Two years ago warming denialists claimed the Earth is actually cooling, and they predicted dramatic cooling by late 2010.
Instead, warming continues, overcoming the temporary mediation caused by increased particulate and sulfate emissions from coal burned in uncontrolled fashion in China, as evidence by things like the continued shrinking of Arctic ice below 20th century averages. See this press release from NASA:
RELEASE : 11-337 – October 4, 2011
Arctic Sea Ice Continues Decline, Hits Second-Lowest Level
WASHINGTON — Last month the extent of sea ice covering the Arctic Ocean declined to the second-lowest extent on record. Satellite data from NASA and the NASA-supported National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) at the University of Colorado in Boulder showed that the summertime sea ice cover narrowly avoided a new record low.The Arctic ice cap grows each winter as the sun sets for several months and shrinks each summer as the sun rises higher in the northern sky. Each year the Arctic sea ice reaches its annual minimum extent in September. It hit a record low in 2007.
The near-record ice-melt followed higher-than-average summer temperatures, but without the unusual weather conditions that contributed to the extreme melt of 2007. “Atmospheric and oceanic conditions were not as conducive to ice loss this year, but the melt still neared 2007 levels,” said NSIDC scientist Walt Meier. “This probably reflects loss of multiyear ice in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas as well as other factors that are making the ice more vulnerable.”
Joey Comiso, senior scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., said the continued low minimum sea ice levels fits into the large-scale decline pattern that scientists have watched unfold over the past three decades.
“The sea ice is not only declining, the pace of the decline is becoming more drastic,” Comiso said. “The older, thicker ice is declining faster than the rest, making for a more vulnerable perennial ice cover.”
While the sea ice extent did not dip below the 2007 record, the sea ice area as measured by the microwave radiometer on NASA’s Aqua satellite did drop slightly lower than 2007 levels for about 10 days in early September, Comiso said. Sea ice “area” differs from extent in that it equals the actual surface area covered by ice, while extent includes any area where ice covers at least 15 percent of the ocean.
Arctic sea ice extent on Sept. 9, the lowest point this year, was 4.33 million square kilometers (1.67 million square miles). Averaged over the month of September, ice extent was 4.61 million square kilometers (1.78 million square miles). This places 2011 as the second lowest ice extent both for the daily minimum extent and the monthly average. Ice extent was 2.43 million square kilometers (938,000 square miles) below the 1979 to 2000 average.
This summer’s low ice extent continued the downward trend seen over the last 30 years, which scientists attribute largely to warming temperatures caused by climate change. Data show that Arctic sea ice has been declining both in extent and thickness. Since 1979, September Arctic sea ice extent has declined by 12 percent per decade.
“The oldest and thickest ice in the Arctic continues to decline, especially in the Beaufort Sea and the Canada Basin,” NSIDC scientist Julienne Stroeve said. “This appears to be an important driver for the low sea ice conditions over the past few summers.”
Climate models have suggested that the Arctic could lose almost all of its summer ice cover by 2100, but in recent years, ice extent has declined faster than the models predicted.
NASA monitors and studies changing sea ice conditions in both the Arctic and Antarctic with a variety of spaceborne and airborne research capabilities. This month NASA resumes Operation IceBridge, a multi-year series of flights over sea ice and ice sheets at both poles. This fall’s campaign will be based out of Punta Arenas, Chile, and make flights over Antarctica. NASA also continues work toward launching ICESat-2 in 2016, which will continue its predecessor’s crucial laser altimetry observations of ice cover from space.
To see a NASA data visualization of the 2011 Arctic sea ice minimum as measured by the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer – Earth Observing System (AMSR-E) on Aqua, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2011-ice-min.html [I have changed the link to one that works for me.]
Here is that visualization, presented by Cryosphere Program Manager, Tom Wagner:
On Sept. 9th, 2011, Arctic sea ice most likely hit its minimum extent for the year. On Sept. 20th, NASA’s Cryosphere Program Manager, Tom Wagner, shared his perspectives on the ice with television audiences across the country.
On the top of the world, a pulsing, shifting body of ice has profound effects on the weather and climate of the rest of the planet. Every winter as temperatures dip, sea ice freezes out of cold Arctic Ocean waters, and every summer the extent of that ice shrinks as warm ocean temperatures eat it away. Ice cover throughout the year can affect polar ecosystems, world-wide ocean currents, and even the heat budget of the Earth.
During the last 30 years we’ve been monitoring the ice with satellites, there has been a consistent downward trend, with less and less ice making it through the summer. The thickness of that ice has also diminished. In 2011 Arctic sea ice extent was its second smallest on record, opening up the fabled Northwest Passages and setting the stage for more years like this in the future. In this video, NASA’s Cryosphere Program Manager, Tom Wagner, shares his perspectives on the 2011 sea ice minimum.
More data and animation versions here, at Goddard Multimedia.
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
Minor paraphrase from the old country song: Black Flag = “been wrong so g.d. long that it looks like right to me.”
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Ed,
I have never read a blog so contradictory to its own byline.
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Ed
Utterly bizarre claim – one that no one of merit makes, not even the IPCC
So, Ed, prove it.
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Ed,
Not true.
No, it doesn’t.
Life was abundant – contrary to your bizarre claim.
When know life was abundant and flourishing.
Your claim is irrational
Say what!>!>
You are insane.
Because something did not exist means it was bad for them.
Ed, I have met some badly irrational people before, and you are claiming up the list fast to be among the worse.
No, it is you who hate humans – you blame them for all bad things, and make up lies – and then promote policies that would harm people.
You are insane -you have no proof, – not a shred – yet you proclaim things as if they are truths – \
Life FLOURISHED, you lose.
Ed, stick your head in a paper bag and breath deep and exhale and breath again?
Or are you too afraid to die after the second breath?
You are categorically insane.
Crap comment, most worthy of you.
I provide documentation, but you cannot read or comprehend.
Miss Dr. Beck’s link did you???
No, Ed, you are insane – you cannot comprehend, hold bizarre understanding, are ignorant of science.
You are the liar sir, and I pity anyone who thinks you are a reference.
Yes, you have lied about it – you know very little about C02, already demonstrated by your failure to understand logarithmic application.
Bull. You ignore science, and make up stories.
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El Nina is caused by changes in circulation of air and its moisture content; those changes in circulation of air and its moisture content are caused by slight changes in temperature. Cause and effect reasoning is one of the first things to go when that form of pseuido-Alzheimer’s known as “climate change denialism” strikes a victim.
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Any reasonable American would be happy to claim Al Gore as a mentor. Alas, I can’t — I worked with him, or collided with him, depending on your views, and found him to be a nice guy, with great intentions, and way ahead of everybody else in policy on science issues. Not until Steven Chu took over the Department of Energy have we had a potentially more knowledgeable person in science working at high levels of government.
If it were one million years ago, it was before humans. My point remains: When CO2 was higher, humans did not survive, or could not survive. That humans did not yet exist does not change the fact that it was not a good time for the human race.
When did the warming denialists develop such hatred for the human race? What malevolent policies result from that repugnant philosophy? You think we shouldn’t do anything about warming so we’ll all die?
I noted: “Those periods of ‘much higher’ CO2 concentrations would destroy human life as we know it, and maybe much more life.”
Aptly-named Black Flag said:
Let’s be clear. Here is the number of humans who survived previous episodes of great CO2 concentrations; this chart shows ALL survivors from ALL previous periods:
. ZERO
Hey, I’m not the one arguing that humans survived CO2 much higher than 390 ppm. You are, BF. Crackpot? You’re claiming, in essence, humans lived with dinosaurs.
Are you a creationist, too?
I noted: “In human history, CO2 has not been so high.”
I’m tempted to ask you again to document it, but that seems to be fruitless. Let me ask simply that you stop telling such whopping lies. Children read this blog, sometimes looking for information for school reports. Don’t tell such lies. Don’t even hint at them.
I noted the destructive nature of massive CO2 concentrations in the air, and the cavalier way BF talks about it: “But, what’s a little killing off of all human life, so long as we get to complain about government regulation, right?”
BF said — did he misspell, or did he intend to surrender invoking Godwin’s Law?:
A reminder: The total of humans surviving previous eras of CO2 greatly above 390 ppm, all totalled: 0. That’s zero, zip, nada, a nullity.
I challenged BF so he’d not lie to us — fruitlessly, it appears: “If you disagree, please offer an example, with documentation, of any time humans lived good lives with higher CO2 concentrations.”
No documentation, but the zero between the two right angles is the accurate count of the total number of humans who survived those times.
But of course, you don’t even offer a link to Anthony Watts. You’re claim is factually bankrupt.
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Ed,
PS: It is you who has the extraordinary hypothesis that humans do cause climate change
It is YOU who must provide the proof.
My task is to show where you are wrong.
My job is done -yours….not so much.
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Ed,
AGW rests on CO2 causation -which has been falsfied.
I do not do your homework, and you wouldn’t read it even if it was shoved under your nose.
Why?
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Ed,
Like your mentor Al Gore, you get your units all messed up.
Not billions, millions of years ago, and life was just fine.
Of course it would not!
You are a crackpot!
Yes, it has.
It is YOUR pograms that will kill human life.
Yous is the anti-human agenda.
LoL!
Right now
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How do you know that? What do you know that you’re not telling? Where is the paper that claims humans do not cause global warming? Why are you hiding it?
Have you ever read anything by Kin Hubbard? You should.
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3 billion years ago or so, yeah. Earth was fine. Animal life, not so much.
In human history, CO2 has not been so high.
But, what’s a little killing off of all human life, so long as we get to complain about government regulation, right?
If you disagree, please offer an example, with documentation, of any time humans lived good lives with higher CO2 concentrations.
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Ed,
LoL!
No, it doesn’t! Most of it shows your hypothesis is an utter fantasy!
…shows that you are wrong – Co2 is a consequence not a cause
..that you are wrong, there have been periods of much higher concentrations, and the Earth is just fine,
…and that there have been major warming periods, which is expected in a INTER-glacial epoch
Such “proxies” are incredibly suspect to assume a singular cause when lift is far more complicated than you suppose.
In fact, we do, or it can’t be called “Global” warming
Only to a man who is blinded by dogma
There is so much contrary data that the best the science can do today is say”
Wow, we don’t know much about this at all
Answer is “no”
The other question is “the cost of panic” – which is huge and risks the collapse of global economy and the deaths of millions
Ed, we have had 40,000+ yeas of warming.
Honestly do you not understand we are in an interglacial epoch???
Yes, they were and you’re right -they were caused by the same natural events recent warming (and cooling) are caused by.
How convenient you are tone deaf to cosmic rays and its experimental proven influence.
Ed, the earth is not a greenhouse.
Tree rings are very much more influenced by moisture and not by temperature, Ed.
Neither – they are not a good proxy for anything but rain fall
Sure can, its called “rain”
True, but unlike climate science, they are not reeking of political motivations and vast sums of grant money.
Those which are scientific fraud – you bet. It matters not what acronym you want to plant your dogma behind, if it is not science, it is not science
No one disputes this – nor the fact of Global cooling.
Scientific proof, not hearsay.
The “cult” is on your side of the fence, Ed.
You, as pointed above, out and out ignore science fact.
Frankly, I do not know what influences climate change – I surmise it is not one thing, nor separate things, but a lot of things that through their own natural cycles regularly create the influence.
But I do know this
Anthropogenic Global Warming has been FALSIFIED, and one or group that remains married to the discredited hypothesis is a zealot and remains married by irrational emotion and not by any scientific fact.
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Scoorge,
Utter bull.
Drought of El Nina is NOT caused by “slight” increases temperature, but due to changes in the circulation of air and its moisture content.
Again, you are a zero on understanding climate and weather.
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As I pointed out, these data corroborate the hypothesis. As I pointed out, there are various, different means of corroborating the hypotheses, including ice cores, historical records, and lake varves, and other methods besides.
For corroboration, we don’t need data for the whole globe — but there are good data for most of the northern hemisphere, and enough data from the southern hemisphere to indicate there are no contrary data.
It’s not one line of data that raises the concerns of scientists. The question we’re trying to answer is, is the current warming precedented in history in a way to suggest we shouldn’t hit many panic buttons?
Were there warm years? Yes. Warm decades? A couple. Warm centuries? Not really. Were those warming events global? Not so far as we can see. Were they caused by CO2? No.
Another question that we’ve been working on since at least the 1950s is this: Is current warming caused by something other than the rise in CO2 concentrations?
No other suggested cause has panned out, either because it doesn’t exist, because it is cyclical, or because its effect is not so great as to overcome the CO2 greenhouse effect. Of course, several other suggested causes turn out to increase the effects of CO2, like sulfur hexafluoride (SF6). Alas, denialists fight all efforts to stop warming, even the control of SF6 — so we know their goals are politically motivated, and not motivated by reason, science, or a moral drive to do good.
The question is, do the tree rings deny the hypothesis of global warming caused by CO2, or affirm it? Accounting for those differing causes of tree ring records, tree rings affirm the hypothesis that we are seeing unprecedented warming now, globally and not locally, and that CO2 is the current cause of the warming, because we can’t find another likely cause.
You know, Alan, were the science Al Gore talks about weak, there would not be such universal findings and acceptance of it. On serious issues where there has been disagreement in the past, we see different agencies and different scientists slugging it out in papers — Big Bang or Steady State? cause of AIDS? origins of HIV? control of particulate air pollution? viruses as a cause of cancers? non-locality of quantum objects? existence of atoms? spread of typhoid, typhus, plague, polio? quarks? neutrinos? really? effects of DDT? — without the widespread agreement among science agencies of different nations in different cultures, world wide. You reject the findings of NASA. But those are also the findings of the European agencies, including those who compete with NASA and those who don’t like NASA. The USSR’s science agencies made the same findings as NASA before the fall of the Soviet system, and they make the same findings today, though colored by the oligarchs’ desire to downplay warming so they can continue polluting. Even the science agencies of China agree, and they have a stake in keeping up unregulated pollution.
Is there any evidence that would convince you that global warming is occurring, and that CO2 is the cause? Or is this a cult with you, and others?
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Alan said:
That’s false. IPCC has never come close to saying such a thing, nor has anyone else.
Global warming denialism is based on false notions, either gathered honestly but stubbornly clung to after the facts become clear, or created by the same forces that argued (falsely) Rachel Carson was wrong, thalidomide is safe, and there’s no harm in letting banks make reckless speculation in housing securities.
Exceptionally warm years prior to the era of greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels occurred — so did exceptionally cold years. When they occurred there was a clear reason for them to occur other than CO2, and those causes were cyclical and not involving destructive feedback loops that could cause runaway warming; when they occurred many of them were localized, and not global; when they occurred they abated after less than two decades, or three decades — or the six decades our warming has continued unabated.
Alan’s claim appears to be one of the foundations of his belief. It’s a false claim.
Warming denialism takes on the image of a cult, belief in the face of facts, dismissal of all contrary knowledge and evidence, bizarre claims of dark conspiracies.
Meanwhile, the world warms. Maybe we should call them “Nero-ists.” (Alas, it’s probable that Nero didn’t do what the legend claims, so that might be inaccurate.)
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The Incas had a severe drought for 30 years that evidence shows was caused by la nina. If I lived in TX I would be concerned. Minor changes in global temps can cause big changes in weather patterns and regional weather. Decimation of a civilization seems to me should raise concern rather than be used to rationalize away the dangers of GW. The TX drought may end in a year or so even though they have a great head of their climate dept that thinks it possibly will last longer. But what they are seeing now looks like it will be the norm 30 to 40 years from now. Maybe sooner because it looks like scientists being conservative as are 20 times more likely to err on the conservative side when talking about consequences.
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Ed Darrell,
” Yep. What was the cause of those warm years, if they exist?
We can account for warm years with other data. In the past, there were not years so warm as the last half of the 20th century, not for so long.
Consequently, we cannot question climate change, honestly. ”
I will repeat myself . One of the chief rationalizations for Man made Global Warming is that any exceptionally warm years and decades happening in the era of green house emissions did not happen in the eras before green house emissions.
I say you cannot know with any accuracy what the average Global temperature was in 997 AD. You have a rough idea that it was warm in Northern Europe. You don’t know what the average Global temperature was for any particular decade around 3,000 BC. You might know the Global averages for those centuries . There were no weather satellites and terrestrial recording stations. You might know certain geographical areas pretty good, but not Global temperatures especially for something as short as a year.
If there were record breaking hot years or decades, you’d have to account for them in a time of less CO2. Or if they happened before,independent of CO2, maybe they are again .
” Tree ring data will get us to a specific year. Those data are solid to about 12,000 years. Sediments can easily take us back 50,000 years, with great accuracy. Ice cores go back 200,000 years. ”
So you guys have this data for the whole globe ? A tree ring can have growth variations due to more than temperature. Drought and floods can cause variations . If you have these records showing hot and cool years, you are still not getting what the actual temperatures were . Only that certain years and decades were warmer or cooler than other years .
” In the past, there were not years so warm as the last half of the 20th century, not for so long. ”
I do not accept that . I have read of droughts that lasted decades in South American and wiped out Pre Inca civilizations. Great droughts of these kinds are caused by large temperature changes. These droughts have not happened to the same degree ion modern times. I believe that cycles of temperature were even more violent historically than today .
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Ed,
Having review their work, on some things, I would agree.
However, offering such a blanket over the entire group is folly. There is a lot of work in the field that is outrageously sloppy, poorly documented, poorly organized, statistically out and out wrong and scientifically irrelevant.
Mann’s work is the latter.
No, reliable data only goes back a couple of decades.
No, it does not.
It is incomplete, and at the moment tells us nothing
Anyone who says different is not doing scientific work, but politicking.
No, we don’t.
Click to access EE%2018-2_Beck.pdf
I had the honor of working with Dr. Beck and had a great deal of correspondence with him on this matter.
This is completely false.
….shows the Earth had ppm 10 to 30 times more in geological times.
God help us with your “facts” – most of them are simply not true.
No, it does not – it does not correlate significantly at all.
Its bad data, sparse data, incomplete data, most of it meaningless and it is not 300 years old.
You seem to believe that humans understand climate.
We do not. We barely understand some rudimentary basics, and the odds are, we are wrong about them.
…and by 2008, we were back to the level of 1960.
So much for your hypothesis.
You are a scary man.
You take something that is a trivial, reverse it, add an exponential function out of fantasy just to make your dogma
You are a terrible deluded man.
The rest of this post is so horrible, wasting time exposing your fraud is pointless – enough has been demonstrated.
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Ed,
Let’s not assume anything.
It takes but one refutation of the AGW hypothesis to discard it – and it has far more then just one refutation.
This means that the Earth warms and cools, and the winds blow and doesn’t, animals run, bees buzz, ants swarm, plants blossom and the sun will shine tomorrow.
It means the AGW hypothesis is wrong, and that is all it means.
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I’ve spent some good time with the dendrochronologists, and I think their work is solid — they are tentative where they need to be, and they warn of accuracy issues appropriately, where appropriate.
We must look at the long term. Scientists concede that measured data go back only a few centuries. But what we have there verifies what was observed, and the feared hypotheses. We know how much CO2 has increased in the past 150 years — unprecedented since oxygen first showed up in the atmosphere about 3 billion years ago or so. That’s just a factoid except that warming in that period tracks very well with the line we’d expect if CO2 was causing the warming. So it’s not just sparse data, it’s solid 300 year data that are verified by CO2 measurements.
If we concede time prior to the 20th century, we still have reason to be concerned. Over 100 years, were it NOT CO2 causing the warming, we should see different fluctuations, and, absent any other causes (which are in fact absent), the trend line should not differ much from what it was in the early 20th century. But the latter half of the century was measurably warmer, on average, than the first half. Worse, the logarithmic function of CO2 creates exponential warming, probably, if CO2 is the culprit. That is exactly the trend line we see in the latter half of the 20th century and first decade of the 21st, except the temperatures actually measured and the damage actually observed are greater than predicted in 1990.
You claim the measures were not as predicted. Other denialists claim we should dismiss the predictions of the 1990s — the hockey stick — because the actual temperatures measured differed from those predicted. What you fail to say — did you even know? — is that the measured temperatures were higher than predicted. Warming is proceeding at the upper levels of the ranges predicted, signalling greater danger, not less.
Since 1980 almost every year is above the 20th century average, and since 1998, every year is way above the 20th century average. Were there no CO2-driven warming, at least a few of those years should have dipped below average.None did.
So, why do we need data back farther than 300 years? We don’t, really. Scientists are cautious, conservative types, though. They said, “What if we’re missing something that happened in the past, something that might be happening again, something that is just cyclical and will end.” That’s where Michael Mann and the other dendrochronologists come in. With tree rings, they can make very close and accurate calculations of what happened in the past. Was there such a high level of CO2 perhaps? What do the warming curves look like?
Mann charted it out and got the hockey stick.
Can those figures be corroborated? What if there was a volcano, or the crash of an alien space ship that gave a CO2 spike, or . . .
That’s where the ice bubble stuff comes in. The ice core data verify Mann’s chart.
No, we can’t know everything. But what we do know tells us trouble is brewing big time. What we know, from CO2 science, is corroborated by actual measures over the past 300 years — and it doesn’t contradict global warming in any way. Tree rings go back farther — and they corroborate the warming scenario. The ice cores verify the tree rings.
If warming is not accurate, some data somewhere should clearly contradict the theory. No contrary data have shown up.
When we can’t know exactly what we want to know, we look carefully for corroboration. Every data set, of any kind, made by any people, verify warming and corroborate it.
Tree ring data will get us to a specific year. Those data are solid to about 12,000 years. Sediments can easily take us back 50,000 years, with great accuracy. Ice cores go back 200,000 years.
If the trends of any of those methods diverged, we’d have dought. They don’t diverge.
At some point there must be solid, contrary data, if we are not to believe what the rocks and stars tell us.
Yep. What was the cause of those warm years, if they exist?
We can account for warm years with other data. In the past, there were not years so warm as the last half of the 20th century, not for so long.
Consequently, we cannot question climate change, honestly.
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Ed Darrell,
” Yeah, I get that you’re trying to say there’s an outside chance of a warmer year before recorded history of climate. In recorded history, the past decade was the warmest. If we include pre-history, most signs point to this past decade being the warmest ever.
You could be right. There may have been a warmer year in pre-history. So what? ”
So what ? You fail to see the relevancy?
If we only have accurate temperature readings from the last 3 or 4 centuries, and those only in selected areas of the Globe, truly Global records are far less than that, how can you say a decade or a year of warmth has no precedent within the last one thousand years or 5 thousand years ? The last 3 centuries is a very short time period in climate terms. That is really the only period of which you have any certainty of .
I realize that scientists can get general climate information by looking at sediments, tree rings, etc. Those will not tell you necessarily that a particular year or even decade was as Globally warm as the last decade has been . And if there have been as warm years in the distant past, then man made climate change can be questioned .
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Let’s assume one error would negate all of the other findings, the actual warming of the Earth, the effects on animals and plants, and repeal the designated hitter rule.
Then the screw up Matt Ridley did on DDT would negate all of his work.
The screw up climate deniers did on that poor 4th grade kid in Texas would make this book look like a minor footnote.
And what about all the excitement when a delivery service mistakenly sent auto parts to that guy in Spain? Y’all leapt to the conclusion that scientists who study warming had sent him a bomb.
So, since you’ve read the book, tell us: What is the argument, what does it mean? So what, and who cares? as the late, great Jim Riley would have asked.
It doesn’t look like there’s any science in it, to me.
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Ed,
Perhaps you will entertain reading this book
Blooming brilliant. Devastating” – Matt Ridley, author of The Rational Optimist
“…shines a hard light on the rotten heart of the IPCC” – Richard Tol, Professor of the Economics of Climate Change and convening lead author of the IPCC
“…you need to read this book. Its implications are far-reaching and the need to begin acting on them is urgent.” – Ross McKitrick, Professor of Economics, University of Guelph
…but I doubt it – it would hurt your zealotry.
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I said: “At this point, with the warmest decade in human history and a scary number of the ten warmest years in human history having occurred in the last decade, it’s not enough to claim CO2 doesn’t warm.”
That was on the way to noting that, since the world warms, if one wishes to make a claim that CO2 is not the culprit — which it appears to be after 50 years of searching for the source of the warming — then a critic needs to propose an alternative culprit. Now that I think about it, the critic should also explain why CO2 looks like the culprit; that would require extensive knowledge of the theory behind CO2 warming, which most critics don’t want to bother to learn.
Alan responded:
Here’s my post on NOAA’s saying the past decade was the warmest in history.
NOAA said:
You can check out the NOAA posting yourself.
Yeah, I get that you’re trying to say there’s an outside chance of a warmer year before recorded history of climate. In recorded history, the past decade was the warmest. If we include pre-history, most signs point to this past decade being the warmest ever.
You could be right. There may have been a warmer year in pre-history. So what?
You may want to read what NOAA actually says about global warming:
Oooh, and see this at that same NOAA page:
Alan said:
Slip of the tongue, not a craven denial of facts. Slip of the tongue, not a stripped transmission of the brain.
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Ed Darrell,
” AT this point, with the warmest decade in human history and a scary number of the ten warmest years in human history having occurred in the last decade, it’s not enough to claim CO2 doesn’t warm. ”
This is the second time you have made this wild claim. Previously I cited a NOAH article which clearly states that accurate temperature records only go back a few hundred years. Recorded human history goes back thousands of years. Unrecorded human history goes back tens of thousands of years.
This is like Al Gore, the High Priest of Global Warming, saying that the earth’s temperature at it’s center was several million degrees, when it is estimated to be 9,000 degrees .
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Ed,
So, you agree that increase or decrease in ice sheets has nothing to do with AGW.
Excellent. We can move on.
You are daft.
It has to do with wind.
You are an irrational moppet.
You are a zealot and no amount of fact, physics and science will make a difference to you.
Fortunately, the rest of the world is waking up to your crackpot theories and discarding the AGW myth.
You are the last of the holdouts – the zealots – and, you will remain as such until you pass away.
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If either were true, it would not change the facts of global warming nor the human element of causation of the warming.
No such finding, unconnected to global warming, has been made. Arctic ice is melting due to global warming. Has warming altered wind, too? Then it may have an additional effect. However, it is inaccurate, false, to claim warming has not shrunk the Arctic ice pack. Warming has driven the reduction of the ice with reductions in precipitation, increases in temperatures preventing sea ice from forming, longer warm spells, reduced cloud cover to shield the ice from sunlight, and pools of water on the ice, which absorb more heat from the sun. Does wind play a role? How could wind not be affected by warming?
Did you read the post at the top of this thread? Our nation’s best scientists discuss the effects of global warming on the reduction in the Arctic ice cap. What do you claim to know that they don’t?
Not so. Temperatures have not dropped, but instead they have remained shockingly high, even while massive increases in particulate and sulfate pollution from China have reduced warming’s effects over the past decade. Those “reduced” effects still gave us the warmest decade in human history.
Here’s the summary of the real science — notice how the real scientists talk about the reality of global warming and the need to reduce CO2:
Here’s the abstract of that study: http://www.pnas.org/content/108/29/11790
Note also that CO2 is not the only cause — only the greatest cause, and the one which must be controlled in order to stop disastrous warming
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Black flag
“I gave you a link which has plenty of resources to it.”
Yet you give this link as your primary and only source of facts. Now you say it only a starting point. So are you now saying that your argument has no basis in fact at all. That you refused to even do homework into your own position in the argument?
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Ed,
I am not here to do your homework.
I gave you a link which has plenty of resources to it.
Work for yourself, sir.
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If I am so ignorant, show us a good source to document your claim. I am not so ignorant, of course. You’re making stuff up, or worse, you’re relying on a tall tale someone told you.
Otherwise, it remains clear that you’ll tell any tale, no matter how far it falls from the truth, in order to rant.
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Black Flag is why people moderate forums and comments. The liars ALWAYS have more spew that people documenting their claims can refute simply because the spew only requires that you type instead of research.
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So I go to one of the links given to show what I’m not sure and see a plot of the last three solar cycles. Very standard but I’m a little confused about what that is supposed to indicate. But if anybody thinks this is anything significant spaceweather can give you a lot more. And just to be fair I actually looked for any “NASA” research on a 60 year cycle causing the ice to melt but for some strange reason couldn’t find any.
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Here, Ed, you can read the story – it has names and citations that you can follow up, if you wish
Click to access newsweek_coolingworld.pdf
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Ed,
No where did you present your data nor calculation whatsoever.
You offered a baseless statement with no proof – and in that statement, made an error regarding “heat” dispersion.
So, you may think you know what you are talking about, but you have not much of a clue, sir.
You cannot be so ignorant as not have known this.
Oh, wait, you can. You didn’t even know about the Co2/log function.
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Poor Ed,
….
You are irrational or you cannot read.
As the ice sheet increase/decrease has already been demonstrated to be caused by wind changes – using such to claim “it’s AGW” is irrational – you make no sense.
Further, by your own agreed instrumentation, we see temperature go down – which is completely contrary to your hypothesis of Co2 causation.
You started the insults first, Mr. Pot and Kettle….
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Ed
As we’ve already agreed, CO2 will increase warming – that is a fact of physics. The question asked is “what relevance does it have?” (ie: the spit in the ocean analogy)
Further, now that you have learned something new about the logarithmic nature of absorption,and that the warming increase is a log function, and you seem to have agreed to that -finally.
Further, the IPCC offers a HYPOTHESIS that an increase in the concentration does not immediately create a change in climate – it lags behind the concentration increase – quote “…, at the time of equivalent doubling, the climate will not have realized its full, equilibrium response to the forcing.
Note: this is a HYPOTHESIS, not a conclusion, nor verified by experiment.
How can you claim it is a “critique” of my argument, when no where in my argument did I say otherwise? We agreed Co2 adds warming, so you are tendering a strawman here!
What I did say is that Co2 increase cannot explain the warming as its influence is TOO MINOR.
Here is a calculated graph of the temp. variance due to increase concentration.
I further stated that given that temperature – as suggested by the graph I offered earlier in another post- does NOT follow Co2 concentration increase, the correlation you claim Co2 has to such temperature is simply not demonstrated – which is the refutation of the AGW Hypothesis.
As Einstein said, no amount of experiment can prove him right, but it only takes one experiment to prove him wrong – and AGW hypothesis is riddled with such “wrongs” as it is dependent on the CO2 causation – which by calculation of a law of physics cannot explain the warming, if such warming exists
Now, you can remain immune to this and hold irrationally on to a discredited hypothesis, but that makes you irrational. I hope, since your byline states you strive for “a little accuracy in …. science” you avoid being irrational.
So, you can, alternatively, offer another a different hypothesis, and follow the scientific method to evaluate it.
The choice is yours.
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Scrooge,
See, you absolutely right about crazy people – unfortantely it applies to you.
So decades of research by NASA – to you – is no “evidence”, and hence rubbish.
As Churchill quipped: You walk along merrily and trip over the truth, pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and continue on you way as if nothing happened.
Wow! You are irrational.
Bull. You are making up stories to fit your agenda.
You have no data or evidence to make such a claim
You are ignorant and make up stories.
It has not, nor ever “stable”. As I noted before, you believe the world is “static” and this belief underlies all your ignorance.
No, and again you are ignorant of the science.
Wind changes – as I have already documented for you.
You already demonstrated your ignorance, and lack of science.
It is no surprise you are a zealot.
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Black Flag finally cites a source, but the source doesn’t agree with his conclusion so far as I can see:
Here’s what that document says, in greater context:
It seems to be that the IPCC is saying warming will increase, not that we don’t need to worry about more CO2 in the atmosphere because its warming effects slack off logarithmically.
So I stand by my critique: To the extent that the relationship between CO2 and rising temperatures is logarithmic, the logarithm is not towards less warming, but the opposite.
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Black Flag said:
But when I repeat his claim in this way: “According to you, the ice should be expanding”
Black Flag promptly retreats and wrote:
So, I guess he’s changed his mind, and warming is not abating.
It’s progress to persuade one denier, even if they exit spouting insults.
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I can’t explain it, mostly because it’s not accurate. I explained earlier why it’s not accurate. Now, again without any hint of an iota of confirming sources, you claim that atmospheric scientists in the 1970s feared global cooling, and then changed their minds.
Who told you that? Which scientists proposed the hypothesis, and where can we read their errors first hand?
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If I may say so Mr Darrell you never argue with a crazy person on the street because a passerby can’t tell who’s crazy. Now trying to get through all the pure nonsense being spewed and changing arguments there may be a few that should be answered. Like a 60 year solar cycle causing the arctic to melt. No evidence to support and the evidence there is shows it to be rubbish. Trying to say CERN proves cosmic rays are the cause of the GW we are experiencing is an outright lie. Though cosmic rays do provide CCN they are so small they make a minimal contribution. And besides over the last 50 years the influx has been stable. The ocean currents are causing the arctic to melt, yep and what makes currents change is temperature and salinity. Anybody who understands sea breeze and mountain breeze understand that temp does affect wind. Even thaough in this case we are looking more at changing pattern due to warming.
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Ed,
You are categorically insane.
No where did I make this claim.
No where did I infer this claim.
You are pulling sh– out of your head – an obvious response to your position being shown to be … well .. utter crap.
You are a liar.
Sorry, Ed – you are hopeless in your delusions, and no amount of science and fact will ever dissuade you.
No one is more blind then those that refuse to see.
C’est la vie
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Ed,
So far, you have ignored physics.
You have ignored your own sources
You have ignored geological evidence.
You have married statistical crackpottery.
You have married fantasy and -at best- wholesale speculation.
You have no scientific proof.
I can only surmise you are a hopeless zealot.
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Ed,
So, now the best you can provide is ad homenin.
How quickly you resort banal insults…
Strange for you that in the 1970’s it was Global Cooling.
Can you explain that?
Strange, because sulfates do not scatter “heat”. I guess I have to ask, “what research do you have” that shows this?
Utter bull.
I have already posted to Pag the fallacy of this claim.
But I hold no surprise you still parrot it.
First, “greenhouse” effect is a wholly incorrect understanding – and if you had any experience in atmospheric science, you would know this.
The Earth’s atmosphere is not a greenhouse.
Nuclear winter has been refuted completely – I, however, am not surprised you would believe it.
Nuclear war would end human civilization, but the Earth and its climate – heck, it wouldn’t notice the difference of the passing of our species.
As Edward Teller said to a stunned reporter:
Reporter: “But nuclear war would destroy the world!”
Teller, laughing:”Not at all, the world wouldn’t even notice it”
Reporter: “But all of mankind would be destroyed!”
Teller: “Oh, that may be true – but do not confuse the Earth with mankind the species. The deer and the birds and the ants will merrily continue on with no notice to the destruction of the human race.”
.
Sorry, Ed, but it is you who fails such understanding.
No theory of merit holds that mere “particulates” caused the the cooling of the 1970’s – if so, you hold to the same discredited and junk science that infects modern climatology regarding global “warming”.
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Ed,
First, let’s get the onus straight.
You are advocating an extraordinary hypothesis, not me.
You need to prove it, not me.
It hasn’t been proven, but wholly refuted, by the way,so your task is …how to say it… ‘difficult’ at best.
If the IPCC is not enough for you, Ed, you are hopeless.
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I’m not much interested in your misteachings, either.
As I explained earlier, your representation of the calculations is likely in error, and you offer not a single science source to back it up.
Then you completely misrepresent Arrhenius’s research.
Next you’ll claim Edison invented darkness.
Got a citation? Any at all? My advanced math skills are not great, and I trust you even less.
See the post above. According to you, the ice should be expanding. Alas for us, reality sneaks in: The ice is shrinking year over year, much more rapidly than IPCC predicted. You claim disaster should be easy to avoid, and yet it rushes at us at increasing speed.
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You’re really full of manure, you know?
AGW hypotheses have held for the past 100 years and longer that greenhouse gases, if unchecked, would warm the Earth. The difficulty we had 50 years ago — when I was active in atmospheric research, by the way — was that particulates and (surprising to us then) sulfates scattered light and heat, and counteracted the greenhouse effect.
Two things: One, the cooling effect of sulfates and particulates lasts only so long as they stay in the atmosphere. Even an enormous volcanic eruption can put stuff into the higher atmosphere for a relatively short period of time, about 2 years. So the cooling effect abates naturally after a couple of years, in stark contrast to CO2 which stays airborne for a hundred years or more.
Consequently, the greenhouse effect of CO2 alone overwhelms the cooling effect.
Back when we did not have laws to reduce any pollution, there was discussion about the possibility that very dirty air could cause cooling, especially were there a nuclear exchange that would put a lot more particulates up, causing disastrous cooling.
BUT that was always understood as just part of the issue.
Two, we got laws to control particulates and sulfates, and the laws worked. So the greenhouse gases won out early.
“Global cooling” was always understood as a result of very dirty air, and climate scientists did not reverse positions as you claim. You simply fail to understand the science, and the history.
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Ed,
Say…what??
The math formula -for the first and most significant order calculation is on the wiki page.
Go do it yourself.
As I said, I am not interested in teaching you physics or how to exercise a math equation.
Then wait forever, for holding on to Co2 as any causation for “climate change” is your doom.. it simply does not exist.
The question to you is:
Is anything you assert based in reality?
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Right. Got a citation for that? That is entirely contrary to any understanding of the physics of CO2 by anyone at any time.
Still waiting for a citation that there is a logarithmic arrangement that works to slow warming, rather than speed it.
Is anything you assert based in reality?
For example, your claim about Arrhenius is exactly contrary to the historic understanding. Spencer Weart, the guy who wrote the textbook on the issue for the America Physical Society, explained why you’re in error, way back in 2007:
Weart also explains how CO2 continues to warm, contradicting your claim that the effect peaks out:
Your claim is based on the assumption that there is a saturation point for CO2 in the lower atmosphere, plus another assumption that we have already reached that saturation point. The CO2 measure widget in the lower right hand corner of this blog explains that your assumption is dead wrong — CO2 has been climbing dramatically for the entire period we have measured it with any great care, since the late 1950s — more than half a century. Weart again explains the dramatic damage caused if we were to rely on your error:
See here, for example of how CO2 heats stuff up:
And here:
Simple experiments demonstrate the problem. You try to say the problem goes away with more CO2 gas — but that’s not what the science shows.
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Ed,
This is true – however, the question is the relevance of such warming compared to – say – changes in cloud cover.
The calculations of the CO2 concentration increase shows the warming to be quite literally irrelevant – we are talking a degree of warming that is not measurable.
This is a key point – that is, the error margin in temperature readings is greater than the potential increase of temperature due to additional Co2 … in other words, we can’t tell anything from it.
Analogy would be spitting in the ocean.
Yes, if there are X molecules of water in the ocean and you and Z more molecules from your spit, the ocean has gone “up” X+Z molecules.
However, that is all things being equal – and in climate, nothing ever is equal – it is a massive chaotic equation.
No more you would claim the ocean level rises on your spit could you claim human Co2 causes the global warming/change/disruption.
Comic rays – and unlike Co2 causation – proven scientifically, that is, by experimentation.
http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/spotlight/SpotlightCloud-en.html
We can dialogue more on this if you’d like – it is very interesting.
Oh, do not be so quick – science has no timeline.
(1) We have NOT been looking hard – AGW hypothesis has been a recent claim – 50 years ago is was Global Cooling
There has been a small, but vocal, group of people who see disaster in all human action, starting with Malthus and the Club of Rome.
But, yet, all of their predictions have come to naught.
We do know somethings – but we don’t know a whole lot more of most important things….
This is not true – again, do not fall into the trap of statistical crackpottery.
Medieval warm period – grapes were growing in England and Greenland had farmland.
Further, one cannot make such claims as temperature records were not kept, or if kept, lack the statistical accuracy necessary for such claims.
It helps your cause to keep it within the known realm, and not speculate into fantasy. (Ps: It helps my cause too! TRUTH is like that – it helps everyone who holds to it…)
Actually, no I don’t have to show a darn thing.
Science is not out to prove me right or you wrong or vis versa
It is out to discover the Universe, otherwise known as The Truth.
(PS: did you know the “Scientific method” was first derived by a Muslim in the 1st Century … utterly amazing man and story…his belief was that God was truth, and never lied – such, what one man discovered would be the same event or effect for another man, for God would not lie to one man and tell the truth to another…
http://www.ibnalhaytham.net/)
You have a hypothesis based on an observation.
Good for you, that’s an admirable start.
But it is just a start … I urge do not get trapped into holding onto a conclusion where there is no merit to create one… you and your ilk are far, far, far away from claiming conclusions.
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Ed,
*sigh*
Here, from IPCC … I assume that they will do for you….
http://www.ipcc-data.org/ddc_reporting.html
“..as the temperature response to increasing CO2 concentration is logarithmic..”
This is know physical science, Ed – but I have no problem helping you “catch up” with the physics – but only to a point. I am not interested in running a Physics 101 class on your blog.
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1. That does not claim that warming will be logarithmic — and, that’s isn’t in the Arrhenius paper, is it? Can you show me where?
2. Odd that the claim at Wikipedia lacks a citation. Want to wager how accurate it is?
But, congratulations for finally trying to back up something you claim. Unfortunate as all get out that your first citation comes from Wikipedia, and not from research — and isn’t backed by research.
3. Assume the relationship between CO2 and warming is, indeed, logarithmic. Increases in CO2 still increase warming. We see warming — if you were right that CO2 is not a major cause, then the mystery becomes, what is the likely culprit? After more than 50 years of looking hard (we started in the 1950s at least, not 1980s as you suggest) there is no other likely culprit known.
As Sherlock Holmes was wont to observe, after you eliminate all the things that are impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, is the case.
AT this point, with the warmest decade in human history and a scary number of the ten warmest years in human history having occurred in the last decade, it’s not enough to claim CO2 doesn’t warm. You’ve got to show the real cause.
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Ed
Good – there is hope for you.
So, to accomplish that you need an experiment – got one in mind?
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Ed,
Ah, no, Ed, it hasn’t escaped notice – “we” have known this since 1896, experimentally observed by Svante Arrhenius – On the influence of carbonic acid in the air upon the temperature of the ground (1896)
Here is a tidy on WIki for you:
The relationship between carbon dioxide and radiative forcing is logarithmic so that increased concentrations have a progressively smaller warming effect.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiative_forcing
You should read the IPCC report, too.
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Not without a lot of confirming evidence of the cause-effect relationship, no.
But then, you wake up and proclaim Glee has ended global warming, based on evidence just as flimsy. I’m not sure you understand what it is you’re claiming, and I’m certain you don’t understand evidence at all, especially evidence of global warming, and where it comes from.
CO2 logarithmic? Really? And for more than 200 years that escaped our notice, how? And the study that shows CO2 behaves logarithmically was published where, by whom, with what experiments to back it up?
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Scrooge,
Quick question:
The temperature is -40.
The temperature increases by 20 degrees.
How much ice will melt?
First, there is no data on what, if any, such an increase may do to ice sheets – it is circumstantial at best.
Second, the increase in ocean temperature is due to, quote, “…. more strongly, by the increased Agulhas Current leakage, which is augmented by the strengthening of the wind stress curl over the South Atlantic and Indian subtropical gyre.”
…in other words, wind stress allowing warmer Indian ocean water to enter.
Now, if you hypothesis that mankind changes wind strength,……
The temperatures in the arctic have indeed risen in recent years and ice has declined, bottoming out in 2007 but it is not unprecedented nor unexpected.
The arctic temperatures and arctic ice extent varies in a very predictable 60-70 year cycle that relates to ocean cycles which are likely driven by solar changes. It has nothing to do with CO2, showing poor correlation and since cold open arctic ice is a significant sink for atmospheric CO2 just as warm tropical waters are the primary source.
In 2007, NASA scientists reported that after years of research, their team had assembled data showing that normal, decade-long changes in Arctic Ocean currents driven by a circulation known as the Arctic Oscillation was largely responsible for the major Arctic climate shifts observed over the past several years.
Everything you see is not man-made.
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Yes how foolish of me to think that warmer ocean and surface temps would make ice melt. And then when it is observed believe my lying eyes. Now that I think of it I remember the days of checking “thermometers” using ice water. Guess that was a mistake if temperature has nothing to do with freezing liquids. If I’m not mistaken that would render all of the temperature observations except satellite useless. Oh heck just blame AGW on pirates.
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Scrooge,
No one claims magic here – unless it is the AGW zealots, who see every observation of nature as a negative, and therefore caused by human action.
If you woke up one day, and noticed bald men – you wouldn’t claim that their baldness was due to the sudden appearance of “Glee” as a TV show.
Equally, you wouldn’t make the statement “Arctic sea ice variation is due to Internet use”, simply because the beginning of the measures of sea ice corresponds to the beginnings of the modern Internet!
So, be consistent – there are observations – and nothing more.
Further the observations have only started – 30 years is completely irrelevant timescale in terms of geological and climatological conditions- and do note, there is still many problems with those observations – the satellites suffered calibration issues – and thus, we have no where enough data to make any thing but the most basic hypothesis, let alone any conclusions.
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After looking at the GMU poll and being discouraged by how little the American public understands the science behind AGW all you can do is just keep posting things like this. If you look at the science its easy to see this is not a trend caused by magic that for some reason a certain number of people want to believe.
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So, Ed, question you should ask yourself.
If the observation (which is questionable) has happened only over the last 30 years, what makes you think this is significant?
How do you know this is merely a normal variation over a trend of a few hundred years, or a few thousand?
In other words, Ed, this is merely an observation (and again, very subjective in its measures) – and not a conclusion. Any “scientist” proclaiming some conclusion is making a serious error – but common in the junk science of “Climate change”
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