There is no shocking news, really. I'm just emulating a way of news reporting as seen in recent months by folks trying to play down the long-term shocking news of Arctic sea ice loss. You know, paid climate science disinformers like Benny Peiser who claimed that the poles aren't melting, twisting the words and work of a respected oceanographer and putting up a bunch of strawmen along the way, because global sea ice area is at a record high.
It's a neat trick, even though it's like saying that one billion people starving globally is not a problem, because there are one billion obese persons. We all know that Antarctic sea ice has been increasing in winter, most likely because of winds that push the ice further out, with the open water left behind freezing up again. So if you compare Antarctic winter anomalies with those of Arctic summer anomalies - especially during rebound years such as 2013 and 2014 - it looks as if not much is happening.
However, if you compare the numbers as they are, during the same season, the picture is, well, shocking:
That graph (found here, updated at the end of this blog post) shows the minimum in both Arctic and Antarctic, which never occur at the same time, of course. In the end it's all about the minimum and the period leading to it, because that's the time when most of the sunlight reaches either one of the poles. And there is hardly a trend in the Antarctic minimum, despite the spectacular winter increases, because most of it melts out anyway in summer. As can be seen on the small image at the top of this blog post, showing that the only Antarctic place with a substantial amount of sea ice left right now, is the Weddell Sea.
And it's like that every year, contrary to the entirely different Arctic. Not everyone knows this, and so this is what climate science disinformers use to fool people and thus delay meaningful climate mitigation policies that threaten either their wallets or their beliefs, and most of the time both.
Someone who's been doing some really useful stuff lately, by shining a light on these half truths and lies, and taking the journalists to task who are playing games with the truth, is ASIB commenter Jim Hunt. Every time a 'journalist' regurgitates disinformation memes or uses denier tactics to fool the public into thinking that all is going great up North, Jim will contact managing editors and editor-in-chiefs and ask them to correct the disinformation.
When this isn't working - and most of the time it doesn't as controversy and sensation sells - he hauls the lot in front of the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO), which is the reincarnation of the old UK Press Complaints Commission. Jim shares his experiences over on his blog The Great White Con (which is a pun on journalist David Rose's 'Great Green Con' stories, who regularly uses the Daily Mail as a vehicle for GWPF disinformation) and on Twitter.
And so Jim reported on two shock news items this week. Not really all that shocking, as I said, but just to emulate the style of climate science disinformers like Benny Peiser and David Rose. The first thing is that extent was the lowest on record for a couple of days this week! Like Jim wrote on his blog:
You can of course argue that this is mere cherry picking on our part, not to mention the slight economy with the truth in our necessarily punchy headline today. Nonetheless it is an actual fact that the IARC-JAXA Information System AMSR2 Arctic sea ice extent metric for February 17th 2015 reads 13,770,330 km² which is the lowest ever for the day of the year in a record going back to 2003. This follows a remarkably large fall (for the time of year) of 113,505 km² from yesterday’s reading of 13,883,835 km². Here’s our evidence:
This doesn't mean anything, of course, just like it doesn't when climate science disinformers report on sea ice extent in October, when the Arctic is re-freezing again, or say that the global sea ice area is positive at some time or other (especially winter, of course).
The other shock news Jim wrote about this week, is slightly more shocking I have to admit. Jakobshavn Isbræ, Greenland's fastest glacier draining 6.5 % of the Greenland ice sheet, has calved another big one. Again, from the Great White Con blog:
Over on the Arctic Sea Ice Forum Espen Olsen posted late last night (UTC):
Believe it or not! Massive calving seen at the southern branch of Jakobshavn Isbræ
together with this animation created using images from the Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager:
(...)
This is a before/after animation from “A-Team” on the Arctic Sea Ice Forum, using 15m resolution Landsat images:
Finally, for the moment at least, Espen Olsen provides an illustration of the retreat of the calving face of Jakobshavn Isbræ since 1891:
This most recent event does not bring the calving face further east than the position in summer 2014. However the sun’s rays are only just returning to that part of the planet, and the next one may well do so.
You want to know what the most shocking news from the Arctic is, regardless of time of year? The potential consequences of Arctic sea ice loss. This is the thing that paid climate science disinformers don't want you to think about. Kevin McKinney and I wrote a piece about that two years ago, but last week photographer and journalist Jenny E. Ross left a comment over here, referring to a much more in-depth magazine feature article she wrote:
It was published back in October in the Ocean Geographic Magazine, but she now has a PDF she can distribute. Highly recommended reading, if only for the wonderful pictures it contains, as does Jenny's Life On Thin Ice website. She wrote the article based on her experiences aboard research ship RV Lance, of which recent activities can be followed on the Norwegian Polar Institute blog. Just in case you don't have enough fascinating reading.
---
Edit February 25th 2015:
Commenter Cincinnatus is so appalled by all the neat tricks and cherrypicking done by folks who are paid to give people the impression that there is no risk whatsoever connected to the unchecked burning of fossil fuels of all kinds, that he asked me to update the graph showing the Arctic and Antarctic minimums in sync (and not opposed to each other, as some global measurement), including the 2013 and 2014 rebounds from the 2012 record low. So I went to the NSIDC ftp site here, downloaded the data and produced these two graphs showing the trend lines for the Arctic and Antarctic sea ice extent and area minimums:
Mind you, these are monthly averages, smoothing out the daily minimums which are lower.
The other shocking thing is that the variability in Antarctic sea ice has really increased a lot from 1980.
Posted by: Eli Rabett | February 21, 2015 at 15:27
Thanks very much for your many kind words Neven.
Firstly may I second your recommendation that anybody interested in the Arctic should take a good long look at the work of Jenny E. Ross.
Secondly I bring you yet more "Shock News" hot off the Great White Con virtual presses. Never before seen video footage of the USS Skate surfacing at an "ice free" North Pole in the summer of 1958!
Shock Historical News – Towing In at the North Pole in 1958!
Not only that, but also the forerunner of the forthcoming Great White Con Arctic Basin Big Wave (Fantasy?) Surfing Contest!
Have you ever imagined the likes of David Rose and Christopher Booker, clad only in polar bear suits, surfing the swell created by calving glaciers?
We have!
Posted by: Jim Hunt | February 21, 2015 at 16:19
And I am certain this shocking increase in summer variability is directly related to AGW. Any ideas as to why this is happening?
Posted by: Shared Humanity | February 21, 2015 at 17:14
"And I am certain this shocking increase in summer variability is directly related to AGW. Any ideas as to why this is happening?"
The second law of thermodynamics.
Posted by: William Smeltzer | February 21, 2015 at 19:10
Jim, I did not know you were doing such very important work attempting to keep publishers publishing accurate and truthful information. "Thank you" for doing this and "Thank you" Neven for bringing this to my attention.
Posted by: VaughnA | February 22, 2015 at 02:06
Thanks very much Vaughn. We need all the support we can get, since it is something of an uphill struggle!
The "official procedure" here in the UK involves attempting to negotiate a suitable "correction" directly with the offending newspaper. The publishers, of course, do their very best to ignore you. My evidence?
A Letter to the Editor of the Mail on Sunday
and
A Letter to the Editor of the Sunday Telegraph
Posted by: Jim Hunt | February 22, 2015 at 11:02
There's even more "Shock News" this wet and windy Sunday morning over here in not so sunny South West England.
Christopher Booker ups the stakes in his attempt to rewrite the climate science history books:
The Greatest Scandal in the History of Science!
This time around the BBC is helpfully looking over his shoulder as his cards part company with his furry white chest.
Posted by: Jim Hunt | February 22, 2015 at 15:48
Uh-oh, have to admit I got taken in by one of Jim's headlines. I'll try not to make that mistake again. Thanks for the tip, Neven. In any event, it was the Jakobshavn one, which did seem reasonably alarming, as you said. And Jim, thanks for your diligent work.
Posted by: Climatehawk1 | February 23, 2015 at 00:21
My pleasure ClimateHawk.
My most recent Bookerish headline is in fact deadly serious. The Jakobshavn one was reasonably serious also. Espen is the expert in these matters, and he says "I have been digging into my Landsat Archives, and I cant find evidence of any real calvings this early in the season"
https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,154.msg45780.html#msg45780
Posted by: Jim Hunt | February 23, 2015 at 01:51
"Does @DavidRoseUK only ever write fiction?"
I would have to say unequivocally, "Yes!"
Great job confronting these morons, Jim, although I am uncertain of your effect. Unfortunately everyone pays the price for the delay in confronting the problem of the disappearing ice.
Posted by: VaughnA | February 23, 2015 at 04:39
Well Vaughn, one effect was to "persuade" both The Mail and The Telegraph to print "corrections" to their appalling Arctic sea ice coverage in the summer of 2013:
http://GreatWhiteCon.info/2013/10/will-the-telegraph-print-the-truth-in-the-cold-light-of-day/
Unfortunately that didn't prevent the likes of Fox and Judy Curry repeating the nonsense across the rest of the Planet:
http://GreatWhiteCon.info/2013/10/the-david-and-judy-show/
The UK's PCC was laboriously metamorphosing into IPSO in the summer of 2014, so we're still working on that one!
http://GreatWhiteCon.info/2014/08/has-the-arctic-ice-cap-expanded-for-the-second-year-in-succession/
Posted by: Jim Hunt | February 23, 2015 at 12:47
The news from Antarctica is just as shocking as the Arctic news but the situation has not been well explained. Deep convection has faltered in the Weddell sea and deep water formation around Antarctica has declined about 20%. Relatively warm water at about 300 m depth is rising up and melting the base of glaciers from below, creating a stable layer of freshened surface water around much of Antarctica. Thus there is more winter ice around Antarctica - Ice which reduced the heat loss to the atmosphere.
This situation is changing the global heat balance as more heat is stored in the oceans and more heat is transported north towards the Arctic.
-FishOutofWater- aka George
Posted by: D | February 23, 2015 at 20:13
George - You may be interested in the new regional Antarctic area/extent graphs available at:
http://GreatWhiteCon.info/resources/antarctic-sea-ice-graphs/
For the moment they are manually updated, and currently a little bit out of date. Take a look at the Indian and Pacific Ocean sectors though.
Back on the campaigning front, today we're idly wondering if there's any connection between Dana Rohrabacher and Christopher Booker:
http://GreatWhiteCon.info/2015/02/bbc-radio-4-swallows-bookers-bait/
Posted by: Jim Hunt | February 23, 2015 at 21:52
Evening, George,
While Bostonians are probably digging out, over here we are experiencing the other side of winter's coin.
There are two ways to process data to have an indication of winter's strength. One is average temp. The other is about cold extremes. In the Netherlands a 'cold number' is produced through summing all daily average temps under zero dC. Climatology produces about 50 as a normal, though our erratic winters can get to 300.
Nowhere in the data is a two year pair of 'extremely mild winter' to be found. The call can be made after 31 March, but, as cold is not in sight for the next 14 days, it looks like that record will be booked.
The numbers: '13-'14 0.0 (! nada, not even one day on average) '14-'15: 7.8 (int.23 feb).
Posted by: Werther | February 23, 2015 at 21:59
Great article Neven, and Jim!
The Arctic/Antarctic minimum extents is actually quite shocking side-by-side. Such a stark contrast in behaviour.
As for Jakobshavn Isbræ calving, this isn't supposed to happen in February, as far as I can tell! One wonders what this melt season will bring.
Meanwhile, the Arctic Death Spiral hasn't changed much, despite the sea ice volume gains last year.
http://haveland.com/share/arctic-death-spiral.jpg (or lossloss .png)
(note this link always points to the latest version)
Posted by: Andy Lee Robinson | February 25, 2015 at 04:18
Why does your "shocking" sea ice graph end on year 2012? Why doesn't it show the data for 2013 and 2014? Cherry picking a little bit, are we?
Posted by: Cincinnatus | February 25, 2015 at 04:27
Thanks very much, Neven and Jim! Greatly appreciated!
Posted by: Jenny E. Ross | February 25, 2015 at 04:57
@Jenny - My pleasure!
@Cincinnatus - Because it does! Can you provide a link to a more recent one?
If you'd bothered to click some of the links above it would quickly become apparent to you that we're working on a bang up to date independent version. However that project is on hold, because Christopher Booker is promulgating surface temperature nonsense in The Telegraph yet again, and we've been denied any right of reply:
http://GreatWhiteCon.info/2015/02/a-letter-to-the-editor-of-the-sunday-telegraph/#Feb20
For an up to date Arctic only graph please feel free to go to:
http://GreatWhiteCon.info/resources/arctic-sea-ice-graphs/#Extent
and then scroll down slightly.
@Andy - If Jakobshavn Glacier is of particular interest to you, we've received some input from Professor Jason Box, of Dark Snow Project fame:
http://GreatWhiteCon.info/2015/02/shock-news-massive-calving-of-jakobshavn-isbrae/#JasonBox
A cautious response: even if this calving were abnormal, we will likely see an advance in the next weeks that will fill the void. Why?
A) This glacier flows fast, and
B) Now with less flow resistance there will likely be an acceleration making the void filling happen even faster.
Posted by: Jim Hunt | February 25, 2015 at 09:28
A bit, but not intentionally, like you will see on a daily basis elsewhere. This was the best thing I could find, and I didn't have time to make a graph myself.
I'll look for or make an updated version. Do you expect to see anything there that renders my argument moot?
Posted by: Neven | February 25, 2015 at 10:23
Cincinattus, all cherries have now been added at the end of the post.
Posted by: Neven | February 25, 2015 at 11:41
@Neven - Snap, almost!
This is using NSIDC data rather than high resolution JAXA AMSR2, and the 2015 Antarctic minimum extent is of course still very much provisional:
Click the image for much more high res detail!
Posted by: Jim Hunt | February 25, 2015 at 11:57
Well done, Neven, full data is so much less shocking than picked data.
Posted by: Cincinnatus | February 26, 2015 at 03:11
If it weren't shocking, wouldn't paid disinformers have showed the full data, accompanied by the full explanations, instead of the neat trick they keep performing, fooling some of the people all of the time?
Posted by: Neven | February 26, 2015 at 09:01
@Neven - This is the "explanation" we just received from The Telegraph for one of Booker's recent cherry picking articles:
A newspaper is not a scientific journal, and is not required to represent all the possible shades of evidence and interpretation that might have a bearing upon any given topic.
This is clearly an opinion article and identifiable as such. Against the background described above, readers can be expected to understand that any evidence offered is almost certainly contestable. It follows that in an opinion article of this nature only the most egregious inaccuracy could be significantly misleading.
They don't provide a scientific definition of "egregious inaccuracy".
Posted by: Jim Hunt | February 26, 2015 at 10:07
I quite agree with what you say, Neven, although not with what you mean. Let me put it this way: if full data were always used, and thumbs kept off scales, then the gap between warmists and skeptics would be far less. I think we can agree on that.
Posted by: Cincinnatus | February 26, 2015 at 10:13
Thumbs are not on the scales, Cincinnatus.
Scientists are continuously trying to *expand* the data they have available.
To imply otherwise is disingenuous.
Posted by: jdallen_wa | February 26, 2015 at 10:48
@Cincinnatus - Here's a remarkably patient video by a real live climate scientist explaining how you yourself can determine who it is that has in actual fact got their "thumb on the scales":
http://GreatWhiteCon.info/2015/02/a-letter-to-the-editor-of-the-sunday-telegraph/#Kevin
Please feel free to do your own due diligence and report back here with your findings.
Posted by: Jim Hunt | February 26, 2015 at 11:01
Jim,
Cincinnatus is just taking a break from correcting the deluge of errors on WUWT site.
I dont think that Neven's original presentation had anything wrong, as he published 2013-14 data numerous times
before. 2013-14 melt seasons were more complex to understand
therefore impossible to explain to dimwitted deniers.
Posted by: wayne | February 26, 2015 at 20:06
I agree there are many errors on WUWT, especially from the commenters, and I do in fact correct some of them occasionally (under a different pseudonym). But here too. What was that final line from Romeo and Juliet again? Oh yes, "All are punished".
Posted by: Cincinnatus | February 26, 2015 at 21:14
Well, if Arctic sea ice loss continues unabated, there's a risk indeed that all will be punished.
Posted by: Neven | February 26, 2015 at 22:16
The focus article in the March 2015 National Geographic is: "The War on Science." There are 5 sections and one of these sections discusses the premise: "Climate Change Does Not Exist."
Part of the discussion centers around how and why incorrect information gets imbedded into peoples' beliefs. There are a number of reasons such as religious beliefs, well publicized studies which are later proven false, to just believing something incorrect because someone that person believes in says it, etc.
My point is, if anyone is interested, this article gave me a much better understanding of why many people do not believe science and possibly some insights into how to deal with this group before as Neven says, there's a risk indeed that all will be punished."
Posted by: VaughnA | February 27, 2015 at 03:10
@Vaughn - Don't forget the work of Larry Hamilton. We haven't!
https://twitter.com/ichiloe/status/558663382685859841
Education and science knowledge matter too, but the effects of education and knowledge vary with political beliefs. Among liberal and moderate respondents, for example, expressed concern about polar change increases with education. Among the most conservative respondents, however, concern decreases with education.
Re the Nat Geo article you mention, see:
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2015/03/science-doubters/achenbach-text
Posted by: Jim Hunt | February 27, 2015 at 13:51
Here is my bar-graph version of the N and S minimum sea ice area, 1979 through 2014. Feel free to borrow:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v224/Chiloe/12_Climate/2014_sea_ice_CT_min.png
Posted by: L. Hamilton | February 27, 2015 at 17:28
Jim, I did say I'd write something new. In the meantime there's another installment of "Polar Polling" that bridges the General Social Survey (2006, 2010) and a more recent survey question about sea ice,
http://thepolarhub.org/article/polar-polling-part-three
Posted by: L. Hamilton | February 27, 2015 at 17:32
Thanks very much Larry, and I didn't actually mean that remark the way you seem to have taken it!
FYI - Our latest guest post, hot off the GWC virtual presses:
The Telegraph is Wrong Again on Temperature Adjustments
Posted by: Jim Hunt | February 27, 2015 at 18:49
Intentionally or not it reminded me I'd said OK, and ought to follow through on such things. Send me an email if you want to chat offline.
Posted by: L. Hamilton | February 27, 2015 at 20:16
An email is "in the post" Larry. Thanks again.
Posted by: Jim Hunt | February 28, 2015 at 10:43
Plotted above of course (with nice star field), but it's perhaps worth remembering what late summer Antarctic sea ice actually looks like (from ClimateReanalyzer.org):
http://pamola.um.maine.edu/DailySummary/frames/GFS-025deg/DailySummary/GFS-025deg_NH-SAT5_SEAICE-SNOW.png
That is that there's hardly any ice at all except in the lee of the Peninsular. The source of the variability is pretty obvious, and the likely source of the increase in variability is not hard to glean.
Posted by: Gerg | March 02, 2015 at 06:07
This is not really "Shock News", as Neven explains at the top. Nonetheless after a brief hiatus both the NSIDC and IJIS Arctic sea ice extent metrics are once again at the lowest value for the date since their respective records began.
Yesterday's IJIS came in this morning at 13,827,443 km2. We'll have to wait a few hours more for the NSIDC number.
Posted by: Jim Hunt | March 02, 2015 at 10:31
A bit OT, but there's some pretty stunning Arctic and Antarctic photography here:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/aboriginal/polar-ice-loss-painful-to-see-for-photographer-camille-seaman-1.2975974
(Also, a profile of a pretty interesting photographer.)
Posted by: Kevin McKinney | March 02, 2015 at 20:01
Larry, I've used your SIV bar graph, here:
http://doc-snow.hubpages.com/hub/How-Do-We-Know-That-Global-Warming-Is-Affecting-Our-World
(It's the third in a series of 4 articles on some of climate change's 'epistemological basics', as I like to say.)
I'd love to update it to reflect 2014 numbers, if you've done that update.
Posted by: Kevin McKinney | March 02, 2015 at 20:04
Happy to oblige Kevin. You (or anyone else) can borrow the sea ice minimum volume (through 2014) graph here:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v224/Chiloe/12_Climate/2014_sea_ice_PIOMAS_min.png
In a similar vein here is Arctic and Antarctic minimum area:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v224/Chiloe/12_Climate/2014_sea_ice_CT_min.png
And Arctic extent:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v224/Chiloe/12_Climate/2014_sea_ice_NSIDC_extended.png
Posted by: L. Hamilton | March 02, 2015 at 20:42
Earlier this year a survey-based paper, "What people know," was published in a special Arctic change issue of Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences. An author's draft of the paper can be downloaded here:
https://www.academia.edu/10366212/What_people_know
The individual graphics, showing what the public believes about trends in Arctic sea ice area, can be found at these links:
Fig.1:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v224/Chiloe/Climate/ESAS_Fig1-1.png
Fig.2A:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v224/Chiloe/Climate/ESAS_Fig2A-1.png
Fig.2B:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v224/Chiloe/Climate/ESAS_Fig2B-1.png
Fig.3:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v224/Chiloe/Climate/ESAS_Fig3-1.png
Posted by: L. Hamilton | March 02, 2015 at 20:48
Hi Jim,
As you will doubtless have seen before me, IJIS went down another 29 thousand sq kms on the 2nd March, so that's 4 days in a row in lowest position. This cherry-picking malarkey is a lot of fun, ain't it?
By the way, do you think we'll ever get any meaningful answers from "ryland" over on SkS?
cheers btf
Posted by: Bill Fothergill | March 03, 2015 at 18:03
Good post Neven.
Cincinnatus,
Had you bothered to check the data yourself you could have avoided making yourself look foolish.
Posted by: Chris Reynolds | March 03, 2015 at 18:31
Bill - Re your final question, it seems unlikely at the moment. Reading your latest addition to that SkS thread reminds me that we really should endeavour to get together around a jar of scrumpy at some point soon!
Is there any chance you might be attending the forthcoming Greener Teign meeting with some local prospective parliamentary candidates?
http://www.greener-teign.org.uk/?event=quiz-the-candidates
There are a few of us down yer who are not "deeply conservative in their political opinions"!
Posted by: Jim Hunt | March 03, 2015 at 20:28
Too early to call maximum extent, but can't help wondering.
The anomaly is quite remarkable.
Posted by: Andy Lee Robinson | March 03, 2015 at 23:15
Thank you, Larry! Much appreciated.
Posted by: Kevin McKinney | March 04, 2015 at 05:21
Down almost 60K again, now 201K below previous low for the day (13,939,904 in 2011)
Posted by: David Sanger | March 04, 2015 at 05:32
All that wonderful thick ice that was developing during the last two years? I think this just shows how poor that thick ice is and if the MYI is that bad the rest must be worse. If we get a return to a 2007 or 2012 summer IMO there is not enough good ice left to fight what could be done to the ASI. Not saying it will all go, but we could end up with mainly what is called grey ice.
Posted by: LRC | March 04, 2015 at 09:21
A review of the IR imagery reveals the much of the Arctic sea ice in the Beaufort or Chukchi has been fractured or rubble all winter. The ESAS and Laptev have had similar conditions.
I have been calling the Beaufort Gyre, the "Beaufort Blender" this season, given its continual refracturing. Areas south of Banks Island never froze solid this winter, south of Baffin Island has been "rubble."
North of Svalbard fracturing has run close to 90 N many times.
The Arctic Ocean fracturing has often sent plumes of warmer air over the ice till refreeze, which is an indicator of the warmer sea temps under the ice.
Posted by: Apocalypse4Real | March 04, 2015 at 14:02
For the person who wanted a more recent chart of minimum extent, I usually do one each year.
http://hotwhopper.com/Charts/NHSHMin.png
From here:
http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2015/02/jim-steele-brings-arctic-to-antarctica.html
Or a less colourful version of same:
http://hotwhopper.com/Charts/nhshminp.png
Posted by: SouBundanga | March 04, 2015 at 16:46
Oops, I see you've already added it, Neven. And unlike mine, your y axis scaling was down to zero, which some people insist upon :)
Posted by: SouBundanga | March 04, 2015 at 16:55
Is there a new link for the IJIS data?
Posted by: Ecojosh | March 04, 2015 at 16:59
Ah, I should've remembered your graph, Sou. And save myself the trouble. And let your graphs run at least to 1 million km2, because below that is when we call the Arctic ice-free for all practical purposes.
Ecojosh, the data file is here:
https://ads.nipr.ac.jp/vishop/data/graph/plot_extent_n_v2.csv
Posted by: Neven | March 04, 2015 at 17:16
Climate Change by Numbers on BBC4 explained nicely the maths behind Climate Change. Mainly aimed to those who still argue that temperatures are fiddled, etc...
Posted by: Climate Changes | March 04, 2015 at 17:40
Re: "Climate Change by Numbers" on BBC4
I have watched that programme once (thus far), and thought it missed a golden opportunity to use the maths in order to debunk some of the bollocks that constantly gets regurgitated in denier circles.
I've got it on hard disk and will view it again - as soon as I hook up the HDD to the goggle box.
Nonetheless, it was the kind of thing that must help in the laudable endeavour of trying to explain a seriously complex subject to an audience that, generally speaking, is going to struggle to follow the complexities.
The programme did use an interesting hook right at the beginning (where else?) by putting up 3 numbers...
0.85
95%
1,000,000,000,000
I'll bet that's got some of you intrigued!
Definitely worth a look
cheers bill f
Posted by: Bill Fothergill | March 04, 2015 at 18:38
new JAXA sea ice page is here
Posted by: David Sanger | March 04, 2015 at 19:58
@ bill f: Many thanks, caught it on youtube.[url=http://youtu.be/3zqkPmM_hj4]Climate Change by Numbers BBC Documentary 2015[/url]
I can understand their approach. Instead of tackling bad science head on, they came at it from a similar angle as many deniers use and that is math with math. Clearly stating that in those 3 numbers 3 very different types of math are used and all of them are recognized and work. Also by explaining the math by using very non climate change examples, very hard to refute.
Posted by: LRC | March 05, 2015 at 03:10
http://youtu.be/3zqkPmM_hj4
Not sure what I did wrong on code.
Posted by: LRC | March 05, 2015 at 03:16
The number "1 trillion" referred to above by some idiot (oh, it was me) relates to the cumulative tonnage of carbon we have to avoid utilizing in fossil fuel burning, cement production or land usage changes in order to avoid a dangerously high (>2 deg C?) temperature rise.
Many, if not most, readers on this site will be comfortable with the technique for converting a given mass of carbon into its eventual impact on concentration levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide. However, those who are a bit shaky on this might care to read on...
One, of many, possible starting points is to consider what we mean by atmospheric pressure: the "standard" atmospheric pressure is usually quoted as 1013.25 hectopascals* or hPa. So what the hell does that actually mean?
(*The spell checker flagged the term "hectopascals", and helpfully offered "pectorals" as a replacement. I think it was trying to make me look even more of a tit than usual!)
Those of us old enough to have worked in multiple measurement systems should appreciate the simplicity of working entirely in SI units. The SI unit of pressure is the pascal, and atmospheric pressure is usually referred to in hectopascals. The reason is historic: one hPa being effectively identical to the more familiar millibar.
As pressure is defined as force per unit area, standard atmospheric pressure could also be described as equal to 101,325 newtons per sq metre. Newton's Second Law states that force is equivalent to mass times acceleration, and gravitational acceleration at the Earth's surface is about 9.81 metres/second squared.
Dividing 101,325 by 9.81 gives a numeric value of about 10,329 and the units are now in kilograms/sq metre - alternatively 10.33 tonnes/sq metre. This means that there are almost 10 and a third tonnes of air floating above every sq metre of the Earth's surface.
(So any time you are feeling depressed, you now know that you've got a bloody good reason.)
The total mass of the atmosphere can now easily be found by simply multiplying this figure (10.33 tonnes/sq metre) by the surface area of the planet. As the mean planetary radius is somewhere around 6,374 kilometres, and the area is given by 4 pi times the radius squared, the Earth's surface area is about 511 million sq kilometres.
Multiplying out means that the mass of the atmosphere is about 5.27 million, billion tonnes. (5.27 x 10 ^18 kilograms)
When talking about CO2 levels, atmospheric composition is usually quoted in parts per million by volume, or ppm(v). Each molecule (at a given pressure level) effectively occupies the same volume as any other (at the same pressure). There is an important distinction to understand: at this point, any difference in the relative atomic masses of two differing molecules does not affect the quoted concentration ratios.
However, that is about to change. As any standard text will show, Nitrogen constitutes about 78% of the atmosphere and Oxygen about 21%. As both gases are basically diatomic (ie consisting of two atoms in their most common configuration) and their atomic weights are 14 and 16 respectively, the "mean" atomic weight of an "average" molecule in the atmosphere is very close to 29 Atomic Mass Units (AMU).
Carbon exists in two stable (non-radioactive) isotopic forms Carbon 12 and Carbon 13. As the C13 concentration is is only about 1.1%*, the atomic weight of a carbon atom is very close to 12, and hence the atomic weight of a carbon dioxide molecule is 44 AMU (ie 12 + 16 + 16)
(* The C13 ratio is depleted in materials, such as fossil fuels, that have a biogenic source. Basically, plants preferentially take up the C12 form of carbon. This asymmetry is a real smoking gun in any attribution study.)
Since the atmospheric mass is about 5.27 million, billion tonnes, any gas with a concentration ratio of 1ppm(v), and possessed of a molecular mass similar to the atmospheric average of 29 AMU, would therefore have a mass of about 5.27 billion tonnes.
As the molecular weight of carbon dioxide is instead 44 AMU, one ppm(v) equates instead to 5.27 * (44/29) or 8 billion tonnes (or 8 gigatonnes). Confusingly perhaps, more often than not it is the mass of Carbon that gets discussed. As this constitutes only 12/44 of the carbon dioxide mass, each extra ppm(v) of carbon dioxide equates to the carbon burden in the atmosphere going up by approximately 2.18 gigatonnes*.
(* Or, according to the spell checker, 2.18 gallstones.)
Matters are confused further by the fact that by no means all carbon dioxide remains resident in the atmosphere. Studies on the carbon cycle suggest that only 45% stays in the atmosphere, with the remainder going into oceanic or land based carbon sinks.
See this NASA link for a carbon cycle overview...
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/CarbonCycle/page1.php
Given that 55% of the emitted carbon dioxide is (currently) being taken up by carbon sinks, a 1ppm(v) rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels equates to 2.18/0.45 or about 4.85 gigatonnes of carbon usage.
As the values assigned to carbon cycle fluxes come with a big health warning, the precision of this number is highly questionable, and it's more sensible simply to say that, at present, every 5 gigatonnes of carbon burned pushes atmospheric CO2 up by approximately another 1ppm(v).
If one looks at the http://trillionthtonne.org/ website, there is a nifty counter showing where we are on the current headlong trajectory towards burning up that magic trillionth tonne.
best wishes all - and Neven, sorry for taking up so much space
cheers bill f
Posted by: Bill Fothergill | March 05, 2015 at 15:45
Many thanks Bill F for very informative capitulation.
2 things that are generally missed by most not understanding feedbacks, is that that 1 trillion also includes anything nature wants to add to it via things like permafrost melt. The other elephant in the room is that 2C is seen as a figure where natures status quo can be kept and controlled by humans.
IMO I think all the horses already have left the barn and so far out of sight you will never find them to get them back.
I am starting to think that speed of change has a great multiplier effect. Adding 200 ppm over 10,000 yrs and increasing temps by 2C nature can adjust to with only minor changes over all. We are trying to see what happens when you try it out over 200 years.
Could we compare it to the difference of what would happen to car occupants between going from 0-120 km/h in 5 seconds and 0-120 km/h 0.1 seconds. Even if you manage to end at the same speed. the speed you get to it has 2 different outcomes to the passengers.
I think that even if we were to stop below 1 terra tonne, the acceleration has been so great on all parts of the ecco system when it finally gets to the plateau of its new status quo 2C will be a long gone memory as will most of the ice.
Posted by: LRC | March 05, 2015 at 18:00
Still melting away [The Antarctic too], at an accelerated rate... http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-31965454
Posted by: Seke Rob | March 27, 2015 at 17:51
"Still melting away…"
Yes, not a cheerful study. There've been a couple lately.
Posted by: Kevin McKinney | March 28, 2015 at 14:38
Also a tidbit from Weather Underground weather historian, Christopher C. Burt:
"Possible New Continental Heat Record for Antarctica"
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/weatherhistorian/comment.html?entrynum=323
Posted by: VaughnA | March 28, 2015 at 15:29
Welcome back, Seke Rob. Looking forward to more of your excellent charts and graphs. Saluti!
Cheers,
Lodger
Posted by: Artful Dodger | March 30, 2015 at 21:25