PIOMAS November 2016

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:

Do you see that 2016 trend line simply refusing to go up, ending at the lowest level on record for this time of year? That's because of this:

The Arctic has stubbornly refused to refreeze before, but this is another event we can add to the unprecedented list. After ending second/third lowest on record around minimum time, there was a rapid refreeze that was traditionally touted as the End of Global Warming, but for the past weeks things have been at a figurative standstill. Whatever the respective roles of natural variability and AGW, these wild swings do not inspire confidence in a semi-stable system (and the same goes, unfortunately, for the Antarctic).

The slow refreeze inevitably has an effect on sea ice volume, as modelled by PIOMAS. As of November 1st, sea ice volume is lowest on record, but this post covers the month of October only, and at the end of that month, 2016 was just marginally behind 2012. But with an increase of just 1648 km3 during October (only 2007 managed to have an increase below 2 million in the past decade) 2016 has left all other years in the dust.

Here's how the differences with previous years have evolved from last month:

The 'flatline' can also clearly be seen on Wipneus' version of the PIOMAS volume graph:

And boom, the trend line on the PIOMAS sea ice volume anomaly graph has ventured into 2 standard deviation territory again:

Of course, if there is less thin ice coming into existence on the peripheries, overall average thickness stops going down on the PIJAMAS graph, based on my crude calculation of PIOMAS volume numbers divided by total JAXA sea ice extent:

And as usual, the thickness plot from the Polar Science Center shows something similar:

I highly doubt that the 2016 trend line won't rejoin the others on extent and area graphs before the year is out, but it remains to be seen what the effect of this will be for the rest of the freezing season.

After a slow October, 2007 recorded a massive increase during November. Let's see if it will be the same for this month. Extent is growing rapidly again:

I'm taking a break from blogging, but I'll try to continue to do the monthly PIOMAS updates. Consider this an open thread. 

Comments

[viddaloo]

Thanks for yet another great update, Neven!

at the end of that month, 2016 was just marginally behind 2012

I'm sorry to have to point out, however, that 2016 wasn't «marginally behind 2012», but 13 km³ ahead of 2012.

In leap years like 2012 and 2016, Day 305 at UW is October 31st. Unlike JAXA, PIOMAS just numbers Feb 29 like it numbers March 1 for non–leap years:

[Neven]

Leap years always make things complicated (I hate leap years), but I believe that they just drop day 366 of leap years at the Polar Science Center. That's why each update ends with the first day of the new month and not the last day of the previous, full month.

For non-leap years Day 304 is October 31st, and so that's what I stick by, or my spreadsheet becomes a mess. Like I said:

As of November 1st [Day 305], sea ice volume is lowest on record, but this post covers the month of October only, and at the end of that month [Day 304], 2016 was just marginally behind 2012.

One day more or less doesn't matter all that much. 2012 and 2016 are on a par. According to PIOMAS. Anyone had a look at CryoSat-2 yet?

It will be interesting to see if 2016 can stay below 2012 during November. One would think it's definitely possible given those crazy Arctic temperatures so far.

[viddaloo]

That's why each update ends with the first day of the new month and not the last day of the previous, full month.

That's not the word on the street, Neven. Here's the end of the first update for this year (January):

[Neven]

Well, that's before February 29th. ;-)

Maybe someone comes along who knows the answer to this leap year riddle, but like I said: It doesn't change the picture all that much. According to the latest data point in the PIOMAS data set, 2016 is 13 km3 lower than 2012.

BTW, my grandma was born on February 29th. The poor woman died at the age of 17.

[viddaloo]

BTW, my grandma was born on February 29th. The poor woman died at the age of 17.

:)

Well, as you know, IMO the 2016 vs 2012 ballgame is more important than the tiny local contest of Donald vs Hillary. Now I should insert tons of baseball metaphors and idioms, but I never understood the rules.

2016 got a lot of 'innings'? Agree one day isn't that big a deal, but if you look at the November update for October 2015 volume, the last day is 304, because that's the last day of October 2015. Last day of October this year is 305, so 305's included.

JAXA, of course, has 2016 at a full 1204 km³ lower than 2012 for Monday.

[NeilT]

Here is what I've been looking at, on a decadal scale, for a while now, I believe there is also a 5 year cycle in there which Hans and I are on the same page about, but this, for me, is about the decadal cadence.

This is 96-97

This is 06/07

And this is 96/7 with 06/7 and 16 all overlaid with all the other stuff that just gets in the way removed.

I'm looking at two things.

The drop between the two years, 96/7 and 06/7 and also the Oct - Dec trait in stepping outside the norm for re-freeze leading to thinner ice conditions on the periphery the next year.

My focus is on just what 16 will look like by the end of December and, very interestingly, on the decadal cadence, what 17 will look like.

96/7 was around 0.5m loss. 06/7 was nearly 2m loss. 16/17 will be?? Who knows but if it is a decadal cycle, it's looking a lot closer to 0 than it is to 3...

[AnotherJourneybyTrain]

As Neven says: the temps in the arctic are whacked!

Is this simply the advection of tropical heat due to more open ocean that can't go away and looks to have passed a tipping point of self sustenance?

[Robert S]

It's that volume number which is the key indicator. The extent will tend to recover toward other years, but at these temperatures volume growth will be severely impacted. We could start 2017 even lower than 2016... here comes the cliff.

[viddaloo]

JAXA, of course, has 2016 at a full 1204 km³ lower than 2012 for Monday.

1248 lower than 2012 on November 8.

[John Christensen]

Thank you for another great update Neven - and best wishes for your other endeavors!

Otherwise, what a sad day for moderates: What happened in the US last night is just a continuation of what we have seen in Europe, Turkey, the Middle East and the Philippines over the past few years. The consequences will not be positive for the climate/energy problems or for humans.

[Fmeneg66]

@ John Christensen - with "moderate" (liberals') politics having led us up to this point in the climate/energy(+/population+/economic) conundrum, who could do any worse? Maybe liberal globalization has hit its own objective limits?

[Colorado Bob]

Lone Wati was right, Hell did come to breakfast.

[VaughnA]

"Well, as you know, IMO the 2016 vs 2012 ballgame is more important than the tiny local contest of Donald vs Hillary. Now I should insert tons of baseball metaphors and idioms, but I never understood the rules."

viddaloo, I completely agree. Only a few governments of the world are currently facing the climate ballgame. Donald is ignoring climate change right now. I don't make many predictions, but the hair on the back of my neck is standing up a bit. I predict that Donald will face climate change square in the face if he survives the next several years. It will not be because he wants to either. "Ma Nature" will send the bill. It might go something like this:

Ma Nature: "Miami, New Orleans, and Houston are flooded and Phoenix is too hot to be survivable, pay up and deal with it."

Donald: "No."

Ma Nature: "Whatever; also this is only the first installment, and by the way, Nigeria, Thailand, and Haiti need a $trillion each to help move their people. You won't forget them will you?"

Donald: "Uhh."

Ma Nature: "Yep deal with it."
Etc.
(Okay it probably won't go quite like this but I believe there will be some major events in the not too distant future for Donald to work on.)

Neven, Thanks for your years of writing and moderating this blog. I have learned more about climate, politics, and consequences of inaction than from any other source. Hopefully you can continue in some capacity and/or partly pass the torch to another competent person to continue this dialogue. Wow! It's been quite a "rollercoaster' ride, only destined to get more dramatic. I hope your new journey is as fulfilling as this part has been.

[NeilT]

Trump has come to the game just when the brown sticky stuff is really beginning to hit the whirly thing.

I doubt he'll be able to keep his stance on AGW much longer as things descend into chaos on his watch.

I tried to tell the guys on Joe Romm's site that they needed to support Obama and stop shooting him down because he wouldn't use the words they wanted. In the end Obama did more to highlight Climate Change and fight Climate Change in the US than 5 presidents using the CC or AGW words...

Now we're inheriting the legacy of fighting the President when we truly do have an enemy in the office.

Opportunities lost.

[AnotherJourneybyTrain]

I would like to contend and say that OBAMA DID NOTHING.

Of course I'm scared by Trump- I have family in Mexico(they are coming over for Christmas but I will catch up with them at other time, such is life, lol)- but atleast the establishment has been shaken and that means the consuming voter has been shaken.

The markets recovered very quickly after the decision by the American people ha dbeen confiremed that Trump was the new leader of the free world... the markets are nothing: the people lead and if they want to be sheeple consumers then that's what causes Climate Change.

The people rule: so, "Do we hate our children?", once again becomes the question

[NeilT]

Please contend it.

I, on the other hand contend that as Trump undoes every little bit of NOTHING Obama did in his 8 years, the press will give it 1,000 times the space it gave the passing of the legislation.

You will hear, loud and clear, what Obama did, as it is undone.

Obama had the Senate and the House against him, yet he still achieved stuff. Trump will have all three arms of Government in his party.

If you don't believe me just go and check what the markets are doing to US clean tech company shares right now. Many of those companies didn't even exist under Bush.

The markets know what is coming and also what has been done in the last 8 years.

There was an opportunity to support Obama and defuse the Trump message on "hoax" climate change.

As I said, opportunities lost. All the man in the street saw was both sides having a go at Obama and assuming that only Obama could be wrong. When it came to decision time they chose the side which will, they think, cost them least.

[John Christensen]

Couldn't agree with you more NeilT - except that Trump should be successful in just ignoring climate change on his watch as he is supported by the type of voters, who wants cheap and plenty gas at any cost.
These guys removed the Indians and the buffalo, so no reason why they would feel any different about ice bears or flooding of coastal areas.

[John Christensen]

Politics is becoming more polarized with both sides screaming at each other - until one or both sides take up more tangible means to defeat the other.

This is the scary part.

[AnotherJourneybyTrain]

So, the point is Obama was paralysed by the numbers and Trump will not be.

I'm hoping Trump uses his powers to send market signals but given he has explicitly stated he doesn't believe in the phenomenon in the first place I shudder.

I basically pray he lied to get the votes and will completely change his mind with a presentation by certain people on the relevant numbers involved.

I do note the markets recovered quickly after Trump was accepted as the President-elect. I say he has a lot of political capital and economic swagger, shall we say, to do something worthwhile.

[NeilT]

No, the point was Obama DID do stuff. But because he was constrained he didn't use the words which would inflame the Republicans. By using different words he got the job done anyway.

However because he would not use the words, the Climate Lobby didn't support him and acted as if he did nothing.

Obama had to use the EPA and Executive orders where Trump can use the house, the senate AND executive orders.

Trump is a businessman. He sees risk as things which come at you quickly with a large impact.

Let me try an analogy for you. I work in IT and I often work with people who have risk methodologies based around production runs.

This methodology assesses risks based around the number of times it's likely to happen V the impact of each time.

So if you have something which only happens once but kills the entire company, you can't represent it in their risk model because they don't have a high enough impact factor.

This is where Trump is. He sees "no immediate impact" as no risk. Whereas the risk is a steamroller heading right for us at 1 inch per hour and a wall behind us we can't climb.

Easy you say, 1 inch per hour, just walk around it.

But in Climate parlance the steamroller is 1,000 miles wide and you are on foot and it's 1000 inches away.

That's the bit Trump (and a lot of others), just don't get.

Don't hope that Trump will "get it", he's already done the risk analysis, using the standard business model and decided it's "no risk".

You might want to ask Google how many climate bills George W Bush signed. The first hit is Wikipedia which talks about his administrations interference in the scientific reporting of AGW. The second hit is his list of bills and the words Climate, Global and Warming do not appear anywhere.

You might want to do the same search with Obama. When you get to "Climate change policy of the United States" you might want to compare the Bush administration with the Obama Administration.

When you get to the Obama "Presidency of Barack Obama" page you might want to read the section under science on Climate change.

Then please redefine "nothing".

I've said all this before. I've said it on ClimateProgress and had my own words repeated by Obama in a speech (clearly his speech writers read the site and I was the ONLY person defending him).

When you actually LOOK at what Obama has actually done, it's quite a lot. Regardless of how he phrased it.

[Hans Gunnstaddar]

"I basically pray he lied to get the votes and will completely change his mind with a presentation by certain people on the relevant numbers involved."

If he does, he abandons one of the main contentions of the Republican Party that GW is a hoax. That party is connected at the hip to Christianity, and the church does not believe God would do anything to harm mankind. I know, that's really weird stuff, but that's my understanding from a Christian I talked to a while back. That religion sides with 'belief' while ignoring 'science' (because it doesn't match up with their belief of Universe age). So there isn't any science that can be used to persuade them otherwise.

Trump could ignore them and decide differently but it's unlikely. This is why - he won the election by winning Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Ohio in the Rust Belt, which is where the coal plants use to be more numerous. He ran on increasing coal usage to help the people of the rust belt get back to making the kind of income they use to and pull that area out of it's depression, so he would also be abandoning that pledge too which would probably end his chances of re-election. There are huge amounts of coal still to be extracted. In recent years much of that mined coal has been exported, but what will probably happen is exports will remain while domestic use rises.

Trump's Ego comes first and everything else comes last, so he's not about to endanger his ego trip by going against the people that got him into office.

[Sarat]

Just checked the N80 temp anomaly forecast...!, it's warm there now, but looks like another 'heat wave' is about to turn the area solid red for a week.

What will be the impact on the Arctic of the average Siberia snow cover, any positive effects?

[Julz]

Hello Hans,

That party is connected at the hip to Christianity, and the church does not believe God would do anything to harm mankind.

It's more like US evangelicals are (usually) connected at the hip to Republicanism. Yet globally there are plenty of, even Evangelical Christians who accept the scientific consensus. For example, Katherine Hayhoe is a prominent US Climate Scientist and is also an evangelical Christian. John Cook who started the SkepticalScience climate myth-busting website is an evangelical Christian. John Houghton, the first Chair of the IPCC is a committed Christian (he ran his first lecture on the dangers of global warming in 1967!). Bill McKibben, a founding member and leader of 350.org is a Methodist. Prominent Christian aid agencies such as Christian Aid, Cafod and Tearfund (in the UK) are fully aware of the global warming consequences of burning fossil fuels.

Furthermore, the idea that God wouldn't do anything to harm mankind is badly flawed theology, and even worse than you've quoted - they believe that God has guaranteed that whatever we do, it won't harm the planet. It originates in the book of Genesis, Chapter 9, verses 8 to 16. Check it out, there's nothing there about not allowing any harm to come to mankind; nor that we can do anything without it harming the planet. All it says is that God won't destroy absolutely all life in a flood, which leaves things pretty wide open (Biblically speaking).

[John Dorsa]

Here's your answer: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/trump-picks-top-climate-skeptic-to-lead-epa-transition/

[P-maker]

Hi John

Happy to see you re-surface after three years of dormancy. It will be quite interesting to see the Trump advisors turn to building resilient infrastructures, sustainable transport solutions and healthy fastfood for the Trump supporters.

Cheers P

[NeilT]

No surprise there John. I guess what is happening in the Arctic right now, if we're heading for 4-8 years of denial and repealing of the clean energy initiatives, is just a small blip on what we'll see in a decades time.

I'd say that Trump was inevitable. The only governments which are really making progress on clean energy and carbon fuel reductions are not democracies. BTW, the EU is not a democracy, don't be confused with the state governments, you can't vote for the Commission or Council of Ministers. EU climate directives are created by the commission and approved by the council. The Parliament is a poor third in that process and does not always get a vote.

Democracies always seem to convince the public that paying for Climate action is like Turkeys voting for Christmas.

A good Scots Phrase does here. "There's naught like folk".... Which really means that the masses are generally pretty stupid!

[wayne]

It is very possible to reduce CO2 levels without the US gov slashing emission regulations and accords, 75% emissions from the rest of the world and individual action from the majority of US voters may pick up the temporary Trump years shortfall. Protest my Southern cousins by going hyper green. Nevertheless, It is up to us, billions of us, why wait for one ignoramus to understand Earth's dire straits? We all know that the US is a democracy, this means change is continuous, bad policies come and go, besides which are the richest countries in the world? The ones with a great renewable energy portfolios of course.

Consider this: we in the Arctic and Antarctica have the cleanest air in the world, less than 200 particulates per cc, internal combustion engines filled big city may have well in excess of 10,000 multiple times, next to a coal fueled power plants huger numbers still. Do you want your children and all their descendants to breathe the cleanest air possible forever? With the sunsets bright white instead of blood red in smog? Yes the sunsets are white in pristine air! Shocking isn't it?

[viddaloo]

After #Brexit and #Trexit comes #Arcxit. Better known as the Arctic sea ice collapse. Are you ready for this?

[Brexit = British exit from the EU, Trexit = Trump exit from Paris, Arcxit = Sea ice exit from the Arctic]

Every thinking human being now knows corporate media doesn't have the slightest interest in telling it like it is. It's not like they learnt anything from #Brexit before #Trexit happened. On the contrary, they were just boldened by their catastrophic failure to understand the real world. And so it's only natural they will completely ignore the next much more cataclysmic event: Arcxit.

In it, we will literally leave the Earth. It will leave the current Pleistocene — the series of glacial periods during the last 2.6 million years — and evolve into a much warmer place. A larger scale EXIT is hard to imagine, but by golly, this apparently needs to become another Complete Surprise to the media, the IPCC and people who for some reason choose to trust them. What this means is you will have to listen to people you've learnt to trust.

Click for full graph & blog

[Rob Dekker]

NeilT, P-Maker, I'm with you guys.
Yes, Obama did a lot of good to reducing carbon emissions, and Yes, Trump may revert some of that. But either way, Trump is not concerned about climate change, so there is a good chance he will not spend much effort on fighting science. There will be plenty other stuff to keep him busy.

[NeilT]

Wayne, I'm heartened by your faith in the middle strata of humanity. Even though I don't believe it. I'm reminded of a couple of lines from Pretty Woman. Gere says "People never surprise me", Roberts (playing the whore), says "really? Most of them shock the hell out of me". Perspective. I think ours are different.

Rob, Trump may not have much time for Climate but Myron Ebell certainly will have. All he needs is Trumps support to cause total chaos.

Arcxit Vid.?? Interesting.

The terms have differnet connotations for me.

Brexit. Good!
Trexit. Inevitable!
Arcxit. God help our species!

I'm a Brit btw with over 25 years of living and working all over the EU, with a primary home in France... Make what you will of my top one.

[viddaloo]

Brexit. Good!

Trexit. Inevitable!

Arcxit. God help our species!

Neil, my man Friedrich N is a tad skeptical of the God meme, and I see he has this to say about our predicament:

Das Abgründige am Menschen ist, dass er nicht nur sich selbst, sondern alle noch höher entwickelten Lebewesen mit sich in den Abgrund ziehen kann – einfach indem er eine Katastrophe auslöst, welche zum Untergang aller Primaten auf diesem Planeten führt. Wenn es weder Menschen noch Affen auf der Erde mehr gäbe, dann wäre die Evolution um viele Millionen Jahre zurückgeworfen.

[wayne]

Neil T

What is the point in being negative? Unless it somehow inspires progressive action...

First we must confront the lie, pollution is a bad thing, those living in big cities with lots of cars, the majority of people on Earth, are all smoking cigarettes, air pollution does this. The fine particulates breathed in over a long time give magnetites in brain tissue eventually causing dementia or other related diseases. The lie is clearly visible
at sunset or sunrise, the sun appears off color by air pollution. If by chance you have air from the far North, you'd see through the lie, a brilliant sunset so bright you cant watch it. The effects of sea ice glints the sun super white because Arctic air is dried up.

According to fact checker stat keepers, Trump lied 70 to 80% of the time during his campaign. I might explain this because may be lies are a way to win elections or early signs of dementia, sometimes he denied saying things he said on tape a few days before, worse than Reagan. But living with lies is transformative, living in a world that is not natural likewise, the two are not dissimilar.

So what if a small percentage of the world population wants asthma giving smog as a sign of industrial success? What we have to do is just desire a better world, and not be sidetracked by anything less, we can achieve the better world together by envying those already there, compare a cleaned up city with Beijing or Shanghai on a super smoggy day. Compare L.A. 20 years ago to today. What about Paris Vs Berlin? Who cares about the polluting loving maniacs, lets get better and make Earth Great Again!

[Sam]

In my career in heavy industry one of the disheartening lessons was that when those in charge in a plant do not understand the fundamental technical basis of how the plant works (or worse - simply do not care) that all I could do was get out of the way and wait.

Once events took their natural course and the plant failed completely and only then could I help put it right with the new management and staff that replaced the old management and staff.

I simply had to hope that the damage done as the plant systems collapsed wasn't so great or severe as to make the situation hopeless.

Sadly, the situation we face was already hopeless. I ran the numbers a while back. From basic principles we are now at about 520 ppm co2 equivalent. The EEA number in the high 400s is just plain wrong. Other estimates at about 500 omit several important gases, including co2, methane and nitrous oxide effects on ozone and water vapor induced warming.

Based solely on these, the thermodynamic warming predicted is 1 degree C. Based on extrapolations of current trends for the various gases we should expect co2e to rise to between 750-950 ppm by 2070 with a thermodynamic predicted temperature rise of 2 C.

The actual temperature rise is larger of course do to compounded effects on water vapor in the atmosphere. We are currently at about 1.6-1.85 C above the historic background.

And so we were already rapidly headed for a 3-5 C increase in temperature, which is cataclysmic. Above 1.5-2 C the likelihood of thermal runaway is almost certain --> to the upper temperature stable ice free world State that has dominated most of geologic time. That is where we were if we put all hands on deck globally and did every conceivable thing to limit global warming gas emissions.

Now, well -> those cheery days are behind us. Now we get to watch in horror as all of the ice melts. We get to journal the earth's transition to a hothouse earth. We get to plumb the depths of oceanic and atmospheric science to try to stay slightly ahead of the changing circulations in the hope that we can salvage something from the age of the monkeys as we transition from the Cenozoic to the Neozoic.

It appears inevitable now that we will collapse the tundra releasing 1,680 GT of carbon to the air, and in trigger the massive breakdown of oceanic clathrates that make that look puny. In the end we only start by losing the Arctic ice. Next up, Greenland melts and the continental glaciers all go with horrific impacts on humans and ecosystems globally. Finally, Antarctica melts. About the only questions we now face relate to just how far this all goes before it runs its course. The complete melting of Greenland and an 80-100 sea level rise appear to be inevitable. But will Antarctica complete its melting before things stabilize?

Will we enter a single atmospheric cell circulation system before those of us on this list pass on? How fast is this transition going to be? We are already seeing telltale hints of the slowing of the great oceanic circulation in the North Atlantic. Will those of us commenting here live long enough to see it stall completely? What then of the oceans?

I can now only look on in horror and chronicle what happened. Will there be anyone to read that chronicle in 500 years?

But then as I noted at the start, it may well be that the only change we could ever have accomplished required first that we collapse our societal systems. If so, we can soon check that step off our list. What will be left after that remains the most immediate question.

[Artful Dodger]

VaughnA | November 09, 2016 at 22:38

Neven [snip] Hopefully you can continue in some capacity and/or partly pass the torch to another competent person to continue this dialogue.

Relax folks, Neven isn't retiring. This is just his annual Winter hibernation. He'll be back monthly(ish) with PIOMAS updates, and to start a new Open Thread.

Cheers, and have fun!
Lodger

[AnotherJourneybyTrain]

Yeh, lets, "MAKE EARTH GREAT AGAIN!"

** hear hear

[Abel Adamski]

Does anyone know what is happening to the JAXA and Bremmen sea ice feeds, have been off apparently due to server issues since 10 Nov.

Wonder how long we will have access to satellite visuals , not only of ice but also of forest fires

[Artful Dodger]

Abel Adamski | November 12, 2016 at 10:01

Does anyone know what is happening to the JAXA and Bremmen sea ice feeds, have been off apparently due to server issues since 10 Nov.

Hi Abel,

The Arctic Data archive System posted this to their Twitter feed on Nov 10:

現在、ADS、次期サービスの準備のため、メンテナンス中です。

... which is Kanji for roughly "Currently, ADS is under maintenance for the preparation of the next service."

Sounds like some upgrades in the works, wot?

Cheers,
Lodger

[wayne]

Winter is indeed having a fight on its hands, not unusual for November 12, but its struggling from 2 fronts, not only its common foe from the South, but from the North:

http://eh2r.blogspot.ca/2016/11/creeping-northwards-winter-faces-new.html

[AnotherJourneybyTrain]

9-11: CLIMATE EMERGENCY!

[Kevin McKinney]

OT, though not unrelated:

" Protest my Southern cousins by going hyper green."

The South is generally more conservative, it is true, but note that metro Atlanta, as well as Savannah, Augusta and Macon, went for Hillary. I believe that similar patterns hold elsewhere, which suggests the real issue isn't so much South versus North as urban versus rural.

[Kevin McKinney]

"But either way, Trump is not concerned about climate change, so there is a good chance he will not spend much effort on fighting science. There will be plenty other stuff to keep him busy."

Yes. I've been thinking about an open letter on climate change to the President Elect, but I'm not sure drawing it to his attention would be a good thing.

[NeilT]

Wayne, I would love to be positive but there is little to be positive about at this point in time.

Yes, I've only been North to Kiruna but I've seen the sunrise and sunset in clean, clear air. I'm also aware that the Ice Hotel had to create a huge refrigerated warehouse and store the ice for the next years hotel in it (drawn from the winter ice), because it's too warm for too long these days to make it from Ice in the Autumn.

Personally It's hard to practise what I preach. My local power station (30km), is Nuclear. So even though I would like solar cells, their input in terms of climate gas reduction, for me, would be minimal.

Even then when the EU slapped a 50% tax on Chinese imports of solar cells, leaving only German made parts on the market in the EU at nearly twice the price, my target of doing even that has fallen behind.

Still my heating is wood from renewable sources rather than from mains gas. A decision I took strongly on CO2 emissions basis. All my wood comes from managed sources, for every tree I burn another batch of trees are planted.

I would cycle to work but the distance makes it prohibitive. I use the next best alternative for me. My motorcycle. Electric not being an option at this time and even then, the majority of electric where I work is coal or gas produced.

Where I live, there are virtually _NO_ electrical charging points for a 40 mile radius. Making a move to electric impossible for the kind of driving we do. So that's out for now.

My main attempts to drive the situation are to pass the message, influence and disseminate places to go to get the truth.

But, honestly, I'm in Sam's camp. Back in 96 when I first started to get really interested there was, potentially, something we could do.

Now? Without the powerful backing of all governments and support for all CO2 reducing initiatives, I see no way we can even begin to touch the steamroller headed our way. No matter how "active" we are and how enthusiastic we are, unless everyone is pulling at the same time we're going to go down with the sinking ship.

[NeilT]

Kevin,

If I were to try and influence Trump I'd us an analogy. Ice in his hotel freezers instead of electric. With a new and diminishing supply each winter and a rapidly reducing stock each summer, how comfortable would he feel about the security of his food stocks in his freezer???

Show him this arctic ice video.

Then point out that the Planet's cooling system runs on ice, not electric.

[wayne]

NeilT,

Despite relying heavily on nuclear power, I know about Paris smog, "grand scandale" , city of lights continuously dimmed, it wont be long before they go electric car big time. I also remember London more by its constant burnt diesel smell just as much as wondrous Baker street tube station , surely they'll go electric soon as well. London's smog was infamous once , they made huge progress, but they still haven't seen a good sunset every cloudless day. Victory better life wont be really gained until Greenwhich is set free to observe the universe through consistently low particulates air.

We know what the pollution maniacs want, no regulations Texas style, unfettered stupidity compensated by greed. But most individuals want something better, it takes many good jobs to go renewable green, a lot more engineers than burning coal to blacken the sky "Blade Runner" at noon like.

If one country wants to remain in the 19th Century industrial revolution "atmosphere" it needs not look far, China is struggling with coal pollution big time. Yet China is attacking the problem perhaps because they care more about their future, having understood that money can buy all the Canadian Air bottles they want, in the end its cheaper to share our air without wrecking it and still make economic progress. So if this country, whoever wants environmental misery as a sign of economic progress , darken your skies, make it hard to breathe, send some of your kids to lung hospitals as a necessary evil. We don't want anything to do with your economic plans. Perhaps this country will have the good sense to join the 21st Century. When all countries, without exceptions, once agreed to care for our planet.

[NeilT]

Maybe Wayne.

I'm working in London BTW and my Father is a Londoner and I've been in and out of it all my life. It is cleaner (to view), than at any time in my life, but diesel is making it more dangerous.

Did you notice that the EU, because of Brexit, is going to have to modify it's emissions targets for the other 27. Because the EU is one of the best at reducing carbon emissions and the former USSR states (plus a few of the original 15), are dirty as hell and have no intention of cleaning up very much any time soon.

Even then the Sunset on the A40 heading West, in Autumn, is spectacular. Smog Orange/Brown...

I know what you are saying. I just don't believe that the majority of the people either know about the issue or care enough about it to actually do something. They're too busy in Twatter and Farcebook....

If governments don't lead then the people won't follow and now we have a lack of leadership in one of the largest emitters in the world.

As I fully believe the Arctic is going to be torched next year I'm interested to see how that message changes.

[wayne]

"to be torched next year I'm interested to see how that message changes."

NeilT

Nothing, Arctic silence, a few hundred people will speak, the Billions will be preoccupied elsewhere as usual. This is why the fight to clean up must be taken to the cities. I am convinced that this is how progress was achieved. I think that Arctic sea ice disappearing adds to the argument because sea ice is very photogenic, it adds weight to clean up more forcefully, but it alone disappearing fast is no popular Southern People concern but to shipping and oil industries. Weather changes in part by AGW are 99% of the times ignored by various media weather presenters, it is an nearly impossible task to explain because of this daily onslaught going unanswered. We have only the cities twinned with the obvious: sea level rising, warmer temperatures and daily blood red sunrise and sunsets, the last one in sight in mind almost everyday.

[AnotherJourneybyTrain]

Iff it were true that the market forces dictate Renewable Energy as the cheaper option: why aren't we going Renewable by default?

[AnotherJourneybyTrain]

If governments don't lead then the people won't follow and now we have a lack of leadership in one of the largest emitters in the world.
<<

I would be saying that Governments can't lead the people as the people are unleadable.

The people can be corralled but not lead, IMHO.

This is why the people must, and do, lead: Governments follow- maybe the word 'stalk' is more appropriate and completes the essay as the perfect final draught on the matter(!??)

[AnotherJourneybyTrain]

http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/plots/meanTarchive/meanT_2016.png

(I think we're officially at panic stations...)

[AnotherJourneybyTrain]

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/recent365.anom.region.4.html

This is the Baffin Bay/Newfoundland sea ice area.

Does this look unhealthy in anyone elses opinion?

What could be the reasons behind this??

[viddaloo]

Out of the dozen or so sea ice stories in my inbox this morning,

about 25% lied about 2016 being "second lowest" for sea ice, and
about 15% lied about summer sea ice lasting till 2045–50.

Lying to kids about the present in order to lie more convincingly about their future seems to be the objective here. Knowing when they will die won't make these kids super citizens?

What happens to our sense of future if we replace "2016 sea ice tied with the 2nd lowest" with simply "2016 was lowest ever for sea ice"? And also trash the old "summer sea ice may be gone by 2050" and simply say "no more ice whatever season from 2022–23"?

Goes pretty dark, doesn't it?

[Hans Gunnstaddar]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/11/14/2016-very-likely-to-be-the-hottest-year-ever-recorded-u-n-agency-declares/

“The agency noted that warmth in the Arctic was particularly extreme in 2016. “In parts of Arctic Russia, temperatures were 6°C to 7°C above the long-term average. Many other Arctic and sub-Arctic regions in Russia, Alaska and northwest Canada were at least 3°C above average. We are used to measuring temperature records in fractions of a degree, and so this is different,” said Petteri Taalas, the Secretary-General of the WMO, in a statement.

Overall, the WMO said, 2016 was 1.2 degrees Celsius warmer on average than temperatures for the pre-industrial Earth. That’s a highly significant number, in that it puts the planet quite close to the 1.5 degree Celsius temperature threshold enshrined as an aspirational goal in the Paris climate agreement.

The El Nino event also brought on a surprising surge in global sea levels, which rose 15 millimeters between late 2014 and early 2016, far outstripping the usual pace of around 3 millimeters per year, the WMO reports.”

Based on that last sentence, did some math; Let’s say late 2014 is the last quarter thru early (1st quarter) 2016, is 1.5 years.

The avg. annual sea level rise per the article is 3 millimeters, which is just a bit less than an 1/8".

That puts 15 millimeters at 9/16+" in 1.5 years! Or, averaging 10 millimeters sea level rise per annum, or 3/8". That's over a triple jump from a little less than 1/8".

Let's ask a couple of questions; what percentage of this is attributable to El Nino? In other words, if we can attribute a high % to it then maybe we go back to lower sea level rise? Or, is this situation now past some tipping point? I'm beginning to err on the side of the latter question because it's difficult to figure sea level rise going back to the old norm at this point.

Take a look at the graph in the article showing the spike in world temp. It's going straight up! Surely that will now make a correction down with El Nino fading away?

[Bill Fothergill]

Hans,
As the current rate of rise in Mean Sea Level averaged over the last 20 years is about 3.4 mm/annum, I took that 15mm in 18 months figure with an exceedingly large dose of salt.

http://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/sea-level/

However, as one should always practise scepticism, I had a look at the FTP data for this. (See the link on the Vital Signs page, or go direct to...

ftp://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/allData/merged_alt/L2/TP_J1_OSTM/global_mean_sea_level/GMSL_TPJAOS_199209_201607.txt

I thought there might have been an artificially low MSL value followed 18 months later by an artificially high MSL value. Column (12) is the important one to look at, as this has 60-day smoothing and compensates for both cyclicity and for Isostacy.

When I looked at this, my response was something along the lines of ... "Fuck me gently!!!!"

Admittedly, there is a slight downward trend at the moment - probably due to thermosteric adjustment in the wake of the recent massive El Nino, i.e. slight oceanic cooling after the "heat" vented. However, I don't expect that to continue for much longer, and I do expect the short-term trend to resume its terrifying upward trend in the near future.

Thank you for pointing this out - even more good news following the disaster on the 8th of November.

[viddaloo]

This looks lowest ever for Arctic sea ice volume minimum, right?

And yet, no–one could be bothered to write a press release or blog about it yet? Amazing.

[NeilT]

Bill I did my usual round of checking on JasonII/Topex and NASA were also presenting the same 3.4mm figure only two months ago.

As I don't read the source data, usually, I had no clue that it was this bad.

Thanks Hans for bringing it to us. I, also, believe that the short term trend will stabilise closer to an elevated long term trend.

Meaning that the 2010's could exit the decade with a decadal average of 4mm per annum. Or a full 4cm rise in a decade.

The problem is understanding whether this is the beginning of the sudden demise of landfast ice which is doing this or whether the recent upgrade of the Wundergound Tropical Temp maps from a max of 32c to a max of 35c have something to do with thermal expansion??

Time will tell.

[NeilT]

AnotherJourneybyTrain

In short renewable is not cheaper. With the operative word being Yet.

Even with the removal of the subsidies fossil fuel is still cheaper than renewable in the very short term.

The major issues we have are

Baseload power
and
Short term thinking.

We need baseload power and we need way more of it that we currently have. If we are going to convert the BTU's of consumed fossil fuels into KWh's of electricity we're going to have to triple the power of the grid and double baseload power.

Renewables is simply not going to do that in the short term. Not the way we're going about it.

Once you get over the sunk cost of renewables the ongoing power is super cheap. But intermittent.

There is no easy answer to that, in the short term, with the way we're going renewables.

[D-Penquin]

Anotherjourneybytrain

Baffin Bay/Newfoundland sea ice area.

Special Sensor Microwave Imager and Sounder (SSMIS) on the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) F-17 satellite that provides passive microwave brightness temperatures (and derived Arctic and Antarctic sea ice products) has been providing spurious data since beginning of April. Working on resolving problem or replacing this data source.

See source page: http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/

[D-Penquin]

NeilT

In short renewable is not cheaper.

If the emission of greehouse gases stop immediately it will not stop the Arctic sea ice from melting nor the consequences that will follow a blue ocean event.

We are all navel gazing.

Sequestration and solar shading are probably the only solution to the problem.

[NeilT]

Possibly fish, but sequestration takes energy. Unless we give up extremely large tracts of land to trees. Something like tunnelling to the Atlantic to flood the lower Sahara then ringing it with solar and nuclear desalination then growing a forest the size of the Amazon.

Not exactly the small engineering project of the century but the scale on which we would need to sequestrate. Given that Trees are the fastest sequestration mechanisms we know. Also given that we can't just use GM seaweed over half the ocean to do the same thing...

Solar shading might be the best bet of all. But we'll have to get out of the stone age with the gravity well first...

Certainly it has the On/Off capability which none of the atmospheric options have. Allowing us to regulate over the centuries to get the environment back into balance.

Is this a good time to go into that off the wall idea of mine about flat packed, foil backed, inflatable solar panels (might as well get some power from the shield), which can be launched in compact form and inflated in situ???? :-) Yeah, I know, nobody is interested as they already know what they're going to do and it's a "much" better idea...

[D-Penquin]

Hans Gunnstadder
Bill Fothergill

Global Sea Level Rises

A profile of the grounding levels for the principal glaciers of Greenland are between 400 to 800 metres below present sea level.

Is a new calculation now required for the estimated sea level rise of 7 metres and rate of ice loss from the Greenland ice sheet?

[D-Penquin]

Hans Gunnstadder
Bill Fothergill

Global Sea Level Rises

The inland glacial valleys of the Greenland ice sheet are very deep, very wide and very long.

...Radial tsunamis when she blows (nah, that's just alarmist rhetoric)

[Bill Fothergill]

@ D
"...Radial tsunamis when she blows (nah, that's just alarmist rhetoric)"

Reminds me of the Doggerland inundation - No, that's nothing to do with shagging in public.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/never-heard-of-doggerland-blame-climate-change-from-millennia-ago-72154423/?no-ist

[Bill Fothergill]

Oops, didn't mean to click "Post" just there.

If that link doesn't appear correctly, try Googling for "Storegga slide tsunami".

[D-Penquin]

NeilT

Sequestration and Solar Shading

We have the energy souce, the sun, the Deserts would be a good location. Trees probably grow too slowly and need water (a fast dwindling resource).

We already have an international space station that could be extended to manage the deployment of your foiled backed inflatable panels.

Some other ideas:- http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032113008460

[viddaloo]

Arctic sea ice volume lowest ever in September 2016 at minimum, anyone? Be cool to see just one comment, as this is after all the Arctic Sea Ice Blog, no?

PIOMAS, I think, had 2016 at a full 728 km³ higher than the 2012 minimum volume.

[Hans Gunnstaddar]

"Admittedly, there is a slight downward trend at the moment - probably due to thermosteric adjustment in the wake of the recent massive El Nino, i.e. slight oceanic cooling after the "heat" vented. However, I don't expect that to continue for much longer, and I do expect the short-term trend to resume its terrifying upward trend in the near future.

Thank you for pointing this out - even more good news following the disaster on the 8th of November."

Agree on both points, Bill and still trying to cajole my wife into a happier state of mind after the nightmare on Elm Street, 11/8. Thanks for the link and information.

[wayne]

"I think, had 2016 at a full 728 km³ higher than the 2012 minimum volume."

Is like a drink with more ice making water in glass and air above warmer, does not compute.

[AnotherJourneybyTrain]

Hans, you might want to check that date of the disaster again. When did Hillary concede?

(clue: it's an emergency!)

[Hans Gunnstaddar]

Took me a moment AJbyT. The next morning, 11/9 the reverse of 9/11. There should be red lights blinking and blaring sirens. Mike Flynn will be in charge of national security, which probably means Defense Secretary.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/10/how-mike-flynn-became-americas-angriest-general-214362

He retired early after running the Pentagon on a very aggressive war footing. If interested, See article above. That of course is just a sideline to the plan to appoint a GW denier to the EPA.

[AnotherJourneybyTrain]

Australians write the date: day/month/year.

To the large majority of the world it's,

9/11: CLIMATE EMERGENCY!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QZwtKNZfbA

[viddaloo]

Back to the ice:

2016 minimum Arctic sea ice volume was lowest ever according to DMI. They say they are using the CICE model for volume. Does anyone know whether other agencies publish CICE volume graphs? And where can one get hold of the data table behind the graphs?

Thank you. The sea ice is fascinating and more way more important than any local election between de–facto climate deniers.

[Colorado Bob]

For The Arctic Ocean Above 80 North, It’s Still Summer in November
It’s going to be the hottest year on record — by a long shot. Just ask Gavin Schmidt at a NASA that the climate change denying Trump Administration has now imperiled. But in one region — the Arctic — the rate of heat accumulation has been outrageously extreme. And it is there that this new record warmth could inflict some of the worst damage to an increasingly fragile Earth System.

https://robertscribbler.com/2016/11/14/for-the-arctic-ocean-above-80-north-its-still-summer-in-november/

[Colorado Bob]

Warm Winter Cyclone Damaged Arctic Sea Ice Pack

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhF9nLdZ7ZY&feature=youtu.be

[Colorado Bob]

Faster than forecast: the story ice tells about abrupt anthropocene climate change with Jason Box

https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL2c_ujuXhAvQO18KrtERRMjAkjgr-PQ1k&v=pSxO4ktvfDs

[Robert S]

Speaking of warm winter cyclones... 967 low north of Greenland and +/- 0 at the North Pole... Nuts...

[John Christensen]

"2016 minimum Arctic sea ice volume was lowest ever according to DMI"

viddaloo,

Remember that we were in agreement earlier that the DMI volume model is not reliable, so would it make a difference if it is lower or higher than 2012?

[viddaloo]

Remember that we were in agreement earlier that the DMI volume model is not reliable

Yes, I remember! And I'm very happy they went through the trouble of improving their model so that it would become more reliable. If only PIOMAS would do the same, and listen to well–founded criticism!

So you've looked into their new and improved product. Do you want me to repeat my questions now, or should I wait until you realise you're not looking at the same thing as before?

But again, I'm very happy they threw out their unreliable volume model.

[wayne]

Robert S,

I am beginning to believe that the dispersion event of September partially broke open a sea more or less never exposed to air in a very long time. It is not unthinkable that the Arctic Ocean as a whole has substantially warmed, and therefore is a far greater heat source than thought:

http://eh2r.blogspot.ca/2016/11/dark-horizons-latest-cutting-edge.html

Latest refraction observations in darkness have revealed a thinnest sea ice profile, a result from persistent clouds and the warmth unleashed from the North (of 74.5N).

[John Christensen]

"Yes, I remember! And I'm very happy they went through the trouble of improving their model so that it would become more reliable. If only PIOMAS would do the same, and listen to well–founded criticism!"

That is just great, viddaloo, and then since DMI apparently listened to well-founded criticism (Did they?) do we now agree that 2016 has had more sea ice than 2012 for the vast majority of the time since minimum in September?

- because we now like the DMI volume model more than the PIOMAS volume model..

[viddaloo]

Did they?

Very much did, and that makes the number a total of two agencies with 2016 lower than 2012 for ice volume in September. The other of course being JAXA.

Soon, people may start saying 2016 had record low volume at minimum.

Rather than a full 728 km³ higher than 2012, which is PIOMAS' claim to fame.

[John Christensen]

OK viddaloo, so then you also agree that for the majority of the time since the Sept minimum and currently, we have slightly more sea ice volume than in 2012?

[subgeometer]

NeilT

I think your outlook re renewables is too pessimistic. The current approach in the west is certainly pathetic, but the technology, including storage like distributed LiO2 arrays on the the grid are ready to be scaled. China's CO2 emisions have plateaued due to a certain amount more political will, there is a way forward, given the mobilixation.

How many orders of magnitude has coal based generation been scaled since 100 years ago when Lenin promissed "Peace, Bread, and Electricity"? And this is a more capable ad connected world than then

[subgeometer]

By west I guess I especially mean Australia, the US and Canada

[NeilT]

Pessimistic? Maybe. But I prefer a touch of reality.

Currently Arctic ice loss is, in part, driven by the black particulate matter emitted by the Chinese coal fired power stations. It is one of the things driving this season, along with the environmental issues and extreme low ice volume.

But back to reality.

You quote these western countries but let's take the UK for instance. The #11 emitter in the world and well ahead of Australia without the solar resources. The UK is already over it's capacity for the Grid generation. We're within 5% of the requirement in our production which means that every time we get extra peak demand we pull it over the undersea cables across the channel.

Power from France, you might think, comes from Nuclear and it's cheap. Except you would be wrong because France uses more power than it's Nuclear stations produce. So it buys it in from Belgium who don't produce enough themselves at times so they source it from Holland.

Both Belgium and Holland generate their peak power for export with Coal. So the UK reports it's CO2 based on that power coming from France being clean.

Then we have the other side of the coin. How are we going to go Electric in our vehicles when our grid is already at 95% capacity. Fully 2/3 of our energy usage is gas and fuel oils. How, exactly, will the UK transition that to electricity in a landscape where every time we remove a coal fired power station we degrade the ability of the grid to support us because renewables are not filling the gap?

I'm not being pessimistic, I'm being realistic. If someone is not realistic we'll be having the same discussion about renewables v Coal/Oil 25 years from now and plug in vehicles will still be 2% of the vehicle base.

[Remko Kampen]

'... the same discussion about renewables v Coal/Oil 25 years from now'

There will be many discussions and they will be zero about this. They will all sound the same. Discussions about individual and family survival, nothing else. For a taste of this, check in at Aleppo.
Let's get real and dance while we can.

[viddaloo]

Hear Kevin Anderson about COP22 & climate mayhem on today's Radio Ecoshock: mp3 direct link. Kevin is a "climate change truth teller" according to the host.

[viddaloo]

Climate denial extremists wield NSIDC 'tied for 2nd lowest' graph at COP22 denial fest....

«In 2016, Arctic sea ice was 22% greater than at the recent low point of 2012. The Arctic sea ice is now in a 10-year ‘pause’ with ‘no significant change in the past decade

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2016/11/16/skeptics-crash-un-summit-to-issue-a-blistering-rebuke-of-climate-alarmism/#ixzz4QDZjp2tQ »

[VaughnA]

Climate denial extremists consistently demonstrate their lack of understanding/knowledge of quantum physics and natural earth systems...not sure there is too much more to say on that topic.

What is truly scary is the temperature north of 80 degrees that DMI is reporting. As best I can tell it is 268K just -5C. It looks like the average is 248K or -25C. That is a whopping 20C above average. Ice will not thicken very fast at that temperature.

In my neck of the woods(Western Washington State by Oregon) average high temperatures are about 10C of 50F this time of year. This kind of anomaly here would put the temperature at 30C or 86F. Scary indeed.

http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/plots/meanTarchive/meanT_2016.png

[wayne]

Viddaloo

How easy it is in distorting the facts, did the fake skeptic explain current extreme Arctic Ocean warming, 0 C at the Pole? Volcanoes perhaps?

[viddaloo]

Article doesn't say. But it's true what Bill says about using annual averages and thus taking 365 days into account (a year, remember?) instead of just 1 day.

Any focus on just one day is giving the deniosphere a free pass to the COP galas. Ideally, we should be using 7–year or 8–year averages when graphing, as these will consistently be lower than the previous periods.

Having said that, winning the battle over the deniosphere or 'Flatland' doesn't matter anymore, as feedbacks have already made sure we cannot get there in time. Just to end on an 'optimistic' note, LOL.

PS: Deniers were always right in mocking the IPCC computer climate models. I'll hand them that. Wish we could have listened to them before it was too late.

[wayne]

Mr Denial Extremists surely can't explain the warmest Arctic Ocean Mid November , likely ever in recorded history:

http://eh2r.blogspot.ca/2016/11/2016-warmest-mid-november-troposphere.html

From a September minima base of 22 % more sea ice, amazing how sea ice lost its mojo.

[AnotherJourneybyTrain]

Denialists were right, for all intensive purposes, in mocking the IPCC REPORTS- as they were real politik informed by all paritcipitating governments.

The trend is still real if the cosmological constant never eventuated, however.

No denialist cany ceny that: the relationship still exists and the numbers may aswell be real enough as tipping points in markets and ll human exchange don't wait for exact numbers: ENDOF!

[AnotherJourneybyTrain]

...in short: all participating govt. departments warned that the reports were overly conservative for reasons of real politik!

(Beware the panic I say!)

[Werther]

Illustrating sixty days of missing ‘winter power’. The 70% of time remaining will have to be quite harsh to compensate. If not, the Arctic is in a one way lane to the possible ‘black swan’-event.

In fact, this two month exceptional anomalous period might already count for one such event….

[Werther]

And meanwhile, the shit seems to have hit the fan…

[jdallen_wa]

Concur on both counts Werther. I'd be very surprised if I did the calculation based on the DMI graph and found us less than a thousand degree days behind where we should be. That's just for 80N and above. What's happening elsewhere in the Arctic takes the astounding and transforms it into the staggering.

[NeilT]

Well I don't know. There has been significant resistance to my assertions and Hans' that this is just the precursor for the main event in 2017. Followed by a retrenchment in 18/19 and the cycle will begin again.

If you believe that, then 2017 is going to be spectacular, 2021/2 is going to be jaw dropping and 2026/7 is going to be a step change which we are not coming back from in a time relevant to humans currently alive today.

Looking at what is going on today, it's not exactly very hard to work out that, barring some incredible cooling even in the next 4 months, 2017 is going to be something quite spectacular in the melt department.

A bit more difficult to make that call in May of this year though, would you not agree?

I'm just going to sit back and watch now. It should be quite interesting to see how the chartic curve ends up by January.

[P-maker]

Neil T:

"I'm just going to sit back and watch now."

Please don't. Now is the time to rise and shine, use your intellect to combat stupidity and fight for your ca(u)se. Being (almost) right in about 10 years time is not going to help anyone besides you.

Every day counts from now on...

[PatrickLogicman]

Hi, all! I'm signed in as PasserBy because for some unknown reason Yahoo hates me. I'm Patrick aka logicman.

I've been overly busy for some time with legal matters - I won't bore you with details, but I have "lurked" quite a bit.

Be concerned. As global weirding continues we now have political weirding. Who was the first UK politician to meet the Don? Farage. He of the off-his-head conspiracy-denialist-leaning stance.

By meeting Farage, who is no diplomat, before our P.M. or our ambassador, the Don has snubbed, not only our P.M. but our democracy. Farage snugs up to his thinkalikes but is very undiplomatic to his opponents,as e.g. the video below. Even worse, this meeting was a mutual admiration echo-chamber for two climate change deniers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFpzaQPKC54

Now, was soomeone saying something about vanishing ice?

[Neven]

Good to see you again, Patrick!