Another excuse may be on the rocks. The Arctic ice melt has been a favorite clarion of catastrophists. What will they do if it stops declining? It is early days, but if the missing heat is hiding in the Arctic this pattern is not following the green machine plan.
A New “Pause?”
Examining the sea ice extent data for the past eight years it is obvious that there has not been any statistically significant downward trend, even though there is more noise (interannual variability) in the data. There are interannual variations but they do not form a trend. For the 2002 – 2006 period the annual differences are mostly in the extent of maximum and not minimum ice cover. The period 1990 – 1996 displays much more interannual variability. The main difference between the ice-curves is that in recent years there has been an increase in the gradient around the beginning of June.
Of the general decline and the interannual variability how much is due to external forcing and how much to internal variability? Estimate from climate models give about equal measure to forcing and internal variability, Kay et al (2011), Stroeve et al (2012). That 50% internal variability is almost never illustrated graphically when presenting Arctic ice data.
That the minimal extent of Arctic ice has “paused” is admitted by Swart et al (2015)
“…from 2007–2013 there was a near-zero trend in observed Arctic September sea-ice extent, in large part due to a strong uptick of the ice-pack in 2013, which has continued into 2014.”
Swart et al (2015) maintain that “cherry-picking” such short periods can be “misleading about longer-term changes, when such trends show either rapid or slow ice loss.”
– See more at: http://www.thegwpf.com/arctic-ice-decline-a-new-pause/#sthash.etgq6yJ2.dpuf
Melting Arctic sea ice, a keenly watched measure of global climate change, has “paused”, sharpening debate on whether humans or natural variability are to blame for the earlier decline.
After shrinking 35 per cent over several decades, the low point reached in Arctic ice cover each year appears to have stabilised. This is despite a record low maximum ice extent this winter and new research that shows the annual melt was beginning days earlier each decade.
Scientists who first identified the “hiatus” in global average surface temperatures are claiming a new climate change “pause”.
Summer melts are still retreating to levels that put them at the extreme low end of the relatively short satellite record and attention increasingly is being focused on the loss of ice thickness.
But the “pause” in summer ice melt extent has been widely conceded. A paper published in Nature by Neil Swart from Environment Canada said “from 2007-13 there was a near-zero trend in observed Arctic September sea-ice extent, in large part due to a strong uptick of the icepack in 2013 which has continued into 2014”.
REFERENCE
Swart et al (2015) Influence of internal variability on Arctic sea-ice trends, Nature climate Change, 5, Pages: 86–89 DOI: doi:10.1038/nclimate2483
If we are having a plateau in global average surface temperature, then what are we having in Northern Hemisphere sea-ice extent? Is it a trough, or a basin or an invert or what?
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RobR,
Looks like we’re having an ‘or what’.
ABC this morning with Dr Karl Kruscinicki (words to the effect of):
Dr Karl
‘What we need to remember is that the 2 extremes of climate change are Ice Ages and Global Warming now with all our new technology developed since we first started taking measurements in the 1800’s we have established global warming is causing the ice caps to melt and land mass to rise which has the effect of accelerating the movement of the North Pole towards the equator as the earth spins on its axis from the earliest calculations of 6cm per year to an astounding 25cm per year.’
ABC Presenter
‘So the increased land mass is causing the earth to wobble from 23.5 degrees?
Dr Karl
‘Yes as the earth spins on its axis the increased mass has caused the axis to move.’
ABC Presenter
‘What affect will this have?’
Dr Karl
‘None actually, but it will have a huge psycholgical impact.’
Author’s Note:
WTF?
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Apologies to the Mods in advance: Dr Karl is a FU%$##G clown!, it had to be said.
61
For those who remembers Dr Karls’ 2007 election campaign when he ran on the Climate Change Coalition ticket, but got his scaremongering claims wrong by a factor of 10, its just another Karl blunder.
Kaptain Konfused.!
90
I just can’t see how Dr Karl can say man-made-CO2 climate change causes ice ages and global warming when, aw geez, which parallell universe am I in any way?
30
Karl is a regurgitator and a sophist.Karl is good at memorising “things”.
30
Projectile misquotes.
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Right on Glen: he is a regurgitator and extrapolator. Don’t need any any actual thought to do that.
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I think he reached his high point with his study of belly button fluff.
50
Hes completely lost it now and I thought he had already….
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Isn’t it interesting that so many mistake Karl’s photographic memory as a sign of intelligence, or scholastic ability.
I can recall when he did a talkback science program on the ABC. He was continually misunderstanding quite simple questions, requiring the presenter to oh so gently guide him to understanding. I was not surprised when he was replaced in the segment by someone smarter.
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What station and what day/time was this on?
00
Reference:
ABC 24 Sunday 05/04/2015 approx 08:30am segmnent before sport.
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I remember reading an article in Sky & Telescope magazine about the Earth’s tilt oscillating around the its mean position of about 23.5 degrees over a period of about 41000 years and it is caused by the gravitational influences of the Moon, Sun and planets. The astounding thing is the movement as measured on the ground is several tens of metres per year and the tilt is in the range of about 22.0 to 24.5 degrees. It puts Dr Karl’s findings in its correct perspective – no big deal compared to natural variations.
All the above numbers were easily found in Wikipedia under “Axial Tilt”. The S&T article highlighted the relatively large movement on the ground.
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I had to think about my recollection of “several tens of meters” per year but the numbers work. Given each degree of latitude is just over 110km, then the Tropic of Capricorn moves back and forth along a 275km band of the Earth’s surface. Each cycle is about 41000 years, so for the sake of argument breaking this into four 10000 year segments where two of them are turning points where movement slows to a halt and then reverses direction and the other two segments describe “rapid” movement, then 275km equals 275000 metres which works out at 27.5 metres per year.
Any marker showing the Tropic of Capricorn or Cancer needs to be moved every year.
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Does any marker for them ever get moved?
10
I’ve been to the Tropic of Capricorn marker just north of Alice Springs and I would have taken a photo of it. That was in January 1998 and I remember thinking I’ve never been so close to the Sun because it was just after summer solstice and Earth was almost at perihelion, its closest point of orbit to the Sun.
I doubt the markers or signs would get moved unless someone in authority became aware that they should be.
00
If you assume the change is sinusoidal, then the equation can be written as
TropicPosition=137,500sin(2π*year/41,000+offset) with a rate of change of 2π*137,500/41,000cos(2π*year/41,000+offset), or a maximum of about 6050/287 metres/year (taking π~=22/7), or just over 21 metres/year.
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According the the graphs of the North Atlantic ocean heat content below, there’s been a downturn since about 2007 or so, corresponding with the pause in sea ice extent.
http://kaltesonne.de/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/las555.gif
http://www.climate4you.com/images/NODC%20NorthAtlanticOceanicHeatContent0-700mSince1955%20With37monthRunningAverage.gif
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The arctic sea ice (permanent ice pack) is GROWING in volume (surface area and thickness) as has been measured by NRCAN and Environment Canada. These are both satellite and physical measurements which can be obtained by ATIP requests. NOAA/NASA are relying on reasurements taken from ONE glacier in Greenland (landlocked at that) and extrapolating that data to the entire arctic. Neither will discuss methodology nor release the raw data. Polar Bear populations are so large (more than ever recorded including oral histories of the Inuit and Inu) that the people living in the North are asking for increased hunting to control their numbers and prevent human predation. (Polar bears are the only animal genetically programed to consider humans as a normal food choice.)
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Taking the long view:
“The recent reduction of the ice extent in the Eastern area is still within the variation range observed over the past 300 yrs.”
https://i1.wp.com/www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg2/images/fig16-3s.gif
https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2015/03/29/arctic-sea-ice-factors/
Reply
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http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379110003185
The combined sea ice data suggest that the seasonal Arctic sea ice cover was strongly reduced during most of the early Holocene and there appear to have been periods of ice free summers in the central Arctic Ocean.
—–
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379114001000
Several studies suggest that the Early Holocene (∼6000–10,000 years BP) experienced less summer-sea ice than at present. …. [S]ea ice during the Early Holocene potentially could have moved over to a seasonal regime with sea ice-free summers due to the insolation maxima the Earth experienced at that time.
—–
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/333/6043/747.full
Arctic Sea Ice extent during the Holocene Thermal Maximum 8,000 years ago was less than half of the record low 2007 level. … Multiyear sea ice reached a minimum between ~8500 and 6000 years ago, when the limit of year-round sea ice at the coast of Greenland was located ~1000 kilometers to the north of its present position.
—–
http://www.biogeosciences.net/9/5391/2012/bg-9-5391-2012.pdf
Sea surface temperature (Arctic Ocean) between ∼ AD 1885–1935 are warmer by up to 3°C with respect to the average modern temperature at the coring site. For the period ∼ AD 1887–1945, reconstructed sea ice cover values are on average 8.3 months per year which is 1.1 months per year lower than the modern values.
—–
http://hol.sagepub.com/content/14/4/607.abstract
Driftwood entry to northern Greenland was rare until 7400 cal. years BP, indicating more severe summer sea-ice conditions than at present. More open water than at present probably characterized the period between 6800 and 5500 cal. years BP, during which time driftwood stranded on the beaches of Nioghalvfjerdsfjorden that is now covered by a floating glacier. … [I]n northwest Greenland studies of dinoflagellate cysts in a marine core indicate warmer surface waters, and hence less sea ice than at present from 7300 to 3700 cal. years BP.
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Also the Arctic sea ice trend doesn’t show any post c.1950 human-caused signal i.e. there is a slow flattening of the trend.
And the global sea ice extent shows a worrying upward trend.
20
To suggests that the Mother Nature is acting in a linear or hyperbolic (accelerating in one direction) fashion is to deny our planet,s behaviour of the last 4.6 billions years. The sea level is never static or moves in one direction. This also applies to the ice cover with the graph presented showing no different picture. Our Nature just like the stock market endlessly looks for equilibrium overcompensating and causing new sinusoidal cycles. For anyone to suggest that the polar ice can disappear within one generation is to deny geology. Even the onset of ice ages thought by some to happen within one or two generations are just not observed in the rock or tree record. However when you investigate the rate of temperature change it is a lot easier to make the world colder than hotter. Why? Because we live in the universe that is only 3 deg. Kelvin above the absolute zero.
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Sorry to be so OT so early in the thread Jo but the lunar eclipse is still going on though past its fullest extent. This is just to remind anyone able to see it. It’s been fantastic here in North Central Vic.
—–
Sorry was all clouds for the lubar eclipse here in perth. Sigh… – Jo
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Pretty wasn’t it? We had ideal viewing conditions in Auckland. There were a few little white puffy clouds in the night sky, but they had the good manners to stay well clear.
20
I have been in the Arctic during the spring and this is what happens. The land based snow melts first and floods the sea ice with water. That layer of water absorbs sunlight, melting the sea ice. If the snow has been contaminated with soot (volcanic ash etc.) the melt is accelerated because the particles absorb and re-radiate solar energy, melting the snow. Out on the ice the fresh water layer is sucked under as the ice floats. So more land based snow, more soot, and more sunlight lead to a faster melt, as usual this is much more complicated than simple temperature mediation.
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the more i look at the data the more i am convinced that they did something very good with the tokyo ( or it was kyoto) protocol… the power of signatures…
60
We can expect to hear claims such as “ten of the lowest summer Arctic ice years on record occurred in this century.”
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We may not have good models of global warming, but do we have good mental models of warmists? I predict their response will be the same as for the general pause evidence. It will be the Escalator response all over again. Instead of looking at the big picture, they will go data mining for a stat which generates a scary decline curve.
Sks previously drew this startling conclusion:
Just because the longer term has a declining trend does not mean there hasn’t recently been a change in that trend.
The SkS analysis cherrypicks the September extent, which of course will be the lowest in the year. However a loss over summer is not problematic if it is compensated by gains in the winter. Averaging over the whole year would be a more accurate representation of the big picture.
It is amazing Sks make a sweeping statement about the Arctic generally after having studied ice in just one month of the year. But whatever pays the bills, right?
When I take NSIDC data for northern sea ice extent up to Jan 2015 and chart it, my spreadsheet application can also do a power regression on the full data, but with far less scary results. See chart:
http://i.imgur.com/lylqnZe.png
Instead of forcing the power to be 2 (ie “second order”) and only changing the coefficient and offset, this full power regression will freely determine which of an infinite number of powers produces the best fit to the data. The best fit is -10.3, NOT +2. A function with a positive coefficient and a negative non-integral power will be a steep decline that flattens out, NOT one that declines “at an accelerating rate”.
It’s then interesting to create a cyclic model of Arctic ice assuming it follows the previously identified ~64 year cycle in world ocean temperatures – a cycle which reached a low in the mid 1970s which would imply maximum ice. Fitting a power regression to this simplified model over the same period as the satellite ice data is available produces an equation with an exponent very similar to the one obtained from real data.
This exercise demonstrates that the measurements do not fit a power law decline model any better than a cyclic model, as both models can fit the same regression parameters over a short interval which is only half a cycle. Therefore the power regression will not reliably extrapolate into the future.
By itself that does not mean the Arctic isn’t in terminal decline, it means there is no rational basis for such claims with the information available today.
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Regrettably the final line of my comment contained an error of logic, which I would correct by replacing “such claims” with “SkS’ claim”. I chastise my fellow Jonovians for not having noticed it thus far.
It does not logically follow from that argument that there is no rational basis for expecting a terminal decline, rather it follows that the diagnostic method used by SkS was insufficient for making the terminal conclusion. I have not examined all other conceivable arguments.
Those who have been following the climate issue for several years will recall the well-known “Letter to the Admiralty” in the Royal Society archives which speaks of significant reductions in ice in the Arctic occurring over the years 1816 to 1817. This is also quoted in “Perceiving, explaining, and observing climatic changes: An historical case study of the “year without a summer” 1816” by Bodemann & co. :
This gives us an entirely separate line of evidence for a dramatic decline in Arctic ice extent having historical precedents from which it later recovered.
However a stern caveat is due. As the observance of warm seas was accompanied by observations of ice floes far from the pole, it is possible the disappearance of ice from Arctic was not due to it melting but being broken up and drifting out of the Arctic. These observations were preceded by the enormous eruption of Tambora, which altered world climate by cooling it temporarily, and may have had some temporary effect on Atlantic currents flowing into the Arctic and the stability of the ice. This short term aerosol effect, while being a radiative forcing, is a potential cause incomparable to a long term natural temperature cycle or a greenhouse amplification. This is why I no longer see Banks’ Royal Society letter as proof of a large prior natural cycle in Arctic ice extent. The observed temperature cycle in the 20th century, past records of sea ice coverage, and (as Bruce shows below) the fit of the AMO cycle to NH ice extent, are in combination a better basis for belief in such a long-lived ice cycle.
It may be co-incidence that the Tambora eruption happened in a year that would have had low Arctic ice anyway.
It may not be purely co-incidental that 2007 – 3*64 = 1815.
That’s another interpretation of the events; that there is a 64 year cycle in Arctic ice/temperatures which is so powerful that not even Tambora could override it.
50
If a Global Warming sceptic claimed natural variation in the last 20 years, it was totally unacceptable.
So when did ‘natural variation’ become an acceptable excuse for warmists when their predictions failed and why wasn’t it the reason in the first place? Worse, warmists have to argue that the planet is still warming rapidly from CO2 but simultaneously and precisely, natural cooling exactly matches their induced warming and what are the chances of that? How do they know that natural variation is down, not up and its precise magnitude? What do their computer models say about ‘natural variation’ or is that everything the computer models do not predict? Of course the simplest explanation is that there is no CO2 driven temperature effect at all, or not one observable under the so called natural variation. If there is no warming, why is the world meeting in Paris? About what? The usual things. Money and power.
290
TdeF
You misunderstand the warmists. They know the apriori truths that “the world is warming and humans are the cause of it“. Any data that fails to show these truths, embedded in basic fizzicks and the climate models, must be wrong. You think I am exaggerating? Take this recent explanation of temperature homogenisations from a dogmatic blogger with a large following.
According to this anonymous blogger, anything that cannot be explained does not exist, so the instrument readings are incorrect.
70
I am increasingly suspicious that the changeover from thermometers to electronics happened through the 1980s, exactly as the world went to computers and thermistors. Temperatures showed a plateau, a sudden jump in the 1980s and then another plateau. What if the jump was an artifact, a consequence of changing the measurement technology? The timing and amount of the jump coincide perfectly.
Changing the method of measuring something can be devastating because of the conundrum when they do not agree and temperature has a range. After all one has a resolution(not accuracy) of +/-0.5C and the other +/-0.01C, so you can introduce an error of +/-0.5C. Then which is right, the thermometer or the electronics? Was the new technology believed to be more accurate as well as higher resolution? This may have to do with standards and calibration as much as measurement.
One of the major undiscussed functions of homogenization was to make the new measurements exactly connect to the old across a range. The problem arises when they do not match. What do you do? What if you believe the new measurements are more accurate? Do you make them wrong for all time and just for continuity? Or do you introduce a change, a step? If so, do you tell anyone? At the time, would anyone care about a tiny shift of 0.5C?
Then maybe people were also inclined to see what they expected to see, warming and a jump of +0.5C. Confirmation bias coupled with more accurate instruments. This goes a long way to explaining the 1980s/1990s warming, over half of 20th century warming. The coincidence between the change in technologies and the sudden jump in temperatures of 0.5C needs explanation. It is far more significant than the moving of boxes. In fact it would be great to look at when the electronics was changed at boxes around Australia and the matching of old data to new. The warming may be a consequence of better measurement, nothing more. Much ado about nothing.
Another blogger pointed to this Germany’s coincidence
Possibly time will show that the world warmed only 0.4C in the 20th century and even that is down at the limit of accuracy of 19th century thermometers, even if you ignore the Federation drought. The warming may not have happened at all.
70
Yes, look at the difference before and after 1980 in surface temperatures:
—–
http://static.skepticalscience.com/pics/hadcrut-bias3.png
—–
Sea surface and land surface temperatures closely tracked each other for 100 years. Then, in the late 1970s, land temperatures shot up by 0.8 C or 0.9 C, whereas sea surface temperatures grew by ~0.25 C. This artificial warming can largely be attributed to UHI effects.
40
Interesting comment on the TTIP site.
That simplistic procedure was much closer than the NASA/GISS 2005 version was to the 2014 version. Looks like someone is telling porkies.
40
I should add how annoying the claim that Paraguay temperature adjustments make little difference to global temperature anomalies. They make a big difference to the the land temperatures and how much they differ from the SST trends.
30
Kevin Marshall (Manicbeancounter) April 5, 2015 at 10:56 am ·
“According to this anonymous blogger, anything that cannot be explained does not exist, so the instrument readings are incorrect.”
“According to engineering, anything that cannot be measured does not exist”, Get your fantasy lined up for measurement. Perhaps later we can fix your fantasy!!! 🙂
20
What I’ve never understood is why there needs to be homogenisation at all.
The fact is that even if the location or the type of measuring equipment changed, if it was in the same small area it would/should still show the same trend, whether there was a step up or down in recorded temperatures when the equipment or siting changed. After all, isn’t it the trend over time that is what we are observing and that matters, more than the actual numbers? A step (either up or down) recorded at the time of a change is just a step indicating that change, but the overall trend for any given location should not change.
Why not just maintain the actual data record for every location, and note when and what any changes in instrumentation or siting were?
I mean, that would the an honest and accurate record, and do we really need anything more than that?
20
My apologies for the bolding, accidental I’m afraid. :/
00
I guess my subtle point is that with the long pause, warmists now need two wild hypotheses simultaneously. The first is that increasing CO2 is producing rapid warming and the second is that natural variation is exactly the opposite in timing, magnitude and rate of change.
There is no proof of the first and the second is silly. The simplest explanation is that neither is true.
The third and critical hypothesis which is never discussed is that mankind is basically responsible for the steady increase in CO2. This is demonstrably false from C14 content. Global Warming is a political device, not physics and is simply disproven by the facts. How you get man made Climate Change without Man made Global Warming is never explained either.
40
And, despite the preemptive call of the “lowest maximum extent on record” by NSIDC that wasn’t (way back in February http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2015/03/2015-maximum-lowest-on-record/ – after which the ice rebounded to above 2011 and 2006 levels (funny, why do they never include error ranges in their estimates?), there is still LOTS of sea ice for polar bears during their most important time of year:
http://polarbearscience.com/2015/04/03/superb-sea-ice-conditions-for-polar-bears-worldwide-during-their-critical-feeding-period/
And, should you still be concerned about the great white bear, keep in mind that the models that biologists use to predict a dire future for polar bears DO NOT predict a decline in winter ice and only a slight decline in spring ice:
http://polarbearscience.com/2015/04/01/polar-bear-consumption-of-terrestrial-foods-new-paper-misses-the-point/
Regards to you all on the other side of the world.
Dr. Susan Crockford, zoologist
340
Note that the pause began in about 2000 which was just twn to eleven years after the very powerful El Nino of 2007/8
Arctic ice seems to follow ENSO activity in the Pacific with a ten year time lag.
My New Climate Model:
http://www.newclimatemodel.com/new-climate-model/
proposes that a less active sun reduces the strength of El Nino events relative to La Nina events within the ENSO cycle and thereby influences Arctic ice over multiple solar cycles with a ten year lag.
It should not be long before we see an Arctic ice recovery along with more distinct global cooling as a result of the less active sun during solar cycle 24.
The lowest point of cycle 24 was in 2009 so the full effect on Arctic ice is due in 2019 though the turn may already have begun following the lowest ice amount in 2013 which was itself about 10 years after the El Nino of around 2003:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Ni%C3%B1o_Southern_Oscillation#/media/File:Soi.svg
130
Actually, Stephen, Arctic sea ice follows the AMO. That is because the geographical linkage is strong to the Atlantic and only weak to the Pacific due to the narrow Bering Strait.
You can see the close correlation by graphing the Arctic sea ice area with the AMO, which I have done here. If you include the pre-1979 data for Arctic sea ice, which does exist back to 1972 but in not in that dataset, you’ll also see the inflexion at the trough of the AMO follow in the sea ice data too.
There will be a link with ENSO since the AMO, PDO and ENSO all have ~62 year periodicity even though there is a phase difference between them.
Its not just me, there are papers out there on the correlation such as Miles et al 2014. It makes a lot of sense since the AMO dataset is detrended northern Atlantic sea surface temperatures, and the warmer the sea water in geographical contact the Arctic the less ice, and vice versa.
You are correct about the solar influence, and indeed if it and the ocean cycles were included in the GCM’s correctly their skill would markedly improve…but then the derived climate sensitivity would be below 1 C/doubling.
70
Typo alert, corrected post as follows:
Note that the pause began in about 2007 which was ten years after the very powerful El Nino of 1997/8
Arctic ice seems to follow ENSO activity in the Pacific with a ten year time lag.
My New Climate Model:
http://www.newclimatemodel.com/new-climate-model/
proposes that a less active sun reduces the strength of El Nino events relative to La Nina events within the ENSO cycle and thereby influences Arctic ice over multiple solar cycles with a ten year lag.
It should not be long before we see an Arctic ice recovery along with more distinct global cooling as a result of the less active sun during solar cycle 24.
The lowest point of cycle 24 was in 2009 so the full effect on Arctic ice is due in 2019 though the turn may already have begun following the lowest ice amount in 2013 which was itself about 10 years after the El Nino of around 2003:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Ni%C3%B1o_Southern_Oscillation#/media/File:Soi.svg
Report this
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“Arctic ice seems to follow ENSO activity in the Pacific with a ten year time lag.”
Or to look at it another way ENSO lags Arctic changes by about one year. That may be less tenuous as a propostition.
In fact there are some interesting correlations where Arctic Oscillation index _leads_ tropical climate parameters.
There is not a fixed lag but one which seems to drift between about 3 and 5.4 years. The match between AO and d/dt(CO2) at MLO in Hawaii is particularly interesting. There are some very distinct patterns in the first decade of 21st c. that match very well.
https://climategrog.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/ao_ddt_co21.png?w=800
https://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=231
It seem like the 97-98 El Nino was when it switched from circa 3y lag to circa 5y lag.
The variable 3 to 5 y period is reminiscent of QBO as well.
50
Greg,
That is consistent with mt New Climate Model.
Solar changes affect the polar regions first via changes in the gradient of tropopause height between equator and poles.
That changes global cloudiness such that a positive AO at a time of active sun contracts the polar air masses, reduces global cloudiness and lets more sunshine reach the oceans in the tropics, especially in the subtropical high pressure cells.
That is where your 1 year lag comes in and I agree that the length of lag is variable. In my view the variability is due to the solar variations being modulated by the ENSO cycle which plays out over a number of years.
Then, after that, it takes those oceanic changes in the tropics about ten years to filter through the ocean basins to the Arctic.
The QBO is affected by the bottom up oceanic response which operates via ENSO on the 3 to 5 year periodicity that you mention.
70
But a pause in sea ice decline will not stop the warnings. For if you haven’t heard, polar bears are doomed after all …or maybe not.
You know how just when a paper appears supporting a more skeptical take on climate change appears, that not long afterwards, a paper soon appears, in almost bespoke fashion, as though it was especially ordered, stating the opposite and confirming the catastrophist meme?
Well, here we are again with polar bears and sea-ice. I heard it on the ABC, about a paper by Karyn Rode, and this newspiece also had a lot of input from one Dr Ian Stirling. They say the bears are going to starve because the sea-ice is disappearing.
I wondered, have these same people made similar claims in the past?
Not being a polar bear expert, I found a website which seems to cast a more balanced eye over these claims. S.J. Crockford is a polar bear expert specializing in the evolution of polar bears and the Holocene history of Arctic animals. She appears to offer a good counterpoint to the warnings of Stirling, who she concedes is the “grand-daddy of all polar bear biologists”.
Crockford has a bit to say about the previous work of Karyn Rode and Ian Stirling. And I almost missed Crockford’s response to the most recent Rode paper. It is here.
I note S.J.Crockford’s other blog articles are eye-opening on how threats to polar bears from climate change have been portrayed by the research, too. Level-headed, patient and calm analysis, in a McKitrick-like fashion, revealing how the polar bear (and sea-ice data) have been formulated and presented in such a way that it does not best reflect what is happening in the real world.
Do you think it would be a waste of time telling the ABC that their newspiece may have got it wrong? Probably. Way back in 2006, Fran Kelly interviewed Kassie Siegel from an L.A.-based environmental advocacy group lauding moves to get polar bears declared ‘threatened’ by climate change, forcing the U.S. government to act. This eventually happened in 2008. But Crockford found that the models used to support the listing were faulty, and found to be unsuitable by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Polar Bear Specialist Group. But neither then, nor now, not a word of these scientists’ dissenting voices from the ABC.
80
Whoah, my bad. The scientist herself posted a comment at 10# above in the hour it took me to put that together. Well, anyway, that’s great!
91
So what’s the big problem?
Why all the angst about the Arctic melting?
Some guy called Hansen said it was important, based on some very dodgy evidence, and ignoring the facts that the North pole ice cap comes and goes with little regard for the rest of this planet’s climate.
What if all the Arctic ice were to melt? Would that mean we are getting hotter or colder? Oddly large volume of ice dissappeared when historic great freezes happened, so the correlation withglobal temperatures would seem to be weak.
80
It’s funny though, how the word “albedo” has disappeared from the catastrophists’ vocabulary since the Antarctic sea ice started increasing at a greater rate than any supposed Arctic sea ice melting.
But my big question “what’s so good about ice?” remains.
90
Yes gnome,
if you had summed Arctic ice decline with Antarctic ice gain, its a net ice gain. Thats why none of the radical Greens would talk about Antarctic ice gains. Now with a possible Arctic pause, the net gain will become harder to ignore.
60
I suspect that Arctic ice melts from below, not from above. But no one seems to study the problem, record temperatures or currents and do all the work to show exactly what really is going on. It’s just hysterical finger pointing at CO2.
Same for the sea ice around Antarctica.
60
Roy,
The melting from below is certainly more credible for two reasons. First is that ice is 90% submerged, so there is a much greater surface exposed to the water. It is not ten times as much, but maybe twice as much. Second is that the heat content of water is far greater than that of air.
The only factor in favor of the heat transfer from air is that the surface temperature warming is likely to be far greater than that of water.
30
It seems to me Kev, that ice is melted by energy, even if the atmosphere is warmer, it is still necessary to transfer 333Kj per Kg. You are trying to transfer energy into ice that is reflective to most wavelengths, which is why dirty ice melts faster than clean ice.
Here’s a simple kitchen experiment take a saucepan put a cm of water in it and freeze it.
Now take the saucepan out and put it on your kitchen hob, turn it up flat out (2.4KW) and see how slowly the ice will still melt. That’s because of the enthalpy of fusion. Air doesn’t hold much energy compared to water so it is pretty hard to melt ice at zero degrees with air at 2deg. As the ice melts the air above it goes to zero and stratifies insulating the ice from the warmer temperatures. That’s why the ice in your esky melts even slower. There just isn’t enough energy transfer. Take that same ice and drop it on some concrete so heat can conduct and which has large thermal mass and it wont last very long.
PS consider in your kitchen experiment the time it takes at 2.4KW into say 0.1 square meters to melt the ice and then consider that the excess energy from AGW is only 0.6W per square meter or 0.06W into that same area that’s 40000 times less power than your kitchen hob. How long do you think it’s going to take to melt your ice block.
20
I’m thinking there are currents under that Arctic ice that change paths similarly to more well known Atlantic and Pacific currents, bringing warmer or colder water with those changes.
I wouldn’t completely discount the effect of warmer air but as pointed out, the warming from air at a given temperature just above freezing would be small because air isn’t nearly as dense as water — less heat per unit of volume is the problem with air doing all the melting.
But no one is measuring the temperatures either above or below the ice that I know about, much less under ice currents.
It seems like a good area for useful research. Maybe we can get a few hundred million in grant money to look into it. Think of the fun we could have with that research. Miserable cold most of the time would be a welcome break from all this frying we’re having from CO2, would it not? And we’d need a submarine — an adventure all in itself!
Maybe Jo can coach us in how to get that grant. After all, she’s getting all that big oil money so she must know something about applying for it. 😉
20
Roy,
If you want to spend time in an out-size tin can beneath some pack ice you cannot break through, then I will give you my support from a distance. For myself, I would think it is far more valuable to study the source of these currents around the Caribbean and the Florida coast, preferable using remote-controlled submersibles. Naturally, one would need the right sought of boat. This nippy little number I hear is underused, and am sure the owner might lend it for the prestige of helping of break the mould (and fungus) of climate science.
00
Yes, very nice, but will it blend?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_It_Blend%3F
00
Kevin,
Having taken a submarine tour a few hundred yards off the beach at Waikiki in 1996 — a modern sub designed for undersea tourism — I can attest personally to the uneasy feeling I had seeing the depth gauge on the aft bulkhead reading 115 feet (roughly 38 meters). The only comfort was that the time and place where we should surface was known in advance and the coast guard would be notified within a few minutes if we didn’t appear on schedule. I’ve no way of knowing what the actual prospects for a rescue were but at least someone would come looking for us.
I enjoyed that little adventure but I was glad to be back on the surface again.
That wasn’t anything compared to the depth you’d need to get under the Arctic ice safely. But Obama seems to have no qualms about wasting the military’s time and effort so maybe we could get him to assign one of our nuclear boats to do the research. It seems like the least he could do if he’s genuinely interested in the truth about global warming. And we would only need to sit back and record the result for the world to see.
I could easily handle a few months of
vacationwork aboard that yacht though. Anytime!00
To put it into even simpler terms, consider the iceberg. it melts from below and when the berg has melted enough below the waterline, it turns over to continue the melting process. Also it’s an incredible sight.
10
You do not want to be standing on one, when it happens.
00
If that polar ice chart was a stock price chart, the technical analysts would be advising:”Strong Buy”.
In other words, the bear market in polar ice extent is nearly over.
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Arctic pause is good for arctic paws…?
100
Global temperature, Arctic sea ice, and CH4 atmospheric concentration trends have all plateaued.
Are there any other “change” attributes that have plateaued? That would be an interesting post: the features of CAGW that are supposed to be increasing/decreasing consistently in a CO2 warming world, that are not or have not in the last few years.
The narrative is that we can’t just look at one feature, i.e. temperatures. We have to look at the whole ball of wax. Okay …. let us do so.
Hurricanes, tornadoes and storm energies …. there is another 3.
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Sea level rise was supposed to accelerate. It hasn’t; if anything there has bee a slight deceleration. Essay Pseudoprecision. Greenland was supposed to be steadily losing ice mass; DMI estimates that as of March 2015, in each of the past three winters it has gained as much ice mass (still snow at this point) as was previously thought lost annually. Essay Tipping Points. The tropical troposphere hot spot is still missing in action. Essay Humidity is still Wet. Polar bears are thriving. Essay Polar Bears, or visit Susan Crockford’s blog. So are Adelie penguins. Essay No Bodies.
Just some more stuff for your list. The essays are in ebook Blowing Smoke.
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Adelaide penguins visit Susan Crockford’s blog?
A bit dangerous with all them polar bears there.
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Long swim, too. Would arrive way too skinny to interest polar bears. Probably even violate the new French law on anorexic fashion models. (In the spirit of your comment from down under, returned from ‘up over’)
WWF, EPA, NWF and others (even New Zealand MSM) use Adelie penguins in Antarctica as the South Pole poster child ‘threatened by warming’ equivalent of North Pole polar bears. Hence their appearance in my book. Am not sure whether any Adelie penguins habit Adelaide. You might want to check–cause if so, the next ice age is already upon us!
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Rud;
No Adelie penguins in Adelaide but we do have some bird brains (known locally as politicians).
SA has 9% of the electricity demand in Australia, and declining as industry moves interstate or overseas because of the highest electricity prices in Australia. Yet we have over 50% of nominal capacity of wind turbines; so much for wind being cheap.
Fortunately we have inter-connectors to Victoria’s reliable coal fired power, so the lights haven’t gone out yet.
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Don’t worry Graeme, I am sure Jay Weatherill and his corrupt cabinet-of-doom are working on making the lights go out, if only to provide some more kick-backs to land developers… (allegedly)
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James Murphy:
I fear that some of the Cabinet aren’t bright enough to be corrupt e.g. the Minister for Roads whose “solution” to runaway trucks was to put speed limits on CARS! Poor roads are “fixed” by dropping the speed limits (seriously, I drove 12 km. the other day with 9 speed limits, I don’t know if it is any better in the city).
I am looking for a DVD of the Whoops Apocalypse! movie with Peter Cook imitating Jay?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4L-fKOZ9Zs
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Good grief! Another failed prediction. Mein Gott, what will they do? How can they survive this?
Quick! Everyone panic and run around screaming.
Or maybe not… 🙁
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That’s almost every bit of German I know and I’ve been waiting years for a good opportunity to use it.
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Roy a bad pun of ‘Oh Mein Gott’ is better than panicking like a flock of ‘Huhn Wenig ist’, barely but better.
20
There is substantial qualitative historical evidence for natural Arctic ice variability with something like a 35-40 year period from min to max. Evidence includes Danish (back to 1923) and Russian (back to 1920) summer ice maps. The previous ‘minimum’ was around 1940-1945. So the satellite measurement era from 1979 basically has observed one half of a cycle, coincidentally max to min.. This would suggest a slow uneven return to conditions prevailing in the early 1980’s by 2030 or so. Arctic ice recovery will be as big an eventual refutation of climate models as the ‘pause’. The real minimum summer ice extent was 2007, since 2012 extent was strongly affected by an Arctic cyclone. Every year since 2007 has had greater ice extent, except 2012. Volume is recovering as well. So is the proportion of multiyear ice. Details in essay Northwest Passage in ebook Blowing Smoke.
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Rud,
Previous ice loss is known during the Holocene optimum and the Medieval warming (both warm times obviously) and around 1660 and 1820/35 (both cool times). So floating ice is melting, so what!
P.S. Great book.
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Thanks. Much appreciated.
10
Arctic sea ice is a lousy metric for putative CO2-driven global warming. To name just a few problems with it:
(1) Ice can sublime at low temperatures in low humidity air.
(2) Carbon can lower the ice albedo and speed melting.
(3a) Warm water can melt the ice from below.
(3b) The Arctic Ocean is not volcano-free.
(4) Much of the “loss” of ice is due to wind transport.
(5) Ice extent is geographically constrained.
There are also problems with the alleged CAGW ice-albedo feedback, but those are a different issue.
140
The satellite data only goes back to 1979. Before that we know little. However a good proxy is surface temperature data on the Arctic periphery. The most northerly long records we have are on Svarlbard* (Spitzbergen). The combined Isfjord Radio and Svarlbard Airport temperature records are from 1912 and located at 78.2N. It is so far North, that the midnight sun and the Polar Night each last for about one third of the year. For a part of the year it is also encased in sea ice, despite benefitting from warmer Atlantic currents. The temperature data suggests that the early twentieth century warming was at least as large as that since 1979; the peak around 1940 was at about as high as in 2006 and between the mid-1950s and 1980 there was cooling that pretty much wiped out that early twentieth century warming.
Even worse, the temperatures allegedly fell after 1940, but the “raw data” is infilled. We know that as British and Norwegian forces destroyed the temperature station in September 1941 to prevent it falling into enemy hands, and it was late 1946 before it was replaced.
Further investigation is required from other places, but I believe that 70-100% of the sea ice decline could be accounted for by natural temperature changes.
Check out the data here.
I have done a graph comparing the two Svarlbard temperature anomalies with the continuous Reykjavik data here.
*There are temperature records for Nord Ads (81.6N) and Denmarkshavn (76.8N) in Northern Greenland, but these are only from the early 1950s.
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Good fraud spotting. One good cross-check would be ICOADS SST
http://climexp.knmi.nl/select.cgi?id=someone@somewhere&field=coads_sst
I used 70-90N, 0-30E as surrounding area for Svalbaard.
you will need to drop min coverage to 5% to get much on pre-1960 period but it agrees with your early warming.
Please get yourself something better than distorting runny-means as a filter:
https://climategrog.wordpress.com/category/scripts/
For example a triple running mean with 30, 26 and 19 mo windows will “smooth” as well as your 5y RM. If you want to remove 5y specifically use twice those lengths. That will actually remove everything short of 5y without leaving the sub 5y spikes seen in your graphs.
20
As David Whitehouse points out, there has been significant change in the annual cycle. So usual trick of subtracting a fixed “climatology” ( annual cycle ) leaves a pretty unreadable mess. We can see that it’s a bit flatter since 2007 but no matter how hard I quint I can’t say what it’s really doing.
That is why it is necessary to use shorter periods to assess the annual cycle to remove whilst keeping the mean intact so as not to shift one period realtive to another.
This is what I did in may analysis of Arctic sea ice, discussed over at Judith’s site:
https://climategrog.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/art_nh_ice_area_short_anom_2007_final.png
http://judithcurry.com/2013/09/16/inter-decadal-variation-in-northern-hemisphere-sea-ice/
Swart et al 2015 is yet another example of the naive obession with “trends” that pervades climatology. There seems to be some uninformed assumption that “trends” provide an useful way of removing high frequency variability ( arbitrarily assumed ot be “noise” ), leaving an accurate indication of the underlying, long-term variability.
Marotsky and Forster was yet another case in point.
Yes, cherry-picked periods such as those shown in the paper are unrepresentative and unhelpful.
So if you really want to look at decadal trends , instead of cherry-picking, let the data indicate the periods to choose.
70
Trends are only good for data with a stationary integral, which is not climate.
10
Hope fully this will show the graphic;
http://climategrog.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/art_nh_ice_area_short_anom_2007_final.png
30
Here’s my model of what Arctic ice is doing. This was last calculated in june of 2014. I’ll update it shortly to see how it corresponds to the last 12mo of data.
https://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=972
40
The sea-ice was not to last long,
Was the call from the climate change throng,
But the Arctic ‘s just fine,
With no long-term decline,
Which means that the warmists were wrong.
210
That graph looks very much like half of a cycle, with a 60 something year periodicity. The peak of the positive half cycle being in the 1980’s and the peak (or trough) of the negative half cycle being in the early 2000’s. My suggestion is that we will see a trend upwards for the next 15 plus years. Possibly something approaching the inverse of this in the Antarctic.
50
I think that Rudd Istvan’s comment at 4.02 am is pretty close to being on the money.
70
Put this up on the other thread but worth another look, Antarctic sea ice in uncharted territory.
http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=3649
50
could be a case of “It’s the volcanoes again”
http://iceagenow.info/2013/08/12218/
80
A very good all round historical account plus maps of the first half of the 20th century’s Arctic ice extent along with accounts of the various ship transits of the North East passage along Siberia’s Arctic coast line can be found in this section of Proff. Ole Humlum’s excellent Climate4you site.
A couple of examples;
1940: Long sailing season and occasionally no winter ice on fjords in western Spitsbergen
1940: German Hilfskreuzer Komet navigates the Northeast Passage en route to the Pacific Ocean [ armed merchant cruiser raider ]
80
from US Public Radio International’s “Boston Calling” which airs multiple times on BBC World Service weekly. repeated last nite:
AUDIO 5 MINS: 1 April: BBC: Boston Calling: A Eureka Moment in the Arctic
On a recent research voyage through the Arctic ice cap, a scientist made a simple, yet significant discovery that solves one of the great mysteries about Arctic ice melt.
Photo: Ice scientists Ken Golden and Chris Polashenski drill a plastic tube into the Arctic ice cap as part of their research into melt ponds that form on the ice every spring. Credit: Amanda Kowalski/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02n84ch
PRI pushed this story back in December:
15 Dec: PRI “The World”: A scientist unlocks one of the mysteries of Arctic ice melt
It’s Polashenski’s eureka moment…
Polashenski is geophysicist from the US Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory in New Hampshire…
Ken Golden, an ice mathematician from the University of Utah…
http://www.pri.org/stories/2014-12-11/scientist-unlocks-one-mysteries-arctic-ice-melt
(researchers crashing thru arctic ice, drilling holes & attempting to melt ice, annoys me, for some reason)
also from this week’s BBC/Boston Calling link above.
CAGW could cause bigger storms & next big one could cost hundreds & hundreds of billions of dollars!
AUDIO 5 MINS: 1 April: BBC: Boston Calling: Houston’s Climate Change Conundrum
The Port of Houston, in Texas, is the biggest international port in the US. It’s also extremely vulnerable to big storms and rising sea levels, and climate change is only predicted to make those worse. That’s where Houston has a problem— the fortunes of the city are very closely tied to the oil industry.
Photo: The Houston Ship Channel stretches 52 miles from the Gulf of Mexico to the city of Houston. Sea levels have risen 2.2 feet over the last century at Galveston, the main barrier island protecting the Ship Channel from a big storm.
PRI Sponsors:
Corporate underwriters of PRI programs receive exposure to a targeted, valuable audience of consumers, executives and influential citizens in an uncluttered, editorially compatible environment. Our audience profile looks like this (GfK MRI Doublebase 2012):
53% male, 47% female.
Median age 49.5
Median household income $92,900.
67% have a Bachelor’s Degree or higher (compared to 27% of the U.S. total).
41% are business-to-business purchasers of buys greater than $35k (as compared to 18% of the U.S. total)
Major funding provided by:
***TIAA CREF Financial Services, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Ford Foundation, Henry Luce Foundation
***Wikipedia: TIAA CREF
Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association – College Retirement Equities Fund (TIAA–CREF) is a Fortune 100 financial services organization that is the leading retirement provider for people who work in the academic, research, medical and cultural fields. TIAA–CREF serves 3.9 million active and retired employees participating at more than 15,000 institutions and has $2,667 billion in combined assets under management (as of August 1, 2014).
20
Are we there yet?
‘Abdussamatov’s model incorporates the Sun’s 200-year cycles and the feedback effects from greenhouse gases released by the oceans, and sees how they acted on Earth’s previous 18 Little Ice Ages. “All 18 periods of significant climate changes found during the last 7,500 years were entirely caused by corresponding quasi-bicentennial variations of [total solar irradiance] together with the subsequent feedback effects, which always control and totally determine cyclic mechanism of climatic changes from global warming to Little Ice Age.”
‘If the 19th Little Ice Age follows the pattern of the previous 18, Earth slipped into an ice age in the winter just concluded and will become progressively colder over the next 50 years, reaching its depth around 2060. Another half century, taking us to the 22nd century, and we’ll arrive back at today’s temperatures.’
Solomon / Financial Post
50
But the lovely cuddly white pollie bears are being eaten by the awful brown bears. Or so I read the other day. Perhaps some warmists could go out onto the few remaining bits of ice and feed the pollie bears, preferably with themselves, knowing they are keeping them alive!
50
4 April: UK Telegraph: Christopher Booker: Why the BBC’s preaching on global warming is getting louder
The global ‘climate treaty’ many are so desperate to see signed in Paris next December is just not going to happen
In wishing you all a happy Easter, I was planning to discuss what exactly the fact that this Easter we have fewer primroses in Somerset than usual has to do with “climate change”. But I have had to hold this over because I need to send a message of sympathy to the BBC for how they have lately had to treat us almost daily to programmes trying to defend the collapsing case for global warming.
I particularly enjoyed one on the World Service explaining, with the aid of a psychologist, why people these days seem to be going on about global warming much less they did a few years ago; and even more the one on Radio 4 in which a studio-full of devout warmists tried to dismiss some of the more awkward scientific objections raised by “climate sceptics”, without having a single “sceptic” present.
But if you were wondering why the BBC has recently been so keen to preach to us on this subject even more relentlessly than usual, this is, of course, because of that global “climate treaty” they are so desperate to see signed in Paris next December. Unfortunately, this coming of the long-awaited Messiah is not going to happen, for exactly the same reason that made such a fiasco of their last great religious rally in Copenhagen in 2009. China, India and Russia, three of the world’s top five “carbon-emitting” nations, aren’t going to have it…READ ON
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/11515594/Why-the-BBCs-preaching-on-global-warming-is-getting-louder.html
20
We’re missing our usual Free Range Weekend, unthreaded, unleaded and untangled.
40
I am deeply concerned at the level of skepticism in comments on Jo’s blog.
Is there no end to these entrenched views?
Well the University of Queensland has a new MOOC starting 28 April, only 1-2hrs for 8wks containing many videos for the old, ignorant and illiterate. The course is by non-other than Prof John Cook, yes the same John Cook of “97% Consensus” fame. See how John’s question to Climate Scientists on whether they believed in “Climate Change” segues in the Course introduction back into “Global Warming”.
View the Course and the introductory video at: https://www.edx.org/course/making-sense-climate-science-denial-uqx-denial101x#.VSC0e-mJg5v
Oh the Course Name! “Making Sense of Climate Science Denial”
Yours from 42* South
Peter Cynical of Lower Sandy Bay (LSB)
10
LOL, someone on Watts’ blog made an apt comment that genuine sciences don’t need to have the word ‘science’ in the title e.g. medicine biology zoology botany geology astronomy physics chemistry meteorology mathematics statistics and that anything calling itself a ‘science’ probably isn’t.
Here we have a doubleheader.
Cook apparently thinks that his course accreditation will be a must in your résumé.
40
Well there are legitimate sciences that do have it. Materials Science is very, very important to everything that is built or that we would like to build. Engineers cannot engineer anything without recourse to Materials Science.
20
I may vomit.
00
4 April: Guardian: George Marshall: What the climate movement must learn from religion
When preaching to the unconverted, activists need to offer the road to Damascus, not guilt and blame
PHOTO CAPTION: A Billy Graham rally. ‘In evangelical crusades people are called upon to step forward to accept a change in their life – what Billy Graham called the “altar call”, or a moment of public commitment.’…
Climate scientists are particularly keen to keep well away from the language of belief. Australia’s chief scientist, Ian Chubb, complains: “I am asked every day ‘do you believe in climate change?’ But it’s not a belief. It’s an understanding and interpretation of the evidence.”
Evidence, though, comes in many forms. Social research shows clearly that the scientific data of climate change has proven unable to galvanise action. Cognitive psychology, supported in recent years by brain neuro-imaging, provides plentiful evidence that our analytic reasoning may accept the data but that we are only compelled to act by emotional triggers based on our values and core identity.
“Belief” is a poisoned word, mocked by sceptical pundits like Nigel Lawson who calls climate change a “new religion” Comparing empirical science with spiritual revelation is absurd and denigrates both sides. Climate change is not a belief. But it is a conviction: a condition of strongly held opinion, attained through a process of evaluation, leading to a commitment…
The world’s great religions are the winners from thousands of competing religions that managed to find the formulae for moving, exciting and persuading people.
Few have continued the experiments more consistently than the evangelical preachers who compete every day in the cultural marketplace for new converts and donors. Among them is Joel Hunter, the charismatic pastor of Northland church, the 30th largest “megachurch” in the USA.
Hunter preaches often, over the objections of his conservative church members, that climate change is a threat to God’s creation, which he shares with them as a personal “epiphany”…
John Houghton is the founding co-chair of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and a Methodist lay preacher. In 2002 he created an “altar call” for US evangelical leaders – many of them deeply sceptical about climate change – following a week of scientific study and prayer at Oxford University. Among those attendingwas Richard Cizik,then the lead political spokesperson for the National Association of Evangelicals, and one of the most powerful figures in the Christian right. To the horror of his colleagues, when Cizik returned he began talking about his “road to Damascus conversion to climate change” all over the US media. Like Houghton, Professor Brian Hoskins, the director of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change, argues that scientific information needs this transformative moment. “Often what we do is provide the landscape in which Saint Paul can have his moment. We are creating the ether in which people can have that illumination.”…
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/04/climate-change-campaigners-evangelism-religion-activism
(About the writer: George Marshall is the founder of the Climate Outreach Information Network and author of Don’t Even Think About It: Why our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate Change. He blogs at http://www.climatedenial.org)
00
4 April: UK Telegraph: Patrick Sawer: National Trust boss: We must tackle climate change for sake of our heritage
The National Trust’s director general Dame Helen Ghosh says climate change must be tackled for the sake of protecting Britain’s historic and environmental heritage
Dame Helen Ghosh said: “Like any other charity we cannot be political with a capital P, but that doesn’t stop us from campaigning on issues that strike at the heart of what our charitable purpose asks us to do. All the practical evidence we have at the Trust shows that the biggest challenge we are now facing concerns the threat to biodiversity and wildlife.”…
Dame Helen said one of the biggest side effects of climate change on the Trust’s 775 miles of coastline – along with swathes of the British coast not under its ownership – was that of land erosion and soil being washed into the sea.
“We see that on our own land. We see parts of our coastline falling off into the sea. I like to show people a picture of a silverfish [a household pest]. They are insects that live under carpets and like damp and warmth, and we do have quite a lot of them in our properties. They used to get killed off in the winter because we had crisp, cold winters, but now they don’t,” said Dame Helen.
The Trust’s renewables target could mean more hydro electric plants being built on the 635,000 acres of countryside under its control. But it also raises the prospect of the Trust submitting fewer objections to wind farms being built elsewhere.
That would prove controversial among its supporters, many of whom object strongly to what they regard as huge turbines despoiling Britain’s rural landscape.
Dame Helen said: “We will be meeting our commitment predominately from hydro schemes, and with biomass boilers at a number of our big houses. And we do have the occasional turbine. We do not object in principle to wind turbines in the right place.
***In sensitive historic environments, wind turbines are not the thing to do, but I think we object to two per cent of all wind turbine applications nationally.”
***In recent years the National Trust campaigned successfully to stop wind turbines being erected near two of its properties, Lyveden New Bield, in Northamptonshire, and Hardwick Hall, in Derbyshire. Last week the wind industry revealed plans to build a new generation of superturbines up to 656ft (200m) tall, compared to the current average of 298ft (91m)…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/architecture/11514611/National-Trust-boss-We-must-tackle-climate-change-for-sake-of-our-heritage.html
10
back in 1951 the arctic sea lanes were open for 8 months of the year,
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/71392865?searchTerm=glaciers%20melting&searchLimits=
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News Release: Due to Climate Change, starving Polar are driven to eating Arctic ice. Northern Hemisphere Sea Ice extent now at risk. 99.9% of very famous scientists agree wholeheartedly.
30