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Steve Goddard at 03:57 AM on 10 March 2010Watts Up With That's ignorance regarding Antarctic sea ice
Tenney, Look closer at the graph above. It is labeled "Southern Ocean Surface Air Temperature." Do you really think then surface air temperature is measured "below the ocean's surface?" The author of this piece is lumping a large area of Southern Ocean together. Look at the ocean near Antarctica - it is cooling. http://climate.uah.edu/25yearbig.jpg My piece on WUWT is titled "NSIDC Reports That Antarctica is Cooling and Sea Ice is Increasing" http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/03/08/nsidc-reports-that-antarctica-is-cooling-and-sea-ice-is-increasing/ -
Tenney Naumer at 03:44 AM on 10 March 2010Watts Up With That's ignorance regarding Antarctic sea ice
re: #22 How can satellite measurements show the temperatures below the ocean's surface? Duh! -
citizenschallenge at 03:35 AM on 10 March 2010Watts Up With That's ignorance regarding Antarctic sea ice
Unfortunately, In this debate considering the sock'em clown "arguments" that contrarians are endlessly circulating - you have every right (& cause) in the world for a little rehashing. PS. Fantastic blog and thank you so much for the bulletins your emailing. Very Helpful. -
Steve Goddard at 03:27 AM on 10 March 2010Watts Up With That's ignorance regarding Antarctic sea ice
What an amazing article! You selectively edited my sentences, and forgot to attribute the claims of cooling and expanding ice to NSIDC and UAH. BTW - UAH data shows South Pole oceans cooling, not warming. http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/index.html "Sea ice extent in the Antarctic has been unusually high in recent years, both in summer and winter. Overall, the Antarctic is showing small positive trends in total extent. For example, the trend in February extent is now +3.1% per decade. However, the Amundsen and Bellingshausen Seas show a strong negative trend in extent. These overall positive trends may seem counterintuitive in light of what is happening in the Arctic. Our Frequently Asked Questions section briefly explains the general differences between the two polar environments. A recent report (Turner, et. al., 2009) suggests that the ozone hole has resulted in changes in atmospheric circulation leading to cooling and increasing sea ice extents over much of the Antarctic region." -
Jeff Freymueller at 03:20 AM on 10 March 2010Watts Up With That's ignorance regarding Antarctic sea ice
The first thing I would point out is that some people here need to look at the y-axis on the temperature graph. The average temperature has changed from -12.7C to -12C. Both of those temperatures are well into the range where sea ice is going to be forming. The roughly 5% change in temperature would mean less sea ice, if all other things were constant, but it would not be hard for some other factor to compensate for it. And as far as that goes, I've got more confidence in the peer-reviewed work than the blog comments.... #8 Berényi Péter, you assert that Comiso (2003) is not peer reviewed because it is a book chapter. However, many such books are peer reviewed (most, I would say). Do you make this assertion based on knowledge of the situation or an an assumption. -
Jeff Freymueller at 03:04 AM on 10 March 2010Does record snowfall disprove global warming?
#72 Berényi Péter, I don't dispute that sublimation can be locally important. It's just that in the majority of the area that gets covered by snow in the winter, melting is the dominant effect, not sublimation at T < 0C. -
Berényi Péter at 02:58 AM on 10 March 2010Visual depictions of Sea Level Rise
Jeff, I have found the answer to the clock synchronization question. Amazing. Relativity in the Global Positioning System by Neil Ashby However, I am still interested in how it works in practice. Looks like precision of position measurement is several centimeters. How do you measure velocity signals on the order of 10-10 m s-1 and frequency below nHz range immersed in a high frequency noise of much bigger amplitude? -
CBDunkerson at 02:51 AM on 10 March 2010Watts Up With That's ignorance regarding Antarctic sea ice
Tenney, the graph shows the average annual extent. As you said, each year most of the sea ice around Antarctica melts away. Even that remaining ice coverage at the Summer minimum point has increased slightly (though it is down this year), but the primary change has been increased ocean area covered by ice at the Winter maximum. -
Tenney Naumer at 02:38 AM on 10 March 2010Watts Up With That's ignorance regarding Antarctic sea ice
Well, looking at your graph, I seem to be mistaken. -
Tenney Naumer at 02:36 AM on 10 March 2010Watts Up With That's ignorance regarding Antarctic sea ice
You might want to mention that the sea ice forming does not accumulate into ever more sea ice over time -- most people don't know that it melts away every year. -
Stuart at 02:20 AM on 10 March 2010Watts Up With That's ignorance regarding Antarctic sea ice
Wouldn't fresher water also have a higher freezing point, or is this effect just not as significant as the stratification and cyclonic wind effects? -
Berényi Péter at 02:20 AM on 10 March 2010Visual depictions of Sea Level Rise
#55 Jeff Freymueller at 02:49 AM on 6 March, 2010 "I do satellite positioning for a living" Wow. In that case I have only questions. How rigid the satellite based coordinate system is? Accuracy? Precision? How recalibration is done? How clocks are synchronized in a rotating frame? Assuming accuracy of coordinates is better than 1 mm (relative error is on the order of 10-10), "solid" Earth is still extremely mercurial on this scale. When we are talking about "sea level rise" it is not meant to be relative to some external reference frame but to "average coastal elevation". How this latter quantity is measured? I would have a lot to say on the IPR thing as well, but don't want to be off-topic that much. -
dhogaza at 02:14 AM on 10 March 2010Watts Up With That's ignorance regarding Antarctic sea ice
Well, don't forget it's Goddard who insisted that there's dry ice in the Antarctic ... -
DavidCOG at 02:11 AM on 10 March 2010Watts Up With That's ignorance regarding Antarctic sea ice
P.S. What stbloomfield said: > You should consider using rel=nofollow in your links to climate denier sites. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nofollow By linking to Watts without 'nofollow', you're giving him 'authority' so that Google will rank him higher. -
4 billion at 02:09 AM on 10 March 2010Watts Up With That's ignorance regarding Antarctic sea ice
Goddard also states Shakhova gets current Global Methane levels wrong by quoting inaccurate NYT article. lol -
Berényi Péter at 02:02 AM on 10 March 2010Visual depictions of Sea Level Rise
Thanks Martin. I have already figured this out. If 20th century melt was not polar, but mid latitude soot blackened glaciers, it would not have any measurable effect on Length of Day. -
ProfMandia at 01:53 AM on 10 March 2010Watts Up With That's ignorance regarding Antarctic sea ice
Goddard has been wrong several times on WUWT. Before this, he misrepresented increased snowfall as an indicator that climate may be cooling: See: Cherry Snow and Snow. -
Berényi Péter at 01:47 AM on 10 March 2010Does record snowfall disprove global warming?
#65 Jeff Freymueller at 12:17 PM on 9 March, 2010 "Bringing up insolation is a red herring, because temperature is not directly related to insolation" And snow melt is not directly related to temperature. On Mount Kilimanjaro icecap is disappearing, although temperature there never gets above freezing. It is less moisture, more dirt on snow and the sun. It's just sublimating. There are regions where snow cover is clearly temperature limited and still other regions where the limiting factor is moisture. This winter we had more than usual snow cover in regions that are temperature limited (Western Europe, China, US East Coast) and less where it is moisture-limited (Middle East). Great Britain can be doomed for any number of reasons, but not for lack of precipitation during winter. If it is not cold enough for snow, it is raining. I would like to check regional trends for snow cover. Unfortunately the Rutgers snow lab does not provide data for such an analysis, although they must have it, otherwise could not construct the maps. #66 Peter Hogarth at 12:17 PM on 9 March, 2010 "Global and regional climate changes due to black carbon" Ramanathan 2008 Here it is. However, it has no quanitative data on soot snow albedo effect. Some backgound info can be handy. Anyway, we have learnt that global soot production is most indeterminate (up to a factor of five!). On the other hand, it is "responsible" for 30% of warming. Now, five timest thirty makes... -
stbloomfield at 01:31 AM on 10 March 2010Watts Up With That's ignorance regarding Antarctic sea ice
You should consider using rel=nofollow in your links to climate denier sites. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nofollow -
CBDunkerson at 01:15 AM on 10 March 2010iPhone app version 1.1 - now with search, image viewer and Twitter!
"I suspect all the nagging from Android users was a factor in Shine Tech starting on an Android app." Nagging? What nagging? Do we nag? I don't think so. So... um, any word on an Android release date yet? :] -
Sordnay at 01:11 AM on 10 March 2010Watts Up With That's ignorance regarding Antarctic sea ice
JMurphy #5 I would like to read it, but I only have access to the abstract. Are those state-of-the-art models the same as GCM used for IPCC AR4 proyections? -
stbloomfield at 00:49 AM on 10 March 2010iPhone app version 1.1 - now with search, image viewer and Twitter!
Great to hear about an Android app! -
WAG at 00:36 AM on 10 March 2010Watts Up With That's ignorance regarding Antarctic sea ice
Is anyone surprised at Watts? Just last week he claimed that an article from 1989 proved global warming was a hoax. I'm not sure what was dumber - that claim, or Andrew Bolt saying that the Skeptical Science iPhone app was a secret conspiracy by Al Gore. You can give your thoughts here: http://akwag.blogspot.com/2010/03/watts-vs-bolt-whos-dumbest-denier.html -
Ken Lambert at 00:30 AM on 10 March 2010Watts Up With That's ignorance regarding Antarctic sea ice
The explanation of how we have more sea ice floating on warmer water (with interleaving warmer and cooler layers) is very confusing indeed. When a kG of ice freezes it gives up latent heat energy equal to 80 times that of raising the temperature of a kG of seawater by 1 degC. Conversely melting a kG of ice will absorb about 80 times the heat energy of cooling seawater by 1 degC - or you need to cool 80kG of seawater by 1 degC to melt 1kG of ice. That transport of heat energy must go somewhere - whether by complex Antarctic circulations or movement farther afield. Doing an energy balance for Antarctica and its unique circulation alone would suppose it is a closed system - and if this is assumed in large part, then an increasing mass of sea ice would give up its heat to the surrounding water and air - and would raise their temperatures. Therefore increasing mass of sea ice would be consistent with warming air and seawater and transport of heat by complex circulations - not necessarily anything to do with external AGW forcing at all. -
CBDunkerson at 00:29 AM on 10 March 2010Watts Up With That's ignorance regarding Antarctic sea ice
When you look at the total ice coverage of the planet it comes out as roughly; 90% Antarctic ice sheet 9% Greenland ice sheet 1% Arctic & Antarctic sea ice, all other land ice The Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets are both melting. The Arctic sea ice and the world's glacier mass are both decreasing. But there is that fraction of 1% in the Antarctic sea ice which has grown, so 'skeptics' insist that shows cooling. It is absurdly illogical to take the trend observed in less than 1% of the planet's ice over the opposite trend seen in the other 99+%, but that isn't stopping far too many from going there anyway. -
Berényi Péter at 00:09 AM on 10 March 2010Watts Up With That's ignorance regarding Antarctic sea ice
As far as I can see the fuss is not about consistence but existence (of gorwth in Antarctic sea ice extent). IPCC AR4 WG1 4.4.2.2 Figure 4.8 caption says "Antarctic results show a small positive trend of 5.6 ± 9.2 × 103 km2 yr–1 [...] the small positive trend in the SH is not significant" which is not true. Antarctic sea ice extent is increasing (for whatever reason) and the trend is significant. Comiso 2003 referenced in IPCC AR4 is a book chapter (not peer reviewed), there is no updated version and the 5.6 km2 figure is nowhere to be found in it. The statement in the book that comes closest to the IPCC claim is "In the Southern Hemisphere, the trends for extent in each season are basically insignificant except for autumn". IPCC has omitted any reference to fall conditions. However, not even Comiso is right. According to Zhang Hadley Centre finds a 27 × 103 km2 yr–1 (significant) inrease rate, almost five times more than the IPCC figure. I don't care much for explanations until facts are not established firmly. -
gallopingcamel at 00:04 AM on 10 March 2010Watts Up With That's ignorance regarding Antarctic sea ice
The Steven Goddard piece was posted on WUWT only yesterday but in 24 hours almost one hundred comments were made. That suggests a surprising interest in ice caps. -
Martin Vermeer at 23:48 PM on 9 March 2010Visual depictions of Sea Level Rise
Péter Berényi, I think you should read this: Mitrovica et al. (2006). It revisits your Walter Munk "enigma" reference. -
JMurphy at 23:45 PM on 9 March 2010Watts Up With That's ignorance regarding Antarctic sea ice
Sordnay, read the 'Gillet 2003' link in the article itself : "Recent observations indicate that climate change over the high latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere is dominated by a strengthening of the circumpolar westerly flow that extends from the surface to the stratosphere. Here we demonstrate that the seasonality, structure, and amplitude of the observed climate trends are simulated in a state-of-the-art atmospheric model run with high vertical resolution that is forced solely by prescribed stratospheric ozone depletion. The results provide evidence that anthropogenic emissions of ozonedepleting gases have had a distinct impact on climate not only at stratospheric levels but at Earth's surface as well." -
Sordnay at 23:05 PM on 9 March 2010Watts Up With That's ignorance regarding Antarctic sea ice
Could you please show how this stratosphere cooling and troposphere warming is consistent with GCM projections for antarctic region? Also those models project the observed increase in sea ice extent? -
Arkadiusz Semczyszak at 22:50 PM on 9 March 2010Watts Up With That's ignorance regarding Antarctic sea ice
1. "Another contributor is changes in ocean circulation." And by us (many) of skeptics is the main reason. Interesting for me here is the example of this graph: http://i34.tinypic.com/dcora.jpg http://i34.tinypic.com/dcora.jpg; and Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) ... 2. I also repeat his earlier comment: "... most of Antarctica, over the past 35 years, is cooled (http://www.sciencedaily.com/images/2008/05/080507132855-large.jpg), which is typical for the Millennium cycles, although the reasons may be Miscellaneous (e.g.: "A doubling in snow accumulation in the western Antarctic Peninsula since 1850." E.R. Thomas et. al., 2008)." ... and the trend in the southern ocean temperature increase is significantly lower than the north ... -
omnologos at 22:12 PM on 9 March 2010Watts Up With That's ignorance regarding Antarctic sea ice
Slightly OT...have you already published a blog explaining what kind of observed phenomena might be "not explained by" / "incompatible with" / "inconsistent with" anthropogenic global warming? -
HumanityRules at 22:09 PM on 9 March 2010Does record snowfall disprove global warming?
68.NewYorkJ at 13:14 PM on 9 March, 2010 There seems to be an inconsistency here. Models predict that a signal for heavier or more precipitation will be detectable later in the 21st century yet some groups have published that such a signal is already present in the historical 20th C data. This earlier Groisman paper seems to express that contradiction for extreme precipitation events. This seems to mimic that hurricane situation were models also predict that an increase in stronger hurricanes would only be detectable late 21st C (if at all). A debate raged over whether such a signal could be detected in the historical data, the IPCC aknowledged the possibility of such a signal, although now the consensus has changed to no detectable signal. Also I had high hopes that rainfall measurement would be more straighforward than temp. Unfortunately this paper scuppered that. Hanssen-Bauer and Førland - Journal of Climate, 1994 -
Catprog at 21:47 PM on 9 March 2010Watts Up With That's ignorance regarding Antarctic sea ice
Is there more ice forming around Antarctica or is less ice being spread over a bigger area? -
Doug Bostrom at 19:03 PM on 9 March 2010Senator Inhofe's attempt to distract us from the scientific realities of global warming
gallopingcamel at 14:59 PM on 9 March, 2010 Roger on the "US" versus "them" correction, but I still disagree. I've read this account: Lindzen and Choi unraveled and find it to be quite tractable as well as convincing thanks to the author's skill with translating the technicalities of the case into terms most of us can understand. As to "first do no harm", I think we may have a fundamentally different perspective on this. My view is that the current mode of operation we're following with regard to energy sources and expenditures is astoundingly anachronistic, habitual and thoughtless in the bad sense and worst of all will not scale successfully and in fact is headed inexorably toward collapse. Even if the C02 efflux from our fossil fuel consumption were entirely innocuous, we still need to move as swiftly as possible to a more progressive suite of energy sources. Particularly with regard to liquid and condensate fossil fuels we appear to have squandered our limited endowment of these irreplaceable temporary scaffolds without focusing on how they could have been exploited to lift us to a more permanent arrangement for improving the human condition. We're fecklessly burning a limited resource that cannot satisfy our needs in perpetuity but instead should have been used as a temporary tool while seeking a better and more reliable means of powering our civilization. When we've mindlessly consumed our petroleum gift, we've got another problem. We'll then not only be faced with replacing petroleum as an energy source for uniquely demand applications such as aviation, but we'll have created the necessity to jam hydrogen and carbon together to create polymers using money and "alternative" energy supplies when we could have used petroleum for this application for centuries, if we'd not burned it all. Burning petroleum is the most rottenly crude way to use it and we'll realize this to our deep regret a short while from now. I'm deeply unhappy with the choices we're making with regard to our stewardship of petroleum. We're doing a lot of harm right now, that's my opinion. -
Charlie A at 17:07 PM on 9 March 2010Visual depictions of Sea Level Rise
#62 Ian Love addresses some of my questions from #39 where I note that the sea level rise and acceleration in rate of rise dates back to 1700-1800. He says "( Kaufman et al. Science 2009): the temperatures are found to rise from about 1800, as does the sea-level. The temperature rise is, of course, attributed to AGW." Unfortunately, I do not have access to the paper since it is behind a paywall. Could you summarize briefly the anthropogenic effect that caused warming back in 1700-18000 period. Was it due to CO2 emissions ? -
gallopingcamel at 16:22 PM on 9 March 2010Does record snowfall disprove global warming?
Michael Trogdon (#36), for most people in the USA this has been a very cold winter with plenty of snowfall records being set. In Florida record cold temperatures going back to 1960 have been broken. My (very amateur) take on all this is that high sea surface temperatures may have something to do with high winter precipitation (snowfall records). The same high SSTs can lead to a hot and humid summer. Therefore I predict a hot summer but making predictions is a dangerous game so if 2010 turns out to be cooler than average in the USA you will be entitled to gloat and I will send you an excellent bottle of scotch of your choosing! If am right, how about sending me 750 ml of Glenfiddich? The supercomputers with their sophisticated models that include el Ninos, la Ninas, Pacific Decadal Oscillations etc. sound wonderful but will they outperform my wet finger? The British "Met Office" is notorious for its inability to forecast what kind of summer to expect. It is only fair to remind you that professional "experts" armed with all kinds of wonderful tools did a woeful job predicting US hurricane activity over the past two years. -
gallopingcamel at 14:59 PM on 9 March 2010Senator Inhofe's attempt to distract us from the scientific realities of global warming
doug_bostrom (#131), Maybe I have been hanging around this site too long as I find myself agreeing with you again. The shift in carbon isotope ratios is convincing evidence that the extra CO2 is from fossil fuels. My quibble was related to the residence time for "new CO2" in the atmosphere. The IPCC went with a high figure which may explain why the CO2 concentration is not increasing as fast as the IPCC predicted. As I said earlier, just a quibble as the CO2 curve is still a genuine Hockey Stick although the blade appears to be straighter than IPCC (AR4) predictions. With regard to the Trenberth vs. Lindzen issue, the number of scientists backing either one is irrelevant. However, if counting scientist heads did matter, your cause would be lost beyond redemption. The opposition already has over 30,000 signed up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Petition Trenberth has credibility problems because he admits recent cooling trends in private while denying them in public. See Inhofe's "Minority Report". Please look at pages 20 and 22 which quote Trenberth denying recent warming thrice. In (#129) I made a typo. It should have read: Lindzen and Trenberth are experts in climate science, yet they disagree; neither of US can claim sufficient expertise to know which of them is closest to the truth. The Inhofe report published last month has already garnered support from 700 scientists. While counting heads is unimportant in hard science it does give politicians a warm feeling to know they are not alone. I was hoping you would scold me for the "First do no harm..." statement in (#123). -
Alan E at 13:56 PM on 9 March 2010Humans are too insignificant to affect global climate
John said: "The amount of human CO2 left in the air, called the "airborne fraction", has hovered around 55% since 1958." Isn't the Airborne Fraction around 43-44%? Appears that you have it reversed - 55% would be the proportion absorbed by the sinks. Or is there a higher AF since 1958 because of the time lag for the sinks to absorb the large, recent emissions? A -
NewYorkJ at 13:51 PM on 9 March 2010Does record snowfall disprove global warming?
To illustrate the above point, as an example, compare February snow cover extent numbers with the Arctic Oscillation index (this applies to all winter months as well). http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/files/moncov.nhland.txt http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/monthly.ao.index.b50.current.ascii.table There's a strong negative annual correlation between the two sets of numbers throughout the overlapping time series (snow cover extent goes back to 1967). Strong negative AO -> higher snow cover extent and vice versa. This isn't surprising, because a strong negative AO tends to push Arctic air much further south. With winter precipitation, this means higher snow cover extent over the northern hemisphere. Note the strong downward trend in the AO since 1989 - a time period some "skeptics" use as a starting point to "disprove" snow cover models. -
Ned at 13:50 PM on 9 March 2010New observations find underwater Arctic Shelf is perforated and venting methane
Cowboy writes: Methane, 20 times more effective as CO2 with respect to 'greenhouse' effect, has been increasing in the atmosphere for 200 years, but we want to blame CO2 for warming? Overall, the forcing from methane is +0.48 watts/m2 while that from CO2 is +1.66 watts/m2 (see John's post from last year, here). So while methane is a substantial player in the current radiative imbalance, it's definitely of less importance than CO2 at least for now. You're right that there are natural methane sources such as wetlands (175 Tg/year), termites (20-30 Tg/year), and biochemical processes in the oceans (10 Tg/year). However, anthropogenic emissions (from fossil fuel production, landfills, rice paddies, livestock, landfills, etc.) have more than doubled the natural, pre-agricultural background methane flux. See here for more details. Before humans began modifying the environment, atmospheric methane stayed within the range of 400-700 ppb through repeated glacial/interglacial cycles, for at least the past 650,000 years (see Wolff and Spahni 2007). It's now over 1700 ppb. That increase is due to our agriculture, industry, and land use impacts. -
Andy Skuce at 13:29 PM on 9 March 2010New observations find underwater Arctic Shelf is perforated and venting methane
CBD: I do agree that where there are higher methane levels in the bottom water (incorrectly, I think, labelled "deep water" on the figure captions on this site) the surface water amounts tend to be relatively less in the deeper water furthest from the shore. I guess this is due to greater oxidation of the methane as it rises in the deeper water. The relationship I was looking for, and couldn't see, is more methane in the bottom water in the shallower area, which is what I would expect to see if the water was warming from the top down. However, as you suggest, there may well be currents that complicate the story. I don't doubt the overall thrust here, I'm just struggling to understand it better.Response: The label "deep water" was intentional. I noticed in the paper, they label it "bottom water" but in the press release, they call it "deep water". I just went with the phrase that would make more sense to the average person. It's a judgement call - do you go with the scientifically more precise term or the term that makes more sense to the public? -
NewYorkJ at 13:14 PM on 9 March 2010Does record snowfall disprove global warming?
libertarianromanticideal says: "and all nine predicted that North American winter snow cover would decline significantly, starting in about 1990." Your link clarifies a few things. First, it says that all 9 models predict a statistically significant downward trend, but only over the course of the entire 21st century, with no real change over the 20th century. It also refers to the northern hemisphere (not just North America). Over the 1990-2010 period, it doesn't project much change. Clearly variations in the Arctic Oscillation (such as the recent negative extremes) can create a lot of snow cover extent variation at the decadal level. You can see similar variation in models with the green line in your link. It's why longer periods need to be looked at when making evaluations: http://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/02/18/cherry-snow/ In other words, give it more time. Cherry-picking time periods is something politicians do. As far as a 10-year-old article that is popular among contrarian circles these days, snow does seem more rare and exciting. The recent generation isn't really used to it. -
Cowboy at 12:43 PM on 9 March 2010New observations find underwater Arctic Shelf is perforated and venting methane
"Cowboy at 16:52 PM on 8 March, 2010 On a romp, posting years-old information, cowboy. That article you cited is of course from 2003; the rise in methane long since resumed. Your point? " 1. Methane, 20 times more effective as CO2 with respect to 'greenhouse' effect, has been increasing in the atmosphere for 200 years, but we want to blame CO2 for warming? 2. Obviously, methane doesn't need any man-made global warming to be released into the atmosphere. -
thefrogstar at 12:23 PM on 9 March 2010Does record snowfall disprove global warming?
Berényi Péter, I’m still trying to understand your (very interesting) point. Would it be fair to describe it thus: That any significant change in surface warming (and hence snow melt) due to increasing CO2 will have an asymmetric melting-effect about the winter solstice (when examined at temporally “symmetrical” points in the insolation calendar) due to the effects of CO2 being at the red-end of the spectrum (and so greater at warmer points of the winter)? And that this is, in fact, the opposite of what is being observed? I’m not familiar with any of the numbers involved, but how much of the snowmelt is due to the proximal-cause of local insolation, as opposed to the advection of heat from warmer locations (it also presumably having a latitude component)? I’m still digesting the points about soot particles. Do their effects (if significant) on snowmelt show a pronounced temperature- or spectral-bias ? (Yes, I know they may look black, but does that mean they can always be treated as black-body absorbers/radiators?) -
Peter Hogarth at 12:17 PM on 9 March 2010Does record snowfall disprove global warming?
Sorry, title of article is: "Global and regional climate changes due to black carbon" Ramanathan 2008 -
Jeff Freymueller at 12:17 PM on 9 March 2010Does record snowfall disprove global warming?
#58 Berényi Péter. Your explanation is not clear. I'm not sure whether you are distinguishing between snow fall and snow cover -- they are not the same thing. In the meantime, maybe you can clearly explain why the last snow melting earlier in the spring is evidence against overall warming. Bringing up insolation is a red herring, because temperature is not directly related to insolation (I mean in terms of variation of both through the year in the same place). If it was, the hottest time of year would be in late June, and the coldest in late December. However, in many places the hottest/coldest days are shifted relative to the longest/shortest days. You appear to be assuming that more cold = more snow. You get snowfall when warm, moist air gets chilled, right? Very cold air can hold only a little water vapor, so cold air by itself is not enough to make snow. In many places it has to warm up to snow (read the mountain skier's post early on if you want another opinion). Even the assumption that more cold = more likelihood of snow may be correct only when the temperature is close to 0C, and a small temperature change means the difference between snow and rain. However, that just isn't true for non-coastal areas north of something like 50 N. In those places it is colder than 0C all or almost all of the winter. A bit of warming there will make little or no difference on snow cover for most of the winter. If you look at a map, there is a lot of NH land that falls into this category. So the bottom line is that I just can't see how even the increasing snow cover trend in some parts of the years is automatically related to temperature changes at all. The snow cover at that time is more dependent on when snow falls and sticks. But the melting phase in the spring/summer has a much simpler relationship to temperature, and that part of the year follows exactly what you expect from warming. And beyond all that, how you make the leap from this to disproving CO2-driven warming is just beyond me. -
Peter Hogarth at 12:12 PM on 9 March 2010Does record snowfall disprove global warming?
Berényi Péter at 08:33 AM on 9 March, 2010 I think you may have misinterpreted my point, or I wasn't clear (which is likely in an off the cuff remark) As you're aware, if you have soot, you have CO2. Historically and recently they are linked, both a result of burning Carbon based fuel, early 19th century wood and then transition to coal mid 19th century (at least in US) if I remember rightly. This was my point in "difficult to separate soot production from CO2 production" - I didn't mean difficult to filter... I'm aware that the ratio of CO2/soot has got better (?) in recent years due to higher efficincy burning, fuel change, and filtering, but it is just that we are burning a lot more than previously...much more CO2, more gas burning, relatively less particulates in recent decade? I take it you are using the timing of the snow falling/laying/melting as counter evidence of CO2 warming, and promotion of soot to prime suspect? Does this explain warming of the oceans as well? Check: http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v1/n4/full/ngeo156.html. Which states "It is important to emphasize that BC (Black Carbon) reduction can only help delay and not prevent unprecedented climate changes due to CO2 emissions." There is a free version, but you'll have to wait a while for me to track it (and a few more) down. -
mspelto at 11:28 AM on 9 March 2010Does record snowfall disprove global warming?
I agree with Doug less sea ice in the arctic provides a better moisture for early season snowpack which is after all arrayed around the Arctic Ocean. Snowcover extent is more sensitive to temperature during the melt season, March-August, this is when the extents are so negative. Moreover given that we have had no decline in snowcover extent in the winter, the only way to have large snow cover declines during the melt season is for greater melting due to higher temperatures. -
Riccardo at 10:29 AM on 9 March 2010Does record snowfall disprove global warming?
pdt, absolutely correct. I should have said "are not filtered out efficiently" Berényi Péter, "A low temperature stage does miracles by coagulation." still waiting for this miracle and the other one you promised several times of disproving AGW.
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