Wait and see? Nonsense. Model it, and keep running the model "adjusting" the data until you get the result you want.

Polar bears in the North, and penguins in the South will ALL be extinct by 16:35 next Tuesday. Says so in Time Magazine.

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1712518,00.html?cnn=yes

All the best,

Aaron

Hmmm. Looks like it's frozen solid to me. But, who am I? Just a philistine! Unlike the great James Hansen and Al Gore and BT and Mark, et. al. Remember, the polar bears are suffering!!!!!

Love and Kisses,

The DENIER from Hades.

There you go - a fine example of the LAW of large numbers for stationary processes.

Beware predictions made based on short time series, in particular, positively autocorrelated ones.

We will see if those who focused so much on the dismal ice build up last Winter and ice loss last Summer will acknowledge that this report is equally important. I am sure that 60 Minutes will devote an hour special to this news worthy anouncement. That would be fair right? Oh wait, it doesn't fit their agenda, so don't hold your breath. Not saying that this ice report means much as climate goes, I don't really think it does, nor did I think last years minimums meant much either, but it sure is fun to see the AGW camp squirm a little.

This story raises a few interesting points.

First, Hansen shows essentially the entire country of Canada well above normal for January. As much as 4C above normal, Including the Yukon and the Northwest territories. And he seems to have recently lost his data for Nunavut. How did Hansen manage to miss the "very cold weather across far northern Canada" which the Canadian government reported?
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/work/gistemp/NMAPS/tmp_GHCN_GISS_1200km_Anom01_2008_2008_1951_1980/GHCN_GISS_1200km_Anom01_2008_2008_1951_1980.gif

Second, this isn't supposed to be happening. The IPCC says that global warming is dominated by human generated CO2, and that warming effect is greatly exaggerated at the poles. CO2 is continuing to rise, yet Antarctica continues to cool and the Arctic is considerably colder than the 1930s, according to Hansen's data.

Third, the fact that Arctic ice is now on average three years old instead of ten years old, is an indication that ice used to take ten years to traverse the Arctic and melt in the Atlantic - and now it only takes three years. Strong evidence that wind patterns have been dominating the changes in the ice - not temperature.

BTW - I noticed that Hansen has cut back on his previous bad habit of smoothing maps across thousands of miles of no data. This is a step in the right direction.

Cyclic changes, just more of the same things that have happened for millions of years before. Can't wait to see how the doom-mongers spin this: "You can't just use one summer of north pole ice gain to discount global warming" Why not, you did it last summer with the record ice loss? "Well that was because it fits the trend"
Mark my words here, if and when the MSM reports not nearly as much ice loss this summer, it will have the standard pro-warming mouthpiece twisting it into his favour. More likely it will just be ignored for more heat records that are always being broken but will be spun to make us think we're burning up.

Follow up to the last post-

Hansen thinks most of northwest Canada and Alaska was hot during January.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/work/gistemp/NMAPS/tmp_GHCN_GISS_1200km_Anom01_2008_2008_1951_1980/GHCN_GISS_1200km_Anom01_2008_2008_1951_1980.gif

But RSS data shows that those locations were actually well below normal.
http://www.ssmi.com/data/msu/graphics/tlt/medium/global/ch_tlt_2008_01_anom_v03_1.png

Hansen thinks most of the US was above normal. RSS shows most of the US normal or below.

Hansen thinks most of eastern and southern Africa was above normal. RSS shows them well below normal.

Hansen thinks South America was above normal. RSS shows it well below normal.

The earth doesn't have a fever, but someone else does.

What is the likely feedback? I think I have a (weak) understanding of the principles of negative feedback. Is it as simple to say that greater ice coverage, reflecting more sunlight; as compared to greater open water areas absorbing more sunlight; should result in cooler Summer temps?

Hey Guys,

You may have noticed I've been quiet lately. I have been dealing with an awful cold. Anyway, I was wondering if the concentrated cold in Northern Canada might have something to do with the La Nina episode. I remember reading someone saying that La Nina episdoes tend to strengthen some of the winds around the north pole. (I can't remember if they were refering to the circumpolar vortex.) The net result was that more of the cold air is kept bottled up around the north pole.

Reply: Yes, that is what we anticipated with the strengthening la Nina this winter.

- It looks like we will have to wait and see.

NO!!! We must do something now! No more SUVs and we must implement carbon credits...immediately! No waiting! We must jump to conclusions in order to save ourselves! Didnt you hear, AGW could wipe us out! We didnt listen! Sound the alarm, we are headed for a global meltdown! Aghhhhhhhh!!! Here it comes, global warming....aghhhhhhhh!!!

LMAO! So much for the earths fever, a tipping point and all of that heat trapping CO2. Hahahaha!!! Have the wheels come off the wagon yet?

Save the earth - silence hypocrite fear mongers who dont know what the hell they are talking about. Alarmists who try to blind you with erroneous science in order to push their agenda. You might want to pipe down and get a life. Lets worry about more important things, ok?

Patrick Henry,

And he seems to have recently lost his data for Nunavut. How did Hansen manage to miss the "very cold weather across far northern Canada" which the Canadian government reported?

I think these figures for 1985, 2005, and 2006 may explain the lack of data in Nunavut.

Seems as though he's losing stations right and left up there and the world in general. Check out how many stations are being used to generate the maps for the western US.

yo brett,
since we're talkin cold, how about a piece on the record northern hemisphere january snowpack so we can argue how the AGW scam causes this too...have a nice day bro...

You know, if you review the ice rate of change over the last year, and extrapolate it out over the next 30 years, it appears that the world will be suffering a return to hemispherical glaciation in the near future.

I believe that since mankind was apparently the cause of the warming, we are indeed likely the cause of this cooling. Clearly, this is the first sign of Anthropomorphic Global Cooling otherwise known as AGC.

I can see Gore now stating in his new movie (up on the Mount, arms raised)"The Earth has CHILL and we must do something about it". I forget, do you "feed a fever and starve a cold" or is it the other way round?

I for one, have begun to stock up on canned goods.

OOP, cancel red alert, this is probably someone's backyard thereby negating any and all observations contrary to the party line.

I do wonder why he chooses the 30 year period from 1951-1980 instead of 1970-2000. Northern Illinois and north is CLEARLY below normal (1970-2000; which by the way should be even warmer according to AGW) the January mean according to the state meteorological sites.

Ever wonder if we aren't all missing a point in this debate that has been largely ignored but may be more important than climate change or global warming?
Maybe temperature is not a problem but CO2 is.
Here is an interesting article that suggests that the level of CO2 will become toxic very soon. By 2050 coincidentally.
It states that 426 ppm is the maximum healthy level with bad stuff happening at 600+.
Seems to have some substance to it.

Brett: Might This make an interesting topic to blog on just for a change? http://www.iisc.ernet.in/currsci/jun252006/1607.pdf

Reply: That report is nearly 2 years old already. I'll check it though. Thanks.

Oh no now the ice is to thick and the polar bears are going to starve and it is all mans fault for causing global warming which is causing global cooling. We now need volunteers to go north and hand feed the polar bears. Contact Barbera Boxer to sign up.

Not related to the topic.

Brett-
If possible, you should add a number to each comment. When I go to look at a post with a hundred comments it takes a bit of time to find where the last one was that I read. If each comment had a number attached to it, it would make the process easier. I noticed they have that setup on the weather forums here, and it's very useful to me at any rate.

Reply: Makes sense to me, unfortunately we use an outside host for this comment section, so we really do not much control over stuff like that. I'll talk toe Jesse Ferrell. Brett

regards, Elliot

My first reaction to this map is so......

In the big picture what does one year mean? Not much I would say.

The normal temp for my town here in WI for the month of Feb is 28. This year we are averaging about 18 thus far according to our local weather, whereas last year we averaged a little over 1 degree. It was the coldest Feb in over 60 years here last year. So we are still below average for the month, but again what does 2 years really mean. Not much.

The only thing is that since CO2 continues to rise it does seem the temps don't necessarily follow which needs a long-term explanation. I mean if man is damaging the planet as Gore says we are doing daily, it would seem that the temps along with CO2 would steadily climb since CO2 levels are not dipping and skyrocketing, but we know this is definitely not true.

So maybe the earth knows how to naturally adjust what is naturally getting a bit skewed. I vote that nature knows how to re-balance and does not need man's interference. The past several years have been fairly dry here during the summer if not extremely dry for part of the summer. Back in 1998 very small pine seedlings were planted as a hedgerow on our property. The fist couple years those seedlings barely grew. I know I would accidentally mow them over when I was trying to trim around them. Some of those years the small trees would produce an amazing amount of cones which I interpret to mean the small tree felt stressed from the lack of water and hot temps. The years we got more rain the less cones those trees produced. Today 10 years later every last one of those seedlings(around 100 or more) that wasn't mowed down matured and are HUGE. I did not interfere and try to water each tree at the base hoping to get enough water to those shallow roots during the summers when we got almost no rain. I let nature take care of nature and minded my own business.

PH makes a good point. Hansen's findings that the northern stretches of Canada and Russia are so far above normal would be inconsistent with the findings reported in this story. Does anybody have a suggestion to reconcile the two (other than the usual political conspiracy blather)?

It'll be interesting to see what happens this summer. Mother Earth can humble a man really quick. Meteorologists have to deal with that all the time. No different with the climate. One day your in glory, the next your shot down in flames.

"Aaron:
Wait and see? Nonsense. Model it, and keep running the model "adjusting" the data until you get the result you want."

LOL Aaron

Interesting fact about P-bears. Thin ice is better for them.

where is that cool graph of ice compared to normal for this time of year, does anyone have the link. it show ice compard to 30 year norm, and i think ice extent compared to last year. also btw i hope this summer we see a record max ice extent in september, that would just confuse the hel* out of everyone and it would be funny lol. a record minima followed by a record max summer ice extent, im already laughing :)

Reply: you can find it at the University of Illinois cryosphere, just google that and you will find it.

Regarding CO2 toxicity and yet another panic, here's the quote:
"Amounts above 5,000 ppm are considered very unhealthy, and those above about 50,000 ppm (equal to 5% by volume) are considered dangerous to animal life." and the reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide. (this didn't show in my preview, hopefully it will show here)
The current 384 ppm is a long way from killing us off, but it's a great place to start another round of demonizing CO2. Let's divide 384 into 50,000 and see how close to death we are...

Big Ed,

Check out the graphs that I linked to above. I think that may answer your question.

Brett, mike,

Unfortunately Cryosphere Today is broken. They haven't updated their Arctic maps since February 11 and the graphs will most likely flat line tomorrow.

I have contacted the person in charge, but haven't gotten a response.

The difference between Hansen's data and RSS data has always troubled me. I know some Alarmists consult Hansen's data like the gospel, and trust him, and its not right for them to be misinformed, if that is the case.

Could the difference have anything to do with the period of time Hansen used as an "average?" I know Hansen's "average" begins in 1951, (leaving out the warmth of 1930-1950.) What time period does the RSS data use as its "average?"

Can anyone direct me to an overview of how this sort of freezing effects theromohaline circulation?

From my own experiences during harsh winters on the coast of Maine, I know sea ice somehow becomes less salty than the sea-water from which it is born. When temperatures are below the point where salt melts ice, I have actually seen a dust of salt blowing across the the top of smooth, new sea-ice.

If the salt seperates from the ice, it seems to me that a winter like this one would temporarily add more salt to the water just below the ice. Cold and salty water sinks. Therefore a winter like this one might add a sort of pulse to the rate of sinking, which might in turn translate into a sort of bulge or wave traveling through the cold thermohaline circulation at the bottom of the sea.

An increase in the amount of sinking water might cause other changes as well, perhaps pulling the Gulf Stream north faster, or perhaps decreasing the amount of cold water flowing down towards the West coast of Africa. I see many more questions than there are answers.

I think most computer models presuppose that the rate of sinking water stays roughly the same.

This seems another case where it might be wise to go out and do some field work, (as Dr. Bill Gray has long urged,) rather than depending entirely on models.

If anyone can direct me to more information about this subject I'd appreciate it. The more I try to study thermohaline circulation the more I understand the knowledge has a lot of gaps in it. Also most of the papers are so technical they cross my eyes. An overview is needed.