So, how does this compare with the Arctic sea ice extent during the Medieval Warm Period?

Reply: very good question, but with a lack of satellite data they just do not know for sure. Brett

I expect to get a lot of commentary, especially from Patrick and Andrew on this one!

Categories: Effects of global warming

I should hope so! I guess you know why.

Is there any documented evidence of a direct link between man-made global warming and the artic ice reduction? If this is the "main culprit", then how is this conclusion reached? Has the "global dust" factor been included (see the June 25 2007 press release, http://nsidc.org/news/press/20070623_PainterGRL.html)? The earth is a big place. We are quite proud creatures when we think that we have such a big impact on it. No doubt, we can do a better job of caring for the planet, but there are some things that we cannot stop, nor should we.

By saying that the ice will gone in by 2030 is a shot in the dark. Nobody knows what could happen by that time. What if a massive volcano blows its top? What if solar output drops for some strange reason? What if Norways moose population dies out and less C02 is produced?

What im trying to say is that eventually something will happen to change our climate, it could happen tomorrow, the day after tomorrow

Okay, I'll bite. For argument's sake, we'll take the leap that a record for 28 years of measurement means something on a orb that is billions of years old. One question: Where is the projected mass flooding of Manhattan, New Orleans, the Netherlands, etc., that was to have been associated with "arctic ice cap collapse?" Perhaps the doom and gloom prognostications may have been just a bit overstated. Since, as a skeptic, I am necessarily a Neanderthal, please educate me as to when I should buy my canoe.

Couple points

First, the amount of arctic sea ice lost since 2005 is over a 1,000,000 km2. WOW!
That is an area larger than Texas and California combined. It is also greater than a 25 percent decline. By my math, Arctic summer sea ice could be practically gone within the next 6 to 10 years. There will of course still be ice burgs coming from Greenland and Ellsmere Island.

Second, operators of General Circulation Models have stated that sea ice is an important component in modeling Global Climate. The IPCC has 18 different models and tends to use the average while drawing conclusions. A consensus approach. So, it is rather surprising that the rate that sea ice has declined actually exceeds the most liberal model in the IPCCs database. See attached link.

http://nsidc.org/news/press/20070430_StroeveGRL.html

While skeptics may jump all over this as some type of proof of something, I do not see it as good news. Not a reason for panic, but for the Northern Hemisphere appears to be changing much sooner than predicted. The southern hemisphere is just the opposite. The ozone hole is cooling things off and changes are happening slower. Overall, things may average out, but more people live in the NH, this is a concern.

Third, Siberia has been shown to be useful for predicting the winter. I suspect arctic sea ice will also influence fall and early winter conditions. However, there needs to be a peer reviewed science article on this subject first.

http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=109820&org=NSF&from=news

Forth, the northwest passage is now open!

http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=8e2ca83d-c6e9-4943-84ca-9cb4597adbdf

The Arctic is likely to be open for shipping within by 2030 according to the experts, but do not be surprised if it happens much sooner.

THE SKY IS FALLING!!!! THE SKY IS FALLING!!!! Better call Al Gore and tell him to tighten the screws on all of the SUV drivers (like himself cough cough) so we can save the polar bears!!! THE SKY IS FALLING!!!!

DENY DENY DENY THE GLOBAL WARMING LIE!!!!

Here is an Inuit expression that has in recent years become increasingly common.

shiku-atok, meaning melting ice...

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/899567.html

Arna Langa, a 39-year-old Inuit fisherman, still remembers the last time the sea around his village froze over, some 10 years ago. Global warming is changing all aspects of life in Langa's village and all over his homeland.

In the past, we would ride the dogsled westward for miles across the frozen sea to fish for halibut through the snow, Langa recalled. Five years ago, we started seeing cod again - fish that prefer relatively warm water. The soil under the houses has defrosted. Flowers bloom earlier in the year and the sea has lots more little chunks of ice than before.

Like it or not, change is coming.

The strange thing about this report is the immediate actions of all governments involved in talks about reducing greenhouse gasses. Instead of immediate action to reduce the use of fossil fuel we have already witnessed an oil rush as nations peg out the claims of ownership over new potential fossil fuel resources. The same fight is happening at the other pole and duplicate hopes are held for oil deposits under the Great Barrier Reef once it too falls victim to global warming and has its world heritage status removed.
Deniers economic fears are truely unfounded when it is obvious that the main concern is searching for a new source of global warming fuel not the implied effort to control its use.

Interesting that the 30 year record minimum in the Arctic is big news, but the 30 year Antarctic record maximum (which will almost certainly occur in the next three days) in the is not even mentioned.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.area.south.jpg
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.365.south.jpg

It shows the ridiculous pro-AGW bias and spoon fed fear of the community and media.

By next summer Arctic ice will probably be back to 2000 levels. This past winter was an anomaly with El Nino and high SSTs, so the ice never got very thick. Freezing has already started about a month earlier than last year.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.area.jpg
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.365.jpg

I'm also looking forward to hearing more about Siberian soot and it's impact on melt during the coming year.

Reply: Indeed the current pattern with a + arctic Occillation index is supportive of a colder than normal start to fall and perhaps winter up there. Brett

@Patrick Henry

Patrick,

What is the basis of your belief that "by next summer Arctic ice may be back to 2000 levels."

I have serious doubts myself. Anyway, within 1 years time, your hypothesis will be tested. If this record minimum leads to a very warm winter, the arctic ice may continue to collapse. (Which is whatI think will happen.)

the amount of arctic sea ice lost since 2005 is over a 1,000,000 km2. WOW!

Andrew,

Check this out. Antarctic ice has increased by about 1,000,000 km2 in just the last 10 days! That is 100 times faster than the loss you quoted for the arctic.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.365.south.jpg

We must be headed into new ice age.

Andrew,

Does Arna Langa remember the ice conditions during the 1930's and 40's? Of course he doesn't. Don't throw these anecdotes from locals into the mix as these people haven't lived long enough to separate the signal from the noise.

To Darren M:

I would hate for the Norwegian moose population to die out; that would give us one less thing to joke about.

Seriously though--if a major volcanic eruption occurred (on the scale of the Mount Pinatubo blast back in the 1990s, then things would be back to normal in a couple of years. This was shown by a paper referenced by Patrick a couple days ago. It would likely take several large eruptions within a very short period of time (a couple years) to significantly disrupt the long-term climate.

In order for a single eruption to create serious long-term consequences, it wold have to be on a much larger scale--think Krakatoa, or for something closer to home: Yellowstone in Wyoming or the Mammoth Lakes Caldera out in California. All are still active and could potentially erupt any time (though we'd have some bit of warning). On the other hand, if one of the two U.S. super volcanoes erupted, we'd have much more immediate problems than global warming--think Pompeii on a continental scale.

To Bill C:

Yes, wind-blown dust can cause snow to melt faster than it would normally. This is similar to Patrick's argument about soot being the cause of Arctic sea ice melt north of Siberia. But it is also important to distinguish what happens naturally from what is caused by human activity. The article you referenced, for instance, states:

Prior to the widespread disturbance of the western United States in the late 1800s and its likely enhancement of dust emission to the mountains, the cleaner snow cover would have lasted several weeks longer, the study said.

I have no doubts that humankind can alter the earth on a significant scale. The Dust Bowl of the 1930s was partly a product of naturally hot and dry conditions across the Great Plains, but one of the most important factors that made it such a devastating period of history for American farmers was the techniques used to till the soil. Farming methods of the day made it easy for the winds to pick up the dry, loose soil and carry it for hundreds of miles in dense clouds. New methods and ideas were later introduced which have prevented similar events from occurring since then.

Considering what such a small group of humans helped create then, it seems overly humble of us to assume that humanity as a whole couldn't possibly affect the earth on a global scale--maybe not through one isolated cause, but through the cumulative effects of everyday human activity.

If Patrick is right and the exceptional melting of Arctic ice this year is due to drilling activity and then illegal burning of Siberian forests, then the final result is still the effect of human-induced changes. If that is the case, then we are fortunate that the solution is so easy.

Indeed, the Arctic needs to be closely monitored over the next five years or so. If anything, it should show deniers how sensitive our climate is and how feedbacks can completely unravel a system.

So,

Does anyone find it strange that these same few guys review all the Global warming articles? Oh and they say the same crap to refute the (obvious facts). I would be willing to bet that at least a couple of you so called readers work for some lobbying shop.

We just want honest facts. These same groups have told us that smoking wasn't bad for you, lead paint was harmless, and that intelligent design (little 'i' for idiots)was real science.

I would say that I know how these tactics work, my roommate works for an alcoholic beverage lobbying group and his only job is to surf the web looking for opposing points about alcohol and refute them with arguments out of a large set of canned response manuals.

With billions of dollars at stake people will say anything to keep the dough, they will even let their fellow man perish doing so.

I tend to trust the people working for 'essentially nothing' but the public good (academia) not corporate think tanks. Quit ignoring the obvious signs that we have messed our world up just for the money, you never know who's house I WILL TAKE IF I LOOSE MINE TO A FLOOD.

Brett,

This paragraph from the Washington Times and swiped from Patrick's post on another thread seems to answer, at least in part, my question in the first post.

Nov. 2, 1922 edition of The Washington Post: "Arctic Ocean Getting Warm; Seals Vanish and Icebergs Melt." .... "great masses of ice have now been replaced by moraines of earth and stones," and "at many points well-known glaciers have entirely disappeared."

Correction:

My previous post does not partially answer my question. Apparently I was off by a thousand years. I should read my own posts once in a while.

Since I've switched from the MWP to the 1920's and 30's, here is a paper that documents a minimal sea ice extent in the 1920's similar to what we are seeing today.

Divine, D.V. and Dick, C. 2006. Historical variability of sea ice edge position in the Nordic Seas. Journal of Geophysical Research 111: 10.1029/2004JC002851

From the abstract: "Historical ice observations in the Nordic Seas from April through August are used to construct time series of ice edge position anomalies spanning the period 1750–2002. While analysis showed that interannual variability remained almost constant throughout this period, evidence was found of oscillations in ice cover with periods of about 60 to 80 years and 20 to 30 years, superimposed on a continuous negative trend. The lower frequency oscillations are more prominent in the Greenland Sea, while higher frequency oscillations are dominant in the Barents. The analysis suggests that the recent well-documented retreat of ice cover can partly be attributed to a manifestation of the positive phase of the 60–80 year variability, associated with the warming of the subpolar North Atlantic and the Arctic. The continuous retreat of ice edge position observed since the second half of the 19th century may be a recovery after significant cooling in the study area that occurred as early as the second half of the 18th century.

The authors also say, "...a similar shrinkage of ice cover was observed in the 1920s-1930s, during the previous warm phase of the low frequency oscillation, when any anthropogenic influence is believed to have still been negligible."

They also say, "...that during decades to come … the retreat of ice cover may change to an expansion."

Andrew, what say ye?

Buzz, Darren M:

The Arctic ice floats on top of the sea. When floating ice melts it does not displace water or add to its volume.

However where the sea Ice connects to land , glacial ice is held back and remains above sea level supported by the land beneath it and blocked by sea ice at the coast for most of the year.

As Patrick will point out the ice on land is not melting that much. However once the sea ice melts glacier ice will be free to slip down hill into the sea all year round.
Propeled by nothing more than gravity, glacial ice will instantly rise sea level even before it melts, which will cause the type of flooding you mentioned.

This is the first stage in an event we will witness in a life time that should take many thousands of years to complete.

An abrupt loss of glacial ice from the Arctic Circle will lighten the surface load currently supported by land. Signalling a weight shift of millions of tonnes from land to sea in such a short time will have an enormous seismic effect as the land bounces back releasing its pent up energy in the type of volcanic activity that concerns Darren M.

The additional weight of water pouring into the arctic waters may also trigger tsunamis as weight squeezes out the magma from the oceanic crust This will heat sea water to new record temperatures which may well displace and gassify methane hydrates trapped 100metres below the Arctic sea.

A combination of a methane gas and lava flows in close proximity would make a great disaster movie and the detonation of such enormous power will turbo charge global warming for both hemispheres.

Darren, to make these things possible the climate must have already changed.

btw does anyone have any ideas about vernshot, and the origins of craters on the moon?

Since I can't sleep, I might as well do some research. In response to my first post on this thread regarding sea ice extent and the Medieval Warm Period (MWP); I have found these:

Keigwin, Lloyd D., The Little Ice Age and Medieval Warm Period in the Sargasso Sea, Science 29 November 1996: Vol. 274. no. 5292, pp. 1503 - 1508

The abstract: Sea surface temperature (SST), salinity, and flux of terrigenous material oscillated on millennial time scales in the Pleistocene North Atlantic, but there are few records of Holocene variability. Because of high rates of sediment accumulation, Holocene oscillations are well documented in the northern Sargasso Sea. Results from a radiocarbon-dated box core show that SST was 1 deg C cooler than today 400 years ago (the Little Ice Age) and 1700 years ago, and 1 deg C warmer than today 1000 years ago (the Medieval Warm Period). Thus, at least some of the warming since the Little Ice Age appears to be part of a natural oscillation.

Hmmm... 1 deg C warmer than today in the MWP. Now that wouldn't have any effect on the Arctic Sea Ice extent, would it?

And this: Grumet, N.S., Wake, C.P., Mayewski, P.A., Zielinski, G.A., Whitlow, S.L., Koerner, R.M., Fisher, D.A. and Woollett, J.M. 2001. Variability of sea-ice extent in Baffin Bay over the last millennium. Climatic Change 49: 129-145.

The abstract: Comparison of an ice core glaciochemical time-series developed from the Penny Ice Cap (PIC), Baffin Island and monthly sea-ice extent reveals a statistically significant inverse relationship between changes in Baffin Bay spring sea-ice extent and Penny Ice Cap sea-salt concentrations for the period 1901–1990 AD. Empirical orthogonal function analysis demonstrates the joint behavior between changes in PIC sea-salt concentrations, sea-ice extent, and changes in North Atlantic atmospheric circulation. Our results suggest that sea-salt concentrations in snow preserved on the PIC reflect local to regional springtime sea-ice coverage. The PIC sea-salt record/sea-ice relationship is further supported by decadal and century scale comparison with other paleoclimate records of eastern Arctic climate change over the last 700 years. Our sea-salt record suggests that, while the turn of the century was characterized by generally milder sea-ice conditions in Baffin Bay, the last few decades of sea-ice extent lie within Little Ice Age variability and correspond to instrumental records of lower temperatures in the Eastern Canadian Arctic over the past three decades.

They found that enhanced sea ice conditions prevailed during the Little Ice Age as opposed to the reduced sea ice extent found during the MWP. They also found that the sea ice extent of the last 100 years was within the variability of the sea ice extent of the Little Ice Age.

This is not a peer reviewed article. So, consider it with caution.

It includes a statement that the Arctic has not been ice free for over a million years.

http://www.livescience.com/environment/050823_ice_free.html

If that is true, then what will be happening in the near future is completely without precedent.

There have been 20 or so interglacial warm periods in the last million years. Some have been warmer than the current climate, but if none resulted in an ice free arctic ocean, then things may become very strange.

At the minimum, the climate of the 80s and 90s is history. All the long term forecasting models will have to be re-written.

What is the basis of your belief that "by next summer Arctic ice may be back to 2000 levels."

Several things.

1. The inflection point was reached one month earlier than last year. It is cold in the arctic now and ice is already increasing.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.365.jpg

2. SSTs are lower this year. No El Nino.

Reply: but that is for the equatorial Pacific. Brett

3. Looking at the graph over the last 30 years, every time there was a sharp drop over one year, the fallowing year went back close to the longer term trend.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.area.jpg

4. Over the previous 9 years, there was almost no change in the minimum ice extent.

5. As Brett mentioned, conditions are favorable for an early fall in the arctic.

what will be happening in the near future is completely without precedent.

Who made thee so wise in the ways of science?
Monty Python

If you can see into the future, please tell us what the powerball numbers are this weekend.

the Arctic has not been ice free for over a million years.

And you can see into the past as well. We are fortunate to have you on the thread.

Andrew,

It includes a statement that the Arctic has not been ice free for over a million years.

From my post just above yours ...1 deg C warmer than today 1000 years ago (the Medieval Warm Period).

Sea surface temperatures were 1 deg C warmer 1000 years ago. That's a bit less than 1,000,000 years.

And from Patrick and the Washington Times Nov. 2, 1922 edition of The Washington Post: "Arctic Ocean Getting Warm; Seals Vanish and Icebergs Melt." .... "great masses of ice have now been replaced by moraines of earth and stones," and "at many points well-known glaciers have entirely disappeared."

Jay,

I tend to trust the people working for 'essentially nothing' but the public good (academia) not corporate think tanks. Quit ignoring the obvious signs that we have messed our world up just for the money...

When do I get my check? Who should I ask, ExxonMobil? I didn't realize I get paid for doing this. You are truly naive if you think academia is doing their work for the 'public good'. AGW supporters outspent us skeptics by a factor of 2800 since the early 1990s.

Andrew - recent history provides proof that the peer review process in climate studies is flawed & meaningless.
I read in July that when Steve McIntrye at Climate Audit asked one journal for the data to back up an article the editor responded that Steve's request for data was the first in his 20 years as editor. So the "peers" of climate since don't appear to take their job to seriously!!
How can there be meaningful peer review by either side of the debate when swine like Micheal Mann, Hansen, & Jones won't release their data for scrutiny.
I also sense some fun with figures here re the " at least 15 % ice coverage " ... what does the 90 % ice coverage graph look like? The 50 % graph?
I think the 15% coverage area would potentially be more influenced by winds, tides & currents than temperatures.
Too often with this stuff the figures don't lie but the liars figure & the cheery picking of data is disgusting.
I've been meaning to dig deeper on the ice coverage issue since I live in the land of ice & snow so if I find anything of interest I'll get it to Brett.
Be good folks,
Rick.

"This is not a peer reviewed article. So, consider it with caution."

Andrew, it is hard to believe you hold such high regards to "peer review". It is kind of like high school. The popular kid makes a claim, such as the principal plays favorites. Everyone who wants to be in the "in crowd" makes the same claims then, it is peer reviewed!

Simple explanation, but I have to bring it down a notch to prove my point on this.

Since the studies start in 1979, isn't that when the supposed "oncoming ice age" was the hype? So of course the ice will go down from then. It is a part of nature.

fact: ice melts when theres rain
fact: ice melts when the temps are above 32 f
fact: salt makes ice melt- gee so many resoable explanations for ice melting

Jay,

Welcome Jay, for the time being I will note to put you with Brookline Tom and Simon as far as your paranoia of capitalism is concerned. You are obviously young and will either wake up to reality as many of us have or will become a paranoid drone of the Democratic Party. Academia works for essentially nothing because they produce essentially nothing.

With billions of dollars at stake people will say anything to keep the dough, they will even let their fellow man perish doing so.

If you're speaking of the AGW advocacy groups, then you are correct, they will say anything to keep the funding coming in. Let our fellow man perish? :) How so, we are Human Beings. It seems the left thinks a human being is some kind of weak person that constantly needs some kind of assistance rather than a being with high intelligence that can tackle even the most difficult of challenges.

you never know who's house I WILL TAKE IF I LOOSE MINE TO A FLOOD.

:) Sounds menacing! Perhaps you will take a human being's by leftist standards :) The classical human being's home will be much more difficult to "take" :) Welcome, you seem like you'll be some fun :)

Since you're new perhaps you can let us know of ANY studies that show how and how much the additional 100 ppm CO2 has CAUSED the ONE degree increase we have seen since the end of the Little Ice Age LIA, which was a period that was ONE degree cooler than the previous period known as the Medieval Warm Period.

A clear Hypothesis, clear Methods, and a clear Conclusion would be helpful.

Regards,

Steve

Area of ocean with at least 15% sea ice?...i think i smell another AGW rat...

@Patrick Henry

PH,
The ice-extent time series was very interesting. But I notice that it only goes back to 1978. Over the past 30 years, the arctic region appears to have warmed considerably, so we it may not be able to rebound as easily.

Andrew mentioned a link with the statement to the effect that the arctic hasn't been ice-free in something like 1,000,000 years. That makes me wonder. I have heard that some of the various interglacials between the various glacial advances were warmer than even the present day. Presumably these conditions would have persisted for hundreds if not thousands of years. How in the world would the arctic ice have survived that if it can't survive a few decades of current temperatures? I'm not claiming I think the statement is wrong, I just would like to know more.

"The southern hemisphere is just the opposite. The ozone hole is cooling things off and changes are happening slower"

Andrew, Ozone depletion is being used to describe any kind of anamoly that occurs in the SH. The fact is, the SH and Antartic have been cooling for at least a decade, and no one knows why. Ozone depletion should, if the theory holds up, cause increased summer warming over the Antartic; but that isn't the case. The cooling SH occurs throughout the year, with each year becoming a bit colder than the last. Surface temp readings from the Antartic Penninsula, which is under the influence of maritime air from the Pacific shows a definite PDO signal, but stations north along the South American coastline do not. As you go into the interior of the Antartic, no GW signal can be found. The Vostock weather station last week in fact recorded a low temp of -81 deg C. The question that begs to be asked is why? For over 12 years the Tropics have produced excess heat energy in such quantities that almost some GW signal shows up the world over -with the exception of the South Pole. The Antartic has in fact cooled. This cooling trend of one of the largest landmasses is completely left out of global temp analysis, despite the availability of LandSat sensors.

One hundred years ago, the North Atlantic was littered with icebergs. Cooling artic surface temps coupled with the warm SSTs of the North Atlantic and the earth's gravity resulted in many icebergs large and small breaking off and drifting southward. The hazards to shipping were obvious; one of those icebergs was the cause of the Titanic sinking. Then, within a period of a few years they were gone. The Atlantic Decadal Oscillation was in a positive mode, as was the PDO. For most of the 20s and 30s large areas of the North Atlantic remained free of ice and scientists were alarmed at how quickly long standing ice shelfs were disappearing -even during the winter months. The North Atlantic Oscillation provided a constant belt of mild westerlies (which fed off the warm tropics to the south) to prevail over much of the North Atlantic. Things changed drastically again during the 1940s, and then again during the late 70s and into the 90s.

Despite the constant warming of the far reaches of the North Atlantic, Artic winters remain dangerously cold. Last Feb 2 Scandanvian hikers, in an effort to raise awareness of AGW and the shrinking Artic ice treked across the Artic Circle. They had no problem finding ice -there was plenty of ice. What surprised them was the minus 70 deg C ambient air temperatures. After 2 weeks they had to be rescued due to frostbite and hypothermia.

Once again, the folks who most loudly attack the peer-review process are those who's pet beliefs aren't published.

Perhaps PH will let me get away with one nearly absolute statement about what WILL happen:

When a paper advocating the anti-AGW position is published in a peer-reviewed journal, it WILL be proudly trumpeted -- even by those who now attack the peer-review process.

Does anyone have a link to a website where we can look up past temp data?

Reply: Do you have something specific in mind? Brett

Simon, I know what you're trying to say but part of your statement isn't accurate, water levels will change as ice melts and freezes, try it in a glass of water at home sometime.

Sliding off and displacing enough water might be significant if a) there is no ice "behind it" so to speak, and b) if enough of it can slide into the water in the first place. Not sure either of those are likely. Hence a rebound effect of the earth is unlikely as well.

Regarding craters on the moon and vernshot. Interesting theory but pretty speculative. But the moon is being pelted all the time and new craters are being formed. NASA monitors (as does the public) meteor impacts on a regular basis. If it weren't for the moon we'd have even more dings on the earth than we do. It's our little cosmic vacuum cleaner. What doesn't hit the moon usually burns up upon entry to the earth.

~peace~

Regarding

Paul,

Thanks for the article links.

The Sargasso sea is probably 4000 miles from the southern edge of the sea ice. So, warm temperatures there probably do not correlate with sea ice extent. The curent retreat is more on the side towards Russia, even further away.

There needs to be some type of sea bed floor sediment exam from the arctic itself to determine where the seasonal ice edge was over time. Problem is collecting such a sample in shifting ice flows.

Also, if the sea ice extent during the MWP and LIA are within the range observed between 1900 to 2000, then we are beyond the MWP warming.

Yes, there are climate oscillations between 20 to 60 years or so which may be enhancing the loss of sea ice. However, with such long durations to these cycles, the chance of a reversal within the next 5 years are slim.

I suspect that the pertinent question to ask is when was the last time the arctic ocean was essentially free of ice?

Holocene?

Eemain?

Keep in mind those interglacials occured when the sun was closest to earth during NH summer. The perihelion is currently in January!

Everyone,

Peer review is important for science articles. Otherwise, you could be believing in politics masquarading as science.

Yes. I would like to try to find rural stations in arid areas to see if the decrease in temps at night have changed as CO2 levels have increased. If CO2 is such a strong "GHG", there should be a significant decrease in change from day to night.

One can definitely see the decrease in change when humidity is high at night. The temp decreases less than more arid nights. This should hold true for CO2 as well.

I have been to a site where you can plug in the month and year and it will give you the records for the month. I did not bookmark it.

Steve: our database here does not go that far back and mostly focuses on larger sites. Not what you are looking for. I do not know of any links that would be of use to you. Sorry. Brett

Andrew, I've said it before. Peer review is NOT always an objective, non "politically" charged process. Ask anyone that's had something published. Scientists of all sorts are funny folks in that they/we are critical of everyone's ideas except those spawned within their/our own grey matters (one brain per person by the way). The reviewers can be quite petty and wield their power in very antagonistic and sarcastic ways. Seldom are things REALLY clean cut (except maybe in Mathematics but even then it can get dicey) and there is plenty of room for argument. Peer reviewers don't always slam something for being bad science, often it's for the conclusions that are reached.

So in the end, while peer review does help keep things under control and prevents the disseminatiion of bad science, in the hands of peer reviewers who are of the same mindset, peer review is a wonderfully efficient manner of keeping other opinions from being known (Then those opinions get relegated to the "Letters" section of the journal. ;-) )

Iran has a process of peer review which guarantees that all media published is accurate and truthful.

This is very helpful at filtering out destructive and dangerous ideas like democracy and false religions.

Andrew,

The Sargasso sea is probably 4000 miles from the southern edge of the sea ice. So, warm temperatures there probably do not correlate with sea ice extent. The curent retreat is more on the side towards Russia, even further away.

If the Sargasso Sea was 1 deg C warmer than today, wouldn't logic dictate that the Arctic Ocean may also have been warmer than today, although at something less than 1 deg C?

There needs to be some type of sea bed floor sediment exam from the arctic itself to determine where the seasonal ice edge was over time. Problem is collecting such a sample in shifting ice flows.

See my post above, the sediment load is too high to do sediment sampling around Greenland. You need relative low energy conditions to discern seasonal variation in sediment accumulation.

Eemain??

I think you mean Eocene. Temps were around 22-23 deg C, even in the Arctic. There were forests in Antarctica. Half way through the Eocene, temperatures started to plummet and the earth became glaciated in the Miocene.

However, as I pointed out before, the Arctic may have had ice-free passages in the 20's and 30's and during the MWP.

>> water levels will change as ice melts and freezes, try it in a glass of water at home sometime.

plish, it sounds like you need to try this: Place some ice in a glass, and then fill to the rim with water. Put into microwave and heat.

No need to get napkins, the water will not overflow.

How odd - the bright red spot is apparently sitting right on top of an active undersea volcano.
http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/ANTARCTIC/TRENDS/IMAGES/annual.trend.1958-2002.gif

We need to raise taxes to blot out the red spot.

NGW Steve,
Check here for western states data http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/CLIMATEDATA.html

While not arid, although my yard was this summer, Minnesota has a climatology working group http://climate.umn.edu/

Montana also has a climate office. http://climate.ntsg.umt.edu/

Jay,
With this statement, “I tend to trust the people working for 'essentially nothing' but the public good (academia) not corporate think tanks.” I can tell you are still too young to be jaded yet. This not a bad thing and I hope you can hold on to your naivet� as long as you can.
I have worked in academia for 30+ years and can tell you it is all about, 1. Ego, 2 grant money, or 3. Ego and grant money.
There is an old statement that holds true…”Publish or perish”…. and what better way to stay alive when the gravy train is so easy as AGW? Any grant just has to be written with the ending, “…with respect to AGW.” This is a gold mine for many fields that have had to beg for funding. Now money is being thrown their way. Even healthcare is starting to get grants for, “…with respect to AGW!”
Academia is currently politically slanted to the left with many feeling it is their duty to feel guilty about enjoying the Western Standard of living. Like starving artists they feel we must suffer and feel pain to mature on an intellectual level. Under no circumstances is this suffering to be personal but metaphorically through others in society because we are thinkers and are exempt from these mundane matters. Tenure makes it easy to say one thing and do another. All of this makes the University cocktail party circuit so much fun. We pontificate and say what others must do….and of course ignore the suffering that our ideas will bring about. We lead only in words and let those gullible enough not to use their brains to do what we say.
I used to think it was AGW. Then I read a lot from both sides and smelled something rotten on the AGW side. The science is bad, sloppy, error prone, dishonest or distorted, and sometimes not science but prognostication. We just don’t have enough information to make wild claims.
We castigated insurance companies who didn’t want to pay for obscenely costly unproven cancer treatments because “we had to do something”. Only after millions of dollars and real science was done we found out the treatments didn’t work any better than standard treatments. It is sad but some are still doing the procedure because “We have to do something!” All we did was waste millions down a rat hole. AGW is the same thing except we are betting trillions on treatments for AGW that we have no idea if they will do anything. If you have to do something, try the “Pizza Protocol!” That is, eat a pizza with any 3 toppings of your choice every week for 20 years and you will have saved the planet.

Paul,

There was definately no ice free passages thru the Arctic in the 20s or 30s. Exploreres have been trying without success to find a way thru the NorthWest passage for over a hundred years.

Some times oscillations result in differant regions warming and cooling at the same time.
For example, if the Gulf Current slowed, it would transport less heat from the tropics to the arctic. So, warming of the Sargasso could actually correspond to cooling in the Arctic.

The Eocene was millions of years ago, almost all the way back to the Dinosaurs with sea levels much much higher, maybe 150 feet higher as Jim Hansen envisions.

"I would be willing to bet that at least a couple of you so called readers work for some lobbying shop."

Well, Jay, I can only speak for myself but I'm a RoveBot, reprogrammed about 2 years ago. I had all liberal thoughts erased from my memory and now do anything RoveHitler asks.

Just because the left is against individual thought and initiative does not mean that some of us don't still do it.

Andrew,

There was definately no ice free passages thru the Arctic in the 20s or 30s. Exploreres have been trying without success to find a way thru the NorthWest passage for over a hundred years.

They probably just looked at the satellite data and figured that out, eh? Did they try every day of every summer for two decades? If not, they might have missed it, otherwise why the Washington Post story?

For example, if the Gulf Current slowed, it would transport less heat from the tropics to the arctic. So, warming of the Sargasso could actually correspond to cooling in the Arctic.

Do you have any proof of this or is this hypothesis based on a model?

The Eocene was millions of years ago, almost all the way back to the Dinosaurs with sea levels much much higher, maybe 150 feet higher as Jim Hansen envisions.

I'm not sure what your point is here. Because the Eocene was some 38-54 million years ago, the physics were somehow different? The Eocene was ice-free, warm (70 deg F), with CO2 concentrations around 3500 ppm. Yet, Prosimians were abundant; as were primates, carnivores, and large ungulates. Elephant, whales, and sloths were just getting established. All in all, life was good.

Gunnar,

We're talking the same thing but we have different boundary conditions. You took a typical condition, I was thinking a couple inches of water and buku ice.

If you take a glass of water and freeze it partially, the water level will go down as more and more of the water turns to ice until you have a solid block that's taller than the original water level. Thaw it and the level of the ice drops and the water level comes back to its original place. This even occurs if you fill the glass with ice and then water. Ice is cool stuff!! (Pun intended) Now, take the same glass start freezing it. Start putting ice shavings on the top of the newly formed ice and keep freezing and keep adding ice shavings. Then thaw it. The glass overflows. It's obvious why, it's all the extra snowy shavings.

I made my original statement picturing a glass full of ice and filling the cup only partially with water.

Because the first scenario, turning a perfectly good cold drink into a warm mess, is not representative of what's happening in reality. What's really happening is that when the ice starts freezing it is also snowing and sleeting, etc., and the ice gets added to from the atmosphere. When that stuff melts, it will add to the water level.

blah blah blah... my point is that the amount of ice is not equal to the amount frozen from the sea but is actually a combo of snow and ice that results in melting causing a net gain if the snow's origins were non ocean connecting waters.

Paul,

The physics were the same during the Eocene, but not earth. CO2 levels were higher, the continents were shifted slightly and the istmus of Panama was missing.

What this did was allow for very differant precepitaiton patterns and ocean currents. Palm trees in the arctic may not sound all that bad, but there are now 6.6 Billion of us and everybody has to eat.

The population is going only 1 way and eventually agriculture will have reached its limit while the climate goes thru the largest shift in over 8,000 years. Farmers feed just about everyone and are more suspecible to the climate than most any other line of work. So, it seems obvious that sooner or later the population will reach some sort of agriculture limit. To push that limit up a little bit higher will require prudent management aiming for maximum food production with CHG emissions that do not disrupt the climate negatively.

plish:

That�s a very good point, I�m sure the amount of extra added to sea ice surface evaporated from the sea in the first instance but over thousands of years, so the ice now supports a reservoir of stored water in much the same way as Greenlands glaciers. However because it is already floating on water the displacement has already occurred and therefore the additional ice will not raise sea levels when its raft melts.

With regard to glaciers slipping into the ocean once the sea ice melts, there is no longer any doubt. Glaciers right around the Arctic Circle are advancing and melting into the sea as the warmer water eats away their foundation and penetrating melt water lubricates the slide from land. A combination of warmer oceans, soot discoloured surface and temperature rise in the region will account for ongoing coastal glacial loss while gravity guarantees that the process cannot be stopped or slowed without sea ice being there to block the slide.

This makes weight redistribution guaranteed and a rise in seismic activity for the region very likely.
With the variety of subterranean fuel sources eagerly sought after and available in the region, the near surface seismic activity may well gassify the reserves while they are still underground making,. in effect a very large bomb with a fuse attached and nowhere on earth to stand at a safe distance.

The earth gets its fair share of meteor strikes and the earth protects the moon far more than our planet receives shelter from it. It�s a size thing; our planet is bigger and has an atmosphere for protection. The moons face points toward the earth all of the time, where 60%of its surface is exposed and the remainder is in total darkness.

For a comparisson look at the x-ray images of the dark side and compare the craters with the face. Why is their such a difference in the two landscapes?.

To get a bit CSI and forensic, the visible with the naked eye craters on the moon have star patterns radiating from ground zero, making it clear that the projectile hit the surface dead on, like an Apollo rocket without a pre programmed orbital flight plan to follow.

For these meteors to have hit the moon dead on the path they must have followed would have past close to earth or originated from it.

Which brings me back to the vernshot theory.
Have fun

Dramatic climate change is the norm historically. The ice core data supports the notion that many of the climate changes have been rather abrupt (relatively speaking). We should all be expecting this type of thing. We should be very thankful as a species that it is not going the other way. You can't stop the climate from changing. Sorry Al.

Andrew,

Warmer climate has always, and I mean always resulted in better crops, better living conditions, etc. That's why these warm periods are called climate optimums. What you are proposing is to find some way to revert the earth back to a cold climate such as we had during the Little Ice Age and the Dark Ages (guess why they called it the Dark Ages). I doubt very much that this warm period will last very long, but why not enjoy it instead of trying to plunge us back into a period of famine and drought? Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated.

Brett: The link I posted just now (regarding the ice caps not melting fast enough) will not work as it's missing a character. This is the link in full. Please post instead. Thanks.

Oiz

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/p-j-gladnick/2007/09/04/british-yachtsman-who-counted-global-warming-cross-arctic-now-trapped-

Paul
We have warmer climates right now causing drought and a global shortage of wheat, bread prices are on the way up and all crops across the world are falling short of previous years harvests, when global warming was not an issue.

What makes you think the extreams are good for crops?

What would be good is a return to moderate warming rather than the extremes that cause current AGW concern. I think a repeat of medieval cooling will cause more problems, not that it would be up to us to achieve such a rapid reversal anyway.

We have no answers that could avert the current warming trend, much less a way to reverse it. The amount of GHG currently in the atmosphere will not be reduced by any action taken on the ground, it can only increase, so the effect the insulation is having will not be affected.

What might change are the AGW effects on jet streams and ocean currents which may reverse the warming trend as they are both affected by warming oceans . The alarming decrease in the speed of the Gulf Stream over the last 15 years (Brett, might be worth a post) may go some way to explain the changing seasons early springs late summers wet weather and more severe storms which may have lead to cooling in some parts of the NH. insulation keeps us cool useing the same GHG that currently keeps the climate warm, but balance is key in a happy world.

And the winner of the best post of the thread goes to Patrick for this...

How odd - the bright red spot is apparently
sitting right on top of an active undersea volcano.
http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/ANTARCTIC/TRENDS/IMAGES/annual.trend.1958-2002.gif

outstanding.

Paul,

Agriculture is only 8000 years old or so. During that time the climate has been relatively stable.

What we are faced with over the next century will be a larger change than what has ever been experienced by agriculture. When the last dramatic change to the climate occureed, the human population was small, mobile and geered to hunting and gathering. Now, it is large and about to reach the limit that the planet can handle. It is not a good time for rapid changes and yet that is exactly what going to happen.

Arctic Sea Ice Maxima and Minima are certainly cyclical and what I find interesting , sorry I don't have the link, is there are major shipping interests that have already bought the shipping lane rights for a percieved arctic ice free shipping corridor. What do these high level executives know we don't? Seccondly, as I have mentioned before, what alarms me more than atmospheric gasses, is the HAARP program located at the University of Alaska. The 600 plus antenea array can diliver billions of watts of directed energy to the Ionisphere and through freaquency modulations the Ionispheres gasses can be superheated to a plasma state, this in turn "Lenses" the atmosphere, thus the atmosphere itself can be punched up as much as ten miles in targetted areas. Thus sunlight can be concentrated to the ground, so droughts, heat waves and "Extraordinary Arctic Sea Ice Melts" can and in this writers opinion ARE being caused by Human Activities. Deliberately and on purpose. I say Green House Gasses are a public ruse of nonsence to keep us from examining these Ionisphere Heaters and weather modification programs.

Simon,

Thanks for the prize. It is unfortunate that climate modelers are so focused on effects of the GHG and seem to be largely ignoring other physical phenomenon impacting temperature.

In my work, when I see a large anomaly (like that red spot) it rings a bell that some other force is at work.

Same thought process need to be invoked for arctic melting near Siberia. Obviously something is different there. Antarctica is set to equal or beat the all time maximum sea ice extent record today. Greenland Sea ice is above normal. Whatever is going on in the Siberian arctic is not "global."

Andrew,

Agriculture is only 8000 years old or so. During that time the climate has been relatively stable.

What do you call the Little Ice Age? A day at the beach? I'm sure the Vikings who died in Greenland in the 1400s did so because of severe sunburns after a day at the beach. Millions of people in France (you know that is relatively small number of people) died in 1693 due to famine because of a cold weather induced failed harvest. The Anasazi in the Southwest US disappeared during the Little Ice Age as long-term drought set in. Cold weather in Japan in the late 1700s resulted in the death of over a million people due to famine. Crop failures were common in China during the Little Ice Age due to cold weather. There were also prolonged droughts in Central Africa during the Little Ice Age.

Relatively stable compared to what? The Ice Ages, yes. Present day climate, hardly.

... The 600 plus antenea array can diliver billions of watts of directed energy to the Ionisphere ...

According to the HAARP website at the University of Alaska:
The HAARP antenna array consists of 180 antennas on a total land area of about 35 acres. The array, along with its integrated transmitters, has a total radiated power capability of about 3,600 kilowatts.
...
The HF transmitter system is able to produce approximately 3.6 million Watts of radio frequency power. However, the HAARP transmitters have been designed to operate very linearly (in Class AB mode) so that they will not produce radio interference to other users of the radio spectrum. To achieve that degree of linearity, the transmitters operate at an efficiency of only about 45 %. For every 100 Watts of input power 45 Watts of Radio Frequency power is generated and the rest is lost in the transmitter cabinet as heat. (As an analogy, a 75 Watt light bulb gets quite hot while it's producing the light you actually see.) In addition, the on-site diesel generators must provide power for other equipment used by the transmitters including the cooling system and low level amplifier stages. As a result, approximately 10 million Watts of prime power will be required when the transmitter system is operating at full power.

Is HAARP capable of affecting the weather?
The HAARP facility will not affect the weather. Transmitted energy in the frequency ranges that will be used by HAARP is not absorbed in either the troposphere or the stratosphere - the two levels of the atmosphere that produce the earth's weather. Electromagnetic interactions only occur in the near-vacuum of the rarefied region above about 70 km known as the ionosphere.

The ionosphere is created and continuously replenished as the sun's radiation interacts with the highest levels of the Earth's atmosphere. The downward coupling from the ionosphere to the stratosphere/troposphere is extremely weak, and no association between natural ionospheric variability and surface weather and climate has been found, even at the extraordinarily high levels of ionospheric turbulence that the sun can produce during a geomagnetic storm. If the ionospheric storms caused by the sun itself don't affect the surface weather, there is no chance that HAARP can do so either.

How long do the effects of ionospheric heating last?>
Since the ionosphere is, inherently, a turbulent medium that is being both "stirred up" and renewed by the sun, artificially induced effects are quickly obliterated. Depending on the height within the ionosphere where the effect is originally produced, these effects are no longer detectable after times ranging from less than a second to ten minutes.

A good analogy to this process is dropping a stone into a fast moving stream. The ripples caused by the stone are very quickly lost in the rapidly moving water and, a little farther down the stream, are completely undetectable. A University of Alaska, Geophysical Institute scientist has compared HAARP to an "immersion heater in the Yukon River."

Can HAARP create a hole in the ionosphere?
No. Any effects produced by HAARP are miniscule compared with the natural day-night variations that occur in the ionosphere. Several ionospheric layers completely disappear naturally over a whole hemisphere during the evening hours. HAARP can't come close to producing this effect, even in the limited region directly over the site.

Can HAARP create an artificial aurora?
The natural aurora is created when very high energy particles emitted by the sun, reach the Earth's vicinity, are swept toward the Earth's magnetic poles, and collide with gas molecules existing in the upper atmosphere. The energy involved in this process is enormous but is entirely natural and it has been a normal event throughout Earth's history.

HAARP is so much weaker than these naturally occurring processes that it is incapable of producing the type of optical display observed during an aurora. However, weak and repeatable optical emissions have been observed using HAARP (and reported in the scientific literature) using very sensitive cameras.

"600 plus antenea array"? Looks more like 180.

"billions of watts of directed energy"? Looks like 3.6Mw to me. Only THREE ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE wrong.

Brett, this post exemplifies the kind of material that, in my opinion, significantly detracts from this site. If it needs to be published at all, surely you can add a suitable editorial comment about its reliability.

Reply: BT are talking about this article "Arctic Ice cap collapsing"?

BT,

Where are you getting this article? This had nothing to do with the Ice Cap Collapsing.

Anyway, this blog is not about "your opinion". It is about AGW articles and issues and open for debate. Honestly I don't give a fig about your opinion.

"What do you call the Little Ice Age? A day at the beach? I'm sure the Vikings who died in Greenland in the 1400s did so because of severe sunburns after a day at the beach. Millions of people in France (you know that is relatively small number of people) died in 1693 due to famine because of a cold weather induced failed harvest. The Anasazi in the Southwest US disappeared during the Little Ice Age as long-term drought set in. Cold weather in Japan in the late 1700s resulted in the death of over a million people due to famine. Crop failures were common in China during the Little Ice Age due to cold weather. There were also prolonged droughts in Central Africa during the Little Ice Age."

You're forgetting that millions of people who died of smallpox, plagues, and earthquakes. You're not proving anything, Paul.

There is a lot of doubt as to whether LIA was even a global phenomenon. Most of our observations are strictly from Europe or North America.

Simon, no argument between us on the science but just on how much is actually floating. Not all ice is floating, it's attached somewhere and the ice then has a certain stiffness prohibiting displacement. We don't have to look at the Arctic. The lake outside my house (which I monitor for environmental reasons) was a perfect lab this winter. The huge amounts of snow over the winter led to a large increase in water level come spring time (we had a very quick melt with no intervening precipitation.) Certain areas of the ice were acnhcored to shore while other areas were almost always loose. With regards to the Arctic, I'm not sure it's all due to 1000's of years of weather.

Regarding Vernshot-I don't think the number of strikes on the moon matches how often it would have to come from the earth. Besides, there are videos of new strikes happening every day. The craters left behind are also quite often "Dead on" and there's no corresponding events on earth.

You are correct too in that the earth is bigger and eats up alot of meteors, but anything that big (the moon) in proportion to the mother planet "sweeps" up alot and gets stuff before we do (i.e. at least half of any surface the moon is protecing. Think a hockey goalie cutting down the angle. Anything coming from "out there" doesn't get a clear shot at the earth all that easily.)

Here's what happens when you believe the AGW hype:

British Yachtsman who Counted on Global Warming to Cross Arctic Now Trapped by Ice

And to top it all off, he now has an additional worry, those drowning polar bears.

Mark,

I've already provided you with evidence of the Little Ice Age (LIA) from every corner of the earth. It's up to you to read the articles. Apparently, the doubt is on the AGW crowd side of the fence. The LIA does not fit into their/your preconceptual science, therefore it must be discredited.

"And to top it all off, he now has an additional worry, those drowning polar bears."

What an opportunity for the drowning polar bears! Not only do they have a potential meal, they also have a boat to float on!

Paul,

What do you think caused the little ice age?

CO2 levels actually fell slightly before the little ice age. It took a while for the climate to recover. So, yes, with CO2 and CH4 levels going thru the roof, we are in for some big changes that may make the little ice age look like a nice day at the beach.

Consider the following.

http://courses.eas.ualberta.ca/eas457/Ruddiman2003.pdf

Brett asked:
BT are talking about this article "Arctic Ice cap collapsing"?

and Jeff asked:
Where are you getting this article? This had nothing to do with the Ice Cap Collapsing.

I was commenting on the September 6, 2007 8:04 AM post by "george naytowhowcon" to this thread, above.

The full comment, from which I excerpted the context for my reply, was:
Arctic Sea Ice Maxima and Minima are certainly cyclical and what I find interesting , sorry I don't have the link, is there are major shipping interests that have already bought the shipping lane rights for a percieved arctic ice free shipping corridor. What do these high level executives know we don't? Seccondly, as I have mentioned before, what alarms me more than atmospheric gasses, is the HAARP program located at the University of Alaska. The 600 plus antenea array can diliver billions of watts of directed energy to the Ionisphere and through freaquency modulations the Ionispheres gasses can be superheated to a plasma state, this in turn "Lenses" the atmosphere, thus the atmosphere itself can be punched up as much as ten miles in targetted areas. Thus sunlight can be concentrated to the ground, so droughts, heat waves and "Extraordinary Arctic Sea Ice Melts" can and in this writers opinion ARE being caused by Human Activities. Deliberately and on purpose. I say Green House Gasses are a public ruse of nonsence to keep us from examining these Ionisphere Heaters and weather modification programs.

I apologize for not providing more context, I didn't want to bring more attention to the original comment than it already had.

Do we really need to "debate" every little-green-men-from-mars rant?

I SAY that we need to debate the key role that Black Helicopters play in global climate change. Are they working in concert with we left-wing socialist communist marxist atheist anti-americans using AGW as a clever ruse to bring down America? Or are they instead part of the contrarian denialist conspiracy to control the world for their own greedy self-centered ends?

Of COURSE you haven't heard of these -- the powers that control peer-reviewed journals and the mainstream media SUPPRESS them. It's only because of courageous individuals like Lyle Zapato who risk ridicule and worse to tell the TRUTH that we are even able to discuss this VITAL matter.

I CHALLENGE every contrarian to PROVE that Black Helicopters are NOT part of your conspiracy to enrich yourselves! I CHALLENGE every AGW proponent to PROVE that Black Helicopters are not part of our plan to destroy western civilization as we know it.

WHAT ABOUT THE BLACK HELICOPTERS?

Right? Jeesh.

Jay,

Way to go. Now you got bt debating Black Helicopters. Just had to push his button, didn't you?

Andrew,

Consider the following.

http://courses.eas.ualberta.ca/eas457/Ruddiman2003.pdf

I think Dr. Ruddiman has been talking with bt. Next thing you know, they'll be debating BLACK HELICOPTERS!! OMG!! bt's already brought it up!

What do you think caused the little ice age?

Solar variability superimposed on long term changes in insolation. Solar variability includes sunspot activity, number, and length of the solar cycle. Methane and carbon dioxide activity is more the result than the cause. The Little Ice Age corresponds to a period of reduced solar activity called the Maunder Minimum. Variances in the earth's orbit and tilt probably helped although I've no proof at the moment.

Sorry, Andrew, I am a firm believer in the theory that the big yellow orb has a major effect on temperatures on earth.

plish:

The ice is not a supported shelf fixed to a wall on brackets. It is almost all supported by water, except for a tide ring around the edges of land that rises and falls with the movement of the sea beneath it. Sometimes coastal ice is grounded but as this has been the case and has not changed for centuries this sea ice will not raise sea levels when it melts

Patrick. I don�t think it�s unfortunate, I think it has more to do with timing. There�s a limit to what people will accept and there must be a correct way to follow in which information is delivered if you reasonably expect people to take it seriously
I use to bang on about GW triggering seismic activity before the term AGW was even coined. I even had something published. But as the studies continued only above ground and few have looked beneath the atmosphere, I realised that I would have to wait until AGW got boring before another topic could take its place.

I sense there is a connection between ice melt/Siberian and Antarctic seismic activity. It fits in nicely with the other ideas I have also covered in the thread.

When did this recent activity begin in Antarctica? Was this volcano dormant before Larsen B fell off its perch and the glaciers were firmly blocked by its enormous ice sheet in the same location? Coincidental? Could this red spot be the smoking gun? Have we stumbled across new evidence the next phase of AGW?

Some said hurricanes tornados and wet weather had nothing to do with AGW, but as time passes droughts, heatwaves, early and late seasons and even the odd cold snap has been associated and accepted by some as evidence of climate change. I doubt they will swallow more earthquakes as easily, but the connection is still strong.

IS anyone investigating what effect warming sea temperatures have on maintaining coolant temperatures and pressures over thin oceanic crust? Has melting at both poles occurred at the same time as seismic activity has increased in both regions?

As the land bounces back from under melting ice and a huge transfer of weight squeezes magma from under the oceanic crust it is plausible that temperatures will be warmed significantly in Polar regions by a tipping effect that has been initially triggered by either AGW or GW, it would not matter which.

Andrew,

I gave you an out when I asked if you had read this piece before. Has this piece been peer-reviewed?

The Anthropogenic Greenhouse Era . . .�

This one is RIPE. It was published in Scientific American, does that qualify? Referenced in Wikipedia. Part of a lecture tour at Colorado State, An article in RealClimate that they defend, and more.

Scientific America

No time to do this now, but I encourage everyone to read this crap and look at the link below for temp, CO2 and CH4 levels, and insolation over the last 400k years and draw your own conclusions.

Temp, CO2. CH4, and Insolation last 400k years

I expect you to defend the peer-review process, but a bunch of fourth graders critiquing a classmate is a peer-review. We shall see how it stands up to just a review :) By skeptics and beleivers alike.

Reminds me of John Harrison and the Longitude Board that refused to give him a monetory prize for figuring out how to determine Longitude accurately. He wasn't part of the Gentry and his work was "peeer-reviewed" and rejected while failed attempts were harolded.

If you all would just show some REAL evidence and present it in a manner where we can tell what you are hypothesizing, your methods, and your conclusions we can put this debate to rest.

Regards,

Steve

"There is a lot of doubt as to whether LIA was even a global phenomenon. Most of our observations are strictly from Europe or North America."

Before I did my eye roll for this little snippet, I set my coffee down. Good thing too or I probably would have spilled the whole cup.

Steve,

Scientific America is a very public and reputable science journal. There are other even more exclusive and reputable journals, and a version of this manuscript may have made it into them as well.

Anyhow, as presented, the LIA and MWP were due to changes in greenhouse gas concentrations as much as they were to insolation changes.

Moreover current levels of greenhouse gases are forcing the climate to a global temperature that has not been existed for a long time. Indeed, within a decade the arctic could be ice free. A condition that has not existed for over a million years.

Thank about it!

Simon,

The entire Antarctic Peninsular region is near the junction of two large tectonic plates, the South American and Antarctic; a smaller plate, the Scotia; and several smaller remnant plates.

Along the Antarctic Peninsula are several volcanic fields including; Seal Nunataks, Snow Nunataks, Beethoven Peninsula, James Ross Island, Mt. Pinafore, and Venus Glacier. The Seal Nunataks have erupted as recently as 1968 with water vapor eminating from ice-cored moraines in 1988. This photo is one of my favorites showing the fractured Larsen B Ice Shelf floating away from the Seal Nunataks.

In May of 2004, an active submarine volcano was found in the waters between Joinville and Dundee Islands at the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. From the paper,"...The volcano is located on the continental shelf of the northeastern Antarctic Peninsula, where recent changes in surface temperature and ice shelf stability have been observed."..."Indications of fairly recent lava flows are given by the absence of marine life on regions of the volcano."

There's a lot going on down there beneath the surface and it has more to do with plate tectonics than AGW. I don't buy into weather/climate causing earthquakes/volcanic activity. The Canadian Shield area around Hudson Bay has been rebounding since the last Ice Age and I'm not aware of any increased tectonic activity in the area. No new volcanoes popping up in Ontario. (BTW, Hudson Bay was the center for continental glaciation, hence the depression.)

Andrew,

Indeed, within a decade the arctic could be ice free. A condition that has not existed for over a million years.

You keep stating that the Arctic hasn't been ice free in a million years. From what source do you attribute this statement?

Man that sun is extra hot today. Stop global warming now! That means reducing all sources of heat and heat retention.

Paul,

The last time the Arctic Ocean was ice free was during the palaeocene-eocene thermal maximum event, 55 million years ago.

http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=9463&page=1

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2006/08/ancient_arctic_.html

http://www.countercurrents.org/cc-connor100806.htm

indeed, within a decade the arctic could be ice free

So those 10,000 feet of ice in Greenland are going to melt over the next ten years? What a mess.

BTW - Antarctic sea ice has reached it's all time record high of 16,000,000 km2. It has increased five years in a row.

This is completely out of line with what climate modelers predict, and with the blatant misinformation being spread by Al Gore and other prominent AGW figures.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.area.south.jpg

It's a little late to mention this, Brett, but you used the graphic from the previous (8/28) NSIDC update rather than the 9/4 one that's contemporaneous with the Guardian story. This is the one you want. Note that it matches the 4.4 million km^2 extent figure quoted in the story.

Reply: Thanks Steve.

Andrew,

The last time the Arctic Ocean was ice free was during the palaeocene-eocene thermal maximum event, 55 million years ago.

I'm not going to argue with you at this time (/caveat). However, during the Eocene, temperatutes averaged 30 deg C worldwide, ocean circulation was pretty much free and uninhibitied from pole to pole which resulted in not only an ice-free Arctic, but an ice-free Antarctic, also. We've got a little ways to go to reach that point. We'll probably need a little tectonic help to open up the Arctic a bit more. We are also going to have to warm the average temperature of the earth from its present 12 deg C to 30 deg C in the next 30-90 years. Do you think we can do it?

"The last time the Arctic Ocean was ice free was during the palaeocene-eocene thermal maximum event, 55 million years ago."

Actually, explorers from China sailed to the North Pole via the Bering Straits in 1421 and found that the Artic was mainly water -very little ice.

Generally we should be careful about the paleohistory of sea ice. Unlike ice sheets, its presence is difficult to detect. Also, there's a huge difference between a brief period of ice-free open water in September vs. no Arctic ice at all. The former implies a climate still somewhat resembling our own, whereas the latter implies a whole other planet. Both are of concern, but the former could happen within the next decade whereas the latter likely would require centuries at a minimum.

That said, the latest research seems to imply that there wasn't a meaningful amount of Arctic sea ice more recently than the Eocene. I say this since apparently there was no Greenland ice sheet as such for much of that period, and without it any sea ice would have been seasonal and perhaps impossible to even detect in the geologic record. I don't have the link for the relevant paper at hand, although IIRC I've linked it in another post here recently.

Getting back to the point, there could easily have been summer season ice-free open water conditions during the warmer interglacials of the last million years, but it's likely been over four million years (i.e., before the start of the cooling trend that resulted in the present glacial cycle) since the Arctic was ice-free for most of the year.

Picky, picky, picky.

Within a decade the arctic ocean could be ice free in the summer.
Greenland will take much longer, but will be
melting much faster than it already has been.

Also, I do not see why you keep posting that chart to Antarctica sea ice.
Anybody that looks at it will realize that there
is no real trend.

Paul,

With so much going on down there the slightest changes on the surface may well be enough to trigger the reaction which in turn can knock on the next domino.
The last straw is just a straw after all; it never needed to be heavy,.

Why would I blame the straw?

AGW likes one thing that it can blame, we simplify things, find a focus where all efforts can be concentrated on one thing, and once tackled, the promised solutions will materialise, as if by magic and regardless of any logic.
Unfortunately CO2 is just one trigger, a very small part of a much wider problem. Nevertheless Co2 is the only part of the problem that we can focus on. We can reduce emission but on the way we may just increase emissions of other harmful gases while the volume of co2 currently airborne will only increase regardless of any intervention.

The thinking is that CO2 will not increase as much, but it seems to me that co2 has already increased enough.

OK, I don't have all the links to post here to defend my remarks about HAARP and other programs, however I will say that in much of the material I have gone over it does appear that HAARP was indeed expanded to much greater capasity than 180 antenea. Also, how dare anyone assume dilivering any amount of directed energy into the ionisphere or for that matter all the radiative energy from cell towers, radar arrays and power transmission lines have on our atmosphere, all these things add heat to the air. And to ignore HAARP and HAARP related technologies from this debate is both foolish and irresponcible.I said nothing about little green men and black helicopters as well.

Patrick - thank you for continuing to hammer home the point about Antarctic sea ice. When a scientific theory predicts an effect and that effect fails to materialize, it is generally concluded the theory is wrong.

It just goes to show you how unsettled the science is.

Geoffrey Lean's report brings home the inadequacy of even that target. Last week saw the peak week for ice melt in the Arctic � from now until next spring, the ice sheet will advance, before retreating again next year. But this year the ice has already retreated as far as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted it would retreat in 2050. The IPCC is no bunch of alarmist eco-warriors but a cautious committee of respected scientists operating by consensus and thus consistently erring on the side of playing down the danger.

Rather than falling for a straw man arguments, consider what the IPCC actually predicts.

Page 770 Global Climate Projections Chapter 10

In 20th- and 21st-century simulations, antarctic sea ice
cover is projected to decrease more slowly than in the Arctic
(Figures 10.13c,d and 10.14), particularly in the vicinity of
the Ross Sea where most models predict a local minimum in
surface warming.

http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Print_Ch10.pdf

Page 851 Chapter 11 Regional Climate Projections

The Arctic is very likely to warm during this century more
than the global mean. Warming is projected to be largest in
winter and smallest in summer. Annual arctic precipitation
is very likely to increase. It is very likely that the relative
precipitation increase will be largest in winter and smallest in
summer. Arctic sea ice is very likely to decrease in its extent and
thickness. It is uncertain how the Arctic Ocean circulation will
change.

The Antarctic is likely to warm and the precipitation
is likely to increase over the continent. It is uncertain to what
extent the frequency of extreme temperature and precipitation
events will change in the polar regions.

http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Print_Ch11.pdf

Thanks Simon for the clarification on the "anchoring of ice" I did not realize that.

Simon,

Volcanic and earthquake activity is for the most part caused by the movement of tectonic plates. There may be some instances where the movement of ice or rock from say an icefall or rock fall may cause small reponses on seismographs. Volcanic activity can only be caused by magma reaching the surface from depth (and by depth, I mean tens of kilometers minimum). In the rare instance, at least in terms of our lifetimes, an occasional meteor strike may trigger some local magmatic activity. However, in terms of the Antarctic Peninsula, plate tectonics, subduction zones, back-arc basins, back-arc rifting, and various other processes are the cause of any heating and or seismic activity in the region. If you can come up with a specific example of how you think atmospheric processes will cause volcanic activity, by all means, let's hear it.

Andrew,

Meant to tear Ruddiman's paper to pieces this weekend, but had a family emergency. It is strewn with errant thoughts and bad assumptions from top to bottom. Not as far out as the HAARP theory, but I wonder how much of the tax payer's money went to fund such a BS hypothesis.

Anyhow, as presented, the LIA and MWP were due to changes in greenhouse gas concentrations as much as they were to insolation changes.

Soooo, CO2 decreases by 10 ppm because farms were abandoned during a plague that caused the LIA, a ONE degree drop, whereas a 100 ppm is needed to raise the temp ONE degree? Whatever.

His third argument that glaciation, expected in "TWO" models, was stopped because of GHG's and that a 10 ppm change in CO2 was too large be from solar or volcanic activates is crap. Henry's Law easily explains a 10 ppm drop in CO2 due to the oceans ability to retain more CO2 during colder temps, not to mention the CO2 trapped in snow. To partially base a theory on the fact that an area did not grow glaciers, but two models predicted, no can't use predicted, they postdicted a glacier that did not come, is pretty wild.

We deniers are very thankful for postdictions that do not come true, you cannot imagine how helpful they are in understanding what did not happen in the past and what our future does not hold. While postdiction has no use in science, it seems to have a future in Climate Science.

Brett, Hurry up and buy one of these postdiction models, I'd love to see what the weather wasn't last week.

His second statement that CO2 levels should be going down when temps were going up shows he either is unfamiliar with Henry's Law or just plain babbling.

No time to address it all, but I will get to it this week if I can. If not, I'll publish it somewhere and provide a link later.

Regards,

Steve

There seems to be a lot of historical information missing from that article Brett: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2007/09/09/reports-record-arctic-ice-melt-disgracefully-ignore-history

My thoughts are that the occurrence of seismic activity is located in the regions where the plates converge or in other words where energy is shared. I believe it is the energy that is responsible for seismic activity. (no disrespect intended) Therefore what kept the magma locked away beneath the surface must remain stable and a loss of weight through loss of ice or the addition of weight through melt water onto rising sea water levels will have its effects on pressure above the oceanic crust and beneath land.

In some places the oceanic crust is only 5 miles thick.

The bounce back of land will trigger a release of pressure just as the release of methane hydrates from the sea floor will leave a space that will be filled abruptly by tonnes of water causing considerable weight redistribution and knock on a ripple effect pushing gas concentrations beneath the crusts to pressurise in fault lines that maybbe thousands of miles apart.

As ocean water warms the coolant effect that near freezing water has at depth will raise temperatures in the hotspots of oceanic crust which will upset the balance that kept the magma from penetrating oceanic crust.

Within the crust are all the carbon deposits that will incinerate, these fuels power the pressure that builds up between tectonic plates and will trigger seismic activity major earth quakes and the odd tsunami. All volcanic activity is powered by gas pressure and the gas is generated by the heat that penetrates the crust wherever deposits of fossil fuels are found.

If the heat from the magma can penetrate further into the crust its access to carbon deposits is greater and therefore the gas created will be larger and more powerful all coming to a surface near you, as a direct consequence of AGW.

The gas will remain trapped beneath ground and extracted by the current of magma transporting it beneath the crust until it is caught and held at increasing pressures beneath the fault lines where it explodes to the surface as active volcanoes venting the gas build in plumes of GHG up or as earthquakes which merely redistributes the load.

In nature Aug 94 an article speculated that the seismic explosions of all the worlds fossil fuel reserves could destroy the planet.

I would say the planet would lose its outer shell in a vernshot, but some of the shot will miss the moon, only to return after millions of years as meteors ending the evolution of some very large creatures.

However through all this the earth will retain its atmosphere and all the building blocks of life within its swirling mists of water vapour. It will all be kept warm by the intense internal heat of the planet below. Until all cools down enough and the lava flows solidified under oceans as the atmosphere losses its water vapour in precipitation.

Then in the ocean one celled life will begin to emerge and continued cooling would see the polar ice caps reform as land starts to form.
You know the rest until god showed up convincing us to do it all over again..

Simon,

You took the words right out of my mouth.

SLOPPY SLOPPY SLOPPY

He shows a 31 year average, then 2 cherry picked curves that support his thesis. What he doesn't show is what the standard deviations, the distribution around the average, are, or how likely those outliers are to occur normally.ds

His "data" is defective, and is insufficient to support his thesis. The question is, WHY doesn't he show us the whole picture? Is he afraid we won't understand (i.e., is he elitist?) or is he afraid that we will see there is no problem (i.e., is he malicious?). Either way, he's no scientist.

Besides, on a planet as old as earth, with as much natural variation as occured in the past, 31 years of data just isn't enough to establish any more than a very short term "trend" if that.

Also, the reason the ice is melting isn't because it's getting hotter, but because of altered wind patterns. And, Antarctic ice is growing at an uprecidented rate. Net result = hardly any change at all, well within normal most likely.
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2007/10/03/nh-sea-ice-loss-its-the-wind-says-nasa/