Global warming 2016: Arctic spin

Here's a great blog post by Tamino that tells this year's Arctic sea ice story and how a few cowards continuously lie(d) about it to their fellow men:

Global Warming 2016: Arctic Spin

The useful thing about a canary in a coal mine is that it warns you of danger before the danger kills you.

When 2016 began last January 1st, the average temperature throughout the Arctic was fully 18°F (10°C) hotter than usual for New Year’s day, and the extent of sea ice in the Arctic was lower than ever before recorded for that date:

The extra-high temperatures and extra-low sea ice with which the Arctic started the year, was just the beginning.

Arctic sea ice generally grows in extent during the first two months of the year (it being winter and all), and in that regard 2016 was no exception. It didn’t maintain its lowest-for-this-date status on all days, but did skirt the lowest-yet-seen extent consistently during the months of January and February:

Nobody who knows Arctic sea ice was surprised by this. It has been on the decline, overall, for decades, so it’s no surprise that this year’s levels would be at or near their lowest. It’s part and parcel of the ongoing trend of the loss of sea ice in the Arctic.

Nor was it a surprise that, even with an ongoing trend, it wasn’t always at its lowest-ever. Most everything in nature, including sea ice, doesn’t just follow a trend, it also constantly fluctuates. Added to the overall tendency, there are ups and downs and downs and ups that make it different from day to day, month to month, even year to year. But over the long haul, the fluctuations — even though they never stop — never really get anywhere. What does, what keeps on going and accumulates until we can’t ignore it any more, is the trend — and for sea ice in the Arctic, that means there’s less and less of it.

The surprise was what happened in late April and May. Ice extent didn’t just “skirt” the lowest-for-this-time-of-year line, it plunged far below and by May’s end was a whopping (not just surprising but shocking) more than half a million square kilometers less — not less than “average,” but less than seen before:

The depths to which the Arctic ice had sunk was, not to put too fine a point on it, alarming.

About mid-June it returned to an almost-lowest for-this-date path, and throughout July and August was only 2nd- or 3rd-lowest on record.

This was right in line with the ongoing trend of decline, a direct consequence of man-made global warming. After all, the extra-rapid heating of the Arctic and the ongoing loss of sea ice there, had been predicted more than 30 years ago by the same scientists who now tell us climate change is man-made and dangerous. Maybe we should listen.

But — to those who deny global warming, who deny that it’s man-made, that it’s dangerous, even deny that it’s real, the fact that Arctic sea ice was only nearly lowest-on-record was enough to call a “recovery.” Some even decided to mention the topic, not its uninterrupted declining trend of course, but implying that because it wasn’t yet all gone, that was some sort of “come-uppance” for scientists saying the reduction was part of a global warming trend.

In July, for instance, Christopher Booker, writing in the U.K. Telegraph, told us that “Arctic ice has made fools of all those poor warmists.” “Warmists” is what he calls people who believe man-made climate change is dangerous. He backed up his claim with anecdotes, chosen to make it seem like sea ice isn’t disappearing like most scientists said it would.

Read the rest here.

At the end of the blog post Tamino shows his readers what the 'strongest' 'argument' of climate risk deniers suddenly looked like this winter (not that they would mention it to the people they con):

Out of bounds...

Comments

[Rob Dekker]

D-Penquin, arguing with you is like pulling teeth. You constantly misinterpret was is said, discredit scientific findings, call into doubt basic facts and ignore the important stuff.

Let's do this slowly this time. You quote from Hansen et al 2013 :

"...but it omits climate-carbon feedbacks, e.g., assuming static global climate and ocean circulation."

then you claim :

Your position follows the Static Model and my position follows the dynamic model.

which suggests that you find your own position 'dynamic' w.r.t. carbon feedbacks and thus more accurate than even Hansen et al 2013's Bern Cycle Model.

However, your position does not include carbon feedbacks either. So your model is not dynamic w.r.t. carbon feedbacks either.

To make matters worse, as Micheal Sweet correctly points out, your models does not include the deep ocean. That's where even according to your own referenced data 82% of the carbon went that was absorbed by the oceans :
https://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/figure-7-3.html

Ignoring the deep ocean makes your position irrelevant, and should be discarded as bunk.

Yet you call into question the opinions from the experts, call into question my understanding of some pretty basic figures in Hansen et al 2013, you discard any opinion that runs counter to your beliefs, you ignore the important parts (deep ocean carbon storage) and hype the irrelevant parts (ocean sediments) and you seem entirely impervious to reason based on facts.

Sorry D-Penquin, but you act no different from a defacto climate science denier.

[Rob Dekker]

Looking forward as to which irrelevant detail in my post you want to argue with next.

I think lodger had it right all along, from the start.

[D-Penquin]

Rob Dekker | January 24, 2017 at 05:21
Rob Dekker | January 24, 2017 at 05:41

Rob

Oh dear, the ultimate insult, to be compared to a climate science denier. Of course, as you would expect, I deny the denial charge.

Regarding the climate science; I have not yet read a peer reviewed paper or cited article with which I disagree. So, unless I am a 'spoiler' or 'stupid' our differeces of opinion must be on the 'interpretation' of what we read.

I am looking for your help here in trying to understand your position, because I hope that you are right.

Please correct me if I am wrong but I beleive our respective positions differ on:-

1. If the reduction in Fossil Fuel emissions are achieved then atmosperic CO2 will reduce to an acceptable level over a reasonable period of time (say 100 years?) because of the Ocean Sink.

2. The part played by the Intermediate/Deep Ocean Sink in the future reduction of atmospheric CO2.

If we could at least agree on where we disagree perhaps that would be a good starting point.

Perhaps it would also help with communication if points could be numbered as above with the response being AGREE or DISAGREE. Obviously if the response is DISAGREE then an explanation of our respective thinking on that point would help to progress the debate.

[Neven]

If we could at least agree on where we disagree perhaps that would be a good starting point.

Or maybe it's just a good ending point that you agree to disagree, and that we all agree that emissions need to be reduced and then go negative asap.

[navegante]

It gave hope to read this thread and that is important, to find hope, and change things in life and show others (at least your child). The 'we are doomed' thing is destructive per se.

[D-Penquin]

navegante | January 25, 2017 at 07:31

Navegante, there IS hope.

The Paris Agreement was the first step only. I beleive that step by step the Agreement will move towards implimentation of the correct IPCC RGP in time to achieve a successful outcome to AGM; ordinary men and women will also act as a catalysts to ensure the appropriate political responses are put into practice.

IPCC new emphasis into research into SR 1.5degC following submission of independent report:-

ftp://atitlan.ethz.ch/docs/afischli/for-jose/Fischlin-IPCC%20contributions.pdf
(copy and paste)

The timetable for submissions is very, very tight but the scientists have said they will 'rise to the challenge' (good luck to them).

Also important in the changed format of working and presentation is the integration of socio-economic assessment factors, previously a sequential process. This is also an important area of study for Neven. I am sure that he will be pleased about this development although his interest, I beleive, relates more to a Global System of Fairness and new Financial Structures. It is my hope that the Global co-operation to combat AGM will also require a new system of Global values to emerge.

All the latest IPCC Reports that I have read now refer to removal of atmospheric C02 direct from the atmosphere to acheive RCP targets aided by reforestaion, afforestation, land management and related issues. And, yes, control of the global Energy balance affected by Solar Insolation.

The most comprehensive and detailed Report that I have read to date is:-

https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_Chapter06_FINAL.pdf

6.5 (through to Acknowledgements)
Potential Effects of Carbon Dioxide
Removal Methods and Solar Radiation
Management on the Carbon Cycle

I beleive that a successful resolution of the AGW threat will require tolerant and informed debate between scientists, politicians and the ordinary men and women of the world.

If we are all successfull our children and grandchildren will inherit a better place with greater understanding between all peoples of the world.

[Rob Dekker]

D-Penquin, you really hit my buttons. Congrats on that.
You said :

The Paris Agreement was the first step only.

No. The first step was the Kyoto agreement, which was adopted in 1997, TEN YEARS AGO.

In your second sentence you said :

I beleive that step by step the Agreement will move towards implimentation of the correct IPCC RGP in time to achieve a successful outcome to AGM;

You probably mean RCP (Representative Concentration Pathways) instead of RGP, and AGW (anthropogenic global warming) instead of AGM.
Not to mention that it is interesting that you do not mention which RCP you find to be "correct".

And these were just the first two sentences.

[Rob Dekker]

Ah. The first step, the Kyoto agreement, was adopted in 1997, which is now TWENTY YEARS ago, thank you very much.

[Bill Fothergill]

It is perhaps worth noting than both David Archer and Ralph Keeling were contributing authors to AR5 WG1 Chapter 6.

@ Rob "Twenty Years".

As we are talking about international agreement/cooperation on an environmental time-bomb, one could think about the "Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer" which was agreed 30 years ago.

The very need for that agreement causes me grave concern when forms of geo-engineering get mentioned. I'm pretty sure that Thomas Midgley and the rest of the chemistry boffins at General Motors didn't see that one coming. At the time, dichlorodifluromethane (aka Freon 12, aka CFC-12) must have seemed like the answer to a maiden's prayer.

Similarly, several years earlier, when the unfortunate Mr Midgley, Charles Kettering, et al (we're still talking General Motors) were discovering how good tetraethyl lead was at boosting octane rating, they were not quite so quick at recognising some of the adverse effects.

[D-Penquin]

Rob Dekker | January 26, 2017 at 08:50

Paris Agreement - Countries agreed to reduce FF emissions on a voluntary basis and in that sense, this was, the 'first step' towards implementation of a policy; not per se the Paris meeting. Whereas, Kyoto was very much about procedural agreement.

RGP and AGM errors - You are correct, my typo errors.

The reason why I did not volunteer a preference was because it was not relevant in responding to the comment made by Navegante. I was simply explaining why I thought that there was 'hope'.