Tuesday, November 09, 2010
34 comments:
Dear Anonymous,
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The management.
Eli the Rabett didn't care to offer a substantive comment regarding
ReplyDeletenew solar-powered process removes CO2 from the air and stores it as solid carbon so I thought I'd try again.
Its be a slow day and all, that is.
This is starting to look like Watt's joint. I am watching a pretty decent show on PBS called "Islam and Science" talking about the observations Islamic scholars made in developing the model of the solar system which ended with Copernicus. Quite interesting.
ReplyDeleteLooking at the chart and seeing that Arctic sea ice has doubled in the past 2 months highlights the difficulty we face with the reality-challenged crowd. As long as there is a seasonal cycle they can concoct some absurd way to claim that a recovery is occurring or will begin within several months.
ReplyDeleteInteresting to see that the "reference" line is the average from 1972-2008. Given that the last 6 of those years are well under the average, there must have been some much higher years in times past. What's the average for say 1972-1992 like in comparison?
ReplyDeleteFrom what I know, winter max has only declined slightly, but let's be generous and give them a 30 year 1972 to 2001 average. But note that *every* year since 2003 is below the average. It just gets worse.
ReplyDeleteIf you want a longer term view, this is not bad. If you use your sheet of paper technology to blank out the screen post 1950 then pre 1950, you can pick up the changing patterns. Winter and autumn virtually unchanged for 50 years, spring and summer always a bit more variable.
ReplyDeleteThen everything goes haywire.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seasonal.extent.1900-2007.jpg
Time for a guest post by Steve Goddard?
ReplyDeleteIf what I have read is true, that world wide wind speeds are declining slowly over the past decade? When you factor in that 'equal and opposite' thing. Could man-made-wind-farms be slowing everything down? For the life of me I can't figure it out. Maybe if we could get jets to go another direction for a while things could get back to normal:)
ReplyDeleteEllis
So we have a record low, or almost so for this time of year. But I keep hearing a single days figures mean little. More important is the dearth of multi year ice.
ReplyDeleteLittle Mouse still thinks Maslowski has it right: a zippo ice minimum 2016 +/- 3 yrs. Nah methinks 2016, but not later.
Ellis,
saw that too but not enough wind farms for that to be the reason
Well guest posts from bunnies are always welcome, but as Eli said, it was a slow day.
ReplyDeleteThe point about the wind speeds is interesting. Eli once had a discussion w. Bob Grumbine about this and he pointed out that if the arctic warmed faster than the rest of the world then the temperature gradient would decrease, decreasing winds. Bob then went on to discuss how this would affect cloud nucleation
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More seriously, it isn't clear that having more nucleation sites would induce more cloudiness. We're already much less (_much_ less) dusty than, say, the last glacial maximum and don't see much difficulty in forming clouds. The exception is in forming clouds over central ocean basin, and then it is primarily a problem for stratus (thin, low-lying) clouds. No problem for convective clouds.
(Aside: Over the ocean, nucleation sites are mostly salt particles from spray. If there were weaker winds, we'd expect fewer of these particles as well.)
So, as long as we're speculating, how about this:
Weaker winds -> less dust transport -> less available dust (salt) to form ocean stratus -> fewer stratus on the ocean -> ?ocean warming (the ocean stratus are highly reflective and thin enough to not cause much surface warming, I think.)
The reason I talk about ocean stratus is that these are the one class of cloud that it looks like there is difficulty in finding enough dust (salt) to nucleate growth.
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A bit further down in the discussion, MT offered some excellent snark in reply to the question of how do you test all this:
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The most effective way is to dump huge quantities of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, wait a couple of decades, and do the measurements.
As far as I know the only alternative is numerical models, which are spectacularly less risky and ultimately probably spectacularly less expensive.
However, they are less certain than random perturbations of the real world, which leads certain sectors to prefer the experimental approach, apparently.
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Yes, I see. It always seems to be about the distribution. Cheaper too.
ReplyDeleteEllis
Ah! There you are, on a semi-submerged emergency raft, in the middle of the ocean, under a cloudless sky, sizzling in the midday sun, with water running low and no one knows where you are, except a fellow castaway about half a mile distant. Now that's a slow day.
ReplyDeleteBut wait! Splashing/skimming the ocean surface will help generate those pesky missing nuclei required by the kinetics of cloud formation and growth, to give respite from the sun and a soothing and thirst-quenching shower of rain.
A new entry for the Survival at Sea Manual?
Sadly, no. Before the cloud and rains arrive (ha!), your splashing has alerted families of Galeocerdo cuvier and its bigger cousin the Carcharodon carcharias. Oops!
Slow days relaxing in the sun can be nice. Mind you, if you can coax your fellow castaway about half a mile away to do the splashing for you ...
Cymraeg llygoden
PS Sorry, it's a slow day :-) But perhaps a salutary allegorical tale about the unintended perils of geo-engineering?
"May I say to ya,... what a picture?:o)
ReplyDeleteArctic ice extent and area both show statistically significant declines in all twelve months of the year 1979-2010 (the satellite era), not just in September.
ReplyDeleteCycle plots provide a nice visualization. I've updated this one through October 2010:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v224/Chiloe/Climate/Cycle_Arctic_extent_4.png
And there are some interesting developments down south too.
ReplyDeleteftp://ftp-projects.zmaw.de/seaice/NEAR_REAL_TIME/Ant_latest_medium.jpg
The ice in the Weddell Sea gyre is not looking too happy, at least right now. But perhaps more importantly, note the lead on the eastern side of the Antarctic Peninsula. I can't recall seeing that feature before, certainy not at this time of the year. Does anyone else have an idea?
Is this a hint that warm water working its way in to the Weddell Sea? If yes, what would the impact of open (and warmer) water on ice shelves and glaciers terminating in the Weddell Sea.....
MapleLeaf
Arctic sea ice, Winter extent: I'm a little surprised at the graph posted by LH. My understanding was that winter extent was not declining nearly as much as summer extent, for the reason that it extends into land in the winter and won't spread less until the total winter extent is much reduced. But if you just compare areas where winter extent is not blocked by land, it is declining just like summer extent.
ReplyDeleteVolume seems to be the fastest declining item. Extent is supported by the remaining thin ice breaking up and spreading over more area than the same volume of ice would have in the past, but as it gets thinner, one summer it will just melt away.
Pete Dunkelberg
Winter extent changes are in such places as the Baltic and the Sea of Oshkosh (sp? who cares), basically on the periphery.
ReplyDeleteHere's another way to look at it: cycle plot of the *mean latitude* of the Arctic ice edge (data from Eisenman 2010, h/t Tamino).
ReplyDeleteThe mean latitude of the ice edge has been moving northward too, in every month of the year.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v224/Chiloe/Climate/Cycle_Arctic_latitude_1-1.png
What's this about a "new solar-powered process removes CO2 from the air and stores it as solid carbon"? Trees aren't new.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile , back at the nation's oxymoronic opinion leader, Fed Singer has bounced another reality check:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.americanthinker.com/2010/11/the_green_bubble_is_about_to_b.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/nov/09/graffiti-art-divides-council-opinion
ReplyDeleteHackney council is demanding a giant rabbit be whitewashed.
Save the rabbit
Little Mouse
Nice graph LH
ReplyDeleteFor most months ice extent has decreased by about 1 month melting/freezing (apart from Aug-Sep). So that implies about 2 months longer ice-free (in those parts that do clear).
I can see why the walrusses aren't happy...
>>“So, as long as we're speculating, how about this:
ReplyDeleteWeaker winds -> less dust transport -> less available dust (salt) to form ocean stratus -> fewer stratus on the ocean -> ?ocean warming (the ocean stratus are highly reflective and thin enough to not cause much surface warming, I think.)”<<
Sounds like a reasonable speculation. Isn’t it ocean stratus that the (geo-engineering) self propelled salt spray spewing robot ships are supposed to stimulate and therefore save us from ourselves?
If this were Up With Watts a similar (but inverse) musing would be presented as a near certain fact and would quickly be elevated to the rank another long proven nail in the coffin by the Wattets.
arch stanton
Russell (10/11/10 2:19):
ReplyDeleteActually Fred (or whoever writes for him these days) passes muster for cleverness. He basses all his lies on future disclosures that will never be made regardless of whether Cuccinelli and/or Congress investigate or not. He’s simply baselessly priming the pump of outrage for when Cuccinelli’s investigation is shut down.
arch stanton
Ellis, "world wide wind speeds are declining slowly over the past decade"
ReplyDeleteWind speeds in Western Europe are picking up spectacularly the last few hours. Are you trying to hide the increase in wind?
--cynicus
Also Re. Russell, Wrong Said Fred seems a candidate for the Ratchet Hypothesis.
ReplyDeletehttp://anarchist606.blogspot.com/2010/01/understanding-mind-of-denialist-ii.html
"The ICCER [i.e. Muir Russell team] has provided example code to read and grid the GHCN data set and produce an annual temperature series. The Review used such code in the 'trial analysis' described in chapter six of our report."
ReplyDeletehttp://www.cce-review.org/downloads/GHCN-Analysis.zip
Is anybody monitoring King-pin-rat since DC is taking a well deserved break?
ReplyDeleteFascinating to see how he's still sucking on those dry, fossilised bones of climate-anticlimax one year on, like he has a clue.
At least he's recycling his posts!
ReplyDeleteJ Bowers-
ReplyDeleteRe: Fred Singer > Ratchet Hypothesis:
Despite Hanlon’s razor; given Fred’s history, I can’t help but suspect that in his case he plays to the Ratchet Hypothesis rather than is a victim of it.
Thanks for the link.
arch
What happened to the Toolbox series?
ReplyDeleteMe thinks the Welsh Mouse has hit the science communication problem on the head. The public is busy splashing away and the scientists are yelling "Carcharodon carcharias" meanwhile the deniers are telling us "no sharks here"
ReplyDeleteAnd yes I had to look up the meanings.
Little Mouse.
Re Check and the comment on CA.
ReplyDeleteMichael Moon
Posted Nov 12, 2010 at 10:54 AM | Permalink | Reply
“It is an oversimplification to say that dendrochronology is ring counting based on rainfall and the physiology of trees. Many other factors are considered. This is especially true with the old bristlecones, as their growth can be affected by slope gradient, sun, wind, soil properties, temperature and snow accumulation.”
The fellows who invented dendrochronology never imagined it would become a temperature record! Anyone (AnyMann?) who claims this is robust science would have been laughed out of my high school physics class…
Steve: I prefer that people don’t over-editorialize on this. The points been made lots of times.
"Steve" appears to have no sense of irony. I know my irony meter exploded.
Anon(1)
chek:
ReplyDeleteIs anybody monitoring King-pin-rat since DC is taking a well deserved break?
Fascinating to see how he's still sucking on those dry, fossilised bones of climate-anticlimax one year on, like he has a clue.
The break is over.
http://deepclimate.org/2010/11/16/replication-and-due-diligence-wegman-style/