen. This is the one thing Matt doesn’t explain — in 8,000BC when the ice melted, what the heck happened with Santa?
Ice scares aren’t all they’re cracked up to be
This was a period known as the “early Holocene insolation maximum” (EHIM). Because the Earth’s axis was tilted away from the vertical more than today (known as obliquity), and because we were then closer to the Sun in July than in January (known as precession), the amount of the Sun’s energy hitting the far north in summer was much greater than today. This “great summer” effect was the chief reason the Earth had emerged from an ice age, because hot northern summers had melted the great ice caps of North America and Eurasia, exposing darker land and sea to absorb more sunlight and warm the whole planet.
The effect was huge: about an extra 50 watts per square metre 80 degrees north in June. By contrast, the total effect of man-made global warming will reach 3.5 watts per square metre (but globally) only by the end of this century.
To put it in context, the EHIM was the period during which agriculture was invented in about seven different parts of the globe at once. Copper smelting began; cattle and sheep were domesticated; wine and cheese were developed; the first towns appeared. The seas being warmer, the climate was generally wet so the Sahara had rivers and forests, hippos and people.
Barring one especially cold snap 8200 years ago, the coldest spell of the past 10 millennia was the very recent “little ice age” of AD1300-1850, when glaciers advanced, tree lines descended and the Greenland Norse died out.
UPDATE: This graph shows the ice-core data up until 1855. The last 150 years (1705 to 1855) are highlighted in red to show the warming as the Earth began coming out of the LIA.
Created by Cuffy and Clow in 1997, and based on Greenland ice core records, this chart shows global temperatures for the past 15,000 years. | h/t Don Easterbrook. *
Source: iceagenow.
It is pretty hard to measure sea-ice that might have melted 8,000 years ago. But the Greenland Ice cores show temperatures there were hotter than today, and there are some proxies to estimate the extent of the sea ice. Ridley refers to a paper (Stranne 2013) which uses 8 different proxies that suggest extended periods of hundreds of years where there was no perennial sea ice. With models (yeah, yeah) they say the Holocene warm period is all explained with extra sunlight coming in due to the orbital shift at the time (I don’t think that is controversial). They speculate that the earlier instability and temperature gyrations of 12-15,000 years ago in Greenland were due to the ice shifting from a phases of regular sea ice, to being regularly ice free. The albedo of sea ice is a reasonably important feedback.
The darker blue times in the graph below are when proxies suggest there was “low” sea ice (6,000 to 12,000 years ago).
Stranne et al (2013) Click to enlarge. H/t to The HockeySchtick
Abstract — Stranne et al
H/t GWPF
REFERENCE
Stranne, C., Jakobsson, M., Bjork, G. (2014) Arctic Ocean perennial sea ice breakdown during the Early Holocene Insolation Maximum , Quaternary Science Reviews, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2013.10.022
* h/t to Craig Thomas for pointing out and that the word “global” in Graph 2, was better off not being there. h/t to Michael for spotting that the arrows on graph 2 for the MWP and LIA were incorrect. Both fixed. Thanks to both.
I can’t wait for it to melt. Think of the money saved in shipping!
And the flow-on effect will be to shut up the greenies, because cities won’t be drowned. There’s always something else those loonies will find to whine about.
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Well much as it was ridiculed, it seems the Polar Ocean expedition managed to sail the NorthWest passage.
Expect to hear pronouncements of the death of arctic ice (even though the passage has been sailed in the past)
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Polar Ocean Challenge wants to “ draw attention to the progressive recession of polar sea ice in the summer months to climate change in the Arctic.” by traversing the North East and the North West passages in a single summer, ie circumnavigating the Arctic Ocean. It has been done before.
http://polarocean.co.uk/
They have now made it to Alaska (half way). If they press on quickly they might make it since the minimum summer ice occurs in mid September (2 weeks).
https://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/sea-ice-page/
Crew member, young Ben Edwards (age 14) writes a personal blog- 17 Aug;
Now that they have reached Alaska he has cheered up- 27 Aug;
51
So say the ice melts. How many weeks will shipping be possible? How many ships will be loaded and lined up to go? Or will the ice be gone for 10 months or so? Say there is an item that now sells for $100 USD.
[I can’t see much advantage to OZ from such shipping.]
How much less can I expect to pay for that item on the US west coast if that item started in, say, Istanbul or Venice?
I recently bought (in Washington State) tires made in Thailand. It is hard to visualize why these might be cheaper for me if the ice on the Arctic Ocean melts.
I know the models (distance x fuel x wages) show money will be saved in shipping. I don’t trust the models to improve my reality.
61
I can’t see how cheaper shipping in the Arctic circle could make things cheaper here in Oz either, but there might be some flow-on effects. It should help countries up there though.
31
“The average Arctic winter temperature is -30° F (-34°C),
while the average Arctic summer temperature is 37-54° F (3-12° C).
In general, Arctic winters are long and cold while summers are short and cool.”
Wikipedia.
Even at the North Pole itself, “Summer temperatures (June, July, and August) average around the freezing point (0 °C (32 °F)). The highest temperature yet recorded is 13 °C”
So of course the ice melts in summer and real records only began with satellites in 1979.
In fact if you believe in average as meaningful, the average is 0C, so even slightly colder winter means a lot more ice and a slightly warmer summer means a lot more ice. What does it all mean. Very little. As the article says, the seas do not rise with melting sea ice. No one in Scotland or Iceland drowns at the docks in summer from suddenly rising seas and the Polar bears are fine.
I have to say, the stories of poor polar bears drowning in their hundreds have just vanished and now too much ice is recognized as a real problem for finding food, so they are marginal survivors like all Arctic species.
223
Perhaps the really threatened species are the climate alarmists themselves. Too many predictions of an ice free North Pole. Then you get our very own Professor Turkey who triggered a dangerous and massive and rescue mission based on his firm belief despite all the evidence, that Antarctic waters were an ice free summer holiday spot for the family. Forgot the little umbrellas for the Pina Coladas.
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Actually, the satellite measurements of Arctic sea ice started about 1973; the reason why so many refer to 1979 is that the ice extent in 1973-4 is about what it is today – in 1979, the extent was anomalously high. (I would post a link at this point, but the computer has trashed most of the files in my records; however, I have used it before on this site – but, please, do not ask me where.)
163
Simple test —
Take two glasses A and B. Put an equal amount of ice in each.
Glass A.
Add brine that is maintained at 1°C warmer than the ice. Keep this glass in a temperature maintained atmosphere.
Glass B.
Add brine the same temperature as the ice but put this glass in an atmosphere that is 1°C warmer that of glass A.
Which glass of ice will melt faster?
What does it indicate?
From that simple experiment does the ice at the pole mostly indicate the effects of the sea or the atmosphere temperature effects.?
71
We would know if the Antarctic ice was melting as claimed by NASA, we would see real sealevel rise and we don’t. They are dreaming !
01
When you really take a long term view as the second graph does, you realise that all the vaporous hand-waving and “OMG, we are all going to die” attitude of the always-connected-chatterati, in the 21 century, is all just self titillation. I have come to the conclusion that they want, nay need, to be frightened about something, in order to alleviate the boredom of their everyday existence.
384
Ya mean, something like “The real housewives of someplace” syndrome?
82
Like all the dire tipping points that cannot be reversed, as long as that big fireball in the sky exists we will experience cycles of great magnitudes…..well if we manage to continue our ‘blink of an eye’ existence that is.
112
Or to justify their jobs. There are people doing PhDs on things which were made up in the 1980s, but that’s the way with religions. Fantasy becomes fact becomes history.
134
But the fantasy becomes cyclic, as a new generation gets their positive strokes by debunking “the science” of their parents.
113
Rereke,
How do you feel about this assessment for the Cook Islands.
http://www.unesco.org/csi/smis/siv/inter-reg/climate.pdf
31
It is utter nonsense. I can’t believe RW will not agree with me.
52
I am sorry Stan, but it isn’t utter nonsense, just mostly nonsense.
The Pacific has always had cyclones, and call them what you will, they have always done some damage. The question is, has the degree of damage increased? Currently the answer to that question is, “No”, in terms of the overall population, but of course there will be individuals who want to blame climate change, especially if it opens access to aid funding.
In fact the whole pacific region is succeptable to high winds, and high seas. There are not many mountain ranges in the Pacific Ocean, to deflect wind. So when there is an extreme weather event, the deaths, injuries, and material damage, tend to be disproportionally high.
The key thrust of this presentation, is access to clean fresh water. Many of the islands, especially in the southern group are not far above sea level, and so have fresh water issues, Harvesting fresh rain water is the solution, but finding donors is the problem. You can stick a large plaque on a desalination plant, saying who the donor countries were, but for some reason, donor countries are not quite so interested in putting a very small plaque on a rain-water tank, saying who the donor was.
That is the real thrust of the referenced presentation. They are trying to encourage donor countries to think globally, but act locally, in a meaningful way, with solutions that address the real issues.
20
The odd thing is the focus on “capture of rainwater.”
This will lead to saltwater intrusion and the banning of capture of rainwater. This is the real world. http://www.naturalnews.com/029286_rainwater_collection_water.html
Desalination is the better way to go as long as they intend to use other people’s money.
Finally, the problem with low islands and humans is that the latter tend to cover the former with “stuff” that prevents the normal functioning and growth. Runways, roads, parking spaces, tennis courts, fuel depots, and trash hinder coral growth. Climate change (global warming) issues are in the future — and likely always will be.
71
Or to give them a crusade to go on, so that they can “save” us by imposing their view of a utopian world on the ignorant masses.
72
The second graph should attract the interest of anybody sceptical enough to realise immediately that it is complete nonsense:
1. It is a graph made using greenland ice cores, but somebody is calling it “global temperatures”.
2. It has a nonsense red line marked “present temperature” which is quite obviously about 2 degrees below where present temperatures in Greenland really are today.
98
The graph is credited to Cuffy and Clow. If you have issues with the graph, I suggest you take it up with them.
Since the Greenland Ice sheet provides the only contiguous record of temperatures for the period circa 17,000 BP to the present day, it is taken, by concensus agreement, to stand as a proxy for “global temperatures”, for comparative purposes. This is fine, because discussions of historic temperatures are always relative, and never absolute.
This particular graph is dated 1997, (which you would have noticed, had you cared to look). If you wish to assert that the current temperature for Greenland is two degrees warmer than that, then please cite a reference.
75
The graph is terrible. The data is fine but half of the labels are incorrect. Anyone who isn’t blind can tell by eye that they have labeled a small peak in the roman warm period as the medieval warm period and labeled the dark ages as the little ice age. The fact that this shoddy work keeps reappearing on blogs should be a mark of shame for the climate skeptic community.
41
Craig
1. The axis of the graph clearly says this is Greenland temps, and the caption also says “based on Greenland ice core records”. That said, the term “global warming” (which has been turned into a meaningless advertising phrase) is best left off, so I’ve deleted it. Thank you. Good luck convincing anyone that makes it “complete” nonsense since the post is about Arctic Sea Ice and Arctic temperatures. h/t to you.
2. As for present temperatures in Greenland, papers like Chylek 2006 show that current temperatures in Greenland were about the same in 2006 as they were in 1940. That’s using thermometers.
Michael
1. Thanks for the proof reading. Since this post is about the holocene, those arrows are irrelevant – but you’re right that they were pointing at the wrong bumps. I’ve fixed that. h/t to you.
2. Since you are so vigilant about errors in graphs I expect you must have been outraged by the shoddy work of government professionals who hide satellite data, and change the whole trend of graphs with mysterious adjustments that can’t be replicated.
That’s what shameful means…
03
2. As Chylek 2006 confirms, temperatures in the 1940s, similar to temperatures at present, are in both cases around 2 degrees higher than the temperature indicated by the red line on the shoddy graph we are commenting on, which is mislabelled as “present” when it is in fact at least 100 years prior to present.
41
Michael.
The GISP2 chart is irrelevant to the Arctic as well. It is the average temperature at the top of a rather high ice sheet – overall the Arctic is not like that.
The purpose of the chart is to distract from the subject of an “ice free summer” Arctic which concerns sea ice, not the ice on the top of an ice sheet.
21
NO Harry, the GISP chart is a very good proxy of the Arctic.
There are many other proxies as well such as sediment biodata, terminal moraine.
All of it confirms the GISP data for the Arctic.
The current summer is NOWHERE NEAR ice free, not like it was during large periods during the first 3/4 of the Holocene.
Perhaps if you had the most basic research abilities, you would be able find such papers, but all you have is EMPTY BASELESS RHETORIC.
02
That’s reasonably accurate. It shows the Holocene Thermal Optimum above that line. The HTO was between 2 and 2,5 degrees K warmer than it is now. During that time, there were lakes across North Africa and lush jungle with Hippopotami disporting themselves in the lakes, where there is now desert.
The warm went away and so did the water, with the desert returning, as it does when it cools.
30
Dope.
31
An interesting place to look at past Arctic sea ice the work of J Muller on Fram Strait biodata
https://epic.awi.de/30624/1/M%C3%BCller_et_al_2012.pdf
A bit of a read, but clearly points to much less Arctic sea ice through the first 3/4 of the Holocene.
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Nice graph there Andy. Thanks.
10
Considering it doesn’t make conclusions about “Arctic Sea ice” in general, but restricts itself to a very particular location, and also considering its chief observation is that warming/release of ice from the Arctic causes interruption to the thermohaline circulation, thus causing cooling across a large swathe of the NH, it is puzzling how you come to your conclusion, much less how you could have gotten there “clearly”.
Maybe – just guessing here – you didn’t read the paper itself, but instead relied on a dodgy review of it you read on a blog somewhere?
32
So, you were unable to comprehend.
Nothing unusual there, hey.
03
Perhaps you should do some research of some of his other papers, maybe try to figure it out.
It is well known that the whole Arctic region was much warmer during that period than it is now.
We are very much still in a COOLER period of the Holocene interglacial.
03
I am curious Craig, apart from infesting this blog, what exactly are you doing personally to stave off the “disaster” you and your fellow travelers are only too keen to screech from the rooftops (and take our money to “mitigate”)??
11
And here is a graph of the Iceland Sea ice index, by Jakobsen
https://s19.postimg.io/802kz6c8j/Icelandic_sea_ice_index.png
And thanks Jo, I have been saying for ages that the current level of Arctic sea ice is actually quite high compared to the rest of the Holocene, except the LIA.
Around 1979 was probably a peak level similar to the levels of the end of the Little Ice Age, the coldest period in the last 10,000 years.
155
The term “Neoglaciation” refers to the cooling period starting around 4000 years ago.
A couple of bumps at the Roman Warm Period, and Medieval Warm Period, culminating in the LIA, …
… followed by the current “Modern slightly warm period.”
135
I’m sure most of you have seen this little video…
.. from the cold face, so to speak.
https://vimeo.com/14366077
155
Good piece.
82
If all these academic and government scientists had to work in private enterprise, they’d either have to acquire dish washing skills or they would starve. Their predictive skills are truly useless.
143
Jean M. Auel more or less wrote about this inter alia, the transformation of the northern hemisphere, in her novel The Clan of the Cave Bear.
63
“Clan of the Cave Bear” !
Have not read it. How did it predict or discuss the Climate cycles or Artic Ice?
42
I haven’t read her books for some time, but I remember that it discussed the retreating ice over North America, the disappearance of the Arctic ice and the effects it had on the lives of the people and animals. I may even have been thinking of her book The Mammoth Hunters.
It’s just interesting that a renowned author was writing about the effects of global warming in our prehistoric era.
73
The Thumdowners should vent their spleen at the author, not the messenger. Mind you, these Thumdowners probably wouldn’t have the fortitude to read Jean Auel, or anything similar. Twitter is probably more within their capacity.
43
During the Bolling-Allerod period saw a huge jump in CO2 and they think it may have been liberated from the ocean.
http://epic.awi.de/22225/
Key words: Oldest Dryas, Older Dryas, Younger Dryas and Antarctic Cold Reversal.
52
Also the cooling event around 8,200 years ago ’caused a global CO2 decline of ~25 ppm over ~300 years.’
wiki
52
Off topic. This is from today’s ‘SpaceWeather.com’ site’
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– Nigel Calder, The Chilling Stars ….
151
Well not anymore! Svensmark finds a correlation between solar activity and Cloud cover.
http://www.space.dtu.dk/english/news/nyhed?id=B759B038-66D3-4328-BBDC-0B0A82371446
Also C.E. Wallington in his landmark book; Meteorology for Glider Pilots 3rd Ed 1977; says; ” a water droplet needs a suitable particle or nucleus on which to freeze. There are not enough suitable freezing nuclei for more than a small fraction of the water droplets that form in most clouds, so its is not at all strange for supercool water droplets to remain in their unfrozen liquid form above the freezing level.”
To put that in other words; cirrus clouds need freezing nuclei to form.
Therefore I think that Wallington predicted that cosmic rays would increase the formation of cirrus clouds.
Now the scientists have caught up.
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Well, I’ve learned something new this morning. I thought the cosmic ray hypothesis was lead by Henrik Svensmark. I was unaware that he had a son, Jacob, who is leading the team studying the effects of Forbush Decreases.
I hope young Jacob doesn’t go through the mincer as his father did. (Why are the warmists so egregiously nasty?)
Anyway, well done, Jacob, and hats off to Henrik who has produced and nurtured another inquisitive and competent scientist.
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Jacob ran many iterations of the CORSI.KA simulator program for his father as they ran the calculations for and checked some of Henrik’s earlier papers. That was over ten years ago, so he has a thorough grounding in the subject.
The reason for the dot in the middle of the word was because something assumed I was misspelling Corsica and got overly and pig-headedly helpful. Read the word and ignore the dot, It enables the CORRECT spelling in this case.
00
Some say the Earth’s reducing magnetism is allowing the formation of more low level cloud due to more penetration of cosmic rays. From the Space station the Earth has lost its blue so they may be right but as with all weather only time will tell
51
“If true, that’s amazing”.
OK, well, put on your sceptic hat for a moment and consider the journalist’s statement:
“… cause a reduction in cloud fraction of about 2 percent corresponding to roughly a billion tonnes of liquid water disappearing from the atmosphere”
er….there’s so much wrong with that phrase, it is difficult to know where to begin.
So I guess I will read the paper, let’s start with the abstract:
“The total solar irradiance has a relative decrease in connection with FDs of the order of 10^−3, which is too small to have a thermodynamic impact on timescales of a few days”
So a 1% drop in solar radiation for a few days. And has no thermodynamic impact. “Amazing”?
65
“it is difficult to know where to begin”
So you ADMIT you have no retort. That is called IGNORANCE.
“So a 1% drop in solar radiation for a few days. And has no thermodynamic impact”
So Craig finally recognises the Sun as the bringer of all energy to this glorious, prosperous, CARBON BASED planet of ours.
Well Done , Craig.
You have finally reached a basic level of sanity.
45
Actually, Andy,
I have to side with Craig on this.
Who ever wrote the article, for SpaceWeather.com adopted a journalistic style. Hence the hyperbole.
The actual facts of the matter, though, might be reasonable if they were presented in a clinical way, supported by tangible data.
Relative statements that people like Craig can trample all over, doesn’t actually help science.
40
“reduction in cloud fraction” = “a billion tonnes of liquid water disappearing from the atmosphere”
Discuss.
I’ll kick off with:
The journo is a serious idiot.
30
Have you measured it yourself, Craig? If you have, you will be able to enlighten us all.
Go ahead.
Craig also said: (my emphasis)
Craig, a one one-thousandth drop is a drop of 0.1%, not 1%. Of course it has no effect.
A relative decrease is not a decrease in TSI, but a decrease as seen from here.
So What?
I read the DTU press release as well. It expresses the effect much better than you have tried to twist it as:
The effect from Forbush decreases on clouds is too brief to have any impact on long-term temerature changes. .
21
Hilarious. You like what the journalist wrote, and you accuse the researcher’s own words of being a “twist”.
TSI *is* “as seen from here”. The “relative” refers to time periods where no FD applies.
Love your maths, by the way.
30
Really, it is amazing that the climate alarmists focus on the North Pole and the South Pole. No one lives there. It is largely irrelevant. If the ice all melted in summer at the North Pole, the world would be a better place for trade and travel. So we have Father Christmas there, superman and the Polar Star. A place of fantasy but the only thing which people could say was a harbinger of terrible times to come, except that nothing much is happening but at least it is dramatic every summer.
They could look at Lake Baikal, with 21% of the world’s fresh water and 9km deep, frozen every year as the ice rises above above roads. A magical place surrounded by huge mountains ranges over 1000km where the surface plummets straight into the depths. A nice place in summer and a frozen impossible place every winter. They put the cars up on wooden logs meters in the air so they can drive to town in mid winter on the ice. Global Warming? No one talks about it and Lake Baikal or the Great Lakes because they all melt in summer. Only the North pole, a place of fantasy for the fantasists who seems to grab every hot summer as proof they are right. Just silly really.
193
“Global Warming? No one talks about it and Lake Baikal”
Weirdly, here on Planet Earth, the people who live in Central Siberia – mainly Irkutsk – are very aware of global warming, seeing as it has caused the melt season at their Lake Baikal to start 3 weeks earlier than it used to, and caused the 300-odd rivers that feed Lake Baikal to increase the lake’s inflow by about 300 cubic metres per second compared with 100 years ago.
Increased precipitation and an earlier thaw are both of immense interest to a large swathe of the local inhabitants, all of whom have seen for themselves the effects of global warming.
What was it you were saying about “fantasists”?
86
Its natural variability.
‘Experts say that the lake has entered into another period of natural shallowness, already observed in the past. It may last up to a quarter of a century. Since 1962 Baikal has fallen below the 456-meter mark eleven times. An all-time record low of 455.27 meters was registered in 1982.’
More:
http://tass.ru/en/science/848907
61
Meanwhile, Temperatures from UAH NoPol between the 1998 El Nino and the just finishing El Nino, look like this.
https://s19.postimg.io/jrz6i34oj/UAH_No_Pol_2000_2016.png
Basically ZERO warming.
and from 1980 to just before the 1998 El Nino, they look like this.
https://s19.postimg.io/t5vk23e5v/UAH_nopol_1980_1995.png
So the only warming has come from NON-CO2 El Nino effects.
65
Craig,
Can you please supply me with references for what you claim, regarding Lake Baikal?
30
No worries, right after TdeF supplies his references supporting his claim that nobody at Lake Baikal talks about it.
30
let me help you out semantically. “No one” is an absolute, rather like “never” http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?NeverIsNeverNever. So you can be confident that the statement is wrong. All that is needed is one name or reference and it is wrong, so here we go these gals and guys in this paper
Shimaraev, M.N., L.N. Kuimova, V.N. Sinyukovich, and V.V. Tsekhanovskii. 2002. Manifestation of global climatic changes in Lake Baikal during the 20th century. Doklady Earth Sciences 383A:288–291.
20
and here is a helpful excerpt on how to present an annoying argument
10
Yes, I thought you would come up some way of avoiding my request for references. All smoke and mirrors.
00
Craig – how does this explain all the reports of Lake Baikal drying up? If the water inflow is so dramatically -increased- by AGW and an early melt, how can the lake itself be drying up as a result of AGW?
02
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/orthographic=-161.05,265.36,424
This is the Antarctic with strong winds circling the South Pole, they seem to be permanent and if breached the whole southern hemisphere may freeze
The Antarctic may never melt so sealevel may not rise much further than 15cms per century
74
Ho..Humm…Yawn…next….
Then theres this:
“31 May 2016 – In recent years, the glacial mass balance of Greenland is increasing despite announcements that global temperatures are on the rise; despite warnings that the Greenland Ice Sheet is melting; and despite announcements of a possible “blocked Gulf Stream “or catastrophic increase in sea level .”
https://iceagenow.info/greenland-ice-mass-balance-increasing/ original link in Italian http://www.freddofili.it/13772-groenlandia-al-record-storico-mancato-disgelo-accumuli-record-bilancio-massa-groenlandese/
I think Greenland is near the Arctic if Im not mistaken..(SARC) Of course the Vikings called it ‘Greenland’ not ‘Whiteland’.
I think regardless, nature will do its thing.
124
.
Just for interest and from my “internet” ramblings tonight ; from “Earth sciences” Nov. 2013
Greenland’s shrunken ice sheet: We’ve been here before
[quoted]
[ more ]
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I do not understand.
If we find a moraine now and it is front of the glacier, does that not mean that the glacier was LARGER in the past.
50
I get your point Peter but the “clams” helped me work out what he meant.
For clam shells to be in the moraine there had to be an ice free environment functioning before the ice formed.
Thinking along the same lines there may be a glacier somewhere with 100,000 year old clams shells?
KK
50
The leading edge of the new glacier is the only time when clam shells can be pushed ahead of the advancing ice wall.
?
30
I get it now. I was thinking that the moraine was way out ahead of the current clavier wall , eg maybe a few kilometres away such as the New Zealnad glaciers. If the moraine is right at the leading edge of the glacier then it must have been pushed to there, which means that the glacier is now at its greatest extent and maybe still moving forward.
20
… which nicely places the cooling which caused its expansion a couple of thousand years after the end of the Holocene Optimum which ended about 6000 years ago.
10
Oh dear – you are believing something you read on a website called “ice age now”?!?!
Please – be a little sceptical.
In reality, of course, observations show Greenland is losing mass:
http://www.grida.no/graphicslib/thumbs/1805c933-493c-4b85-be16-ad06eb342332/medium/mass-balance-of-the-greenland-ice-sheet_a555.jpg
78
Wow, 2007,, you are out of date aren’t you and of course the peak in 1979.
http://www.dmi.dk/en/groenland/maalinger/greenland-ice-sheet-surface-mass-budget/
Did you know that its not that long since the LIA, the COLDEST period in the last 10,000 years, and as we very fortunately warm a bit out of that dismal period, we can only expect there to be NATURAL melting.
REALITY is that the surface mass balance is climbing again in line with AMO gaining 250GT this year.
And most of the glaciers have stopped receding, also in line with the turning down of the AMO.
Looks like the HIGNLY BENEFICIAL warming period is now ending, and the people living up there will have to put up with the massive inconvenience of increasing ice levels again.
I bet YOU would not go up there to live Craig, PREFERABLY choosing to live somewhere much warmer. 😉
Going to be hilarious watching you Ice Worriers over the next several years as ice levels start to increase. 🙂
56
But watch out Ice Age Now can seriously enhance your grip on reality.
And some wouldn’t want that now, would they?
31
‘Greenland is losing mass.’
In fact mass balance is increasing because its getting colder and if this keeps up I can safely predict that large icebergs will be floating in the North Atlantic within a couple of decades.
http://www.dmi.dk/en/groenland/maalinger/greenland-ice-sheet-surface-mass-budget/
32
That comment is bizarre. The model you link to is about tracking intra-annual variation – it says nothing about future decades.
Inter-annual variation clearly shows mass loss:
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/reportcard/images-essays/fig3.4-tedesco.png
41
“it says nothing about future decades.”
Neither does your link,
Its a short, meaningless part of the NATURAL ice cycle, directly related to the upward leg of the AMO.
And that AMO is currently turning downwards.
03
Craig, That wasnt from Iceagenow they just relayed the reference site like others. Believe what you like. I think YOU probably believe in a site called, ‘realclimate’, we all know what that is about.
25
…a bit like Chinese Whispers, then?
Do you happen to recall what that game was designed to teach?
40
If you had the ability, you could actually go to the original site, and see the original graphs.
Too difficult ??
Don’t want to know the truth ??
02
Here’s one from the other side of the Arctic:
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/reportcard/images-essays/fig3.4-tedesco.png
75
nice impression of the upward cycle of the AMO, Craig
How about we look at Iceland, 8 stations… over a longer period 😉
https://s19.postimg.org/ck1f93l2r/iceland.jpg
56
Wow, not a single label in sight.
What is that graph supposed to represent?
Remember the context: I just posted a link to a graph that shows a steady trend over 13 years of mass loss in Greenland.
40
Its the temperatures anomalies recorded at 8 Icelandic weather stations by the Iceland Met.
You really DO hate real data, don’t you Craig.
03
Or we could look at the Icelandic sea ice index.
We see that the 1970’s was a peak almost as high as the tail end of the Little ice age and that the long term decline started in the 1800’s with a previous low point around 1930-1940
https://s19.postimg.io/802kz6c8j/Icelandic_sea_ice_index.png
Data is not your friend, is it Craig 😉
76
It was a huge Global Warming which created Civilisation, … well, gave Civilisation the chance to develop, a global warming completely out of human hands and not under human control..
Maybe that’s why the Greens are so anti Civilisation … they didn’t cause it, they can’t control it, and they can’t claim any credit for it, ergo it must be bad and has got to be destroyed. The trouble I have with that approach, is that I like civilisation; on the whole it’s really rather civilised.
92
Actually, it was ice ages that helped modern man evolve by presenting challenges that required advanced problem-solving and long-term forward-planning.
67
Homo Erectus is the character who grew a big brain when the Central American Seaway closed.
41
Yeah, but he was pretty bloody hopeless
41
“but he was pretty bloody hopeless”
He must feel like a mental giant to you, then.
13
You will get there eventually, Craig.
56
Ouch! 🙂
31
Advanced Problem Solving and Forward Planning?. Have you seen the records, then?
What you describe are two attributes of Civilisation. Or have you had a peek at Atlantis?
To be pedantic, we are in an Ice Age. It started about 3MYA and has maybe another 25MY to go, at least. It is a continuing series of stadials and interstadials controlled by the Melankovic variations of Planet Earth’s axial tilt (precession), axial wobble and orbital ovality. Stadial = cold period or glaciation. Interstadial = warm period, like the Holocene.
Google “Gould’s Belt” and read. The Solar System is travelling through Gould’s Belt and entered it about 3MYA. There have been a number of big Supernovae over the last 3MY all of which have showered Planet Earth with radiation of various intensities and contributed to the higher levels of cosmic rays than the Solar System had encountered up to entering Gould’s Belt. One was Gaminga. It was almost right on top of this planet about 380,000 years ago. (Google Gaminga. and Local Bubble) It was rather large.
Gould’s Belt is galactic formation in the Orion Spur which formed only about 33MYA, just as the Solar System came out of the Sagittarius-Carina spiral arm. It;s been the scene of star birth (google Orion nebula) and the early deaths (Supernovae) of many of the big blue stars formed at its start.
The radiation from any one of these or from all of them may have caused or contributed to the series of mutations leading to Homo Sapiens Sapiens of which you are an example. High levels of cosmic radiation cause more mutations. The cold from the glaciations force the changes from them to emerge fast. A biggie about 2.75 MYA probably got our ancestors on the move, Another about 500KYA may have created H.Sapiens with the gift of speech and Gaminga about 380KYA could have birthed H.Sapiens Sapiens. The Glaciations were just cold.
The Ice Age and the previous 50MY of cooling which preceded it had to be caused by something.Shaviv of Jerusalem University’s Racah Institute can account for that.
If you go outside and look up at the stars at night, and find Antares (a bright red star in Scorpio, not to be confused with Mars and Saturn which are currently hanging around that patch of sky) and Betelgeuse (bright red star in Orion) you will be looking at two more candidate Supernovae. They are red giants. They were big bright blue stars (like Rigel and Bellatrix in Orion) but have swollen into the red giants, preparatory to exploding. They aren;t all that far away, They are residents of Gould’s Belt and we’re sitting ducks, It’s open season on sitting ducks in this Galaxy.
Antares is about 620M Light years from us, the star was formed about 12 MYA so it’s pretty young and is in its red giant phase.
Betelgeuse is about 640M Light years from us, was formed about 10MYA and is also in its red giant phase,
Rigel is a blue giant in Orion, is 770M light years away and was formed about 8MYA. We’ve got more to worry about than a little extra CO2 emitted from the worlds oceans.
The planet has been cooling for the last 50Million Years There are two very interesting graphs on the Wikipedia page linked to. .
In summary, it’s not the “ice ages” which created man and modern animals but that which created the Ice Age those glaciations are part of.
32
Oh, so that was how McKinsey, and Booze Allen, and KPMG got started? I have often wondered …?
41
The idea that modern man’s evolution was helped by an ice age is an incomplete assessment of human progress. It is the climate variations, both warm periods and cold period which pushed parts of our evolutionary development.
Ice ages, like warm periods just ensure that we adapted to overcame the stresses of the time.
As part of nature we are always developing new, novel, and more efficient ways to fit with what nature has provided. We do this innately, underlying this is natures relentless push on all for survival, procreation, and longevity — anything less would consign us to extinction.
Saying any one time period or event ensured our rapid evolution is an example of modern (lazy) thinking where accounting for the many, many small changes in a progression are ignored to the exclusion of a big event. The fact that hominids generally survived an ice age is testament to their adaptability learned during an earlier and warmer era.
Thankfully the idea of the ice age helping the evolution of modern man is not held by all. However like so much in modern science some believe a majority consensus is what is needed on the subject. True science needs a lot less consensus, and more real disinterested investigative research. Less orthodoxy, less advocacy, less politics, and more radical thoughts unfettered by the masters of the pay-packet.
41
Also see —
http://spartanideas.msu.edu/2014/12/09/how-to-evolve-intelligence-in-7-easy-steps/
00
Yeah right! Who says so and how do they know this?
Well, it appears that Stranne, C., Jakobsson, M., Bjork, G. (2014) cite their partners in crime, Gettelman, A., and Kay, JE. (2012) who published an article in the Journal of Climate over at the AMS entitled: The Evolution of Climate Sensitivity and Climate Feedbacks in the Community Atmosphere Model where they happily burble about modeling as follows (extract from abstract):
More opinions, models and essentially meaningless predictions, endlessly peddled, recycled and impossible to validate. The theoretical constructs of a pseudo-science presented as gospel, indeed much as phrenology once was.
In reality however, the climate sensitivity has been declining (highlighted in an article by Jo here) far below the chortling modeled values peddled by Gettelman A, and Kay JE, cited by Stranne, C., Jakobsson, M., Bjork, G. (2014) in the article the leads this post by Jo.
This stuff appears incredibly tiresome, repetitive and fanciful. It’s enough to drive one to drink …speaking of which…
124
Not sure why you believe sensitivity is “declining” – initial estimates were 4 degrees.
35 years later – 4 degrees is still not just in the ballpark, but very very close to the values still being thrown up by the oodles of research that has ensued over the intervening years.
Quite amazing how accurate those early forays into sensitivity were, hey?
65
Poor Craig didn’t even look at the link did you
http://jo.nova.s3.amazonaws.com/graph/models/climate-sensitivity/climate_sensitivity5.png
Latest estimates of ECS are below 2.. but REALITY will eventually triumph over propaganda, and the correct level of ZERO CO2 EFFECT ON WARMING will be realise.
Despite trillions of dollars, and masses of non-science from the AGW cultists…
…there is not one paper that proves that CO2 causes warming in an open convective atmosphere.
If you think there is… produce it !!
55
er…only if you ignore the 90% of them that show higher numbers than that.
I think there’s a word for when you base your narrative on a selected 10% of the available information…..what is it again?
21
Science has advanced, and will advance further.
You should TRY to keep up.
Or you could continue to avoid any real science, as usual.
13
You are still welcome to produce any paper that proves that CO2 causes any warming in a open convective atmosphere.
There has been ZERO warming in the satellite era apart from El Nino steps and ocean cycle effects.
That leaves the effect of CO2 at ZERO.
13
’35 years later – 4 degrees is still not just in the ballpark, but very very close to the values still being thrown up…’
The hiatus has put a damper on that but we can still talk ‘sensitivity’, this is what NASA has to say.
“As the Earth moved out of ice ages over the past million years, the global temperature rose a total of 4 to 7 degrees Celsius over about 5,000 years. In the past century alone, the temperature has climbed 0.7 degrees Celsius, roughly ten times faster than the average rate of ice-age-recovery warming.”
Is this a complete fallacy or first class propaganda, truth and half-truth intermingled?
CO2 does not cause gorebull worming, but thank the gods it will keep food on the table on our journey into a cool dry epoch.
31
From all we know about the climate, which is not much, talk of a ‘climate sensitivity’ figure just shows the banality of peoples’ thinking on the subject. It is more than obvious that there is more likely a ‘climate sensitivity variable’.
Those that can not see it doubtlessly can not see their effects in nature’s big picture.
41
Manfred August 30, 2016 at 7:36 pm
“Yeah right! Who says so and how do they know this? Well, it appears that Stranne, C., Jakobsson, M., Bjork, G. (2014) cite their partners in crime, Gettelman, A., and Kay, JE. (2012) who published an article in the Journal of Climate over at the AMS entitled: The Evolution of Climate Sensitivity and Climate Feedbacks in the Community Atmosphere Model where they happily burble about modeling”
Over and over and over! Such always remains “trust me I am academic skyintist”, and you rat boy, know nothing!!
43
“It will without doubt have come to your Lordship’s knowledge that a considerable change of climate, inexplicable at present to us, must have taken place in the Circumpolar Regions, by which the severity of the cold that has for centuries past enclosed the seas in the high northern latitudes in an impenetrable barrier of ice has been during the last two years, greatly abated…this affords ample proof that new sources of warmth have been opened and give us leave to hope that the Arctic Seas may at this time be more accessible than they have been for centuries past, and that discoveries may now be made in them not only interesting to the advancement of science but also to the future intercourse of mankind and the commerce of distant nations.”
President of the Royal Society, London, to the Admiralty, 20th November, 1817.
The President was Joseph Banks. More here:
https://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/06/16/historic-variation-in-arctic-ice-tony-b/
Note this:
”Mr. Scoresby, a very intelligent young man who commands a whaling vessel from Whitby observed last year that 2000 square leagues (a league is 3 miles) of ice with which the Greenland Seas between the latitudes of 74° and 80°N have been hitherto covered, has in the last two years entirely disappeared. The same person who has never been before able to penetrate to the westward of the Meridian of Greenwich in these latitudes was this year able to proceed to 10°, 30’W where he saw the coast of East Greenland and entertained no doubt of being able to reach the land had not his duty to his employers made it necessary for him to abandon the undertaking.
“This, with information of a similar nature derived from other sources; the unusual abundance of ice islands that have during the last two summers been brought by currents from Davies Streights (sic) into the Atlantic.
“The ice which has this year surrounded the northern coast of Ireland in unusual quantity and remained there unthawed till the middle of August, with the floods which have during the whole summer inundated all those parts of Germany where rivers have their sources in snowy mountains.”
113
Jo, you are a bit too old to believe this myth of Father Christmas living at the North Pole. The fact is that he lives in the Finnish part of Lapland, just outside Rovaniemi.
100
Alarmists create a big scene,
On what losing some sea-ice might mean,
But the Arctic was free,
Of all ice on its sea,
Several times through the long Holocene.
161
The graphs presented in this post really illustrate why Geo’s almost to a man, and to a women as the case may be, are skeptics. They better understand the time scales and know of past patterns and cycles, and therefore can better put recent trends into their proper perspective. Many if not most climate cycles surpass the life spans of humans, and certainly the collective memory spans of humans.
A good example is the the recent California dry spell. Dry spells lasting decades and centuries have occurred several times during the last 2000 years in California. The recent dry spell is not unprecedented at all. In fact much of the 20th century in California was wetter than the long term normal. Maybe this is normal?
Likewise, we find the proponents of the hockey stick constantly trying to flatten out the MWP and the LIA to make recent trends look unprecedented. Additionally, we find recent efforts to “homogenize” and flatten out the 1930s relative to more recent times.
93
Collective memory spans are one thing, but individuals barely remember anything 20 years old. It’s why ugly fashions return every couple of decades because the new generation believes they’re cool while their parents forgot to tell them opposite.
In a climate perspective, we keep records for this very reason, which have now become distorted by f r a u d and widely disseminated to rewrite history. Trouble is, we have the internet and the original records, so they have to explain somehow that old thermometers were wrong in order to push their tamperatures.
Contrast between generations of farmers and the wine-quaffing chatterati in the cities is at an all-time high.
73
Dave in the States @ # 20
As I have seen stated elsewhere;[ very roughly! ] Geology is the study of the climates of the past as written in the rocks of this earth.
Which explains the Geo’s almost universal skeptical position as I suspect is probably a similar skeptical position on the part of most Archeologists who constantly see the rise and fall of known and even less well known Empires and Civilisations throughout History as the Climate both global and local, went through and still goes through its ageless old swings and roundabouts.
61
Dear Jo, when you say
“The effect was huge: about an extra 50 watts per square metre 80 degrees north in June. By contrast, the total effect of man-made global warming will reach 3.5 watts per square metre (but globally) only by the end of this century.”
Is the 3.5 watts per square meter you speak of based upon the Al Gore and current consensus science or based upon a possible increased insulation effect of increased CO2 based upon, or derived from New Science?
42
We must keep the public barefoot and pregnant with fear.
How else can we create global utopia?
62
Love this post, and the comments (which I still can’t up-thumb, by the way. Am I the only one?)
This is what frequently flabbergasts me about the whole climate debate. I’ve known about the ice-free Arctic and Antarctic since I was a nipper (I am now a wrinkly). There is, or used to be, a museum in South Kensington, London, in between the Science Museum and the Museum of Natural History, called the Geological Museum. You could go in there and ask questions like that. They had maps.
Of course, scientific orthodoxies change over time, but this one seems to have been fairly constant. At some time or times in the distant past, the ice was completely gone. Not a controversy.
Except now. Apparently in the last twenty years that knowledge disappeared, and now it’s been unexpectedly rediscovered!
You see! You *can* talk about “the spread of ignorance”…
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Up-thumbing can take a few seconds for effect. Maybe there’s something missing in your browser?
As to the 20 year memory hole, see my post #20.1 above.
51
It could be something in my browser, but it only does it with JoNova. Thanks for replying!
10
Groups such as the ABC overcome this issue of hard geological knowledge by pretending that geology is not a basic strand of science, but just a propaganda tool of environmental vandals and deniers.
In their alternate universe, physics is the only true strand. Chemistry and to a lesser extent biology have some minor claim to science, but geology is just some weak-intellect narrative.
… hopeless.
82
That it was warm enough to melt sea ice implies it was also warm enough to melt other ice. That this in fact occurred is documented in a blog post written by Kenneth Richards at Pierre Gosselin’s NoTricksZone.
http://notrickszone.com/2016/08/29/30-scientific-papers-reveal-inverse-co2-sea-level-signal-as-co2-rises-sea-level-falls/#sthash.UKXDTOtO.dpbs
Several of the papers he cites show early Holocene – Altithermal – sea levels 2 to 4 meters above present day. Since melting sea ice doesn’t change water levels it must have come from somewhere else. Last bit of the Pleistocene continental glaciers? Greenland? Antarctica? It also raises an interesting question – where did that water go as sea levels came down? For such an enormous volume of water it must have been deposited as ice on the Antarctic and Greenland ice caps. I think you can see some of the elevated beaches on the shore of the Bay of Campeche between Paraiso and Ciudad del Carmen using the Google maps satellite view. Also have a look at Florida between Orlando and the Atlantic coast. Those north-south lineaments are identified beach ridges and dunes on the Florida surficial geology map.
83
The whole idea of the Arctic being a climate predictor is such an absurd notion only a complete madman would think of it… so, step forward James Hansen and take a bow.
Historically ice at the North pole has expanded and contracted, what darn significance this was at signaling imminent climate trends appears dubious at best.
Who really cares if it all melts?
I don’t.
As I understand it all that ice mostly indicates the temperature of the sea. In a battle of warm sea and cold air the warm sea wins every time. So polar ice melts when the seas roundabouts get a tiny amount warmer.
Like I said who cares.
104
My 11 year old who was duly told at her ( private ) school the antarctic ice was melting due to Klimat Chang.
But I said that under the ice there exists volvanoes.
I said, so what happens when you add ice to a volcanoe?
She got it…..
We have to keep pushing back with solid science to our kids, otherwsise the useless Leftists will constantly puish their toxic propaganda into our kids heads and steal them from us.
That what this Klimat stuff is – theft of a generation through evil bold face lies & deliberate deception.
82
This is the problem with each new generation. They have to be taught everything from the beginning. It’s the best chance the f r a u dsters have to peddle their religion, and label the parents who won’t bend to their demands as something inherently evil.
This climate change gravy train is supported through appeals to authority such as “climate science” and celebrity. There’s no hard evidence of it and frankly, all this “sustainability” and “green” chatter is becoming tiresome and suspicious to not only past generations, but the new as well. Sooner or later it’ll implode itself and hopefully lead to LONG jail terms for the instigators and conspirators, but I won’t hold my breath because, like the Sun and Hydrogen fuel to fuse, it’ll remain puffed up while there’s money in it.
92
By 2008 the British Antarctic Survey knew of a huge subglacial ash sheet and still-active volcanism near Pine Island Glacier. It’s considered impolite to mention it, especially around schoolchildren having a strict green religious education, but here goes:
http://www.livescience.com/2242-buried-volcano-discovered-antarctica.html
West Antarctica. Looks like a cordillera, walks like a cordillera, quacks like a cordillera…But we musn’t say it’s a cordillera. Manners, please!
91
Maybe you can connect the dots for me – this volcano of yours
erupted 2,300 years ago
at which time West Antarctica was gaining mass
after which West Antarctica continued to gain mass for over 2,000 years
but it explains the melting ice in West Antarctica that started 100 years ago
but it explains the entire South-East Pacific warming that started 100 years ago
…
huh?
I’m sure you intended a narrative in this, but I can’t make head nor tail of it.
89
Craig thinks volcanoes are static objects.
Strange Craig.
87
I see, the the volcano calved off West Antarctica and went…somewhere…is that it?
34
Now Craig thinks volcanoes can uproot themselves and walk..
So funny !!!
25
No facile connecting of dots. I’m a skep. Here are some unconnected dots:
Still active down there. PIG volcanism confirmed some years ago. Part of the American Cordillera. Antarctic sea ice has been running well above post 1980 running average for most (not all) of the last few years. Nonetheless there is likelihood of some recent global warming like you are going to get in this Holocene Epoch. That’s when you are not getting cooling (which, judging from 2200BC, Migration Period, LIA etc you wouldn’t really want).
Any assumptions beyond that and I would lose my skep credentials. “Connecting dots” without complete info and close observation of the physical world is for climate zombies. Enough of that already.
82
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/13/131118-antarctica-volcano-earthquakes-erupt-sea-level-rise-science/
“Active Volcano Found Under Antarctic Ice: Eruption Could Raise Sea Levels
Inevitable eruption will speed up ice loss on frozen continent, study says.
A newly discovered volcano found buried beneath a thick layer of ice in Antarctica could speed up ice loss and raise global sea levels when it erupts, scientists say.
The finding, detailed in the current issue of Nature Geoscience, marks the first time that an active volcano has been discovered under the ice of the frozen continent. (Also see “Giant Undersea Volcanoes Found Off Antarctica.”)
When it erupts—which no one can predict—the volcano “will create millions of gallons of water beneath the ice—many lakes full,” study leader Doug Wiens, professor of earth and planetary science at Washington University in St. Louis, said in a statement.
This water will rush beneath the ice toward the sea and feed into one of the major ice streams that drain ice from Antarctica into the Ross Ice Shelf, Wiens explained.
The new volcano’s discovery was accidental. In January 2010, scientists set up a series of seismometers, or earthquake detectors, on Marie Byrd Land, a highland region of West Antarctica.”
Well then….no milk and cookies for mne from the Jolly Green Blob…..
51
Only fools, amateurs, and those on a scam would wish anyone to interpolate between known points. Usually this is tried in order to divert attention from the true picture.
Does significant data not lie between the dots? Or has that already been edited out.
So in attempting to get people to connect the dots look out it may be a fool, or amateur, a scam-artist, more likely it is all three.
32
I’m guessing when you were tapping this out you were imagining to yourself that you were emitting some kind of profundity instead of the pedestrian nonsense that it is?
Everybody interpolates.
When I have a job that involves completing 100 Xs, I estimate the time I will require.
From there, when I complete 10, I compare the time taken with the estimate and interpolate whether I might finish ahead of schedule.
At 10/100, my estimate contains a large uncertainty. At 50/100 the uncertainty is reduced. e. I was able to use GPS to calculate the distance to the lights and my
31
did the ambulance officer send your message?
21
“I suspect the main climate refugees from the Arctic would have names like Donner and Blitzen. This is the one thing Matt doesn’t explain — in 8,000BC when the ice melted, what the heck happened with Santa?”
I think I’ve written this before but I’ll repeat since I don’t want anyone worrying about Santa.
The Chief Elf has an Army of elves working for him 24/7/365. He has the most advanced intelligence network known this side of heaven, because he has to in order to know what everyone is thinking and who has been naughty and nice. He has technology we can only dream of with a sled which carries a tremendous load and which can circumnavigate the globe in a single night visiting billions of individual homes. His sled obviously requires STOL and noise dampening and stealth capabilities which we cannot fathom. And he also has a advanced tactical camouflage and fantastic infiltration skills since he enters and egresses from those billions of homes unseen.
Is it not reasonable to assume that a little thing like melting ice is not even an annoyance for such a being?
93
He must also have the best legal team on the planet, considering the massive amount of trespass charges he’d be receiving.. 😉
40
Jo
O/T
A Delingpole call for assistance on ocean acidification
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/08/30/ok-everyone-your-chance-to-salt-the-slug-of-ocean-acidification/
22
That’s an interesting exchange. I would have posted in comments there that putting eggshell into soda water won’t dissolve it, but I don’t care to try and create access to yet another site.
32
Extremely strong galactic radiation.
https://i1.wp.com/oi66.tinypic.com/2lsv97t.jpg
In the stratosphere we have a strong anomaly pressure.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat-trop/gif_files/time_pres_HGT_ANOM_JAS_NH_2016.png
52
Please see: growth of galactic radiation – an increase of pressure in the stratosphere – the temperature rise in the Arctic.
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/plots/meanTarchive/meanT_2016.png
52
I would suggest that those who might be interested in all things Arctic, Antarctic and Ice extent have another look at Norwegian Proff Ole Humlum’s incomparable climate information site, Climate4You
Go down to “Sea Ice” [ LH menu ] and you can scroll through a whole treasure of Arctic Ice extents and the fluctuations and changes in the Polar Sea Ice over the last few decades.
To fit with Jo’s post above select ; Sea ice extension in a longer time perspectiveand you will see the very large changes in the maximum sea ice extensions both in graph form and as taken from ships logs in the years 1769, 1866, 1966 and 1995.
As I have always been interested in history as well as technology through out my life I have also found Ole Humlum’s section on “Climate and History” [ LH menu ] to be a fascinating read through the periods he has listed.
—————
Last night I spent a few hours researching and writing up a post [ and lost the damn lot when I pressed the wrong button to upload to Jo’s site GRRRR! ] on the very poorly known history of the “Independence 1 culture” first seen at the Wandel Dal valley, an off shoot of the Independence Fiord in the furtherest north region of Greenland.
Brief item from Wiki as quoted ;
More detail on the sequence and origins of Greenland’s pre-Inuit cultures in the E-Book; Archaeology of Native North America; Chapter 14; The Arctic and sub Arctic
I had read of these far north Greenland small Wandel Dal settlements a couple of decades ago so went looking for more information to try and get an idea of the Arctic Ice extent those 4500 years ago which allowed a primitive but highly adapted peoples to live in that region for various periods as the climate of that far northern Arctic region swung between warm and cold over those thousands of years.
“Wandel Dal” at 82 Degrees 15 minutes north is only about 870 kilometres from the North Pole, about the same as the driving distance between Melbourne and Sydney;
As Wiki above, the Independence 1 culture disappeared for roughly 600 years which is being put down to a change in the climatic conditions to a much colder and harsher climate over that period.
The Independence 2 culture then appears in about the same region as the Independence 1 culture that preceded it.
A comment in the E-book suggests that the warmest periods of the duration of the Independence 2 culture were only as warm as the coldest periods of the Independence 1 culture
So I looked up the furtherest north human settlements and towns existent today.
Forgetting about military bases , the furthest North settlement and town today is located in Norway’s Svalbard / Spitzbergen archipelago in the Barents sea.
Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard, Norway, a former coal mining town and now a small research base with 35 permanent residents, located at nearly 79 Degrees north.
And Longyearbyen, Svalbard, Norway, a town of some 2000 people [ and the site of the Millennium Seed Vault ] located at 78 degrees 12 minutes north.
These human settlements rely heavily on fossil fuels to exist in these northern locations and are arguably the furtherest North that sustained human settlement can exist today.
BUT, they are both over 3 to 4 degrees, some 400 kms further south, some 1,200 kms plus from the Pole than the Wandel Dal site.
And Svalbard is bathed in the last remnants of the warm water Gulf Stream as it makes its way up the American east coast and across the North Atlantic to dissipate in the North Sea area.
My thinking is that the Arctic Ocean was probably often, briefly perhaps, free of ice cover over the summer period for those thousands of years that the peoples of the Independence cultures occupied those far northern Greenland regions.
—————
For information;
One Degree of Latitude = 60 nautical miles. = 111 kilometers [ all the way from the Equator to the Poles ]
One Degree of Latitude = 60 minutes of Latitude.
One Minute of Latitude = one Nautical mile = 1.85 kilometres
One Minute of Latitude = 60 seconds of latitude.
One Nautical Mile per hour = One Knot [ not “one Knot per hour”. ]
.
One degree of Longitude at the Equator = 60 nautical miles = 111 kilometers
One degree of Longitude at the Poles = Zilch [ All meridians of Longitude converge at the Poles ]
————–
The correct name of the peoples of those northern regions today is “Inuits” , “Inuk” singular, by which they call themselves.
The term “Eskimo” used by the American colonists comes from the Algonquin peoples much further south and means “eaters of raw flesh” and “peoples who live much further up the coast”.
53
I look forward to seeing the Antarctic have near-tropical warmth once again. Think of all that extra land to grow food for the world.
22
When we hear those ‘OMG, this is unprecedented!’
announcements, ‘sea rising,’ ‘ ice melting,’ ‘planet
warming,’ it always pays to take a look at the longer
record.
I myself like those history specific discoveries, for
example, regarding ‘sea rise,’ the documented sea-gauge
marker at Tasmania’s Isle of the Dead, and for ‘Arctic
ice melting,’ ship’s log records of voyages through an
open NW Passage.Re ‘Arctic temperatures,’ in Greenland,
discovery of farms and Norse graves still buried beneath
perma frost.
Cli-Sci-alarmists do so dislike history as cross reference,
would so like to toss it down the memory whole.
21
If you want to check out that narrow strip of coast where the Persians and Spartans had it out you’ll find that it’s now a broad strip with a busy road along it. Like so many classical spots (Ostia, Ephesus, Claudian invasion landing etc) which have moved inland the explanation is given that siltation was the cause of the retreat from the shore. I have no trouble believing that in part – but you’d think this catastrophic rise we’re supposed to be having would be able to push back against a bit of silt. Hell, even some of Henry VIII’s coastal defenses have been left high and dry.
That’s some silt!
21
They’re buildin’ on silt, oft times rocky silt.
20
Hitchhiking in Greece as a kid I went straight past Thermopylae and missed it. I thought it would be right up against the sea. Stupid sedimentation. Or stupid sea level fall.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermopylae#/media/File:Thermopylae_ancient_coastline_large.jpg
20
So once again the skeptical position was correct: Arctic sea ice is highly dynamic and its presence or absence has not only happened before, it is trivial in its impact on the global climate, as well as the Arctic region. There are so many converging data points to support the skeptical position regarding the climate consensus.
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30 Aug: ABC: Geothermal power project closes in SA as technology deemed not financially viable
By Tom Fedorowytsch
Energy company Geodynamics closed and remediated the sites of several test wells and generation plants in the Cooper Basin after deciding they were not financially viable…
South Australia’s Conservation Council is keen to see more public investment in geothermal energy and other renewable energy sources…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-30/geothermal-power-plant-closes-deemed-not-financially-viable/7798962
31 Aug: Bolt Blog: Another Flannery fail: geothermal project scrapped
Green groups complain to a gullible ABC that all that geo-thermal projects need is a grant…
In fact, Flannery (actually a Geodynamics shareholder) managed to help persuade the Rudd Government into giving Geodynamics a $90 million grant that’s now gone…
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/another_flannery_fail_geothermal_project_scrapped/
from Adelaide Advertiser’ “Geodynamics calls it a day with its South Australian geothermal energy plans” –
“Geodynamics shares were 10 per cent lower at 1.8c.”
51
Kiss goodbye to all that government grant money that came out of our taxes. Just goes to prove that green-oriented academic scientists and their cheer squads have a woeful predictive record. Dishwashing duties anyone?
21
30 Aug: Washington Free Beacon: Morgan Chalfant: Navy Can’t Prove That Green Energy Projects Save Money
Service awarded $334 million contract for solar power without proper controls
The Pentagon’s inspector general recently audited three of the Navy’s large-scale renewable energy projects at installations supervised by the U.S. Pacific Command, finding that federal employees tasked with carrying out cost-effectiveness assessments of these projects did not have the documentation to back up their calculations or conclusions…
Measures to determine the cost savings of these projects have been unreliable due to shortcomings in the Navy’s guidance for evaluating the projects, according to the audit.
“Navy personnel could not support the assumptions and calculations made in their assessments because Navy guidance does not include specific steps for evaluating the cost-effectiveness of renewable energy projects and does not require that supporting documentation be maintained,” the Pentagon inspector general wrote. “As a result, the Navy lacks assurance that cost-effectiveness assessments for its large-scale renewable energy projects are accurate, and that appropriate investments decisions are made.”…
http://freebeacon.com/national-security/navy-cant-prove-green-energy-projects-save-money/?utm_source=Freedom+Mail&utm_campaign=c4cce30e63-WFB_Morning_Beacon_08_30_168_29_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b5e6e0e9ea-c4cce30e63-27329365
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“Humans without protective solar panels somehow spread far and wide, and generally flourished.”
Well, we don’t know that. But we can make a few educated guesses. Think how humans get to islands during glacials. Then the sea rises – too slowly for people to really notice. The islands shrink. People don’t know how to get back to the larger land masses they came from. They starve, or in some cases, drown.
The difference is, today the sea level rise is nowhere near as great, and we know how to deal with it. At least the Dutch do. 20% of them live below sea level. If the Bangladeshis can’t learn from the Dutch…
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Relevant to some of Jo’s past items and to Rod McLaughlin @ # 33.
Via; The Daily Caller internet news sheet;
Earth Is GAINING Land Despite Warming-Fueled Sea Level Rise, Study finds
[quoted; ]
[ more > ]
Abstract of the Dutch paper as above;, Earth’s surface water change over the past 30 years
41
In regards to the Dutch, during the second world war, the Dutch army medical practitioners in the Japanese POW camps did not need to amputate limbs of their fellow POWs resulting from tropical ulcers.
The Dutch had learnt to treat the tropical ulcers because they had been in the tropics for centuries in the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia). The Australian medicos were too arrogant to be told how to treat the ulcers by the Dutch medical practitioners.
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MAY 19, 2015
Updated NASA Data: Global Warming Not Causing Any Polar Ice Retreat
Updated data from NASA satellite instruments reveal the Earth’s polar ice caps have not receded at all since the satellite instruments began measuring the ice caps in 1979.
Since the end of 2012, moreover, total polar ice extent has largely remained above the post-1979 average.
The updated data contradict one of the most frequently asserted global warming claims – that global warming is causing the polar ice caps to recede.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2015/05/19/updated-nasa-data-polar-ice-not-receding-after-all/#2e0526a532da
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Polar sea ice trending 5% above 1979, that’s global cooling.
Polar bears are incalcitrant and refuse to leave their habitat, because they know in their DNA its only going to get better from here on.
http://www.c3headlines.com/2016/08/discover-magazine-is-sick-tired-of-polar-bears-ignoring-the-arctic-global-warming-catastrophe.html
52
where do you get the 5% from? The NSIDC has arctic significantly lower and Antarctic above but barely 1%
20
Took it from that article and my bad … Polar bears are recalcitrant not incalcitrant.
‘In late 2012, however, polar ice dramatically rebounded and quickly surpassed the post-1979 average. Ever since, the polar ice caps have been at a greater average extent than the post-1979 mean.
‘Now, in May 2015, the updated NASA data show polar sea ice is approximately 5 percent above the post-1979 average.’
72
Ok… And is that what NASA actually says? It is completely at odds with all the data, including that which is promulgated on WUWT. It is a confusing statement as it does not gel with any data collected by anyone.
I think?
30
Dunno, James Taylor might have it wrong but I’ll need convincing.
00
At the time it was written, the Global sea ice was actually above the 1979-2008 mean and had been on and off for a couple of years..
Where the rest of the statement came from is anybody’s guess
01
I see what has been done to get that 5%, ..
… and I must say its more like I would expect from the alarmist camp.
Not good.
11
I’m glad it was not just me but I am not sure I want to understand this since it is so weird. 5% is greater than the range of values so the 5% must be 5% of something else. Or something.
20
Taylor is obviously a global cooling alarmist, good catch GA.
00
“TYPICALLY RARE” says BoM. MUST-SEE…AND READ:
PICS: 31 Aug: ABC: Shuba Krishnan: NT weather: Spectacular photos capture thick fog blanketing Alice Springs
Residents of Alice Springs have woken to thick fog blanketing the streets and cloaking the East MacDonnell Ranges.
According to the Bureau of Meteorology the mass of fog and low cloud was due to significant rain activity and humidity in the region over the past few days.
Senior forecaster Craig Earl-Spurr said while fog was ***TYPICALLY RARE in Alice Springs, the higher-than usual rainfall in Central Australia had led to an increase in fog events…READ ALL
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-31/alice-springs-wakes-to-a-blanket-of-fog/7800992
40
I am interested in this:
Jo does not give a reference. People talk about Milankovitch cycles but don’t explain. Is there a good article to read about them? There are a lot of variables; obliquity, precession, changes in eccentricity etc. How do they all sum up?
31
Extracts from ‘Tomorrow’s Weather’ Alex S. Gaddes (1990)Ever-changing Relationship
Nigel Calder (Ref. No. 6) deals with variations in the amount of insolation received by Earth throughout time, caused by Earth’s ever-changing astronomical relationship to the Sun (brought about by variations in the angle of obliquity of Earth’s axis to the plane of the ecliptic, the precession of the equinoxes, the eccentricity of Earth’s orbit and the precession of the perihelion and aphelion.)
These factors formed the basis for Milankovitch’s hypothesis, explaining the occurrence of ice ages in time.
Crucial Zone
Quote No. 1: “….. an inspection of Vernaker’s Tables suggested that the crucial zone for summer sunshine was not the Arctic Circle, as has often been supposed, but at 50 degrees N.
“The theory of ice sheets growing from the bottom up and the discovery of the English Channel Glacier, fed from the sea bed south of Ireland, make this choice of latitude glaciologically plausible …..”
With reference to the above quote , I draw attention to the present (December 26, 1983) extremely cold weather in North America, where not only has this cold wave moved in earlier than ever before, but has brought with it the lowest temperatures in recorded history for the region.
Reduce Power Output
“As I see it, the slowing down of the Earth’s rotation would have the same effect as driving a dynamo at ever slower revs: namely to reduce the power output, in this case the value of Earth’s magnetic intensity.”
“…..An extension of the above idea, might be for the ever-growing intensity of the jet streams to slow the rotation of the Earth to a critical point, whereby the Earth’s inner core attains the same speed of rotation as the crust and mantle, (catches up so to speak.) This would have the effect of switching off the ‘dynamo’ temporarily and so, setting the stage for the observed magnetic reversal.
“The thought comes up, that the actual reversal may be brought about if we allow the possibility of the inner core overtaking and finally exceeding the speed of rotation of the remainder of the globe, (see Appendix 4.)”
(f) According to this quotation, there is strong evidence of a long term secular trend in AQD occurrence. If this is so, then by implication, it can be accepted as good supporting evidence for there being a like-wise long term secular change in sunspot activity; and therefore, solar energy output.
Quote No. 2: “…..other processes are at work, including the 2,500 year oscillation [other workers have set the value, variously, at from 2,500 to 2,700] that correlates with the 14C production in the atmosphere, and hence with solar events, rather than the Milankovitch effect.
“Nevertheless, the variations in summer sunshine, available for melting snow in the Northern Hemisphere, plainly determine the first-order pattern of past glaciations.”
Peter, If you send me an email address I will forward you the complete work.
[email protected]
00
“As a result, the annual mean insolation was around 5 Wm−2 larger at 80°N during the EHIM compared to present day conditions”
5 Watts, not 50 Watts.
“The radiative forcing from a doubling of the pre-industrial atmospheric CO2 concentration has been estimated to ∼3.5 Wm−2”
A CO2 doubling may happen by around the middle of the 21st century.
Considering the CO2 forcing is global, not restricted to 80N, then the “ice free summer” Arctic by 2050 seems plausible. And looking at the current rate of sea ice extent decrease, you would be forgiven for thinking it will happen before 2050.
20
My extra reference:
http://skepticalscience.net/pdf/rebuttal/exponential-increase-CO2-warming-intermediate.pdf
30
‘Therefore, estimates of the rate of warming due to CO2 thus far will be underestimates, unless accounting for this ‘warming in the pipeline’.
Yes but what if CO2 doesn’t cause warming?
Indications are that we can look forward to a cooling trend for at least a couple of decades, then temperatures will rise again.
12
el gordo.
“Yes but what if CO2 doesn’t cause warming?”
Established science does say the accumulation of CO2 causes the warming.
“Indications are that we can look forward to a cooling trend for at least a couple of decades, then temperatures will rise again.”
What “indications” are you referring to, the drop in the Global Mean Temperature? Citations to the relevant scientific literature please.
20
“Established science does say the accumulation of CO2 causes the warming.”
You are welcome to produce the paper that shows that CO2 causes any warming in a open convective atmosphere.
Waiting !!!
01
Average Arctic sea ice area since 2006, (top of the AMO cycle) is basically ZERO.
https://s19.postimg.org/425r9zipf/Arctic_ice_area_trend.png
It will be funny watching the Arctic Sea Ice Worriers over the next several years as extent starts to increase in line with the natural cycle of the AMO. 🙂
22
AndyG55.
You cherry-picked a flat bit. Even for a d[snip] like yourself, that is pretty lame.
The longer time series clearly shows a downward trend:
https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-minimum-arctic-sea-ice-extent
[When will you learn Harry?] ED
22
Poor Harry doesn’t understand basic concepts like “CYCLES”
FACT, Harry, there has been ZERO trend in the average Arctic sea ice since 2006.
This is in correlation with the almost flat top of the AMO CYCLE.
And as the AMO starts to dip down, the Arctic sea ice will start to climb.
That is what CYCLES are all about, Harry.
01
That flat bit just happens to be the most recent 9 years..
ie.. its what is happening most recently.
The Arctic sea ice worriers always manage to start just at the very base of the AMO, and after the coldest period in the last 10,000 years.
Its all they have, a highly beneficial slight warming from a freezing and desperately cold time.
Live with it, Harry 🙂
01
Noticing the above reference to Bjork, G. David Evans will no doubt be interested in the following article from Bjorck, S. et al, as it may pertain to the origins of the ‘X Factor’. The complete article is pay-walled, but it postulates beryllium particles on the surface of the Sun resulting in the historically observed ‘flicker’.
Flickering sun switched climate
A solar slump may have chilled the Northern Hemisphere.
Philip Ball
Europe’s Little Ice Age coincided with low solar activity.
Europe’s Little Ice Age coincided with low solar activity.Pieter Brueghel’s painting ‘The Census at Bethlehem’.
Theflickering sun may cause rapid climate change, according to a new comparison of climate records. A 200-year cold snap 10, 300 years ago seems to have coincided with a passing slump in the sun’s activity1.
Svante Bjorck of Lund University in Sweden and colleagues looked at sediments in Lake Starvatn on the Faroe Islands and in the Norwegian Sea, the width of growth rings in ancient German pine trees, and ancient ice drilled from deep within the Greenland ice sheet.
Each of these indicates how some characteristic of the environment has changed over the 11,000 or so years since the last ice age ended. The chemical composition of the ice core, for example, shows how the temperature of the atmosphere has changed. The distance between tree-rings reflects the average ambient temperature during each successive growing season.
Ice and trees show that the climate became suddenly colder about 10,300 years ago, then gradually warmed again over the ensuing century. Other records from the Californian coast and Tibet suggest that the cold snap may have been felt throughout the Northern Hemisphere, and perhaps worldwide.
Bjorck and colleagues propose that a weakening of solar activity may have caused this mini chill. It coincided, they find, with a large increase in the amount of beryllium-10 trapped in Greenland ice – evidence of a solar flicker.
This radioactive form of beryllium is produced when cosmic rays from space collide with nitrogen and oxygen atoms in the atmosphere. The magnetic field around the Earth protects the planet from cosmic rays. This field is stronger when the sun is more active – emitting more ultraviolet radiation and displaying more sunspots – so fewer cosmic rays can penetrate.
The proposed relationship between solar activity and climate change is controversial, partly because some have tried to pin modern-day global warming on it rather than on a human-induced greenhouse effect.
There is evidence, however, linking changes in solar activity to climate fluctuations in the more recent past. Abnormally high activity around AD 1100-1250, for example, has been mooted as the cause of a period of warming in medieval Europe. And the ‘Little Ice Age’ between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries coincided with a period of low solar activity.
Core values
The most pronounced climate swings, such as ice ages, happen slowly and last a long time – 100,000 years or so. Gradual, periodic changes in the shape of the Earth’s orbit around the sun are thought to trigger these larger-scale changes.
“Sudden shifts are thought to be mostly due to ocean circulation”
Evidenceof shorter-term climate change has been observed before in ice-core records from Greenland and Antarctica. Apparently the global average temperature can switch between today’s mild climate and ice-age frigidity in just a few decades.
Sudden shifts are thought to be mostly due to ocean circulation. When ice sheets melt at the end of an ice age, the oceans get an injection of fresh water. By making seawater less salty and therefore less dense, this can suppress the conveyor-belt circulation that normally carries warm water from the tropics to the poles. Deprived of this source of heat, the high latitudes grow cold.
References
Bjorck, S. et al. High-resolution analyses of an early Holocene climate event may imply decreased solar forcing as an important climate trigger. Geology 29, 1107 – 1110 (2001). | Article | ISI |
30
Look at old maps of Antarctica. You will see seas where now there is ice.
Ice shelves fracture because of excessive weight of ice, not because of melting.
00