Brett,

Interesting. From looking at the arctic ice graph for 1998 (the hottest year since the Big Bang) -Arctic sea ice was high.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.area.jpg

However, the AO was unusually low. It would seem that arctic ice correlates better with AO than with the mythical "global temperature."

We all know water melts ice much faster than the wind but both together can speed things up even faster.

Arctic sea ice shatters record low
BOULDER, Colo., Oct. 2 (UPI) -- A U.S. study shows Arctic sea ice during this year's melting season plummeted to the lowest levels since satellite measurements began in 1979.

http://www.sciencecentric.com/news/07091801.htm

Brett,

First, your graph for the NAO only goes up to 2005. Reply: The best I could do, but there is one on a much smaller, more recent time scale as well.

Second, over the 2000 to 2005 time period there was nothing remarkable about either the AO and NAO. Reply: in terms of what? strength?

Third, it has been well established that the Transpolar drift is responsible for pushing ice out of the Arctic.

I believe that what has changed is the thickness of the ice. Beside the extent the ice diminishing over the years, the thickness has decreased remarkably.

The wind and currents have a much more difficult time pushing thick ice than thin. So, as greenhouse gases have caused a generally warming and melting of the ice, what has been accelerating is the mobility of the ice.

It has simply become much easier to push it around than it was before greenhouse gas warming.

Props to NASA for releasing info that will probably result in a cut-off of their funding!! Just kidding.
Prediction - AGW will be found to affect the AO and NAO and, therefore, (all together now) cause the arctic to melt into oblivion. Guess I am now a skeptic AND a cynic...and having a lot of fun with this.

Patrick Henry,

Sorry, Patrick, I'm going to have to mention that other source of warming again. You know, the big yellow orb. I'm sure the AGW crowd would love to see CO2 as the culprit, but I just ain't buying it. For instance, check out Figure 3 on page 4 of this paper.

Come on, now. It doesn't take a rocket...er, climate scientist to figure out that a correlation coefficient of 0.79 for solar irradiance vs temp is a better fit than the 0.22 for CO2 vs temp.

Figure 7 on page 8 of the same paper shows solar cycle length vs temperature along with CO2. Please tell me how CO2 is a better correlated with temperature than either of the solar activity factors.

Then there are those pesky cosmic rays. Check out the correlation on Figure 12, page 15 of this paper.

Make up your own mind: solar/cosmic or CO2?

Keep your eyes on this blog when Mark, Andrew, Thor, Steve Bloom and the rest have surfed the net to death, to try and find a tiny thread that may link the unusual winds to man-made warming.

If they can't come up with something concrete, then they will just say it must be due to it, because of this, that, or another thing.

Slap me in the head with a wet fish if I'm wrong on this sketch.

Patrick Henry,

If you are referring to the maximum sea ice extent occurring during the year 1998, then there's an obvious problem with your logic; the "warmest year on record" had not had much of a chance to make its impact evident. The max extent in 1998 occurred (as it does every year) in March.

If you are looking at the max sea ice extent in 1999 (as one would be more inclined to do if studying 1998's effect on the next sea ice maximum), please note that the 1999 sea ice maximum was about average for that point in time. Certainly lower than the mostly high maxima of the 1980s and 1979.

But if you want to get a more accurate picture of how the warm year of 1998 affected the Arctic sea ice, the logical place to look is at the minimum sea ice extent for that year. Sea ice maxima mainly give a measure of change in annual ice, which is thin and more prone to quick melt. At sea ice minima, you get a sense of how much of the perennial sea ice has been gained or lost. As has been discussed, having less perennial ice makes the Arctic more prone to melting, which allows for more and longer heating of the ocean's surface, which in turn contributes to further ice melt.

As you can see on the graph you provided from Cryosphere's website, 1998 set a record-low for Arctic sea ice to that point.

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.area.jpg

Records were set again each of the following two years.

Andrew,

"I believe that what has changed is the thickness of the ice. Beside the extent the ice diminishing over the years, the thickness has decreased remarkably".

What is "decreased remarkably" in actual measurement of thickness terms?

What is "diminishing over the years" in actual time frame?

If we look at large, very thick ice sheets that break off of Antarctica, they move along easily with the currents and winds once they get going, pushing and pulverizing anything smaller in their path. Remember, 90% of ice is beneath the surface.

well the scamsters ought to have worked themselves into a froth that co2 wasnt mentioned to be the cause of unusual wind currents...we should expect plenty of twisted explanations on this one from the scam crowd...for example, quoting from the wikipedia, "i heard from my sister's best friend's boyfriend who read in the national enquirer that some scientists say, because co2 has reached a forcing point, the combined methane output of the now congregated herd of polar bears caused a methane induced thinning and melting of the arctic ice sheet downwind engulfing the entire siberian sea...this melt rate was faster than a speeding bullet and able to leap from iceberg to iceberg in a single catastrophic, chain reaction event...life as we know it, barely hangs on a thread, with the only solution known to mankind at this dire time is to purchase scam credits with every last nickel you have...AGW is going down in a flame, as the natural causes continue to pile up against the ruse and their hocus pocus models get critiqued...

Paul,

You are obsessed with that sun thing. Why would changes in the output our neighborhood 338 x 10^15 cubic mile thermonuclear reactor affect our climate? We have Al Gore's hot air and CO2 feedback to warm the planet. Nothing else is needed.

I think that the CO2 warming on earth over the last 100 years is impacting the sun's output however.
http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/irradiance.gif

Actually there is a much more up to date paper/data on solar influences reply to recent Frolich paper. The correlations are obvious

http://icecap.us/images/uploads/SvensmarkPaper.pdf

Paul;
Solar Irradiance is caused by man made CO2!
The science is settled. Geeze!!
Keep bringing that stuff up and Mark will lecture you with is CO2 cycle story and Andrew will wack you with a copy of the IPCC report.
Here is proof:
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/SvensmarkPaper.pdf

The sun is hot.
But
Co2 is just an insulator.
Solar radiation fluctuates in much the same way that a thermostat alters the heating conditions that keeps your room at the desired temperature. Your roof insulation helps the room maintain its heat which significantly reduces the amount of time your appliances are kept on high.
The sun is kept on high all the time which make insulating gases and ground reflection so important in maintaining the earths temperature.
The thing that have changed in the years that gave us AGW is the Co2 content, what followed was the tipping effects that gave rise to ice melt and sea levels.
There are places on earth where the insulation of co2 keep things cooler but overall the gas maintains the warmth, storing the energy from the sun longer which gives power to existing weather fronts and associated winds.
Increased energy storage will increase threats of more severe weather just as wind direction and speed will be influenced by the location from where ocean currents relay the extra stored energy.
I laugh when ignorance is influenced by misunderstanding that co2 is a heat emitter.
If co2 was hot we could use it as fuel and discard what caused AGW.

PH do you have an off set plan for the UK trip?

Now a day global warming controversy is very hype. NASA sciencetists completely work on global warming research. According the sciencetists after 30 year earth is completely effected by global warming.

Atmospheric CO2 concentrations have increased from .027 to .038. Whopping! Regardless, we have already burned 20 percent of the earths fossil fuel reserves. After burning this 20 percent, temps have gone up by a whopping .5 DEGREE! Using the AGW theory, by burning the remaining 80 percent of fossil fuels over the next 300 years, the earth's temperature should raise 2 degrees more (fossil fuels only) before stabilizing. 20 percent = .5 degree, 80 percent = 2 degrees. Let's just double it to 4 degrees to satisfy the "we are doomed crowd". 4 degrees! Whopping! Sound the alarm.

Our NH democrat governor recently imposed a "view tax". This "view tax" will dissuade people from cutting down trees in there own yards. People wanting a glimpse of the surrounding beauty will have to pay through the nose in order to get it. Apparently this "tax" will stop AGW. Yes, we pay annual property taxes (.5 acre is about $5,000) but we can't cut OUR own trees without paying even more, BECAUSE OF A THEORY, not a law. Obviously these few trees will stop AGW from happening. Give me a break. Lunacy, it's real and infesting this so called right-wing state.

Oh I get it!

Rather than rely upon studies that are actually published in reputable peer reviewed science journals, the skeptics make up junk science and then pass it around like a pipe.

Sorta like telling a lie.

PH do you have an off set plan for the UK trip?

I do, thanks. I'm going to remove as much CO2 as I can by drinking Guinness. Three pints a day should do it.

Patrick Henry,

I know. It's maddening. I have nightmares about it. I can't get it out of my head!!! ARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyway, I think you may be on to something here, I think that the CO2 warming on earth over the last 100 years is impacting the sun's output however.

If you plot CO2 concentrations vs solar irradiance (the graph you referenced), it's obvious that increasing CO2 concentrations on earth caused the increase in solar output. Hence the increase in temperatures here on planet earth.

And all of this because of humans and their evil SUVs!!

Gary,

I keep forgetting the science is settled. I think Mr. Bloom has already provided proof from some George (no agenda here) Soros-funded recipient that the sun cannot possibly produce enough heat to increase temperatures here on planet earth.

And please remember to turn the sarcasm off.

/sarc off

Rich,

The view tax has nothing to do with AGW; it's based on property assessments. Please stick to the subject at hand and leave your extreme right-wing politics out of it.

Andrew,

The junkscience graphs I have been publishing are simply graphs of raw NOAA, NASA and Met data. They include links to the source. If you doubt their correctness, please feel free to download the source from trusted sources and make the plots yourself.

If you see a discrepancy, let us know. Otherwise your rants about junkscience and peer review are irrelevant and appear a bit desperate.

See BT??? This is what I mean!!!

Seven articles ago you and others are telling me, "The science is settled, the science is settled..."

Now we get something like this and there's no true scientific discussion as to why this stuff doesn't matter. Why? Because scientists realize it does matter but they can't bring themselves to argue against the obvious.

And Paul's posting is BRILLIANT! Everyone says the sun doesn't matter and then we have a graph like that where the correlation is obvious, not just mathematically but visually! Why don't we see some peer reviewed explanation of why the correlation doesn't mean anything but a loose fit does? Because arguing against the obvious takes some bronzies...So instead we'll hear more about other things to distract us and true discussion will be missed because too many people are obsessed with agendas as opposed to scientific truth and synthesizing the findigs.

Ok, I'll get off my rant mode.

Vincent,

Nice find! Thanks.

Contrary to the argument of Lockwood and Fraohlich, the Sun still appears to be the main forcing agent in global climate change.

http://icecap.us/images/uploads/SvensmarkPaper.pdf

Paul, that second paper is better than the first.

If the CLOUD experiments don't show any possiblity of a correlation I think I'm going AGW, but if there's even a hint of a bigger connection to Cosmic Rays, (prelim testing shows more than a hint), I'm staying put.

The correlations and science in the last paper especially, was compelling. The fact that folks are experimentally proving this stuff out as opposed to recourse to computer models is even more heartening.

Thanks for pointing those out!

PH,

Please remember, the JunkScience web site is Junk Science. It is meant to be a joke.

The problem is that a lot of people can not tell the differance between real Science and Junk Science. It the reason why there are reputable science journals.

Anyhow, here is a link to an article examing solar irradiance.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/08/did-the-sun-hit-record-highs-over-the-last-few-decades/

Conclusion: No change since 1950.

Andrew,

The problem is that a lot of people can not tell the differance between real Science and Junk Science. It the reason why there are reputable science journals.

So, why do you keep referencing the IPCC report and RealClimate.org?

Our NH democrat governor recently imposed a "view tax". This "view tax" will dissuade people from cutting down trees in there own yards. People wanting a glimpse of the surrounding beauty will have to pay through the nose in order to get it. Apparently this "tax" will stop AGW. Yes, we pay annual property taxes (.5 acre is about $5,000) but we can't cut OUR own trees without paying even more, BECAUSE OF A THEORY, not a law. Obviously these few trees will stop AGW from happening. Give me a break. Lunacy, it's real and infesting this so called right-wing state.

Brett, how long are you going tolerate irrelevant right-wing spam like this?