PIOMAS December 2013

Short announcement: I've put up a widget from Skeptical Science in the right hand bar that shows the planetary heat/energy imbalance that is built up due to greenhouse gas emissions. Generate your own customizable widget here if you have some space on your blog.

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Another month has passed and so here is the updated Arctic sea ice volume graph as calculated by the Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS) at the Polar Science Center:

Last month I wondered "if and how last week's steep drop on all sea ice extent and area graphs will translate into volume numbers". Eyeballing the PIOMAS volume graph it seems it had an effect there as well, but since then numbers have climbed a bit faster than 2010 and 2011, though well below the 2007 trend line again. The difference with 2012 has gone down from 2161 to 1787 km3.

Here's Wipneus' version with the calculated "expected" 2013 values (dotted lines), based on the same date values of 1979-2011 and an exponential trend.
A caveat from Wipneus: "Note that the statistical error bars are quite large."

The trend line on the PIOMAS sea ice volume anomaly graph is barely touching the linear trend:

I repeat what I wrote last month:

For the first time since 2008 the anomaly from the downward linear trend could get positive in weeks to come, depending on how much ice refreezes according to PIOMAS. This doesn't mean the linear trend is reversed. It means that the decrease could be regressing to the linear trend, instead of deviating from it and becoming more of an exponential downward trend.

Average thickness (crudely calculated by dividing PIOMAS (PI) volume numbers with Cryosphere Today (CT)) is on a par with 2010 and 2011 again, but 2012 is still running well below:

Here's average thickness for November 30th in metres, with change from last month between brackets:

• 2005: 1.45 (-0.02)
• 2006: 1.55 (+0.10)
• 2007: 1.34 (+0.06)
• 2008: 1.33 (+0.03)
• 2009: 1.31 (-0.04)
• 2010: 1.17 (+0.07)
• 2011: 1.14 (+0.09)
• 2012: 1.06 (+0.10)
• 2013: 1.18 (+0.08)

As the Arctic is now more full than empty, average thickness will now start to increase again.

If you want to have a look at the data yourself, you can download the spreadsheet I use and update from GoogleDrive.

The thickness graph from the Polar Science Center shows the same thing, 2013 on a par with 2010 and 2011, with 2012 still running well below:

It seems the difference with previous low years has been getting smaller in the past month, with the sudden 'pause' in ice growth in the first two weeks bringing 2013 real close to 2010 and 2011. It remains to be seen whether the gap will become smaller or bigger.

And so we wait. Chris Reynolds has been doing some exciting stuff lately to keep us entertained. More on that later.

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Edit:

Andy Lee Robinson has also updated his PIOMAS video:

 

Comments

[Lynn Shwadchuck]

Thanks for this dependable update, Neven. When I look at the volume graph I see the post-2009 pattern – ice loss beginning earlier (June instead of September). It's not hard to envision a new set of years where the speed of loss in June looks more like the pre-2010 loss in September-October. It seems likely that one early melt would set that pattern off. And I wonder if the methane situation couldn't precipitate that quite soon.

[Ostepop1000]

Interestinmg post again, Neven. I think we will see volume increasing and joining the NeXT Group during the NeXT month.

As for the New widget, I think it doesn't suit this blog at all. Comparing fractions of a degree of warming to Nuclear bombs killing thousands of People just leaves a feeling of exploitation. In a bad way.

It is completely hysterical, something I never before thought this blog to be.

Please reconsider.

[Ostepop1000]

By the way - seems all action has been stopped at both Climate Audit and Climate ETC.

Surely not a coincidence....

[wili]

"hysterical"???

If you think that word means "an extremely accurate way to communicate what can seem obscure facts to the broader public," then I would have to agree with you.

Measuring large amounts of energy in terms of atom bombs is, after all, a pretty standard way to get that information across to the broader.

But if you think talking about petajoules is going to be more effective in getting average folks to understand the enormous changes we are bringing about in the atmosphere and oceans, knock yourself out.

But if all you have is emotive terms like "hysterical" for the attempts of people engaged in the serious work of getting this crucial info out as accurately and vividly as possible out to as many people as possible I would just ask you to:

Please reconsider.

[Ostepop1000]

Wili:

Willfully dropping an Atomic bomb on a large city, killing tens of thousands of People is different from YOU driving YOUR CAR, and the eventual consequences of this behaviour.

It is gross explotation of a real tragedy for politicsl reasons.

Unless you are prepared to Call yourself a mass murderer, driving in Your car to work, you are a hippocrate.

I am neverthelsess free of all charges, riding my bike every day.

[wili]

We are all indeed dropping bombs on our children by our behaviors. That is why I no longer fly (well, one major reason, at least) and don't take any internal combustion engine trips longer than ten miles (and usually bike those shorter trips).

So it is indeed a very apt comparison. But, putting that aside for a moment: as I said, it is far from the first time that the energy of that bomb was used to get across the amount of energy in, for example, the sun. If you want to go around to all the science site, blogs, books, and articles that have ever used that comparison and rant and rave at them all, be my guest.

If not, perhaps it is you who is being an hypocrite?? (I have trouble spelling that word, too--is that some kind of Freudian sign?)

Congratulations on your bike riding, by the way. I hope you also shun air travel as it is generally a far greater emitter of GHGs than driving a few miles in a car once in a while.

[Ostepop1000]

wili:

Let's not make this about me and you.

My objection is about using the tragedy of Hiroshima in a comparison of HEAT PRODUCED against the HEAT RETENTION CAPACITY of all CO2 ever emitted by human endevours.

It is grossly misleading. Ridiculously so.

And it will necessarily and regretfully detract from the credibility of this blog for all objective minds of this world.

Drop it.

This blog is much better without this type of obvious irrationalist adverts.

Credibility is at stake.

[Andy Lee Robinson]

Note, I've released a new ice cube video showing the volume minimum for 2013 in comparison with previous years.
In spite of the "60% recovery" being crowed from the rooftops, the trend is still very clear.

Arctic Sea Ice Minimum Volumes 1979-2013
http://youtu.be/9OBCXWAHo5I

Arctic Death Spiral with latest November data is here:
http://haveland.com/share/arctic-death-spiral.png
(note this url will always be latest data)

[Ostepop1000]

Andy:

How do you think the stagnating and even rising Maximum numbers will impact the minimum numbers?

Will we see a stagnation also in the minimum numbers?

Or will they continue their "Death spiral" unabated?

[wili]

"Let's not make this about me and you."

Mmmm, it looks to me as if it was your post above that made this "about you and me."

"Unless you are prepared to Call [sic] yourself a mass murderer, driving in Your [sic] car to work, you are a hippocrate [sic].

I am neverthelsess [sic] free of all charges, riding my bike every day."

But, in any case, I agree--not about us.

"It is grossly misleading."??

The claim is about energy equivalence. As far as I've been able to figure out, it is roughly accurate on that score. It originally comes from a TED talk video of James Hansen.

I just want to figure out if you think it is misleading because you are claiming that the maths are wrong, or if you think people will assume that the GW will be exactly as lethal joule/death as the actual historical bomb.

Thanks for any clarity you can cast on your position.

[Ostepop1000]

I am not a big fan of James Hansen. I think he consistantly overstates his case. Newspapers loves this, he gets a lot of air time, prizes even, but his credibility has been consistantly receding for some years now. (Outside of the activist community, of course.)

Now, the use of one of Our worlds greatest tragedies - the Hiroshima bomb, as a yardstick, a measuring scale, for release of CO2, is to demean the victims of the Atomic bomb.

Not only that - but it is to familiarize any Reader of this blog to the fact that the dropping of an Atomic bomb, thereby killing tens of thousands is an averyday event, just like the release of CO2.

You cannot liken the one to the other without the logical rebound, in fact lessening the tragedy that was Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the very low Points of human civilization.

I think it is fundamentally wrong. It is fundamentally unjust, fundamentally unfair and findamentally counterproductive.

[Ostepop1000]

As for Your question:

"you are claiming that the maths are wrong, or if you think people will assume that the GW will be exactly as lethal joule/death as the actual historical bomb."

Neither. Well, if there is Maths involved it is probably more or less wrong, as any mathematician would tell you, but still, it has nothing to do With Maths.

It has to do With decency, and letting an enormous tragedy heal.

[Ostepop1000]

One can make a perfectly good point without summoning up neither HOLOCAUST or HIROSHIMA.

It is macabre and fundamentally indecent.

[Andy Lee Robinson]

Ostepop, do you have anything constructive to contribute, or are you here just to disrupt scientific discourse?

[VaughnA]

I think that comparing heat increase to a Hiroshima Bomb is a quantity that many if not most people have some sense about. Pentajoules just don't register for most people. It is probably also a good comparison to the destructive force of the Hiroshima Bomb because won't the eventual buildup of greenhouse gasses have a similar destructive effect?

[Neven]

There are buttons at the bottom of the widget that show you the total accumulated energy (and counting) of hurricane Sandys, 6.0 earthquakes, million lightning bolts and Big Bens full of dynamite. For those who absolutely cannot deal with expressing the energy of Hiroshima bombs (what was it, 4 per second?) to the energy that is added to our atmosphere, cryosphere and oceans because of the unabated build-up of greenhouse gases.

[Neven]

Andy, I have updated the post with your video. Thanks for making it.

[Andy Lee Robinson]

You're welcome Neven, and thanks very much!
I hope it helps to illustrate for the public the effect we are having as the minimum 'tide mark' advances towards the now seemingly inevitable.
Rhetorical question remains, what will the policy makers do then?

[NeilT]

The published rationale behind the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs was that the Japanese mentality of the time was to fight to the last life and the last inch of ground. To change that mentality required a game changer and the bombs were that.

It undoubtedly saved millions of lives. What the private and political goals of these bombs were I leave to the imagination. Nobody needed to drop them to test them, they had already been tested.

Now, on the other hand, CO2 and AGW are estimated to cost bilions of lives. The public rationale is:

Convenience
Cost
No Change
No Effort
Votes.

Now, if you would ask me, the lowest ebb of humanity is yet to come, but we are well on our way and the vast majority of the people with the ability to effect a change are quite happy with the status quo.

That vast majority need to wake up and look around. Any language which is able to do that is, in my opinion, justified.

For those of us who lived through the shadow of impending nuclear annihilation, this measure has some "in your face" effect.

This is about communication of scientific fact to non scientists.

On another topic, it's interesting to see how low 2013 has remained on the volume chart. It will be more interesting to see how the winter plays out.

[wili]

O wrote: "if there is Maths involved it is probably more or less wrong"

Prove it or drop it.

[idunno]

Off-topic

Arctic melt Xmas cards and video from Greenpeace...

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/gallery/2013/dec/05/greenpeace-save-santas-home-christmas-cards-in-pictures#/?picture=424158194&index=0

[Doomcomessoon]

As usuall, these were really interesting PIOMAS numbers. Though I think these numbers demonstrates that PIOMAS have a tendency to mimic SIE and SIA numbers more than it should, by overestimating the thickness of thin ice. I don't think such a big stall of volume growth that coincides with a compaction event, and subsequent drop of SIE numbers, can be fully explained in another way.

Also interesting to note that huge wobbles are appearing in the jetstream, which is about to cause some really strange weather. On ECMWFs forecasts it almost looks like the cold pole (in 850 hPa hight) is predicted to move down to areas as far South as 50-60 degrees North, over Central Canada, and that arctic air will be flushed all the way down to northern Mexico. At the same time Alaska and far eastern siberia are going to experience some abnormally hot weather. (Perhaps it may effect the refreeze in bering)

@NeilT
"It undoubtedly saved millions of lives."
I respectfully disagree with your attempt of justifying the bobming of Hiroshima, and I'm not going to discuss this any further on this site because of it's "off-topicness", though, I cannot avoid commenting on this clasic excample of "general ignoranse". You can read about the decisive battle that ended WWII here;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Manchuria

[Colorado Bob]

" and that arctic air will be flushed all the way down to northern Mexico. At the same time Alaska and far eastern siberia are going to experience some abnormally hot weather."

It's currently 35F degrees at Nome, Ak., and 20F degrees at Lubbock, Tx.

[jdallen_wa]

While I appreciate Ostepop's and others discomfort, I think it is key here we separate what is a feat of engineering from the morality of actions taken by human beings.

Soviet entry into the war was indeed the final straw that forced capitulation. That said, the use of the bomb was far from the worst genocidal act committed by and power during the conflict. It stands out for two reasons only: brevity and intensity.

In fact LeMay's firebombing raids killed far and away more civilians, by a factor of ten. Those people were just as dead, and died in just as horrifying a manner. As a single event, the rape of Nanking killed more people than both bombs combined. I would go on, but that is a topic for another blog.

I will summarize by saying, it is just a way of expressing units of measurement.

[GeoffBeacon]

Osteopop1000

I shudder just thinking of the interview I heard about a mother beaten back by flames when her child was crying for her in the burning rubble and remains of her house in Hiroshima.

But she's dead. So are many in the Philippines. We can do nothing for them now but perhaps we should stop killing the people of future generations - and the people of current generations in the poorer countries.

[anthropocene]

Hi Neven,
I have several things to say about the widget. Is it OK to put them in the comments here or do you prefer discussion taken to the forum?

[Wal]

NeilT | December 05, 2013 at 11:38 said:

It undoubtedly saved millions of lives.

Noam Chomsky, I'm pretty sure, would disagree.
My understanding is the Japanese were privately suing for a cessation of hostilities for months, in exchange for a conditional surrender. The yanks wouldn't have it. They wanted an unconditional surrender.
But further, I suspect it is reasonable to think they wanted to drop the bombs anyway, for the purposes of showing the Russians a) who's boss b) how ruthless yanks can be.
I'm somewhat inclined to agree with Ostepop.
For what little it's worth, I fly as much as I can. Should I feel guilty? No. No-one in government told me about peak oil. No-one in government told me about global warming. TPTB have deliberately contrived to prevent meaningful action to prevent global harm. I'm in a small minority even yet who think there's any problem. It's not my fault there's a problem. We live in a shit world wrt what humans can do to each other. I've done my best with the knowledge I had. I know how it could have been solved. That knowledge was available to TPTB decades ago.
So fuck you all, if I can afford to fly, I will.

[Talha Muhammad]

I get where osteopop is coming from. It was a great tragedy and we should remember that even a killing of one human cannot be belittled by juxtaposing it to a bigger tragedy. That said I know that being a resident of Asia I was also taken aback when I first heard this metric in many discovery/history programs. People who have been seeing this programs since their childhood don't get unsettled by this but for someone who is seeing it for the first time it can be unsettling. One more thing which Hansen has also stressed is that scientists are by nature reticent and they present their finding in a very objective way. This blog has been a very objective blog and had a very scientific feel to it. I too feel the desperation to communicate the level of tragedy of AGW to the people but if we use such metrics new comers may feel that this blog is just a tit for tat reply of climate change denier blogs rather than being a blog of credible science.
I have been a lurker for a long time on this blog. I comment sometime too but not very often. The thing I liked most about this blog was that people responded very well to queries. Then I saw the trolls coming and destroying the experience for everybody with the result that some innocent bystanders also get hurt.

[Dan Ellis-Jones]

Hi All,

I think it's now time to agree to disagree on the issue of metrics for heat/energy accumulation. I vote we should use cow farts! It IS Christmas, after all! (and we may not have too many 'normal' ones left - if Wadhams et al are correct.)

More on-topic, although not completely... I'm very interested in the notion of the 3 cells merging into one. Are there still data/observations to suggest a collapse of the Hadley cell? Any of you more learned folk able to give an idea of the consequences of such an outcome?

Also, nice to see the jet stream is still acting wavily and erratically. Down here in Australia, Perth has recorded 3 of its hottest spring seasons in the last 4 years, with October and November this year being hottest on record, I believe. Also, there is a potential swing towards a new La Nina forming. Very early days yet though.

Additionally, anyone know what's going on with the SST in the northern Pacific? It seems there's a large area that's been consistently 3 or 4C above normal.

Andy - as a policy maker (but not a decision maker - we aren't the same thing!), we will inevitably panic and try to work something out to provide our elected masters with something tangible to rectify the situation. Sadly as anyone who understands climate science knows, it'll be way too late. I worked on increasing the energy efficiency standards of new buildings, which I have accomplished (not single-handedly!), but we had to talk about financial benefits instead of CC due to the colour of our political masters. It's all about political will.

It will be a very 'interesting' few years with the new Federal Government in Australia, which seems to have read the Tea Party policy handbook! We will wait and see.

Not only that - but currently the English (which I am) are being thumped by the Aussies in the Ashes (cricket). It's making me... terse...

[Joe Clarkson]

I totally agree with Osteopop and Talha Muhammad. None of the widget parameter options are very good, but "Hiroshima blasts" is among the worst. AGW is manifest in low temperature heat, about the opposite from the blast, radiation and high temperatures of an atomic blast. I am certain that no one has any kind of intuitive understanding of the amount of heat released by an atomic bomb. Measuring heat in units of atomic bombs is about as silly as measuring arctic ice volume in numbers of comets.

[jdallen_wa]

It's just 9 x 10^16 joules per, if I recall.

I'll repeat, it is just engineering. Another example, more recent: More people died in Rwanda under clubs, swords and fire than from both bombs combined, by a factor of *4*. The person who assembled the widget, and thought of the measure, categorically was *not* trying to make a connection between death and the unit of measurement. I'm quite confident all they were thinking about was the scale of energy. It is tangible, something which the non-scientific can easily imagine

[Neven]

I have several things to say about the widget. Is it OK to put them in the comments here or do you prefer discussion taken to the forum?

Feel free to post it here, anthropocene, as this has become the widget-post now.

I too feel the desperation to communicate the level of tragedy of AGW to the people but if we use such metrics new comers may feel that this blog is just a tit for tat reply of climate change denier blogs rather than being a blog of credible science.

By worrying all the time how this blog is perceived, I can be assured that things will become a mess. I don't want to try and control the message. All I want to try is being as honest and transparent as possible, and let the readers decide what they think of it.

With regards to the widget: huge amounts of energy are being added every second to our atmosphere and oceans. This energy doesn't disappear. It melts (Arctic sea) ice, it influences weather patterns, perhaps even accumulating in one corner sometimes to make extreme weather events a tad more extreme. If you have a better way to convey the seriousness of this, I'm all ears. But keep in mind that the widget isn't solely designed for white males over 60, with all respect.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki only happened because a small group of people wanted them to happen. It's the same with AGW.

If AGW turns out to be a big problem, the horrible tragedies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki will be peanuts compared to it. Do we want to take that chance? Do we feel that lucky? Deer Hunter, anyone?

If my views on this make the blog and my writings on Arctic sea ice less credible, then so be it. I'm fallible, and the more I share my stance on things, the easier it will be for readers to categorize me as they see fit.

[Talha Muhammad]

Thanks for the reply Neven. I get your point. Indeed this is the time of great desperation and the tragedy is perhaps not so much the challenge of AGW but the utter lack of knowledge or action about it. Perhaps as Hansen also said that the time for reticence is over. Keep up the good work.
I will go back to lurking in my quite corner :).

[Werther]

This is a distracted thread, due to the introduction of the widget. I’ll weigh in my opinion, but first a word on the original topic.
On the Forum, I suggested 21 Oct that the volume would be back on the ’10-’12 trend late December. About two weeks ago I felt assured by the November refreeze dip. But as the season goes on, it looks like volume is stubbornly tracking above the mentioned trend.
After a quick control comparison of ‘winter power’ 0110 to 0412 the 1000Mb air temp data from NCEP/NCAR seem to confirm. You have to go back to the same period 2004 to find a comparable temperature average. All the years in between show larger positive anomalies.
Remarkable.
As for the widget, I don’t particularly like a comparison with human products of violence to make the point to a broader public. Violence and fear have a strange attraction to the human mind. A bit like ‘how far can you go’. After all, people almost seemed to crave running into the fight at the start of WW I? In that sense I don’t think this widget is the communicator needed.
That said, I do think a very compelling signal is needed to get the urgency out there…

[Hubert Bułgajewski]

the situation is quite good
http://arcticicesea.blogspot.com/2013/12/arctic-news-szybki-przyrost.html

I wonder what will be next?

[wili]

Apparently in response to my observation: "I hope you also shun air travel as it is generally a far greater emitter of GHGs than driving a few miles in a car once in a while."

(which, by the way, was addressed to someone else)

'wal' responded:

"For what little it's worth, I fly as much as I can. Should I feel guilty? No. No-one in government told me about peak oil. No-one in government told me about global warming. TPTB have deliberately contrived to prevent meaningful action to prevent global harm. I'm in a small minority even yet who think there's any problem. It's not my fault there's a problem. We live in a shit world wrt what humans can do to each other. I've done my best with the knowledge I had. I know how it could have been solved. That knowledge was available to TPTB decades ago.
So fuck you all, if I can afford to fly, I will."

...

8-O

Wow.

Just wow.

Defensive much?

Try taking deep, calming breaths.

[Wal]

wili | December 06, 2013 at 23:41 said

Wow.

Do you think I was similarly breathless about my a-bomb observations in the same post you quote from?

[Kevin McKinney]

Personally, I find the widget not nearly shocking enough.

Anyway, it will just be 'furniture' after the first couple of times.

(My 2 cents.)

[Wal]

Kevin McKinney | December 07, 2013 at 01:12 said

Anyway, it will just be 'furniture' after the first couple of times.

So there's no point in it being there at all then?

[wili]

Good point, KM.

Essentially, the folks against the widget are saying that messaging on GW has been too shocking so far (presumably because they see world leaders and the populace in general,having been exposed to said shocking GW messaging, being thrown into too panicky and precipitous a scramble to immediately lower carbon emission rates).

The recommendation seems to be to step back from this up-to-now far too shocking and effective messaging and to start to water down and mute the force of our communications about GW.

...

Wal wrote: "Do you think I was similarly breathless about my a-bomb observations in the same post you quote from?"

Well, you didn't drop the f-bomb (something I have never seen in these posts before; so thanks a lot for helping to coarsen the tone of the whole blog) in your a-bomb discussion.

Was there a point there somewhere?

[wili]

Dan wrote: "I'm very interested in the notion of the 3 cells merging into one. Are there still data/observations to suggest a collapse of the Hadley cell?"

The recent report from the National Acadamies on abrupt climate change includes shifts in jetstreams as one of the concerns.

http://www.nap.ed/openbook.php?record_id=18373&page=56

Starting at the bottom of page 56, they begin to enumerate steady changes in large-scale atmospheric circulation that could lead to relatively abrupt changes in the climates of certain regions. The first two such both involve poleward shifts of mid-latitude jetstreams.

In #2 they claim that the shift in the Northern Hemisphere is not modeled to be as fast as that in the southern, with major changes not predicted to occur till the latter half of the centuries. Unfortunately, most of the supporting literature cited in this section dates from 2007 or earlier, before the massive decline in Arctic sea ice late summer extent, area, and especially volume.

Back then no models showed the Arctic sea ice declining at the rate we have actually seen it decline over the last few years till toward the end of the century. So, like many of these official, collectively written reports based on previous research, this seems to be already badly out of date even though it just came out.

[Ostepop1000]

This is my last rant about the widget, and sorry for somewhat derailing an otherwise interesting post, Neven, but here goes..

Which types of people visit this blog?

- People who think that the comparison between Nuclear blasts and the release of CO2 is ridiculous, but might think the Message might "Wake up" the broader masses", who incidentally never visit this blog.

So who is the Message for?

It is for the Club.

And anyone outside the Club coming on here to read will be met by the doomsday Message and feel offended and/or alienated by this sheer and obvious will to manipulate Peoples FEELINGS, rather than convincing their MINDS.

Most thinking People will be offended by such belittling and condescending attempts to snare their minds by appealing to their feelings and not their intellect.

[Neven]

People who think that the comparison between Nuclear blasts and the release of CO2 is ridiculous, but might think the Message might "Wake up" the broader masses", who incidentally never visit this blog.

Who visits this blog, and how many, depends on what the ice is doing.

If these thinking People (still, I don't think all of them will be middle-aged white males) truly are thinking People they will be induced to research further, and will soon find out that adding the energy of 4 Hiroshima bombs to our coupled system of oceans and atmosphere truly is very risky business. Unless they love Russian roulette, they will be convinced that business as usual is not an option. Who knows what these thinking people might come up with if there are enough of them?

And otherwise they can go to WUWT for their daily serving of ostrich seed.

The widget is here to stay for a while longer.

[wili]

"Peoples FEELINGS"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mH5ZE3N8cxU

(In a musical mood today '-))

[Ostepop1000]

I have no trouble understanding Your conviction about the dangers of CO2 and global warming.

There is plenty Scientific backing for such a mindset.

So why not use this plethora of Scientific results to convince People intellectually?

Whenever one has to use the scare tactics of Atomic bombs or other atrocities to scare People into following one's mindset, there is a necessary loss of credibility.

This blog is to my experience followed mostly by People who are quite knowledgable of the science of climate change, who will never be swayed by a simple comparison to the atrocities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The comparison to the atrocities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki seems to be aimed at the general Public.

But the general Public never visit this blog.

So it is useless.

Not to mention the gross offence towards the Japanese People who are the only People on Earth to have endured two CRIMINAL Atomic blasts on their own soil.

[Ostepop1000]

Wili: Are you for real?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTo-klId7hM

[wili]

My aunt and my ex were both nisei.

My uncle (who I visited at the time) was, for a number of years, in charge of studies of effects of the Hiroshima bomb.

I devoted a good portion of my life to learning and understanding Japanese language, culture and religion.

I have visited Hiroshima and Nagasaki and toured the very eye-opening museums and lived, while I was there, with Japanese families who were affected by these horrors.

I also lived for a couple months in a house on the spot in Kitakyushu that was the original target for the bomb that ended up evaporating Nagasaki and its citizens.

The use of this weapon, particularly on civilians, cannot be justified by any means.

I guess I consider my self, for an American white dude, to be about as sensitive to the effects and horrors of that event as they come.

But I also know that the horrors that are now essentially locked in from GW are far worse over the long (and really not so long) term.

But thanks, O, for bringing the issue up. We should acknowledge past suffering, but not let that past pain prevent us from looking firmly at the enormous pain and loss of life we are and will be causing.

[Ostepop1000]

You are going very personal here, Wili.

And I appreciate that. You have a relevant story to tell.

I still think the willful and calculated decimation of Japanese civilians, men, women and children by their tens and hundreds of thousands is a deliberate CRIME against humanity.

Which can never be compared to the release of CO2, which is produced by any human endevour, willfully or not, even walking barefeet through Your Fields to pick ecological maize.

Outcome of which is to say the least, uncerstain.

It is hysterical.

And it offends People and puts them off, apart, of course, from those who already believe in "climate communication".

Which is just another term for "teaching Dumb People sense".

Good Luck With that Project.

[wili]

"the willful and calculated decimation of Japanese civilians, men, women and children by their tens and hundreds of thousands is a deliberate CRIME against humanity"

Agreed.

So is AGW.

We know.

We have known for some time.

There is no longer any excuse.

"walking barefeet through Your Fields to pick ecological maize"

Sorry, dear buddy. But this howler convinces me more than ever that you are having trouble thinking through even very fundamental differences between:

1)carbon that is part of natural cycles, and

2)the enormous giga-tons per year of extra fossil carbon that we are, yes, willfully adding to the system; giga-tons that are damning ourselves, likely, and our children, definitely, to a future hell on earth.

Best wishes to you if you can't make even this most basic distinction.

(And if you are as deeply concerned about effective communication as you claim, you might want to consider using spell check on occasion, and maybe not using rAnDoM cApS in your posts. Just sayin'.)

[Andy Lee Robinson]

Oh for a kill file like we used to have in the good ol' days of Usenet.

How about that the energy imbalance is enough to completely boil Sydney Harbour dry in 930 seconds.

Or, boiling away 39 olympic swimming pools per second.

Or, to bring the whole 12,232km³ of Lake Superior to the boil in 6 months.

For another perspective, the energy contained in a 0.2°C rise of the world's oceans is enough to completely melt Greenland's ice cap starting from -20°C.

These are not small numbers!

[Neven]

Whenever one has to use the scare tactics of Atomic bombs or other atrocities to scare People into following one's mindset, there is a necessary loss of credibility.

That is up to the People. If they deem me less credible, I'm totally fine with that.

And it's not about the atrocity, it's about the energy. The Hiroshima bomb is a measure of energy that has been used for decades. It's a lot of energy. Four amounts of that energy are added to the atmosphere and oceans every second.

Now count with me: 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24, 28, 32, 36, 40. That was 10 seconds and the energy of 40 Hiroshima bombs added to our atmosphere and oceans.

Think about it. Don't let your filter get in your way. Look past it.

And it offends People and puts them off, apart, of course, from those who already believe in "climate communication".

It offends You and puts You off. You are not the People.

[Wal]

wili | December 07, 2013 at 04:27 said:

Was there a point there somewhere?

It took me a while, but I thought of a point that might not have been obvious.
When I said the Japanese were privately suing for a cessation of hostilities for months before the bombing, I meant that if the yanks had accepted that plea, a lot more lives would have been saved than continuing hostilities until the war was stopped after the use of the a-bombs, whereas the original assertion by NeilT was that the use of the bomb saved millions of lives.
Does that answer your question?

Then, again for what it's worth, my other rant was an attempt to convey a little piece of logic, admittedly with somewhat shocking language, but then I thought the use of a bit of shock was what we were talking about, outside of other elements of fact and logic.
The logic is: if the state does not act to promote important information about things like externalities and limits nor meaningful action to address same then I can hardly be blamed for my continued use of systems in place. I'd go further, hopefully not into concern troll territory, and say you should expect others to respond similarly.
Further, I think individual abstinence is just acquiescence to a divide-and-conquer outcome. The only worthwhile outcome is that which I think highly unlikely for a while yet, which is majority awareness and then majority action that puts in place a real solution.

[wili]

Wal wrote: "if the yanks had accepted that plea, a lot more lives would have been saved than continuing hostilities"

Agreed.

On the other point, I didn't see anyone blaming you in particular for anything. Just folks sharing strategies for most effectively reducing their carbon print.

Of course, only doing so as an individual will never be sufficient by itself, just as an ante-bellum White Southerner would not have ended all slavery by freeing all his slaves. But he might have wanted to do so anyway, if he concluded that it was the moral thing to do, even if it didn't end the larger "peculiar institution."

But if your strategy is just sitting around "waiting for everyman," well, you go for it.

But perhaps you have some actionable strategy for achieving (or at least moving toward) "majority awareness" that you have been working hard on? If so, please do share. Maybe you'll get a recruit or two to help out!

[Twemoran]

Faux umbrage by faux skeptics - what a surprise.
Terry

[Wal]

wili | December 08, 2013 at 22:46 said

Just folks sharing strategies for most effectively reducing their carbon print.

Reducing the carbon footprint won't hold temperatures below 2C (or 1.5C for that matter). Humanity must remove about 100Gt C from the atmosphere. But your post implied (to me anyway) that skipping flights was a significant help. I wanted to counter that message.
The only suggestion I've seen that I think has a chance I referred to here.

Twemoran | December 08, 2013 at 22:50 said

faux skeptics

?

[wili]

OK, I see. You're a nuke enthusiast/techno-fantasist. I've already had too many dead-end conversations with folks of that ilk. I'll plan to not responds to further posts of yours. Not worth wasting the time. Best of luck on whatever you pursue.

[jdallen_wa]

I'll have to disagree with you here, wili. We as a species engineered this problem, and need to engineer our way out. I'm not advocating a specific solution, in part because there is no single technology or methodology that *will*.

If we don't, we are consigning billions of people to poverty, suffering and death.

They might object to that.

So in considerable part, work to reduce emissions and take ameliorative preparations need to focus on the developing world, both to improve quality of life and prevent repetion of our mistakes.

Leading by example is good also; reducing your energy profile, supporting new technology, improving energy conservation and efficiency all play a role. That will include new tech, and likely, third generation 'nukes. I'd say don't dismiss that before you look into it.

[wili]

Thanks, jd. I really was opposing in this case the approach of putting all ones apples in one tech-basket, in the hope that one technology was going to magically solve all our problems. But certainly some kinds of new tech will be necessary, and we will need to keep developing technology to continue to monitor the unfolding climate sh!tstorm we have unleashed on our only precious blue planet.

Mostly, though, we have to stop waiting for the next technical wizardry to get us out of our fixes, and focus on not digging ourselves deeper into our ever-deepening hole.

Meanwhile, at least a bit closer to the topic of the thread:

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/new-study-adds-to-arctic-warming-extreme-weather-debate-16811

This article really gets into the discussion now going on between Francis and her colleagues, on the one hand, and a number of other top experts in high-altitude atmospheric circulation about what the consequences of ice loss in the Arctic Ocean might be for Northern Hemisphere climate.

[Joe Clarkson]

Alex Wellerstein has a neat calculator here

http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2013/06/07/a-modest-proposal/

that even shows the Hiroshima blast as the equivalent of 21,306,818.18 Big Macs.

[Mike Constable]

21,306,818 *.215/1000 kilotonnes of Big Macs = 4581kt equivalent to 15kt of TNT
Not unreasonable if you consider that oxygen has to be added to obtain the energy, where TNT has to include the oxygen (together with nitrogen) in its composition in order to detonate "instantly"?

[Mike Constable]

Oops, lost decimal place after the 4 -> 4.581

[Mike Constable]

Oops,lost a 1000 divisor in converting kilos to tonnes, should be 4.581kt of Big Macs!!

[Boa05att]

Hi all,

Carbonbrief have an interesting blog today about when the arctic is expected to be ice free:

http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2013/12/could-arctic-summers-be-sea-ice-free-in-three-years%E2%80%99-time/