Northern sea ice growth a fluke, not end of climate change: researcher

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.kbsradio.ca/news/14/1110121

Northern sea ice growth a fluke, not end of climate change: researcher

By: Bob Weber, THE CANADIAN PRESS

Arctic sea ice is nearly back to average global levels for the first time in at least a decade after years of spectacular declines.

The surprise growth at a time of year when ice is normally melting has triggered a blizzard of I-told-you-sos among online climate change skeptics.

...

"It is not the end of global warming," said Mark Serreze of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo., which publishes monthly sea-ice updates on its website.

On Wednesday, the center posted a new graph showing that the extent of ice-covered Arctic Ocean has nearly returned to the 1979-2000 average.

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http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/index.html

[Birthmark]

1. I can't think of anything less important...

...to climate change than the extent of Arctic Sea Ice for a given day/week/month/year.

Now, when the long term trend changes...well, it's not going to very much. The Arctic will continue to melt.

[OKIsItJustMe]

2. It's important to the extent that it affects public perceptions

NSIDC maps and graphs are commonly posted here, and we faithfully react with shock and dismay.

The "skeptics" will likely play this "reversal" up for as long as it lasts (and probably much longer.)

Will their reaction be less valid than ours?

[joshcryer]

3. Yep, 5 years from now when the average extent is half that, they'll pull this image out.

They'll say "but sea ice extent losses stopped in 2010."

Wait until this summer though...

[OnlinePoker]

9. And if in 5 years ice has stayed around average? n/t

[Birthmark]

4. Ah, see. Here's the thing.

I don't really give a rat's ass about public perception. I'm interested in what's happening and why in terms of climate.

Weather is complex and transient. That is considerably less interesting to me and demonstrably less important to society over a stretch of time.

The public watches "reality" TV. I watch reality.

[OKIsItJustMe]

5. Beware "ivory tower syndrome"

You and I cannot do much to combat climate change if public perception is that it is not real.

[Birthmark]

6. Public perception won't change

...based on the truth. The truth has been out there for two decades, but the public has chosen to be mesmerized by the lies, distortions, and misrepresentations of the denialists. I doubt that anything less than a catastrophe will spur the public into demanding action. Once the bodies start piling up, then and only then, will the public debate be over.

[OKIsItJustMe]

7. Re: Public perception won't change based on the truth.

Public perception changes quite significantly. One of the most significant influences (to my knowledge) was An Inconvenient Truth.

Why? What was it, other than a cogent presentation of the truth?

http://www.gallup.com/poll/126560/americans-global-warming-concerns-continue-drop.aspx

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[pscot]

8. A couple of points

The climate summitry over the last year suggests that we aren't prepared to do much of anything to even slow the increase in carbon we're dumping into the atmosphere. I've seen estimates of atmospheric carbon levels as high as 800 or 900 ppb by the end of the century. In addition, we have likely passed the point where any possible action on our part is going to even slow, much less reverse, the processes we've set in motion. Therefore it doesn't matter what the public believes, or what Exxon or Koch spend on propaganda.

[OKIsItJustMe]

10. I suppose that's one conclusion to draw

I prefer to believe it is difficult, but possible.

http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/2008/TargetCO2_20080407.pdf

...

Humanity today, collectively, must face the uncomfortable fact that industrial civilization itself has become the principal driver of global climate. If we stay our present course, using fossil fuels to feed a growing appetite for energy-intensive life styles, we will soon leave the climate of the Holocene, the world of prior human history. The eventual response to doubling pre-industrial atmospheric CO2 likely would be a nearly ice-free planet.

Humanity’s task of moderating human-caused global climate change is urgent. Ocean and ice sheet inertias provide a buffer delaying full response by centuries, but there is a danger that human-made forcings could drive the climate system beyond tipping points such that change proceeds out of our control. The time available to reduce the human-made forcing is uncertain, because models of the global system and critical components such as ice sheets are inadequate. However, climate response time is surely less than the atmospheric lifetime of the human-caused perturbation of CO2. Thus remaining fossil fuel reserves should not be exploited without a plan for retrieval and disposal of resulting atmospheric CO2.

Paleoclimate evidence and ongoing global changes imply that today’s CO2CO2 about 385 ppm, is already too high to maintain the climate to which humanity, wildlife, and the rest of the biosphere are adapted. Realization that we must reduce the current CO2 amount has a bright side: effects that had begun to seem inevitable, including impacts of ocean acidification, loss of fresh water supplies, and shifting of climatic zones, may be averted by the necessity of finding an energy course beyond fossil fuels sooner than would otherwise have occurred.

We suggest an initial objective of reducing atmospheric CO2 to 350 ppm, with the target to be adjusted as scientific understanding and empirical evidence of climate effects accumulate. Limited opportunities for reduction of non-CO2 human-caused forcings are important to pursue but do not alter the initial 350 ppm CO2 target. This target must be pursued on a timescale of decades, as paleoclimate and ongoing changes, and the ocean response time, suggest that it would be foolhardy to allow CO2 to stay in the dangerous zone for centuries.

A practical global strategy almost surely requires a rising global price on CO2 emissions and phase-out of coal use except for cases where the CO2 is captured and sequestered. The carbon price should eliminate use of unconventional fossil fuels, unless, as is unlikely, the CO2 can be captured. A reward system for improved agricultural and forestry practices that sequester carbon could remove the current CO2 overshoot. With simultaneous policies to reduce non-CO2 greenhouse gases, it appears still feasible to avert catastrophic climate change.

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[Birthmark]

11. I agree

The longer we wait to address the problem, the more drastic the fix. The more drastic the fix, the more difficult it will be to find agreement both domestically and internationally. That's why I say that nothing will be done until there is a large-scale catastrophe. And by then the remedy will be so drastic that human society itself will be in grave danger. At the very least, self-governance will be severely curtailed or abandoned.

Had we listened twenty years ago, we could have addressed CC with a minimum of disruption and discomfort. Even addressing it now --and I mean right now-- we could keep the disruption and discomfort tolerable. But that appears not to be in the cards. So, I suspect that the human population of Earth will plummet precipitously in the next 100 years. I'll be surprised if there are half as many people on Earth as there are now --or I would be if I lived that long. But I'd probably be more surprised to live that long. :woohoo:

It's sad situation brought on by gross stupidity and greed. The very people who claim that they want to protect "our way of life" are ensuring that it perishes from the Earth.

[pscot]

12. It's terribly sad

and I feel it acutely. People have no idea how much has been lost. I've seen a lot in 70 years. The damage occurring now cuts to the bone. If we go on as we have been for another 70 years, Earth will become a very lonely place indeed.

[NecklyTyler]

13. What is happing is not significant ice growth

It is unusual wind conditions expanding ice extents into the Bering Sea.

The Arctic Ice freezes from the top, and melts from the bottom. Right now it is still below the freezing point of sea water in the far north. The wind is pushing pack ice from the north south into the Bering Sea (where it is melting). New ice is freezing in the colder northern regions where the pack ice came from giving the appearance of an increase in ice extent (in the sense of winter record keeping).

The new ice is thin, and will melt quickly this summer. There is no ice volume to accompany this late season increase in ice extent.

The total amount of Arctic ice is declining. Observation satellites are simply noting that the ice is thinner spread over a larger area.

[The Croquist]

16. The NSIDC March ice numbers are in

Average Arctic Sea Ice Extent was 15.1 million square kilometers. The 1979 - 2010 average has been 15.55 million square kilometers. That makes it tied for the 4th least with 1996 and 2008 in the 32 year history. That said, the last two years have seen an increase in sea ice minimum from 4.3 in 2007 to 4.7 in 2008 and 5.4 in 2009 so there is more multi-year ice then in the past few years.

[Viking12]

18. A couple of years of data is insignificant....

But the 50 year+ history is...

[The Croquist]

19. Whats your source?

I've never seen anything that dates back prior to the 1979 satellite data.

[Viking12]

20. NSIDC

http://nsidc.org/sotc/sea_ice.html

[The Croquist]

21. Thanks

Like I said, I only knew back to 1979. It is actually a combination between the satellite data (that I mentioned in my earlier post) from 1980 to present and from 1953 - 1979 from Hadley.

Mean sea ice anomalies, 1953-2009: Sea ice extent departures from monthly means for the Northern Hemisphere. For January 1953 through December 1979, data have been obtained from the UK Hadley Centre and are based on operational ice charts and other sources. For January 1979 through July 2009, data are derived from passive microwave (SMMR / SSM/I). Image by Walt Meier and Julienne Stroeve, National Snow and Ice Data Center, University of Colorado, Boulder

It's interesting that they waited a year before switching to their own (NSIDC) data. I'm sure they have a good reason.

I've got to wonder about the quality of the Hadley data. I'm sure it is the best they could do, but without satellites how did they measure it? I would guess military flights and nuclear submarine measurements but the coverage had to be spotty.

I also looks to me that about the time that they changed sources the downward trend increased. That makes me wonder if the actual fluctuations prior to 1980 weren't really greater.

None of this means that I deny that the trend has been negative. I trust the satellite data and without question the 32 year trend is negative. 2 years of positive does not compare to 32 years but I'm not sure that 32 years is long enough either.

I didn't mention it in my earlier post but Antarctica had a lousy March. March 2010 was tied for the 7th worst March (with 1985) in the 32 year record at 4 million km. It was also down drastically from the March 2009 figure of 5 million km.

Globally March 2010 had the 3rd least sea ice in the 32 year record.

Viking12,

You know I am a skeptic but March 2010 is hardly an argument against global warming.

[Viking12]

22. There's a full year of overlapping data in that particular graph...

The satellite data begins at January 1979 and the observational data runs through December 1979.

The observational data collection continued well after the advent of the satellite collection and there is good agreement where the two records overlap. I have the reference somewhere, I'll see if I can find it.

March 2010 is hardly an argument for or against global warming -- one month of data is meaningless outside of that month.

[NecklyTyler]

23. This year will go into the record tally with near "normal" ice extent

The deniers will point and say look at the record!

Mark McGwire hit home runs and they are record in the baseball record, but the question remains was it Mark McGire's record or was it steroids?

The Arctic polar ice had reached its winter peak and had gone into delcine when the wind started moving the existing ice around. The newly opened polynyas froze over with a thin cover of ice and the satillites recorded the extents. The ice extent is now in the offical record, but is it the winter peak extent, or is it just an observation of the effects of Arctic weather?

[The Croquist]

24. This "denier" will call it weather

Actually "weather" is probably not a good word. Weather is a day, a week or maybe a couple of weeks. A month, season, 6 months or year is a "hot/cold" month, season, 6 months or year. Tie a bunch of them together and you have a trend. Tie a bunch more and you get a longterm trend. Right now we don't even have a month. The March Arctic numbers were well below normal. Early April has been encouraging but it's nothing to brag about. In six months I hope to be feeling better but we will barely have a trend. I want a longterm trend.

[wtmusic]

14. Hehe, let's see the treehuggers explain MORE ice!

[Viking12]

15. Dumbest.Sentence.Ever.

Arctic sea ice is nearly back to average global levels

[hatrack]

17. If it's ARCTIC sea ice, how is it back to . . .

Oh, never mind.

Stupidity as displayed in this sentence approaches absolute zero, inflicting the mental equivalent of an ice cream headache.