View Full Version : Arctic sea ice is melting at its fastest pace in almost 40 years
An alarming report in today's Guardian claims that the Arctic sea ice is at its smallest extent for over 8000 years and that the pole could be ice free in 30 years time and yet that Lord Monckton would have you believe that the cap is not melting, nothing to worry about, move along, nothing to see here...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/sep/11/arctic-ice-melting-at-fastest-pace
Ok Chicken Licken, let's go and tell the King!
Suppose the North west Passage will be navigable; we'll have warmer winters, springs will extend growing seasons, and even allow farming to happen in place where it hadn't before.
If it’s true I blame all those Chinese coal-fired power stations and the penchant our north-American cousins have for big 4 wheel drive cars. I’ll take a lot of convincing that wee fat Eck and Scotland alone can change the world.
Suppose the <b>North west Passage</b>will be navigable; we'll have warmer winters, springs will extend growing seasons, and even allow farming to happen in place where it hadn't before.
Discovered by Orcadian John Rae
weezer 316
12-Sep-11, 19:48
In 40 years time the right wing nutters will be telling you sea ice is a conspiracy and that it never existed
oldmarine
12-Sep-11, 20:19
An alarming report in today's Guardian claims that the Arctic sea ice is at its smallest extent for over 8000 years and that the pole could be ice free in 30 years time and yet that Lord Monckton would have you believe that the cap is not melting, nothing to worry about, move along, nothing to see here...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/sep/11/arctic-ice-melting-at-fastest-pace
As I have stated before, I beleive this is all cyclic. This has happened before and it will happen again and again.
secrets in symmetry
13-Sep-11, 00:34
In 40 years time the right wing nutters will be telling you sea ice is a conspiracy and that it never existedThat's brilliant weezy!
I spent some time trying to educate a denier on Saturday. I thought I was getting somewhere until he changed the subject to 9/11 conspiracy theories. Climate deniers are often scientific ignoramuses, and they can be enlightened, but most 9/11 conspiracy theorists are so far up their own intestines that there's no point wasting your energy firing your synapses at them.
As I have stated before, I beleive this is all cyclic. This has happened before and it will happen again and again.
You are right and nobody will deny that. But cyclical factors are not causing this period of warming and the trouble is with this period of warming is that it is happening at an alarming rate, ~0.2C per decade, when it happens naturally it is more like 0.01C per decade.
If all the 'climate skeptics' are wrong then why is Al Gore launching a spam and propaganda campaign.
If global warming was real there would be no need to have a propaganda day. What would the headlines be if Oil Companies took over social media user id's and posted about climate gate and the now known-to-be-invalid variables used in the IPCC report?
You can't just use any extreme weather or climate event and claim that it's direct evidence of the longer-term consequences of pollution. What would the weather and climate patterns this year have been like without pollution? How are you controlling for a background set of weather events? Did any of the climate change models predict the weather events seen and ONLY the weather events seen?
If all the 'climate skeptics' are wrong then why is Al Gore launching a spam and propaganda campaign.
If global warming was real there would be no need to have a propaganda day.
And going on from that logic.....if cancer was real then there would be no need for any campaigns about how to avoid getting it. But I forgot, those that are in denial and smoke or sell cigarettes do want the campaigns to stop :)
And going on from that logic.....if cancer was real then there would be no need for any campaigns about how to avoid getting it. But I forgot, those that are in denial and smoke or sell cigarettes do want the campaigns to stop :)
Strawman argument - Propaganda is different than fund raising campaigns, you don't see cancer support groups hijacking social media and spamming friends. Also cancer doesn't hide it's data or alter it.
I'm in my 20s I remember Captain Planet, I've looked at old papers from 60s, 70s and 80s this sort of crap has been happening since they published The Population Bomb. The end of the world is always around the corner.
Tonight at eleven... DOOOOOOM! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTfWOhDGifY)
Strawman argument - Propaganda is different than fund raising campaigns, you don't see cancer support groups hijacking social media and spamming friends. Also cancer doesn't hide it's data or alter it.
Yes and a reply to the first strawman arguement
Yes and a reply to the first strawman arguement
Don't understand what you're trying to say, please clarify or at least stop link spamming if you don't want descenting arguments.
Don't understand what you're trying to say, please clarify or at least stop link spamming if you don't want descenting arguments.
Did you find the link interesting, did you read it?
I did four things come to mind:
We should only really be focusing on long term trends and not this daily hysterical crap.
Nearly constant El Nino conditions from 1975 to 2010 have heated up the oceans worldwide. Water has a high heat capacity and will give up the accumulated heat very slowly. For a look at current arctic conditions see here: http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/reportcard/ocean.html
Arctic ice has actually increased 25% since 2008 http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/05/29/arctic-ice-volume-has-increased-25-since-may-2008/
Everyone should read Bad Science by Ben Goldacre it focuses a lot on medical stuff but it will help you realise what most 'science' in the media actually is.
I did four things come to mind:
We should only really be focusing on long term trends and not this daily hysterical crap.
Nearly constant El Nino conditions from 1975 to 2010 have heated up the oceans worldwide. Water has a high heat capacity and will give up the accumulated heat very slowly. For a look at current arctic conditions see here: http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/reportcard/ocean.html
Arctic ice has actually increased 25% since 2008 http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/05/29/arctic-ice-volume-has-increased-25-since-may-2008/
Everyone should read Bad Science by Ben Goldacre it focuses a lot on medical stuff but it will help you realise what most 'science' in the media actually is.
Just a minute, you say Arctic ice has increased by 25% since 2008 from a website written in 2010, is that a long term trend?
Just a minute, you say Arctic ice has increased by 25% since 2008 from a website written in 2010, is that a long term trend?
You are of course aware that, that is just the permalink structure and original posting date and it is quite easy to edit or amend a post as data changes. Those were just two links that supported an opposite opinion, there are many others but I won't link spam.
It occurs to me that perhaps a free blog would be a better place for you to proselytise from.
You are of course aware that, that is just the permalink structure and original posting date and it is quite easy to edit or amend a post as data changes. Those were just two links that supported an opposite opinion, there are many others but I won't link spam.
It occurs to me that perhaps a free blog would be a better place for you to proselytise from.
I suggest you read realclimate.org it is written by real climatologists and not retired TV weather men.
I suggest you read realclimate.org it is written by real climatologists and not retired weather men.
Gee one wonders what opinion it will expound, is he by any chance related to the real scientists quoted in studies who later wanted their names removed because the studies had been altered by politicians and bureaucrats or those scientists who conspired to alter their data for funding and fame.
I can cite much more credible sources with suitably impressive CVs if required, but what would be the point, it would be similar to arguing with a religious believer.
Gee one wonders what opinion it will expound, is he by any chance related to the real scientists quoted in studies who later wanted their names removed because the studies had been altered by politicians and bureaucrats or those scientists who conspired to alter their data for funding and fame.
I can cite much more credible sources with suitably impressive CVs if required, but what would be the point, it would be similar to arguing with a religious believer.
Well I do not treat global warming as a religion, I am very much an evidence based sort of believer rather than faith. So let us see your stuff from more eminently qualified people, I really do want to think that climate change via fossil fuels is a load of bunkum so I can drive my car with a clear conscience. So let see your evidence.
What I really find beyond my understanding is that if the mainstream science behind global warming is wrong then why do the sceptics never seem to agree on a consistent explanation why the mainstream science is wrong?
Well I do not treat global warming as a religion, I am very much an evidence based sort of believer rather than faith. So let us see your stuff from more eminently qualified people, I really do want to think that climate change via fossil fuels is a load of bunkum so I can drive my car with a clear conscience. So let see your evidence.
None of them have read ANY of the science Rheghead, simply opinion in pulp media.
secrets in symmetry
14-Sep-11, 00:30
None of them have read ANY of the science Rheghead, simply opinion in pulp media.You're right Scotsboy. RecQuery uses the bekisman-little technique of posting links to a few websites he googled, and whose contents he doesn't understand - despite them being garbage. I suppose he thinks this proves his point. God knows why.
How anyone manages to read (and also admire?) Ben Goldacre without learning the lessons Ben is teaching him is beyond me. You can be an expert at taming Apache without being able to appreciate the effect of the man-changed climate on their former hunting grounds.
Did anyone read Ben's column on Saturday? It was good.
You're right Scotsboy. RecQuery uses the bekisman-little technique of posting links to a few websites he googled, and whose contents he doesn't understand - despite them being garbage. I suppose he thinks this proves his point. God knows why.
How anyone manages to read (and also admire?) Ben Goldacre without learning the lessons Ben is teaching him is beyond me. You can be an expert at taming Apache without being able to appreciate the effect of the man-changed climate on their former hunting grounds.
Did anyone read Ben's column on Saturday? It was good.Gosh! have I stirred the little Office Boy out of his stupor?
PS did you not notice that 'little' has gone? tut tut, you're staying up too late lad!
Oh yes, noticed that "synapses" was a favourite with Crayola.. well I never.
David Banks
14-Sep-11, 08:10
Permafrost in N. Canada is melting and on some slopes the ground has slid downhill.
Glaciers are retreating in (at least) Canada, Greenland and Europe and are visible for anyone to see.
The permanent ice cover in the north is shrinking.
The yearly ice in the north and Hudson Bay comes later and leaves earlier - reported by northern hunters; and polar bear hunting on the ice has been observed changing.
Great chunks are unexpectedly breaking off the south pole.
The Canadian government has been taking steps to declare its sovreignty over the northwest passage, and are "discussing" with Denmark who owns some remote little island between Greenland and Canada, so it is clear what they believe.
The message I get from science is that these things are occurring at a much faster rate than previously, and the only working explanation is that it is caused by mankind.
I'm no scientist, but such evidence passes the test of "reasonableness" for me.
George Brims
14-Sep-11, 19:55
Suppose the North west Passage will be navigable; we'll have warmer winters, springs will extend growing seasons, and even allow farming to happen in place where it hadn't before.
Not necessarily. If the Arctic sea ice all melts, it could lead to a shift of colder fresher water (relatively fresher, but still a bit salty) from the Arctic ocean through the gap between Canada and Greenland. If that happens it disrupts the North Atlantic Conveyor, the current that brings the warmth of the Gulf Stream across the Atlantic to Northern Europe. The result would be the sea would freeze along the Norwegian coast in winter, and maybe even as far South as Scotland. No before you say "that can't happen, surely", take note that it has happened before AND ice records from Greenland show that it can happen in as short a timescale as 20 years. Wick is further North than Moscow, but thanks to the current layout of ocean currents it doesn't have the same type of winters. But it could.
George Brims
14-Sep-11, 19:56
oldmarine, do you watch Fox News? You just repeated one of their common talking points.
George Brims
14-Sep-11, 20:54
Nearly constant El Nino conditions from 1975 to 2010 have heated up the oceans worldwide.
Among the other things you have said this one stood out. There are two things wrong with it.
1. El Nino - La Nina conditions are not a worldwide phenomenon. Those labels apply only to the condition of the East side of the Pacific Ocean, originating in Chile. Chilean fishermen noted the effects of this variation on where they would find fish that liked warmer or colder water. Each winter the effects would become apparent by around Christmas, so they named it the "El Nino" after the Christ child. El Nino refers to the warn water years, La Nina to the cooler water years. However there is a converse effect because whatever we get over here in the Americas, they get the opposite over by Australia. So when We get El Nino and a wet winter, they get a dry summer (and lots of brush fires, sadly).
2. I don't know why you think El Nino has been constant since 1975. It tends to occur about every five years. The winter of 2010/2011 was definitely El Nino - we got a lot of rain here in California because of it - but we are currently in a La Nina setup. This has in fact been the coolest summer in decades in Los Angeles. Other years that have been strong El Nino since 1975 are 1982–83, and 1997–98.
Catharnach74
14-Sep-11, 20:59
(The warm period before an Ice age)
Man has little impact on climate change its natural occurrence!
There are two types of ice-age and we’re heading towards the cold phase of both of them.
The true ice-ages occur approx once every 125 million years and are related to the changes in the orbit of the solar system around the galactic centre. Within this cycle we’ve been on a downward slope for the last 40 million years and have seen the average global temperature drop from 35 °C to where we are today which is 15°C. There’s about 20 million more years of cooling before we reach the coldest part of the cycle, a time which will see most of the planet frozen solid and the average temperature drop to 4°C.
The cycle you’re referring to is the interglacial one, but it’s often referred to as an ice-age. This particular cycle lasts for 100,000 years and is caused by changes in the shape of Earth’s orbit as it travels around the Sun.
Each of these cycles is characterized by 90,000 years of gradual cooling then 10.000 years of comparatively rapid warming. At the coldest point in the cycle glaciers advances into Northern Europe, much of Canada and northern America. We last saw this about 20,000 years ago. Thereafter the planet entered the warming phase; this peaked some 8,000 years ago and saw the glaciers retreat back northwards.
Since then we’ve been in a cooling trend and the planet had cooled by approx 1°C, in recent years that cooling has been cancelled out by global warming.
Within the long term warming and cooling trends there are numerous factors that cause anomalies. These graphs should help put things into perspective, particularly the 6th, 7th and 10th graphs:
To answer your first question – the onset of the next ice age began 8,000 years ago and will reach it’s trough (coldest) in about 80,000 years time. For the moment at least, the onset has been halted and the planet is in fact warmer now than at any time since the ice-age before last (130,000 years).
Your second point relating to Greenland melting and causing a European ice-age concerns the theory that large amounts of cold, fresh water melting from the Greenland ice sheet will enter the ocean and could disrupt the flow of the Gulf Stream.
This ocean current transports warm water from the Caribbean and across the Atlantic, it warms the climate of Western Europe by 7°C in the case of Ireland and the UK, less for places that are further removed from the Atlantic.
If the Gulf Stream were to be disrupted – and there’s no hard evidence that it will – then conditions similar to those of the last ‘ice-age’ would return to parts of Europe.
secrets in symmetry
15-Sep-11, 00:07
Lol! A classic bekisman-little post. Googled and copied, unattributed, and not understood by the poster. Against the rules of most forums.
Among the other things you have said this one stood out. There are two things wrong with it.
1. El Nino - La Nina conditions are not a worldwide phenomenon. Those labels apply only to the condition of the East side of the Pacific Ocean, originating in Chile. Chilean fishermen noted the effects of this variation on where they would find fish that liked warmer or colder water. Each winter the effects would become apparent by around Christmas, so they named it the "El Nino" after the Christ child. El Nino refers to the warn water years, La Nina to the cooler water years. However there is a converse effect because whatever we get over here in the Americas, they get the opposite over by Australia. So when We get El Nino and a wet winter, they get a dry summer (and lots of brush fires, sadly).
2. I don't know why you think El Nino has been constant since 1975. It tends to occur about every five years. The winter of 2010/2011 was definitely El Nino - we got a lot of rain here in California because of it - but we are currently in a La Nina setup. This has in fact been the coolest summer in decades in Los Angeles. Other years that have been strong El Nino since 1975 are 1982–83, and 1997–98.
You are correct of course but I would like to add that El Nino events do have a dominant effect on global temperature changes in the short term but you are right they are not responsible for the decadal increase in average global temperature. It is important to notice that after a peak like in 2010 then temperatures fall back in the following years then bang another El Nino year and a new high. Remember when skeptics said warming stopped in 1998, they were right but only for a short while, then came 2005 a new high, then a fall then bang, 2010. I'll bet 2015-2017 we'll see another big wake up call.
Catharnach74
15-Sep-11, 18:35
Lol! A classic bekisman-little post. Googled and copied, unattributed, and not understood by the poster. Against the rules of most forums.
I was bored and couldn't be bothered writing my point so I copy and paste something simlar. Well I'm on here to give my input on issues what interest me even though its copies and rubbish sometimes, people who criticise insult others behind the computer screen to make one feel bad about ones self are cowardly scum no better than that person who got sentenced for 18 month for putting disturbing messages on dead peoples facebook pages!
Lol! A classic bekisman-little post. Googled and copied, unattributed, and not understood by the poster. Against the rules of most forums.Hi C x
Oh dear I seem to have rattled the boys cage, - must be getting grumpy being up past bedtime..
hint; 'little' ain't here, not since 3rd Sept.. so dear boy best just say 'classic bekisman post' - the brighter ones on here will understand.. ;)
secrets in symmetry
17-Sep-11, 00:30
people who criticise insult others behind the computer screen to make one feel bad about ones self are cowardly scum no better than that person who got sentenced for 18 month for putting disturbing messages on dead peoples facebook pages!
Can you spell irony?
oldmarine
17-Sep-11, 03:54
oldmarine, do you watch Fox News? You just repeated one of their common talking points.
George: Yes I do watch Fox News. However, even though I stated previously that weather patterns are cyclic it does appear that we currently are undergoing something that is not necessarily cyclic. I suspect that the current trend is man-made/caused.
Mystical Potato Head
17-Sep-11, 09:00
Can you spell irony?
.I'm just surprised anyone bothers posting anything on these type of threads anymore,knowing full well that you will reply with your
typical arrogant and dismissive attitude to anyone who posts something to which you are not in agreement with.
Cathernach74 gave a point of view,albeit copied,there wasnt any rudeness or personal insults towards you in the post,just an opinion.So why couldnt you tell the poster where their points of view were wrong in the same manner instead of belittling the OP with this reply.
" Lol! A classic bekisman-little post. Googled and copied, unattributed, and not understood by the poster. Against the rules of most forums."
Why,baring in mind that you're the scientist and apparently only one of three people on this forum who understand the implications of climate change, that you might try and explain and indeed encourage meaningfull discussion between yourself and those who dont know in an effort to help people understand,especially when they post their views in a pleasant manner.
Not to much to ask is it?
I know Bekisman,myself and others aren't expexting pleasantries from you but someone like Catharnach74 who doesnt post very often,who hasnt been dismissive or rude to you, deserves
an explanation as to where they are wrong instead of being on the recieving end from an intellectual cyber bully,which i think you'll find is against the rules of most forums and a somewhat more serious infringement of rules than copy and paste.
Jings, Crivvens Help ma Boab, it must be dummy spitting and teddy throwing season once more on the Org, get a life you guys!!!!
orkneycadian
17-Sep-11, 10:01
I spent some time trying to educate a denier on Saturday.
Is a denier someone who has a fetish for tights? ;)
secrets in symmetry
17-Sep-11, 13:15
George: Yes I do watch Fox News. However, even though I stated previously that weather patterns are cyclic it does appear that we currently are undergoing something that is not necessarily cyclic. I suspect that the current trend is man-made/caused.Yes! I do believe you have got one of the main points! :cool:
secrets in symmetry
17-Sep-11, 14:09
Is a denier someone who has a fetish for tights? ;)Have you been stocking up on bad jokes for an occasion such as this?
orkneycadian
17-Sep-11, 17:09
Nah, they're always as bad as that! [lol]
secrets in symmetry
17-Sep-11, 17:45
Why did you keep us in suspenders by taking so long to reply? What was the hold up? :cool:
orkneycadian
17-Sep-11, 17:53
Its Saturday - Weekly stocking up time!
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