Lead story on the CBC National tonight!
We have news from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). They say: The melt is over. And we’ve added 9.4% ice coverage from this time last year. Though it appears NSIDC is attempting to downplay this in their web page announcement today, one can safely say that despite irrational predictions seen earlier this year, we didn’t reach an “ice free north pole” nor a new record low for sea ice extent.
Oh, wait….
But do be sure to send the item to every warmist-mongering journo you can think of, just to twist the ice pick a little.
This is incredible news. Who would have thought that arctic waters would start to freeze as summer ends and autumn temperatures start to go down. Amazing. /sarc
From the same article: “The Arctic sea ice cover appears to have reached its minimum extent for the year, the second-lowest extent recorded since the dawn of the satellite era. […] this year further reinforces the strong negative trend in summertime ice extent observed over the past thirty years.”
“Despite overall cooler summer temperatures, the 2008 minimum extent is only 390,000 square kilometers (150,000 square miles), or 9.4%, more than the record-setting 2007 minimum. The 2008 minimum extent is 15.0% less than the next-lowest minimum extent set in 2005 and 33.1% less than the average minimum extent from 1979 to 2000.”
i.e. We set a record low last year after setting a record low two years before and we almost beat last year’s record low (and may yet beat it). How is that a sign the arctic isn’t undergoing a huge melt???
Also: “Determining with certainty when the minimum has occurred is difficult until the melt season has decisively ended. For example, in 2005, the time series began to level out in early September, prompting speculation that we had reached the minimum. However, the sea ice contracted later in the season, again reducing sea ice extent and causing a further drop in the absolute minimum.”
i.e. Let science do its work and stop jumping up and down like a political spinmeister monkey on every tidbit of data.
There is no question there is an enormous climate change taking place.
What is causing that change is far from decided, however. If the Gores and Suzukis of the world and the head-in-the-sand deniers of the world would just get out of the way with their spin, the public might actually get a clearer picture of what is actually happening.
Heck, even Palin admits there is global warming.
Hopefully science will win out over the political partisans.
But wait, this isn’t reason to celebrate as apparently it wasn’t the right type of NOT melting
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/09/17/eaice117.xml
Get this load of hooey “Walt Meier, a research scientist at NSIDC, said: “I think this summer has been more remarkable than last year, in fact, because last year was had really optimal conditions to melt a lot of ice.”
No kidding, last year had better conditions to melt more ice, and thus more ice melted. If this year had better conditions, then more ice would have melted as well.
This is climate science folks, paid for by you and me!!
Fargone iceholes!
Before some leftard comes along, let me post more of this genius’s statement:
“[last year]We had clear skies with the Sun blazing down, we had warm temperatures, and winds that pushed the ice edge northwards.”
“We didn’t have any of this this year, and yet we still came within 10 per cent of the record; so people might be tempted to call it a recovery, but I don’t think that’s a good term, we’re still on a downwards trend towards ice-free Arctic summers.”
So, apparently the sun didn’t shine this year, things didn’t get warm, there was no wind and still the ice melted. Perhaps he would care to explain just what did melt the ice then.
Was it the record number of polar bears pizzing all over the place, did that melt it all? Did they get a little help from all the drunk eskimos who so despair at life without ice that they’be got nothing else to do?
Genius, sheer genius!!!
“the public might actually get a clearer picture of what is actually happening.”
Yeah like maybe comparing, hansens old predictions of where global warming would put us now to where it actually is. 🙂
Besides in weather a record that goes back so few years is pointless but the spin meisters will always use it to prophesy doom it seems.
Like a few weeks ago where they said there would be no sea ice near the pole.
good news is bad news.
“I think this summer has been more remarkable than last year, in fact, because last year was had really optimal conditions to melt a lot of ice.”
I see they’re abandoning the “weak nearly useless single year ice which will never last the season” rhetoric because it didn’t melt enough. Now it’s a surprise so much melted! The sky is falling!
More from the telegraph article, cause stupidity , no sorry, free entertainment like this should be shared!!
“Dr Meier added that last seven years are among the seven lowest on record in terms of Arctic sea ice.”
What, does he mean the last seven years since 1979?? We’ve only had satellite coverage since 1979, and making any accurate interpretation of the complete arctive ice coverage before then is just silly.
Wait, there’s more: “He said: “That’s a real indication that this isn’t any kind of temporary climate cycle.”
Wow – 7 years out of 29 on a system that has climate cycles of hundreds/thousands of year. This indicates that it isn’t temporary!! Really, perhaps he should talk to all the ninnies who insist that cooling/flattening global temperatures for the last 10 years don’t mean a things at all.
BTW leftards, I am NOT saying that the last 10 years imply any sort of trend on the global scale, but rather that the last 10 years clearly indicate that the warming models are full of crap!!! But, if I was this guy then (based on the last 10 global averages) I could say, without a blink, that we all need to sharpen our skates for the coming ice age.
OK, enough ranting for me.
A different spin on the same story from the commie chronics:
Arctic sea ice nearly at all-time low
The Arctic has finished its ice melt for the year, shrinking to its second-lowest size in a generation, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.
http://thechronicleherald.ca/Canada/1079327.html
Ted “i.e. We set a record low last year after setting a record low two years before and we almost beat last year’s record low (and may yet beat it). How is that a sign the arctic isn’t undergoing a huge melt???”
Uh, the melt has stopped, so I do not see how we may yet beat it comes into play. Did you even read the article?
Kevin: Yes I did read it. Did you?
“”Determining with certainty when the minimum has occurred is difficult until the melt season has decisively ended. For example, in 2005, the time series began to level out in early September, prompting speculation that we had reached the minimum. However, the sea ice contracted later in the season, again reducing sea ice extent and causing a further drop in the absolute minimum.”
Scientific reporting doesn’t work to the newscycle to the dismay of the fanatical Gore-aphiles and the Gore-aphobes alike.
Again: the data shows that there is a quite dramatic drop in the ice. The data doesn’t tell us why – that’s where the fanatics start to twist the science – but it does tell us what has actually happened.
And whether it was all or part or not at all man-caused, the ramifications of a warming north and south pole could only be enormous (though not apocolyptic or only positive as the fanatics of either side like to spin).
Needless to say that the kayaker will never paddle all the way to the north pole. Worked in Arctic for 5 years, in the end of May it was 15 to 35 below. At the end of June it was 30 above with the sun up 24 hrs a day. At the end of August and into September it started to cool off and sunrise and sunset was 5 minutes per.
It would take 18 to 24 months to melt the arctic ice in the most perfect weather settings. I noticed that all the weather claimers about the north pole melting they never asked one Eskimo what they thought about it.
These records are less than forty years old but the Believers and their fellow traveler Headline writers always say lowest amount of ice in “history”
And last week NASA announced that despite telling us otherwise for least twenty years, the Antarctic Ice cap has been growing in size and mass.
And then NASA said this was due to Global Warming.
Go figure.
That is some very nekkid, butt to the wind emperor the Warmongers pay homage to.
Good one Eyeswideshut !
Woo Whoo!
This is the good news tipping point , for those of us that covet our ice augers.
“[last year]We had clear skies with the Sun blazing down, we had warm temperatures, and winds that pushed the ice edge northwards.”
“We didn’t have any of this this year, and yet we still came within 10 per cent of the record; so people might be tempted to call it a recovery, but I don’t think that’s a good term, we’re still on a downwards trend towards ice-free Arctic summers.”
Let’s just ignore the undersea volcanic activity, shall we.
http://www.canada.com/topics/news/story.html?id=81bb2fd3-63f1-476f-b0be-f48c0dc90304
An inability to admit one’s mistakes may be a virtue elsewhere, but here, not so much.
http://www.athropolis.com/sun-fr.htm
According to this, there is sun all day in the Arctic for six more days. You may think the next six days are critical for the ice melt, that 10% of the Arctic ice will melt with the sun 1 degree above the horizon and mere fractions of watts per square meter at the surface of the earth, but I do not. The temperature is dropping, has been for weeks. Just admit your error in reasoning, and move on; don’t try to Elizabeth May your way out.
In six days, the sun sets in the Arctic till sunrise next year in March.
AGW used to be sold as an inevitable straight line march….since CO2 is increasing and CO2 is the cause then increases in CO2 mean increases in temperature.
This was the old theory that was used to sell the mania.
CO2 may be causing an increase in temp. But clearly natural variations are large enough to wash away the effects, at least at this level. This needs to be identified and accounted for.
Right answer with wrong method = bad science.
And if you follow bad science you cant be sure of policy because you dont really know if you got the right answer. So like the student that has been asked to rewrite their term paper because the plagerized the AGW guys have lost time and credibility.
I dont know if CO2 is causing warming, unlikely, or adding a warm element to natural cycles and if so is it in a significant amount? Nobody can provide an answer.
So before we reorder economies lets get the answer, or at least 80% of the answer. In the meantime, lets reduce our need for fossil fuels imported from politically unstable parts of the world who recycle our cash to ends we dont agree with.
I, for one beieve in climate change. I also believe that that big yellow thing in the sky has more of an effect than buying any of the Goracle’s carbon credits. I’ve got a shocker for the greenies: the earth is a dynamic environ. Weather changes, geography changes, things move, melt and do stuff. Have been for quite a few million years and will continue to do so long after we are gone.
Hell, we could have Pinatubo or Popocatepetl blow up or the maybe the San Andreas Fault might slip big time. Who knows when another astroid will drop on us and throw all these green plans down the proverbial toilet?
The truly sad thing(IMHO), is that all the political hopefuls on both sides of the border are spouting about the same claptrap in order to get votes. Cap & trade seems to be the new mantra. China is laughing all the way to the bank.
Sheesh.
A few points on this and similar articles:
(1) The ice bottomed out this year at 4.5 million square kilometres. For all those wailing about the prospect of an “ice-free arctic”, that’s half the size of Canada and two-thirds the size of Australia. Sorry to disappoint you, Al, but there’ll be no drowning polar bears this year.
(2) Last year was a low point for arctic sea ice. This year, the melt was less. For all those who didn’t pass grade 10 physics, that’s indicative of a cycle, not a one-way trend.
(3) There was a lot less arctic ice in 1922 than there is right now – when there was ALSO a lot less carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (see http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/03/16/ you-ask-i-provide-november-2nd-1922-arctic-ocean- getting-warm-seals-vanish-and-icebergs-melt/). Hell, go back to the 11th century; Leif Ericson didn’t call Newfoundland “Vinland” (“pasture country”) because it was full of icefields and polar bears. And the only CO2 he was putting into the atmosphere came from his sweaty oarsmen.
Correlation does not prove causation, but non-correlation DOES prove non-causation. Average global temperature is cyclical; atmospheric CO2 concentration looks more or less logistic. There is no correlation between the two, hence there can be no causal relationship. Whatever melts ice, it can’t be increasing concentrations of atmospheric CO2. This is not a matter of opinion; it’s a simple deduction based on empirical observations of two measurable quantities: temperature and CO2 concentration.
So find another culprit. Hint: how about that big yellow ball in the sky? You know – the one that dumps more energy onto this planet in an hour than the human race consumes in a year.
(4) Phrase like “in a generation” and “in the last 30 years” make me laugh. Why are these time periods relevant to a geological feature that’s been around for hundreds of millions of years on a planet that’s over four billion years old? Because that’s the timescale that the warm-mongers find most conducive to their arguments. If you look at any curve – parabola, sine wave, a circle for crying out loud – over an appropriately short timescale, it’ll look like an up-trend too.
There’s no need to wait for more “science” to be done; there’s a wealth, an embarrassment, of science out there proving that, to the extent that non-natural, non-cyclical global warming is occurring (and it’s not at all clear that any such warming has happened), the likelihood that mankind is largely responsible is vanishingly small. What we need is not more navel-gazing, introspection, or debate – we simply need to help political leaders understand the difference between trend projections based on computer modeling of climate – a coupled non-linear dynamic system that we do not understand and therefore cannot model – and trend projections based on observed data.
The latter provide a sound basis upon which to develop policy. The former do not. It’s as simple as that.
D.A.Neill: excellent post and well worth reading, however I try to keep it simpler when I get into a discussion with the AGW-believers.
I simply say:
“There have been something like 11 recorded ice ages in the history of the earth and global warming has ended every one of them.”
After a period of silence, the conversation usually changes to another topic.
D.A. Neill: you correctly say that correlation is not causation, but you are not correct when you say that non-correlation proves non-causation. It may mean non-causation, or it could mean that other factors are involved.
To me causation is an important consideration as well and in regards to causation we can say the following:
1) We are responsible for all the current rise in CO2.
2) CO2 will absorb and then re-radiate longwave radiation.
3) If you apply more longwave radiation to an object it will either warm or cool less quickly.
Regards,
John
John: Does the conversation ever change to Milankovitch cycles? 😉
regards,
John
John: “1) We are responsible for all the current rise in CO2.”
This is a theory, not a fact. It does not make sense to me that we (mankind) are responsible for 100% of the atmospheric increase in CO2 when our contribution to the atmosphere (as opposed to natural contribution) is about 5%.
Off the point – Does anyone know of a Powerpoint presentation one could give to a group of students to express the counter arguments against AGW?
I find the left side of the graph most interesting. Despite record loss of ice in the summer, it appears that every year begins with about the same amount of ice. Even after a record summer melting, the ice extent recovers completely each year in the winter.
It seems to me that, if the world is getting warmer, winters should be warmer too, and the winter ice extent should be smaller as well.
CO2 captures a very specific range of wavelengths.
The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is nearly 100% efficient at capturing it. Adding CO2 will not increase the amount of radiation captured as you can’t capture more than 100% of anything.
Stuff CO2 induced global warming.
Wha…? The glowball warming is over? Does this mean we now have to buy toques and snow boots for those damn polar bears?
Syncro
A sampling of various headlines about this,
Polar ice loss heralds a change in the weather
Arctic ice melt not quite a record
Arctic Ocean Ice Retreats Less Than Last Year
North Pole ever closer to having no ice
Arctic Sea Ice Still Shrinking
Now, for headline skimmers, would anyone think that the ice coverage had increased 10% from those?
I was watching the weather channel for about half a second yesterday, and there was a feature were if you selected three New England states, all heavily populated of course, or three heavily populated California cities, then this was the eighth warmest summer on record for those cherry picked areas. You can’t make this up, seriously.
Damn you Tim!!!! You never sent any of that New England heat to your neighbours to the north east?
Think we had 2 or 3 days above 30C this year.
Steve at Climate Audit is at it again . FISK !!
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=3682
Why is it that a 10% decrease in sea ice at the North Pole was billed last year as a “catastrophic loss” and “definite proof that climate change is happening”, “Arctic ice melting and not coming back: scientist (2007)”, “Arctic sea ice shrinks to lowest area on record (2007)”, yet a 10% increase, as is happening this year, is billed as a “slight increase in arctic sea ice”. No mention of climate change. No dramatic pictures of the growing ice. No big headlines, no front page news, but a story burried on page 16 with the heading “Arctic ice sees slight increase”. Nothing sells newspapers like bad news.
Also, the term “lowest area on record” is very misleading: we have only been started measuring it since 1979! Over the 5 billion years of Earth’s existance, we have been measuring the size of the arctic sea ice for a grand total of 29 years. The same goes for global temperatures. We’ve only been measuring them accurately enough to be able to compare them for less than 100 years. Yet “hottest that it has ever been on record” sounds very dire, until you mention the record is only about 100 years long.
Ted: There is no question there is an enormous climate change taking place.
For heavens sake man, did you just clue in? There was ice 2km thick over our heads only 10000 years ago, the climate is always changing -radically!
And the MSM and the politicians will ignore this piece of news yet again…
Give me someone to vote for who promises to cut some useless programs, not go on a spending spree. And give me someone to vote for who says “the science is not settled”. Please!
molarmauler: As I posted here several times, that is not correct. First, there are areas where the bands are not saturated. Second, even if it was saturated there would still be an increase in the longwave radiation since the IR given off at different temperatures will change. If you wish I can post more on this.
Regards,
John
If GW is real where are all the traveling scientists/climatologists warning the public? Where are all the speakers with credentials? There should be packed auditoriums bedazzled by brilliant spokespeople.
We hear about the consensus of scientists but where are they?
Have they come thru your city or town?
All I experience is crazies or people that use more energy than myself telling me to cut back.
bobzorunkle: No, in fact, that is one of the few things that can be mathematically proved in regards to AGW. The essence of the argument is that we are currently producing more CO2 than is showing up in the atmosphere. Thus there is no question that we are responsible for all of the increase.
Incidentally, this can be backed up by experimental evidence by looking at the ratio of isotopes in the atmosphere.
Regards,
John
This proves that the BC carbon tax was a huge success!!!!
Actually, I don’t recall seeing this on the CBC National last nite. Did I miss something?
David:
Yes.
“According to this, there is sun all day in the Arctic for six more days. ”
Having spent a few years living in the Arctic, I can tell you that right now, “a day” amounts to about an hour, maybe where the sun is visible at or on the horizon.
More like a weak dawn about 10am, then followed by a low light afternoon that last an hour and then a fast sunset.
If science and scientist are gather their information based on facts, theorty and history and experince and do several experimental study and time
with all that respect for global warming
we need also made political science and study and consider all facts and listen to all parties and tehir ideas seriously and always choose teh best solution for people
if you see things not by that eyes and only focus on dogm to accept because you are fall in love of party of liberal or conservative then you are choosing wrong direction for consdier all cities must work under one party
big city like Toronto need may one party or choose ideas from one group or differnt city are fine with different view of other parties
as how Canada is too big and climate change and political change and differnet in people and multiculturism you must not stick to one
idea and open minded to listen and pick teh best choice sometimes your choice is only avialable of today not for tommorrow
tomorrow may other scientist find better solution for our today and yesterday problems
again some times some issue is link from water to all countirs
that is like your drill the alasak and take the oil and that oil may suck oil of Russia canada and Denmakr and USA and link with middle east
when you talk global warming and whetehr all world are link togetehr
then you understand sometimes peopel more than fight must get united and made team work to find teh best solution for all people in world because you can not simply made a formula to work in climate chage in Canda with not l ink with RUssia and USA climte and resources change as well
world adn people are link and today and problmes must not see ourself as selfcenter
such as global warming and nuclear and gun and war will affect global warming too
when you drop all those bomb in middel east don’t you think it affect all the world already
“The science is in.”
A favorite line from the warm mongers and their media backers and hackers.
But there’s a serious problem with that kind of thinking.
Predictions about what the climate will do in one or two generations simply don’t hold up, because “the science is not in.”
Why? Because tomorrow, next week, next month and next year haven’t happened yet. In the interim, many things can occur that will have an affect on the climate. There can be another Mount Pinatubo, maybe ten Mount Pinatubos. We could be hit by a giant meteor. We could be hit by ten medium size meteors.
No one knows what we’ll run into as the earth and sun wend their way around the spiraling Milky way, and constellation races through the universe.
Can scientists predict what will happen? No they can’t. There’s a lot more to come and none of it can be foretold.
The politicians can’t manage what’s happening today, yet they want to spend billions to prevent what they’ve been told will happen in 30 or 40 years.
The prophets of doom and their minions are making dire predictions of biblical proportions, scaring the hell out of people and spending our economy out of valued jobs.
Predicting the future is best left to those who read tea cups and tarot cards. How many of them do you believe?
Erwin Gerrits: Regarding the 10%s you bring up, they are two different things. The 10% reduction from last year was a 10% reduction in the total area of the ice cap from the “average”. The 10% increase mentioned this year is a 10% increase from the low level last year compared to the “average” low level.
You can see that here!
Regards,
John
when we start having to burn a whole hell of alot more fossil fuel to keep warm (and alive) they will be so unhappy. we are all supposed to die.
john cross. god = man. nature = man. natural cycles happen with or without man. carry on.
John Cross:
You are polite when you disagree; I’ll try to be the same.
I’m an engineer by training. I’m not a theoretical physicist (the people who said it was aerodynamically impossible for bumblebees to fly, or baseballs to curve). To me, a theory is only useful insofar that it can predict reality.
Now, I’ve seen lots of articles in papers, magazines, and the Net about AGW theories. The problem to me is NOT ONE of them is able to correctly predict what has actually happened. Even if you take the mildest theory, sea levels should have increased by at least 8 cm (they haven’t), temperatures should have increased by 3 degrees C (they haven’t), and catastrophic weather events should occur more frequently. Now, we did have a few hurricanes this year, but not one was a Category 5. The US deaths from Gustav, Hannah, and Ike combined were less than 100, while over 1,800 lost their lives to Katrina.
Until the AGW scientists can produce a model that matches the physical reality, I’m going to remain skeptical, and I resent the fact that self-serving propaganda like carbon-credit broker Al Gore’s “A Convenient Lie” is shown to my kids at school, but when I asked for a chance to present an alternate view, I was turned down.
“Douglass, D.H., and J.R. Christy, 2008: Limits on CO2 Climate Forcing from Recent Temperature Data of Earth. Energy and Environment, accepted.
The abstract reads
“The global atmospheric temperature anomalies of Earth reached a maximum in 1998 which has not been exceeded during the subsequent 10 years. The global anomalies are calculated from the average of climate effects occurring in the tropical and the extratropical latitude bands. El Nino/La Nina effects in the tropical band are shown to explain the 1998 maximum while variations in the background of the global anomalies largely come from climate effects in the northern extratropics. These effects do not have the signature associated with CO2 climate forcing. However, the data show a small underlying positive trend that is consistent with CO2 climate forcing with no-feedback.”
http://tinyurl.com/3jtn7w
In order to survive made the house material with strength for underground water nd above teh ground whay above the ground in link of these two
I heard the building under water by Candain artiche underwater is under process in DUBAI
if see level is go high or down as result of melt the ice you can survive of you are in high land or below the water
but I understand taht may costly and
how about you transfer tha all excess water from Earth to otehr planet like Moon or etcc to made level in smae
even transger of garbage from earth to other Planet will reduce all excess here
again i know touch what god creat it may involve more risk too
the enviornmentalist need to link with politican for budget and with physian and people who study the star and made people to otehr planet and study with archticteal design to built better land desing I bleive teh team who study the
this change of planet and water and ice are lack of otehr group who can study how to get rid of thos water
how to vapor all excesss water to air and how to change to l ess raining and all kind of thing and people who work in forestery
if you see we have lots of water in North and we less water clean in middle or some area in Africa for example made teh chanlle to let water from all world with Channle get link and balance taht excess water too
if you use water from melt of ice to go to land who are in desert in Iran for example I give funny example some times but if we cna use transfer of water and sell the water to peopel need wate to let their land able to built agricultue then it is balance all
if you work in area and taht water is no way to go out that is bring sea l eavel higher in Canada North while this excess can go else weher in middle of Earth forexample
those team need to hire more poeple to use this water for increase water in earth and save life for taht area to let their house stand in higher than see or made under water in case of emergency
I am not uptodate to that scinece
Scinetis can not work with not budget and money that money must be bring by politicna by promise of science that moeny can help their famer water cannels or so many beteer option and that money can turn to more gold too to let that today problmes trun to new buisnss to people need water too sell more wter for drinking or otehr thing too
I am an engineer myself but not uptodate of this area of science I am sure too many engineer need to work to find solution more than seat and cry to keep the systme steady is not the solution becuase if you only think to keep the sysema steady you scare todrill to find more oil instead you must be know all option to made it happned within a two years or more to start digging or made better solution
I am not agree with idea to say seat and do nothing it may get melt again
but also that melt can use to transfer elsewhere if it is possible
Too Funny !
“and then there will be Peace”
Thank you Al Gore
http://tinyurl.com/4hey58
New; please, do us all a favour and take some ESL classes or reduce your comments to a short para or two. Your comments are unintelligible as they are currently presented; you may well have worthwhile opinions, but as nobody is able to comprehend them…
Before digging out an extra parka take a few minutes to read the article. I am no supporter of Global Warming, in fact think it is the biggest load of BS ever. The 2008 ice field is still one of the lowest of all time. From the article: “Despite overall cooler summer temperatures, the 2008 minimum extent is only 390,000 square kilometers (150,000 square miles), or 9.4%, more than the record-setting 2007 minimum. The 2008 minimum extent is 15.0% less than the next-lowest minimum extent set in 2005 and 33.1% less than the average minimum extent from 1979 to 2000.” Quit being lemmings and read something yourself. This reminds me of the “I heard it in the coffee shop so it must be true” line of gathering data.