Despite all the “missing heat” hiding somewhere in the oceans, the extent of the Antarctic Sea Ice today is at a record high of 16.8 million square kilometers. In the Southern Hemisphere the record is 600,000 square kilometers more than has ever been recorded by satellites which began tracking the sea-ice extent in 1979 when CO2 was 336ppm. Atmospheric carbon dioxide has risen 20% globally since then and current global sea ice extent is slightly above than the average from 1978 -2008. The previous largest extent was 16.22 million km2 in 2012. This may not be the peak this year. Watch the chart with me this week.
The Antarctic Sea Ice usually reaches its annual peak the week after the Spring Equinox. Though it may peak as late as October 9th, as it did last year.
(Click to see the whole graph)
Source: Cryosphere
…
Arctic sea ice is 1.2 million square kilometers below average. Antarctic Sea ice is 1.7 million above average.
The slope of the recent upswing is similar to past short runs, but might be unusual at this time of year, though a lot of the 2014 track has been above average, so while it is a sharp rise, it is not that different to the pattern for this year.
But it’s not as thick they scream! LMAO
Keep up the great work Jo.
311
The argument from those supporting AGW is that the cause of the increase in Antarctic sea ice is due to a decrease in land ice as land ice which in turn is due to glacier melting as a result of global warming. This leads to a run off of fresh water into the ocean, a lessening of the sea water salinity and an increase in sea ice as the lower salinity seawater freezes at a higher temperature. It is also suggested that wind changes are blowing sea ice away from land. This allows more ice to take its place thus increasing sea ice extent. Consequently the opinion of those supporting AGW is that focussing solely on sea ice extent doesn’t give the total picture. I must admit they do have a point. Unfortunately this is then is used by “warmists” to depict “deniers” as scientifically naive.
1110
My apologies “in land ice as land ice” should read “in land ice”
62
They have more excuses than Greenbottle.
How the duece is that ice on the land supposed to melt if the temperature in Summer is still below Zero, and they can’t use the excuse of warming from underneath for the ice on the land mass of the Continent. Some of that ice (in Wilkes Land) is 4800 Metres thick. That’s just the ice, and that’s more than twice the height of Mount Kosciusko.
Tony.
441
And the weight of all that assembled ice bears down on the base of ice supporting the whole.
Ice will flow under such conditions and move to the area of least resistance ie ‘the coast’.
Surprise that the amount of sea ice thus breaking off is in some way “proportional” to the amount of new ice being deposited on top of your two mount Kosciuskos.
Rather than being a sign of Global Warming, sea ice is an indicator of Global Cooling.
KK
362
“assembled ice bears ”
oooo, is that a new species ? 🙂
picture please. !
154
just as well you didn’t ask for a reference; that always makes me a little grumpy.
KK
71
Is a “little grumpy” a lesser species of a “big grumpy”
References and pics please. ! 🙂
61
This is me being Grumpy.
http://joannenova.com.au/2014/09/the-fat-police-wont-be-happy-about-this/#comment-1571059
He didn’t even come back on the pendant bit.
What a swinger.
KK
33
KK – I had to go and check if you were referring to me as you thought my recursive comment was rude!
11
Gee Aye
“Had to go and ”””
No I wouldn’t write that about you as you have never clearly indicated M or F.
I would suspect that only males have that quality.
I should talk; my earlier incarnation was as MaryF.
KK
10
Polar bears are called “isbjörnar” – ice bears – in Swedish.
50
Sorry RoHa, these are in the Antarctic..
no polar bears down there. !
I think its too cold, they can’t bear it. !
140
Polar bears swim South for the summer.
80
Ok, Thanks RoHa for the valuable info..
You don’t perhaps know which route they take, I need a white rug !
70
You are welcome. I’m always happy to share information, even if I have to make it up.
Summer will be here fairly soon, so they will have started their journey. They should be south of the Aleutians, but still a bit North West of Hawaii now, heading due South. Unless you live in that area, it will be a long trip to find them. Take sandwiches. They always do.
50
Tony – what is the difference in the rate of glacial flow into the sea at different temperatures below zero?
11
just another thing to consider – increased precipitation has been measured which might mean ice mass is increasing adding to the pressure under the ice and as you know from wikipedia
“A number of factors can affect bed temperature, which is intimately associated with basal meltwater. The melting point of water decreases under pressure, meaning that water melts at a lower temperature under thicker glaciers.[4] This acts as a “double whammy”, because thicker glaciers have a lower heat conductance, meaning that the basal temperature is also likely to be higher.[5]”
and then there is the basal melting of ice shelves, theorised to be increasing due to warmer ocean temps, which pumps out fresh water beyond the extent of the ice shelf which is then susceptible to freezing.
and so on
Which is all a way of saying it is much more complicated than the simplistic appeal to incredulity of, “how can a glacier melt if the temperature never goes above freezing”
22
So it’s true then.
Antarctica is indeed melting.
It seems that more ice on top means less ice underneath it all.
We’ll all be rooned!
Hmm!
I wonder why this is happening just now, and not over the last umpty billion years.
Must be all that CO2 finding its way under all that ice. eh! (/sarc)
Tony.
41
I sort of expected that you might have asked by far the more important question.
Just who is Greenbottle?
Tony.
40
Me bad, I got Greenbottle and Bluebottle mixed up.
Been a while 😉
10
Gee Aye,
In what part of the Antarctic has the “below ice” pressure changed by any amount significant enough (over the last “n” years, as n-> large number) to change the rate of melting due to pressure.?
You should refer to an accurate H2O phase diagram while presenting your answer, also stating before and after pressures.
Otherwise.. don’t sprout rubbish !!!
The only possible change in “melt” would be under the Western Antarctic Peninsular, which has absolutely nothing to do with CO2.
51
Just to help you along. H2O phase diagram
31
NO idea Griss. I was not spouting anything but making a point that an air temperature below zero is not the end of the story with glacial dynamics.
11
Griss
Thanks for that diagram.
A metallurgists comfort zone.
KK
20
The temperature has little or nothing to do with the breaking off of large chnks of ice from the main body.
The main mechanism at work is FLOW.
Yes solids can flow.
Ice distorts under pressure of the overburden and like water under pressure in a pipe moves to the region of least pressure. ie the unsupported end of the ice mass.
Rain/ice deposited on the ice mass accumulates and cannot be supported by the unconstrained ice mass below.
Eventually the ice must flow inelastically.
KK
20
Ian,
But the Only area of Antarctic ice which is showing any melt is that tiny area (~3% of the landmass) that has a very large number of volcanoes under it, nowhere else is showing this. Given that Antarctic temps have fallen slightly the claim that melt is due to global warming doesn’t seem to stand much scrutiny.
In a world which it is claimed is warming (despite 19 years evidence to the contrary) don’t you find it just a little strange that global sea ice in the Arctic and Antarctic is 500,000 square kilometers above the long term average ?
351
Unfortunately for them Ian the have no data for their claims. The winds in general blow down and away from the high elevations. Do you have data showing an increase.
I have seen zero data on an decrease in salinity. Do you have some data on this?
The areas of increased melt are due to increased volcanic action, and are a small part of the entire continent, having nothing to do with the overall increase in sea ice.
The GRACE estimates of ice mass loss are highly questionable, and several peer review reports contradict it.
The SST record shows a slight cooling trend.
It is curious these warmnista’s. The only cause they sited for Arctic sea ice loss was CAGW. When in fact there was far greater peer reviewed evidence that NH sea ice loss was partially or primarily due to changing ocean currents, and changing winds driving the ice.
221
Data??? You must be kidding. We don’t need data. Whatever we say is true, no matter whether it changes however we wish (just ask Humpty Dumpty).
151
Dsvid A I have no data for anything I’m a biochemist/molecular geneticist not a climate scientist. However even though I often comment critically here against the “war mists” and I am a strider\nt opponent of the mantra “the science is settled” as it rarely is, I can appreciate a well argued scientific explanation. How many posting here go to warmist blogs such as Real Climate, Skeptical Science and Open Mind (a ludicrous misnomer)? If you do you will find that comments from posters are often extensively referenced and frequently are well argued. As a scientist I can am certain that neither warmists not deniers have a monopoly on “the truth” about climate change but denigration of warmists without evidence to support such denigration is not only foolish but does no service to sceptics either
63
If we go to these sites we are censored, our posts edited and we are banned.
You were saying something about “Well argued science”…?
141
I was referring to posts that appear not to those that never make it as obviously I have no idea what they are. I post on warmest blogs and get censored or not posted so I’ve learnt to play the game by giving references to points I make. If you do that and don’t use inflammatory language, you have a better chance of being posted. And I agree with you that warmist blogs are much less inclined to allow posts that challenge their views than are blogs such as this.
53
Speaking of the “science is settled” … here is an excellent piece at The Australian about the unsettled nature of climate science by Steven Koonin (Obama’s former undersecretary for science):
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/inexact-science-makes-it-impossible-to-accurately-predict-future-climate/story-e6frg6z6-1227066897024
Paywalled – Google around as needed.
Koonin addresses the main issues of uncertainty, such as poor performance of models, the ‘pause’, the ‘hot spot’, and so on in a very (IMHO) balanced piece.
32
David A Having re-read your post you give no references for any of the claims you make. You state “The winds in general blow down and away from the high elevations” implying that wind has no impact Antarctic sea ice yet you also state “NH sea ice loss was partially or primarily due to changing ocean currents, and changing winds driving the ice”. Why do winds affect Arctic but not Antarctic sea ice? Do pose your question back to you do you have any data for this?
11
FAO Ian
September 22, 2014 at 5:31 pm
‘I must admit they do have a point.’
They sure do!
‘More sea ice may seem odd in a warmer world, but new records are expected every few years, says Jan Lieser of the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre in HOBART. That’s because the southern hemisphere warms more slowly than the north, as it has less landmass, boosting the winds that circle Antarctica and pulling cold air onto the sea ice.
The melting of ice on the Antarctic mainland may also be creating more sea ice, by dumping easily frozen fresh water into the ocean, says Nerilie Abram of the Australian National University in CANBERRA’
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22329871.800-record-sea-ice-around-antarctica-due-to-global-warming.html#.VCABehb0IRw
110
————————————————————————————————————————————————————-
30
BA can you please link us to any model or any AGW scientist that in the past 5-10 years has predicted an increase in ice, anywhere ever?
Retro fitting your hypothesis to fit the observational evidence is the stock and trade of climate science.
Its fine to say “this is causing it, or that’s causing it”. But the FACT is this has just happened. There are no peer reviewed long term studies in to why it has happened. The AGW community is just shooting from the lip as usual, no data, no models that fit, no one predicted it, no idea basically. Just a claim of certainty from the usual suspects.
41
‘can you please link us to any model or any AGW scientist that in the past 5-10 years has predicted an increase in ice, anywhere ever?’ Yip, here!
An investigation into sea ice, in Commonwealth Bay in the Antarctic. Why is it increasing when global warming theory says, that it should be decreasing?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjRD2GFjoBM
14
That’s just a rehash of the same statements you made.
Read my question again, see if you can understand the difference between a prediction and someone reciting what they are seeing.
11
Right – it is colder the farther you get from the south pole.
So you ever think before you post?
10
Notice the word “may” BlackUdder… always indicative of conjecture, not anything scientifically measured, observed etc.
21
Never mind the quality just feel the width.
31
It’s rotten ice.
30
Ices aint ices.
But in any case, the claim has always been that a so called warmer world would reduce or destroy the poles ability to produce more ice and the ice that was there would disappear. This result is about as close to 180° from the models and prediction as you could get, but of course they expected it all along.
Pathetic really…
21
Arctic sea ice is now 1.5 million square km above what it was 2 years ago.
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/charctic-interactive-sea-ice-graph/
—————————-
Antarctic sea ice has hit record levels…
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/antarctic.sea.ice.interactive.html
—————————-
And global sea ice has been riding above the 1981-2010 mean for 9 of the last 11 months (only February and July since last October).
—————————-
Back in April, Antarctic sea ice was 21.6% above the average for that month, and global sea ice was 4.5% above the 1981-2010 mean.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global-snow/2014/4
When combining the Northern and Southern Hemisphere sea ice extents, the globally-averaged sea ice extent during April was 23.14 million square km (8.93 million square miles), 4.5 percent above the 1981-2010 average and the third largest April global sea ice extent on record.
Also back in April, Arctic sea ice was declining at a rate of -2.3% per decade, but Antarctic sea ice was increasing at a rate of 3.4% per decade.
—————————-
In fact, there is globally more sea ice now, in 2014, than there was in 1980 and 1981, when CO2 levels were approximately 340 ppm, or 60 ppm lower than now.
20
Ever wondered why is it that so many things in nature are basically sinusoidal?
Tony.
191
Not really. The Earth spins on its axis which gives a day/night cycle. The Moon orbits the Earth giving a lunar monthly cycle. The Earth orbits the Sun giving an annual cycle. Under these conditions a sinusoidal outcome is almost guaranteed.
290
‘Sinusoidal’ is the last thing these people would acknowledge. Check the news, 300,000 grossly stupid people causing traffic mayhem in New York. Leonardo is your classic Hollywood numpty. If he is so concerned about his kids the very first thing he could teach them is the propriety of honesty and verifiable fact.
401
The best thing DiCaprio can do for children is not have any of his own, please Leonardo don’t breed as the world can’t risk the potential for that level of genetic stupidity being let loose.
Second thoughts that probably goes for most of the Hollywood eco loons, and the left wing political supporters..bloody hell it doesn’t end!
322
Typical of most alarmist number crunching, the figures are highly suspect.
The organisers claim 310,000 attending the protest, more objective figures indicate 100,000 is a more accurate figure.
Alarmists claim 600,000 people took part in 2,000 protests around the world, so 290,000 people attended 1,999 protests. That’s an average of 145 people per protest.
If that’s success, then you must be one of those who believe the reverse logic that global warming causes the Antarctic ice pack to grow.
341
145? Really?
That’s more than three fold the numbers that were silly enough to stand in the rain in Perth and blow on their windmills:
http://videos-e-1.ak.instagram.com/hphotos-ak-xap1/10432612_861379160563441_303876549_n.mp4
I count not more than 50.
100
Leonardo Di Caprio – what an FN gold plated hypocrite!!
Remember this: Celebrities plan mad dash to see in year twice
Obviously, he’s REALLY concerned about
hiseveryone elses carbon (sic) footprint – do as I say hey, Leonardo???Why don’t you just rack off!!
Cheers,
90
Just another breeder worried that it wont be his progeny consuming the resources.
Concern for the planet is a front for racist narcissism.
51
The sad fact that celebrities are looked upon as authorities on anything is scary.
31
Isnt it bizarre??
I have never understood why someone who entertains is magically bestowed with a “highlander” like knowledge of everything as soon as they become famous.
10
Truth, I agree with you. What would be surprising is if things like ice cover at the poles were not sinusoidal.
40
That was what first alerted me to the likelhood that AGW was all bunk. All those scary graphs being trotted out and none of them showing any sine waves. Market dynamics, construction rates, demographics – all going in cycles, but climate doesn’t?
202
Some are adenoidal.
30
I thought being sinusoidal was some sort of slang for hay fever… and hypotenuse is what you say when a sinusoidal person sneezes
(no, I didn’t really – and I apologise for the tangent…before anyone arcs up)
110
It might be the way the means are scattered and condensed on the way down but the sinusoidal shape seems to be skewed to the right to me. So it would suggest a higher melting rate than a freezing rate.
01
Clearly a result of all this global warming that’s stored in the ocean deeps.
111
The Arctic ice seems to have pretty much bottomed out.
A big jump from 2012 over the last 2 years.
That sudden peak in the Antarctic ice is interesting, and rather odd.. Could it be an instrument error or something?
Or is Al Gore on a boat down there !
162
I believe the spring equinox in Australia is tomorrow. We’re going to party like it’s…well 2014.
110
Anyone hear about Prof. Turney of the Ship of Fools expidition organizing a future walking tour to Antarctica over the ice from Austrailia to promote the Global Warming Industry?
292
I hope that they contemplating banana and peanut butter milkshakes to fortify themselves along the way.
120
What is it with banana and peanut butter, seems to be a trend??
30
It’s certainly a Death to Diabetics sandwich.
30
I like Banana and Nutella as a combination too, especially in the sandwich maker, although I suspect that the Eurocrats would like to ban those as they use too many watts. 🙂
40
If it is a trend, it should have a model, but make sure you don’t use any parameters which actually resemble bread, banana, or peanut butter.
50
well, i guess a milkshake is a method of homogenising things, and we all know how popular that is.
41
1 red thumb, does Prof Turney read Jo Nova?
81
To them, Jo Nova is like that garbage spewing cable channel, MSNBC in the states. People with good sense watch MSNBC to keep up with what the idiots are doing. I suspect the idiots of climate change read Jo for the same reason, to keep up with what the people with good sense are doing. But I’ll bet not even one in a hundred has the nerve to comment. They apparently recruit zealots from among college students to do that for them.
111
All 10 of them?
51
Phil,
I think there are actually 11 of them, I mean those who actually put any stock in MSNBC. The rest of us watch for the entertainment value of such nut cases as Rachel Maddow and Chris Matthews. It’s hard to find better comedy than a rabid dog turned loose to rant and rave day after day without having the slightest connection with reality.
00
11? WOW! They are having a ratings boom! Up 10%! 😉
10
I person looking at the trend here over the past few years objectively might actually start thinking about the precautionary principle. Are we looking at the start of something new?
I tend to look at these graphs like they were stock market graphs and use the same techniques for spotting when things are heading off trend. Antarctica certainly seems to be heading off into new territory, while the Arctic slide appears to have stopped. Summer peaks heading up since 2011 lows since 2012.
Global sea ice seems to be back to normal but trending up
141
I’d suggest a Quiet Sun might be a place to start.
121
“I’d suggest a Quiet Sun might be a place to start.”
Fits with an approximate 10-15 year lag/smearing
132
The solar cycle reached a maximum a few months ago (if my memory has not failed me) with the reversal of the solar magnetic poles, and was reportedly one of the ‘weakest on record’, though not as quiet as the 70-odd years without an obvious cycle in the 17th century.
I realise we have to use things which are the something-th ‘on record’ to be able to communicate with the AGW crowd, despite the sun being, what +/-4.57 billion years old… although, admittedly, it hasn’t always been like it is now.
41
There are warming and cooling cycles in the paleoclimatic record (both polar regions cyclically warm and cool with the same periodicity 1500 years and 400 years) that correlate with high solar magnetic cycle activity followed by a cooling phase when the solar magnetic cycle went into a maunder minimum. The record sea ice in the Antarctic looks the start of high latitude cooling.
41
We only have 35 yrs good data on the Antarctic ice area, which is pretty little really, especial when you look at the extensive records all the way back to whaling ships in the 1700s that clearly document vast melting’s and refreezing of the Arctic ice sheet. We have whaling records recording where Antarctic whales were killed but thats not the same as the ice extent records the northern whalers made. It seems that every 65 years we were rediscovering that the Arctic was melting and was going to disappear. Only to be followed by regaining its max size once more. I looked at a set of graphs of the temp changes caused by the Pacific Decadal Osscilation measured from Greenland and Canada and to me it was clearly a sine wave with frequency of 60 to 65 years. I wondered how that matched up historically with the documented declines in the Arctic ice area. (And in fact the peak of the last wave was in the early 2000s and we are on the downhill part now if I remember correctly.) It would be an interesting study to compare these records.
130
What if the BOM records actually showed Australia cooling, which is why homogenization was needed as our numbers were telling a different story to the Northern Hemisphere and that was a crucial problem for, say funding?
Of course the halves of the planet behave identically, despite 80% of the world living above the equator, perhaps 90% above the tropic of Capricorn, because most of the land is there and most of the water is South of the Equator. Thus the search for the Great Southern Land to balance it all. Also given the coriolis force, the air and sea circulate largely independently in the two hemispheres, allowing them to be quite different.
So a perfectly simple and therefore ridiculous explanation is that the Southern Hemisphere is cooling and so we have more ice. How absurd? Surely there is a more complex scientific explanation? Can you have global warming with one half warmer and the other half cooler, simply because they are different? Of course it cannot be true. Al Gore would have told us. It is certainly inconvenient.
181
To explain further, while above the tropic of Cancer there is all the land and population of West and Eastern Europe, the entire US and Canada, Half of Mexico, all of Russia and half of China and all of Japan, the total population below the other tropic in South America, Africa, Australia and New Zealand is 150 million or a tiny 2%. That is why well kept Australian temperatures are so important for calculating world land temperatures, as much as 25% of the total. It is possibly why the old very careful early records apparently showing a much hotter Australia at the start of the 20th century have been discarded? Obviously they were wrong?
In fact Melbourne, the Southern most large city in Australia, is on a parallel with Algiers, Tunis, the middle of Sicily, Seville in Spain and Athens in Greece. It has bright sun but relatively cool summers with only a few hot weeks when the wind is from the due North. Tasmania is South of us with a population of 0.5Million and that’s it, all the way to Antarctica, a huge continent twice the size and covered in white ice which reflects light. It is far colder than the arctic. So could I suggest if black body temperature was ultimately a matter of radiant light in and radiant light out, the Southern Hemisphere might be a bit different in temperature, a bit cooler. Or is that just too obvious?
101
Sorry, but Brazil alone has over 200 million people.
20
Sure, but “below the other tropic”, not the equator. 90% of Brazil is actually above the Tropic of Capricorn. Rio de Janeiro is just above. Yes,the tropics contain 40% of the world’s population. Indonesia, Half of India, all of South East Asia etc. My point is that 60% of the world’s population is not in the tropics. 58% above the tropic of cancer, 2% below the tropic of Capricorn. It raises real questions about why there is an allegedly man created ozone hole in the Southern hemisphere but not one in the Northern. The ratio of population and thus CFC pollution should be 58:2. Might it just be the much colder air?
80
300 million in fact
10
St. Petersburg, Talin, Helsinki Stockholm are all 60 North on the Gulf of Finland. At this latitude, there is land almost around the planet where the Southern ocean does not even have any land at 60 South, below Tierra del Fuego, the tip of South America. Are the two halves of the planet identical? The antarctic contains 60% of the world’s fresh water and is dramatically colder. Professor Turney was the most famous recent exponent of the popular and absurd idea that the two halves were the same and behaved identically. It shows you how really silly a world average temperature is. How do you average the equator and the South Pole? What meaning does such a number have?
81
A couple of points.
Just a note that some glaciers are highly sensitive to changes in precipitation at their source, meaning the some glaciers advance and grow when WARMER, simply because there is more precipitation as snow in their source regions under warm conditions. Antarctic sea ice might undergo a similar process.
(An interesting point here is the Himalayas and bordering countries, water availability might actually INCREASE due to warmer temperatures, as more warmth might bring more rain and more snow and more runoff, not less).
With warmer temperatures in the southern ocean, sea ice might be increasing because there is more of wherever or whatever the ice is being sourced from-be it salinity changes due to changes in ocean currents or winds, or changes in the melting of adjacent land ice.
But note also, this increase in sea ice will have a negative feedback effect on warmer regional trends as ice tends to create its’ own semi-climate and increases albedo, meaning that different regions and hemispheres can warm and cool at different rates (so much for ‘homogenisation’).
30
I see your point thingadonta. However the “might” is in the wrong place.
” some glaciers might advance and grow when WARMER”
I can’t see how warming produces more Sea Ice!
Sea Ice is produced by COLD conditions.
41
Global sea ice accelerates fast once the Arctic starts to re-freeze around now so, if the Antarctic return to melting is slow or late, the global sea ice cover should soon become interesting.
120
Seawater freezes at about -2 C and the faster the ice is accumulating, the farther below freezing the air must be to accomplish that speedup. Just more evidence that the Earth is getting colder, not warmer.
70
Got it. !!! The world has been cooling for several years now, but all the cooling is being locked up in Antarctic Ice. If that melts the world will get much colder!!
21
A new study has found that there was much less ice in Antarctica than today over the last 7,000 years and the W Ant peninsula was 2c warmer 9,000 years ago.
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com.au/2013/01/new-paper-finds-antarctic-sea-ice-has.html
61
The EXTENT chart includes polynyas. The polynyas can continue to form new ice even as the sea ice extent is contracting. The sea ice AREA excludes the polynyas, so the area of sea ice can continue to increase for some time after the sea ice extent has begun its seasonal contraction.
BTW, the blog text has conflated area and extent.
50
You have to admire Nature’s sense of irony. On or about the day that a few thousand climate zealots have a big dummy spit that no one is taking them seriously she decides to produce record (as far as our short records go) sea ice around the Antarctic.
I like her style.
10
But they just told us, on Channel Ten, that not only is this going to be the hottest year ion record in the northern hemisphere but also that the temperature of Antarctica has risen by 4 degrees. Naturally these will be the official figures.
I hope you are not suggesting that the official figures are – ahem – fiddled?
71
In Climate terms the increase or decrease at both poles is meaningless. Both NH and SH ice have been much lower and greater than current figures over the millenia. The only connection which MAY have some significance is falling solar activity with increasing trend in SH ice. BTW NH ice ihas been mostly within “normal”values for 2013-2014 (which means nothing again because baseline is fictitious)
51
Bu-bu-but they scream, it is losing MASS! The land ice is melting, flowing into the sea and refreezing!
Well, we know about the West Antarctic volcanoes – but it is melting all over they yell! But the temperature is well below 0 and has not risen, so how is that possible?
New Ice they yell! It melts at temperatures below freezing, and then forms at temperatures above freezing!
My head hurts arguing with the numbskulls.
61
I recommend aspirin for that, Phil. There’s no need to suffer for the sake of some kind of “new ice”.
50
The average attendance at NFL football games is about 73,000, So yesterday, while an estimated 310,000 folks marched in NY an estimated 1.2 million enjoyed American football. That doesn’t count the millions of TV viewers. Sounds about right!
30
Im not sure who’s right or wrong but I still want clean energy.
12
It’s all been very quiet about the Arctic ice extent this year. I wonder why??
http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/observation_images/ssmi1_ice_ext.png
It bottomed out on 11th Sept in extent and area, according to Nansen data. Extent was a little higher than last year, area just under.
That means that the dramatic gains of last year have not dropped back and it was not a freak year due to winds or some storm or lack of.
Oddly all of those who pretend to be so concerned about climate and have spent years promoting this as the “canary in the coal mine” for global warming have missed the good news about the canary feeling a bit better and starting to chirp.
One would have thought if they were up in arms about melting ice they’d be jumping for joy when it recovers.
But no, it is an embarrassed silence on that one now.
No rise in global mean temps for 16 years, No acceleration in mean sea level for 100 years. Arctic sea ice as high as it’s been since 2006.
We start to understand the urgency is committing to irrevocable, legally binding treaties on “climate action”, before something else goes wrong.
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If Antarctica keeps accumulating ice that way and the Arctic keeps losing ice, isn’t there a danger of the world tipping over?
Oh nuts! I forgot. Antarctica is already at the “bottom of the world”. So maybe the ice imbalance is what’s keeping the world right side up in the first place. And if that’s true shouldn’t these complainers rejoice instead of complaining? 😉
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Hurry! Rush the news over to Hank Johnson! 😉
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http://www.habtheory.com/
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Well, there you go. Global warming is threatening to bump us out of our interglacial and into the next ice age. An electric monk situation.
Pointman
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Just for laughs
Taxpayer-Funded Musical on Global Warming Closes For a Simple Reason:
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At the rate global warming is progressing, Antarctic sea ice will engulf Tierra del Fuega by mid-century.
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But if we use Team IPCC ™ “science, then for sure it might freeze within 5 years.
Global Trade is Doomed, Cape Good Hope is next, Australia and NZ could be surrounded by ice in just 10 years..
You are doomed send me all your money…
The Norse had 9 levels of hell each one colder, to these I consign the Chicken Littles.
We need to freeze them in the hope that future medicine can cure their impulsive lunacy.
Comedy is we could sell this concept to most of the CAGW believers.
They already have demonstrated an ability to buy complete BS.
I bet the sucker lists are overflowing after yesterdays NY demonstration.
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Battlin Joe Bastardi addresses the Antarctic sea ice in his weekly address http://www.weatherbell.com/ (about min. 14)
by saying is the most outrageous record in weather and climate he has ever seen.
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Bastardi quote should read ” most outrageous record event in weather and climate he has ever seen.”
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The tropics up to 23.5 degrees represent 39.5% of the surface of the planet. Coincidentally the tropics contain 40% of the world’s population. The temperate and arctic zones are the other 60% of land area and 60% of population. However as demonstrated above, only 2% of the world’s population lives in the bottom half! The reason is that there is not as much land and because it is much colder at the same latitude, especially at the poles. Also there is a huge continent as big as North America at the South pole and nothing at the North pole. The two halves are very different, almost mirror images. Why wouldn’t this be significant in albedo and warming and cooling. Water behaves very differently to land and reflects light very differently, especially ice.
So it continues to amaze that professional scientists like Prof.Turney really believe that the record Antarctic ice means anything more than it is colder than usual. How can it be a result of warming or miraculous winds? Why isn’t the simple explanation right? This is especially when the same people argue strongly that very low ice in the Arctic is sufficient and complete proof of Global Warming. It is also why Australian temperature records matter so much to the argument that the planet is continuing to warm again in utter contradiction of the evidence. The promoters of runaway warming need a continuing narrative of the angry summers and heat records and to quietly drop the fact of late 19th and early 20th century record heat. Yesterday I read that August was exceptionally hot in Australia. Really? Who releases this sort of news and why?
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ABC 23 Sept 2014:
Antarctic sea ice continues to grow beyond record coverage
“But Dr Lieser said the growing extent of sea ice was, in fact, a symptom of global warming.
How convenient.
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Ok, love, lets have a barbie on the weekend. You do the salads, I’ll look after the meat and the gas bottle. What’s that? Ice? Nah, no worries; its gunna be hot on Saturday, I’ll just put a few extra trays of water on the back deck.
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More ice. Less ice. So what !!! It’s business as usual. Everyone go and do something else for a while.
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PS – The clock on my PC is synchronised to the internet and said 8:31am when I posted the above note, but the note is timestamped as 8:46am.
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I hope Jo has the time to read this new study. There is now an admission that the temp along the west coast US since 1900 is actually NATURAL and does not involve human co2 emissions .
You see it’s the PDO and more el ninos again, another big surprise NOT. So why not OZ east coast and other areas etc?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/09/22/surprising-pnas-paper-co2-emissions-not-the-cause-of-u-s-west-coast-warming/
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This morning in the Australian, Obama’s original Energy Secretary, a theoretical physicist at least admits the models have very serious problems. It is bad enough that they disagree between themselves by more than three times the observed warming but the fact that none predicted the warming would stop(he says slow down) makes it far worse.
After all with 50 horses in the one race and over a huge range of predictions, you would think one would win but he admits they all ran off the course. Still he persists with the popular opinion that CO2 released by man must produce (atmospheric) warming as an established scientific fact. You would think the evidence proved the exact opposite! The model of a hothouse with no walls, no room, huge turbulence, massive water base seems to be broken. So failing unknown natural cycles, a sudden diversion of heat into the oceans and another pile of excuses, the obvious conclusion is that the atmosphere with its turbulence, the massive exchange of gases with the oceans, the sheer size of the hothouse may mean there is no hothouse at all. He agrees few of the predictions were right, including the hot spot. As models go, he accepts that they are all wrong and need a lot of work.
He also says the CO2 may stick around for hundreds of years. IN this he accepts that increased CO2 is entirely man’s fault, showing perhaps a complete lack of understanding of equilibrium not least with the oceans. As time goes on, it will be shown to be a simple and predictable consequence, not a cause of ocean warming, but you cannot expect a theoretical physicist to know any physical chemistry. You can also expect him to defend the trillions of dollars spent fighting shadows.
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In agriculture, freezing of plants due to low temperatures such as during a frost when temperatures [ Australia ] drop below say about minus 3 or minus 4 degrees for two or more hours can destroy both the forming heads of seed cereal plants or destroy the plants vascular system that transports nutrients through out the plant. Or it destroys the newly emerging fruit and flower buds.
All of which have happened this year in the last few weeks down here in Victoria’s western grain areas
[ plus a well advanced drought which has led to a lot of crops being written off and therefore no income this year for many farmers in NW Vic ]
There is a lot of intensive research under way to try and find genetic material and / or ways of minimising the highly destructive frost effects on cereal and oil seed plants and agricultural food and fibre plants of every type as frost usually affects plants when they are close to maturity; ie all the growing expenses for the year have been paid out and then comes the frost and some to most of the crop is lost and it’s yield potential destroyed only 3 to 4 weeks before harvesting.
[ A minimum of $600 up to $750/ Hectare / year is the cost of running a farming property and growing the year’s crop here in west Vic and most farmers grow between 1000 to 3000 Ha’s of cereal and oil seed crops per year. ]
One of the contributors to frost effects on crops is an ice forming bacteria that lives in colonies on plant leaves. These bacteria Pseudomonas syringae can form ice crystals via protein in their coats that causes pure water to freeze at around the minus 2 to minus 4 C degrees which are the temperatures where severe freezing damage is done to plants.
Very pure water of course can remain liquid down to a low point of minus -48 C as Utah Uni researchers recently researched. [ Water’s Ultimate Freezing point ]
Pure water requires miniscule particlues to act as seeds for the water droplets to condense around [ a main plank in Svensmarks’ cosmic ray theory of cloud formation and consequent global warming or cooling ] and Pseudomonas syringae are one of the means for this to occur on plant leaves.
The ice plus, ice forming Pseudomonas syringae are used in the making of artificial snow from snow guns to ensure the formation of large amounts of snow from the water forced out of the snow making guns in the snow fields
There are also natural ice minus forms of Pseudomonas syringae existent which are also being researched.
It is also very likely that bacteria and there are many other species, such as Pseudomonas syringae are deeply involved in creating precipitation as the Pseudomonas syringae are now known to use cloud droplets as a means of dispersal and in doing so likely to be responsible for some precipitation effects
[ The Rain Making Bacteria ]
Thats the land version of ice forming bacteria.
What nobody knows and nobody has apparently researched even though it is likely to be a very significant contributor to sea ice formation and even oceanic effects on the global climate, is the possibility / probability of large numbers of sea ice forming bacteria and viruses and microbes.
The microbe / bacterial / virus levels in the global oceans is beyond collossal and has never had a great deal of research done on those microbial / bacteria / virus loads in the oceans.
An estimate is provided in this paper;
Microbes in the Marine Environment
TINY MICROBES …
HUGE NUMBERS
As the above article writes, life on this planet probably originated in the shallow seas of the early Earth. For two thirds of life’s existence bacteria and viruses have been the sole life forms existent on the planet.
With such a history and such incredible numbers of ocean bacteria and viruses and other single celled life forms in the oceans it is beyond probability that some types of ice forming single celled animals are extensive throughout the world’s oceans.
So whenever ocean temperatures and conditions such as available nutrient levels are suitable for the rapid multiplication of ocean bacteria and viruses and microbes that are capable of forming ice exists then such life forms are likely to be extensive and ice will be formed at a rapid rate.
An idea which even though at this stage is completely unproven, nobody has researched it blaming all sorts of other reasons above the ocean surface instead, is reinforced by the fact that sea ice is formed from the bottom up.
As ice floats, if it didn’t this would be a dead frozen world, as ice forms on the bottom of the ice floes possibly some of which ice formation is directly the result of sea living ice forming bacteria, then the ice continues to rise in the water and you get ice shelves from bottom freezing as well as from the flowing of ice streams from deep in the Antarctic continent.
What I am suggesting is that there exists a possibility that one of the contributing factors in the polar ice increases, both north and south is not only the essential changes in local polar temperatures but a possibility that sea current conditions have very recently brought more suitable nutrients and better salinity levels into both polar regions that has allowed for a rapid and significant increase in ocean borne sea ice forming bacteria and viruses.
Hence the possibility of another contributing factor, amongst many, towards the large increases in polar sea ice coverage and volume we are seeing over the last couple of years.
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The increase in ocean bacteria is due to global warming…. you realise that, do you not?
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Hi Jo,
I was just wondering if you are able to give us any more information about this report:
http://www.glennbeck.com/2014/09/22/photos-so-these-are-the-types-of-people-who-attended-the-peoples-climate-change-march-last-weekend/
Thanks Jo.
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It is amazing to read the glib explanations. Often the wind. Apparently, there is more sea ice because of the strong winds caused by a warming planet, not the lower sea and air temperatures.
This sounds vaguely plausible and it could possibly be true, however you have to think someone just plucked this explanation out of the air. Turney used the same excuse of unusual winds to explain being trapped in supposedly rare ice, the same stuff now at record levels.
Yes we know about wind chill and in principle this could cool the surface all the way around Antarctica. However as with any cooling and conservation of energy, the heat does not just vanish. An airconditioner drags in heat on one side and pumps it out the other. So these winds driven by global warming would take heat from the water and become hotter and wetter and move the heat elsewhere, warming something else or raising air temperatures. This should be dramatic. Did this happen? Where did this vast amount of heat in warmer, wetter air go? The story does not say and there is no supporting evidence.
So isn’t it simpler to conclude that the Antarctic oceans are colder than normal, even colder than it has been for a long time as warm water rises and the sea ice is a measure of the entire ocean below? Or would professional climate scientists say that is nonsense because it does not fit their model of a warming planet? At what point did so many public scientists become apologists for global warming when faced with the clear evidence that the Antarctic ocean is colder than normal? How many of these reborn scientists have any formal training in meteorology anyway?
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O/T but so much is going on CAGW-wise today, including plenty of exaggeration:
23 Sept: ABC AM: UN climate summit questions Australia’s reliance on coal
JAKE STURMER: Christiana Figueres has the unenviable job of trying to guide the world towards a new climate agreement…
The Prime Minister Tony Abbott won’t be there and neither will the heads of state of major emitters China and India.
But Ms Figueres doesn’t see that as a problem, given China’s recent action on climate change. Next year it will ban sales of “dirty” thermal coal and cut imports generally by 50 million tonnes to improve air quality.
CHRISTIANA FIGUERES: So on all measures China is truly taking this very, very seriously for their own domestic reasons.
JAKE STURMER: She says while the UN can’t dictate to Australia what it does with its resources, she doesn’t believe unabated coal has a place in the world’s energy mix.
CHRISTIANA FIGUERES: That is certainly within Australia’s purview to decide how Australia is going to pursue its energy generation and energy growth.
It is just a question of really thinking through very carefully what is in the best long term interest of Australia and of the Australian population…
JAKE STURMER: Three-hundred and forty institutional investors with more than $24 trillion of assets under management have called for stronger government action and support for low carbon technologies ahead of the summit.
HESTA, the health and community services super fund, has begun to restrict thermal coal investments. HESTA’s CEO Anne-Marie Corboy is in New York and will have her chance to address world leaders tomorrow.
ANNE-MARIE CORBOY: We think climate change is real and that we know that it will affect the long term retirement savings of our members and we need to do something around that in order to mitigate those loss of returns…
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2014/s4092775.htm
23 Sept: ABC News Radio: Coal has no future in the world’s energy mix, UN warns, ahead of New York summit
LINKS ON PAGE:
Rockefellers pull oil money to invest in clean energy
Jobs for the climate
US spruiks its credentials ahead of UN climate summit in New York
Prime Minister Tony Abbott will not attend the summit either, despite being in New York the next day.
Last week, the European Union’s climate chief said that was a “pity”.
UN Environment Program’s Achim Steiner discusses the future of coal
Lord Stern last week helped release a report showing that investments to help fight climate change could also spur economic growth rather than slow it.
Pro-fossil fuel interests behind RET review: Flannery
Climate stance under scrutiny as PM arrives in US
Abbott welcomes Obama plan to slash CO2 emissions
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-23/unabated-coal-has-no-future-in-energy-mix-un-warns/5761950
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23 Sept: Bloomberg: Mark Drajem: U.S. Urges Action on Climate… Then Skips Pledge
To hear Secretary of State John Kerry tell it, climate change is the primary threat facing the Earth for the decades to come…
Just don’t ask the U.S. to sign a pledge to take action. Earlier today 73 countries, including China, Russia and the United Kingdom, signed a pledge pulled together by the World Bank to support a price on carbon as a way to cut greenhouse-gas emissions. Noticeably absent from the list was the world’s second-largest emitter: the U.S…
Requests for comment on why the U.S. didn’t sign up weren’t immediately returned from the State Department, White House andU.S. Environmental Protection Agency…
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-22/u-s-urges-action-on-climate-then-skips-pledge.html
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23 Sept: SMH: Lisa Cox: Australia can quit coal without adverse effects on economy, says Jeffrey Sachs report
PHOTO CAPTION: Report architect Professor Jeffrey Sachs, with activist-musician Bono
The report, led by globally renowned economist Professor Jeffrey Sachs, is one of 15 called for by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to provide options for how the world’s major carbon emitters can decarbonise their economies…
The report, by ClimateWorks Australia and the Australian National University, finds that ending coal-fired electricity generation will achieve the largest reduction in emissions in Australia, which can then lead to carbon-free electricity to replace petrol in cars, and gas in buildings…
The report finds Australia will need at least 50 per cent of its electricity to come from renewable energy by 2030 to contribute to international efforts to keep global warming below 2 degrees, which scientists say would avoid the worst effects of climate change…
“It will take effort but we have to start moving very soon,” Ms Skarbek said.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/australia-can-quit-coal-without-adverse-effects-on-economy-says-jeffrey-sachs-report-20140923-10kie9.html
23 Sept: Bloomberg: Julia Mengewein: Merkel’s Taste for Coal to Upset $130 Billion Green Drive
The transition, dubbed the Energiewende, has so far added more than 100 billion euros ($134 billion) to the power bills of households, shop owners and small factories as renewable energy met a record 25 percent of demand last year. RWE AG, the nation’s biggest power producer, last year reported its first loss since 1949 as utility margins are getting squeezed because laws give green power priority to the grids…
Germany’s 40 million households now pay more for electricity than any other country in Europe except Denmark, according to Eurostat in Brussels. A decade ago, Belgium, the Netherlands and Italy all had higher bills than Germany…
Consumers paid 106 billion euros between 2000 and 2013 to renewable energy producers, according to the nation’s four grids. To stem gains, the government cut green subsidies last month by 29 percent on average to 120 euros a megawatt-hour, according to the Economics and Energy Ministry’s website…
Even as margins slid, the burning of coal rose 68 percent from 2010 to provide a steady supply of electricity. Fossil-based power plants, including those fired by hard coal and lignite, are “indispensable for the foreseeable future,” reads the agreement between Merkel’s conservatives and the Social Democratic Party that helped form her current government. “The ‘black gold’ is still an important factor in the energy generation mix,” the government says on its website…
The share of power from hard coal and lignite plants in Germany rose to 45 percent last year, the highest level since 2007, according to data from AG Energiebilanzen e.V., a group of energy lobbies and economic research institutes…
“Lignite is the only cheap, domestic source available in great quantities in Germany that delivers power around the clock,” Dohler (head of asset optimization and trading at Vattenfall) said. “Every day, every night, every week and every weekend.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-21/merkel-s-taste-for-coal-poised-to-upset-130-billion-green-drive.html
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22 Sept: Economic Times India: Reuters: Rush for coal import leads to congestion at Paradip port
The country’s power and steel companies are importing shiploads of coal due to a severe shortage at home, leading to heavy congestion in one of the busiest ports that now has twice the number of vessels waiting than its available berths…
The over-crowding at Paradip port in eastern Odisha could derail India’s efforts to prevent a shutdown of more than half of its power
plants which are running on stocks of less than a week in the worst deficit since a massive blackout in 2012.
Congestion was higher-than-usual at some other ports too, said Prakash Duvvuri, research head at research firm OreTeam…
Total coal traffic across all ports, including shipments within the country,
rose 12 percent in August from a year ago. Paradip port, the biggest state-owned port by capacity, handled 16 per cent more coal over the period, according to the Indian Ports Association…
India is home to the world’s fifth-largest coal reserve but still needs to resort to imports in a big way as state-owned Coal India, which accounts for
about 80 per cent of the country’s output, frequently falls short of its output target…
India’s overseas purchases of thermal coal, used in power generation, are expected to surge 11 percent to 150 million tonnes this fiscal year, online
market operator mjunction said…
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/transportation/shipping-/-transport/rush-for-coal-import-leads-to-congestion-at-paradip-port/articleshow/43156586.cms
woke up to an interview on the radio this morning, with Bjorn Lomborg & a young Climate Warrior, Danielle-something-or-other. can’t find it anywhere, but Lomborg kept pointing out that billions living in poverty want to develop, & fossil fuels was their only means, and would be for decades, while our Climate Warrior was full of slogans & rhetoric about how we must move into the future, divest immediately from fossil fuels, and how it was like the fight against apartheid in South Africa, etc. it’s nothing like the fight against apartheid, said Lomborg, because billions in developing countries want ectricity, they want cheap fossil fuels, they want to get out of poverty, & who are we to tell them they can’t. i feel sure it was on BBC, but can’t find it anywhere.
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23 Sept: Bloomberg: Google Quits ALEC, Says Link With Climate Skeptics Wrong
By Jim Snyder and Brian Womack
Google Inc. Chairman Eric Schmidt said the world’s biggest Internet search company made a mistake in funding a political group that opposes U.S. action on climate change.
Schmidt said Google paid the American Legislative Exchange Council as part of a lobbying campaign on an unrelated issue. Without elaborating on Google’s relationship with the group, Schmidt said facts about global warming aren’t in dispute.
“The people who oppose it are really hurting our children and grandchildren and making the world a much worse place,” Schmidt said on NPR’s “Diane Rehm Show” today. “We should not be aligned with such people. They are just literally lying.” …
Microsoft Corp. has withdrawn from ALEC, saying affiliating with group “which is actively fighting policies that promote renewable energy was incongruous,” according to report in Bloomberg BNA last month…
The group (ALEC) has written model legislation calling for an interstate research council to study possible beneficial effects of climate change and to examine how regulations capping carbon may hurt the economy…
Meierling disputed Schmidt’s suggestion that the group denies human activity is a cause of climate change. But he said ALEC has “significant concerns” rules proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency to limit carbon dioxide emissions from power plants would hurt the economy.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-22/google-quits-alec-says-link-with-climate-skeptics-wrong.html
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“Eric is a member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and the Prime Minister’s Advisory Council in the U.K. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2006 and inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences as a fellow in 2007. He also chairs the board of the New America Foundation, and since 2008 has been a trustee of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. In May 2012, Eric became a member of Khan Academy’s board of directors and in 2013 he joined the board of The Economist.”
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Record sea ice in Antarctica, record snow falls in the Australian snow fields this winter, record low temps across Australia and the Arctic still not ice free. Normal people with any ability to reason might start to think that all that CO2 just is not trapping anything like the heat predicted by climate models. A scientist who specialises in the Earths climate might start to think about getting back to real scientific investigation and try to work out what is really going on. One thing is certain and that is that the reasons to disable industrial society with carbon limits are fast running out.
I was out and about in Perth on the weekend and came across about 150 people protesting about the global warming or something. They made for a rather sad sight, waving their fake solar panels about as they were soaked with 26 year record rainfall. Once again the Earth mother refuses to deliver for the faithful. The kids seemed to be having fun though.
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Fun exercise over at WUWT … guessing how long before the Antarctic Sea Ice closes Drake Passage around the southern tip of South America.
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[…] not forget our save-the-worlder’s moving tipping points too. Future temps are now decreasing; Antarctic ice is again at record highs; Arctic ice is increasing & Ozone is waltzing naturally. “Half […]
[Save this here for Jo. I don’t recall this group linking here before. Jo might like to know.] ED
[I never touch them – they magically disappear if I leave them alone 🙂 ] Fly
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