11
Jan
Jan
Reader asks, “If global warming is a farce, why is the ice melting in the arctic?”
We get a lot of questions, comments and tips through our contact page. Obviously, we don’t have the time to individually answer each question about global warming and climategate. So, considering the knowledge level of of our readers, we’d like to occasionally pose these questions to you. If it’s a topic you are well-versed on, please take a few minutes to answer. If you know of good web pages that specifically answer the reader’s question, please provide the link. Then, what we’ll do is start to build some Q&A pages with the common questions and your answers, and direct readers to them.
So, today’s question is: “If global warming is a farce , why is the ice melting in the arctic?”
Possibly related posts:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/
alot of people are saying we’re entering another “maunder minimum”…you should have registered http://www.maunderminimum.com for this blog!
EDITOR NOTE: I corrected the spelling of Maunder.
Arctic ice is not melting. I’ve always loved the ‘cryosphere today’ site as linked above by Igor. Whenever someone wants to tell me that the Arctic is nearly melted away I send to them this link because it allows you to make any image comparison of satellite images you like – try it. But remember, for fair comparison stick to the same day and month but see the changes on the same day for 5, 10, 20 or 30 years before.
Look here and learn, alarmists, use your eyes and see how you’ve been lied to by the media, junk scientists and self-serving politicians. I’ve picked January 10, 2010 to compare with the same day in 1980 – see anything unusual? >>>
http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/test/print.sh?fm=01&fd=10&fy=1980&sm=01&sd=10&sy=2010
The liars are exposed – crooks like Al Gore keep telling you the Arctic has already melted by 60% ( total lie) and will be gone in 5, 10, or 15 years. All bogus! Use the cryosphere today site to prove what Lord Monckton has been saying is true. For example Monckton said the Arctic lost 25% of its ice for a few weeks only, in September 2007. But by September 2008, almost half of the missing ice had returned. By September 2009, nearly all of it had returned. It fluctuates because it moves due to changes in wind patterns. It melts then refreezes – check it for yourself and see! We know that the temporary loss of late-summer sea ice at the minimum in September 2007 was not caused by “global warming” for three reasons. First, the climate of the Arctic is known to be highly volatile: it was actually warmer in the 1930s than it is today. Secondly, a paper by NASA in 2008 attributed the disappearance of the sea ice the previous summer to unusually strong northbound currents and winds from the Tropics that had very little to do with “global warming”. Thirdly, just three weeks after the 28-year Arctic sea-ice minimum, the Antarctic sea ice – which had been growing steadily – reached a 28-year maximum.
Have fun looking! It’s very educational.
Historic snow cover data not displayed on these images. Or are you saying that there was NO SNOW in Alaska on January the 10-th 1980?
John:
I’ve read somewhere that September ice extent is a better measure of the Arctic situation? If so, then the September comparisons over the last 30 years seem to show less ice today.
Just asking. I’m hardly an expert.
Someone sent these links to us for us to post here:
Here’s one at your request!
http://www.globalwarminghoax.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?1455.post
And this one:
http://www.globalwarminghoax.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?924.post
And finally this one:
http://www.globalwarminghoax.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?91.post
Daily Mail (UK)
Now tests show the ice ISN’T melting: Sea water under shelf in the East Antarctic is still freezing:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1242398/Now-tests-ice-ISNT-melting-Sea-water-shelf-East-Antarctic-freezing.html
You guys are great! Keep ‘em coming.
Daily Mail (UK)
Could we be in for 30 years of global COOLING?
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1242202/Could-30-years-global-COOLING.html
This site (www.MaunderMinimum.com) ties low sunspot activity with low sun-magnetic activity. They don’t make any claims or predictions (they just sort of put the info out there). Are we entering another “Little Ice Age” or “Mini Ice Age”? If so, what can we do to make the impact of this less brutal on everyone? I’m actually kind of scared as to what this means on a global scale. Will people starve?
Peter: Yes, some people will starve if it gets colder and more ice appears. Some people will starve if the world heats up next year. If you worry a lot some people will starve. If you worry not at all some people will starve. People will starve if the moon turns to green cheese. Get a grip! There is little, if anything, you or anyone else can do to prevent some people, somewhere, from starving–whether the earth is warming or cooling. If you want to worry, worry about something important, like what policy the next idiot politician will try to jam down our throats.
Yes. But people will probably always be starving. Any climate shift will result in productivity changes that will stress some. A warmer climate at least will lead to generally increased productivity if patterns seen in the geological past. In the short term, the only effective steps against starvation are more farmers and more farmland. Discourage biofuels that use up important cropland, reduce food production and increase food prices.
There has always been variability in ice loss and gain.
Here is a Government site that explains this.
http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/watercycleice.html
Sometimes people make mistakes with the basic numbers regarding the Greenland area for instance which is related to the arctic conditions of course.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8387737.stm
Sometimes government scientists make predications about Arctic ice loss as well.
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/06/27/Ice-expected-tp-disappear-from-North-Pole/UPI-45191214620247/
And when these go wrong we dont hear much about it.
It also depends on what time scale you are looking at.
Choose 1978 and yes the ice was going down, choose a smaller time slice and get “This was 1.06 million square kilometers (409,000 square miles) greater than the record low for the month in 2007, and 690,000 square kilometers (266,000 square miles) greater than the second-lowest extent in 2008. ”
Source.
http://nsidc.org/news/press/20091005_minimumpr.html
Sea surface temperatures and clouds played a part…which you dont read much about.
Also, many of the models used to make predictions, appear to not factor in clouds which is very odd.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2009/09/the-2007-2008-global-cooling-event-evidence-for-clouds-as-the-cause/
More on problems with all the cloud studies previously.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2009/01/new-study-doesn%E2%80%99t-support-climate-models-but-you%E2%80%99ll-never-hear-about-it/
Here’s another good site:
http://www.wattsupwiththat.com (yeah, kookie name, but great info)
We are between ice ages, so it’s not an unnatural event for glaciers to be melting. Also, we’ve been in a ‘warming’ mode following the ‘little ice age’ that ended in 1850, up until around 1990. (Satellite readings indicate that the tempeature has not risen since about then, and in fact it’s been cooling about the last 8 year. When glaciers do stop melting, we’ll be in real trouble.
Singer & Avery have written a book “Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 Years” that presents a lot of evidence that we have experienced warming periods, on average, every 1500 years for the past one million years. Singer was (is?) a professor at the University of Virginia, and is now (I think) also affiliated with George Mason University.
There was a medieval warming period from about 800 to 1300, apparently warmer than even today. The Vikings moved into Greenland early in that period and were forced out by the end. You can be sure the glaciers were melting faster than usual during that period.
Recently the global warming call went up when it was discovered that the Mount Kilamanjaro snowcap was melting. But then somebody observed that the temperature at that level was always clearly below freezing. It turned out that this melt was indeed caused by man, but had nothing to do with global warming. Over decades there was deforestation below the mountain. The wind that blew across those mountains had picked up lots of moisture and carried if over the top. Without that moisture to replace melting snow the radiant equatorial sunlight is melting the snowcap.
Here’s a nice article from 1975.
http://www.denisdutton.com/cooling_world.htm
This is from “www.MaunderMinimum.com”:
The Maunder Minimum of 1645 – 1715 (estimate) was a period of lower than average sunspot activity and low temperatures here on Earth. Using past data as a guide, one could reasonably conclude that the sun should produce an average of at least 75-100 sunspots per year in the years between 2011-2013. We should begin to observe a gradual increase in the number of sunspots in 2010-2011, with the peak occuring in mid-to-late 2012, then gradually decreasing into the next solar minimum sometime between 2018-2019 (estimate).
Interesting facts: In the years 2008-2009, the sun set the following records:
50 year low in solar wind pressure.
12 year low in solar “irradiance”.
55 year low in solar radio emissions.
Graphed below is the annual number of observed suspots from 1760 to 2009:
Interestingly, the sun’s magnetic activity (measured on the AP Index) seems to be dropping into record (low) territory. Many solar scientists agree that as the AP Index drops, our planet tends to develop more cloud cover, which may result in a cooler planet. Some are concerned that a lower AP Index, coupled with a decrease in sunspots, could have a negative effect on crop production (rice, corn, soybeans, wheat, fruits, vegetables, etc.) The first chart below show us the AP Index from January, 2000 to January, 2010; the second chart shows the AP Index from 1840 to 2010:
The graphs didn’t post in my last comment, so go to http://www.maunderminimum.com to see them.
CHEAPEST Beach Vacations @ http://www.BeachMarket.com
Now how can you have beach vacations when according to Al Gore they’ll wall be underwater? Perhaps that’s why they’re cheap?
http://www.climatechangefraud.com/climate-reports/6048-an-inconvenient-truth-the-ice-cap-is-growing
For ice to melt, the temperature has to be above freezing. How does ice melt at -25 degrees?
Go to this page and click on the “Drift Track Map” that shows the drift patterns of bouys throughout the year. Clearly drift is a major dynamic in the fluctuations of ice in the Arctic.
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/northpole/
Also when you consider that the Arctic only gets to about 0C in its hottest months and the rest of the year is extremely cold (well below freezing), it does not seem realistic that air temperatures are responsible for melting ice from the top down.
Arctic ice melts when it gets warm. Is it particularly warm? No. Has been warm for an unusually long time? No. Is there any reason for alarm? No.
Don’t mix up global warming with anthropogenic global warming.
We’re between ice ages. No melting, no “between”.
There is obviously global warming between ice ages.
another good site worth bookmarking to look at the annual temperature variations throughout the arctic.
http://www.weather.nps.navy.mil/~psguest/polarmet/climate/arcmap.html
Click onthe red crosses for a temp graph. Notice that the warmest it gets at any locaion is about 0C for two months.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/weblogs/watercooler/2010/jan/10/inconvenient-truth-ice-cap-growing/
We appreciate all the responses!
If any believer out reading this has another question, please use our contact form to send it to us, and if it’s a good question, we’ll do another post like this.
This has worked out so well, that it gave me an idea. I’ve created a page called Q&A, accessible from the navigation menu under the header. We’ve created sub-pages there for a few common questions and are hoping 1) to get suggestions for additional questions (we’ve barely added any so far), and 2) for you smart people to go see if you’d like to add any answers to any of the questions there, like you have done here.
I think, fully developed, that section could serve as a great resource for those beginning to question the whole AGW thing to find answers.
Thanks.
The importance of ice melt for the AGW argument is that water absorbs more sun light than ice and consequently ice loss acts as a positive feedback.
Looking at the record sea ice loss in 2007 (since satellite records began), most of the above average loss was at latitude of around 80 degrees north. This is important as the albedo of water increases rapidly as the angle of incidence of sunlight decreases.
This got me thinking: How would the additional energy absorbed due to loss of sea ice in the worst month (September 2007) compare with the reduction in absorbed energy from the increased northern hemisphere snow cover in December 2009. Would they be of a similar magnitude?
I quickly realised that it is impossible to calculate this accurately so I had a stab at a rough estimate. In order to try to reduce my own bias in the result, I have tried to ensure that all my estimates favour more energy being absorbed by ice loss.
I looked at data for September 2007 and calculated that the ice loss above average to be 1.1 million square kilometres as compared to the period 2002-2009
According to the Rutgers University Global snow lab, the snow cover for December 2009 was 2.66 square kilometres above average (assumed to be from 1966 to present).
I estimate the ice loss to be mostly above 80 degrees north for September, but I will call it 80 degrees.
I estimate the additional snow cover be at an average of around 40 degrees north.
The average day length for the Arctic in September I will say is 12 hours and that for 40 degrees north in December is 9 hours.
The angle of incidence for 80 north in September is approximately 10 degrees; the albedo for water at this angle is about 0.35.
The maximum angle of incidence for 40 north in December is about 26.5 degrees, however, the albedo of land does not increase at the same rate as for water so will be ignored.
Wikipedia gives the albedo of sea ice as 0.5 – 0.7. However we are looking at the high Arctic so it would probably normally be snow covered so lets increase this to .85
The albedo of fresh snow is about 0.8 and the albedo of the ground this snow is covering at 40 degrees north I estimate at 0.3
The difference in albedo for our two locations is therefore approximately the same.
The difference in day length is three hours. I am going to assume a linear comparison here.
As the albedo difference is the same for our two locations, we can ignore it. Therefore we are left with area and number of hours so the energy absorbed due to lack of ice is 1,100,00 units and the energy reflected due to extra snow is 1,995,000 units (2,660,000*9/12)
Now I realise that this is just one month and has no real meaning, but in doing this very simple exercise it highlights just how many unknowns and (with today’s technology) impossible to knows there are. For example I have ignored cloud cover which will obviously have a large impact: is it sunnier in the Arctic in September than at 40 degrees north in December? Sea Ice moves; how can you accurately calculate the albedo of the land that is covered in snow etc.
I could spend a lot of time and effort trying to make better estimates of all these things, but I doubt it would make a huge improvement to the outcome.
All this just goes to show how incredibly complex feedbacks are and yet somehow we are led to believe that these are all correctly accounted for in Global Climate Models. Either the modellers are incredibly clever, or they have made some very broad assumptions. I used to do modelling of complex multi variant interdependent systems for a living. I know which it is!
It isn’t! Right now the extent of sea ice in the arctic is at about 90%. Right now the sea ice is GROWING, not melting. The question is based on an utterly false premise. Furthermore, throughout most of the year the water and air temperatures never go above the freezing point for salt water. Water circulation patterns float ice out of the arctic, and once it leaves the arctic, it melts. It takes time for the newly arrived water to freeze.
Here’s one from NPR I haven’t heard of (NPR = National Pravda Radio)…..Arctic Oscillation!
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122649916