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Comments 26901 to 26950:

  1. Q&A: Is Antarctica gaining or losing ice?

    Cooper13 @8, GRACE measures the mass changes due to the combined effect of Glacial Isostatic Adjustment (plus any other process effecting the altitude of the base rock) plus ice balance.  If the baserock of Antartica were sinking, that would confound the results from GRACE.  That said, Riva et al (2009) combine GRACE and altimetry data to determine that the GIA adjustment is positive, ie, that the base rock is rising.  By their estimate, the effect of the GIA is 100 Gt/year which should be added to the direct GRACE results to get the actual loss in ice mass.  That adjustment is uncertain, however.  Ivins et al (2013) estimate GIA only contributes 57 Gt/annum to the Antarctic mass gain.  Zwally et al list that result (and others) in table 8, having converted it to mm/year uplift.  Based on that result and Whithouse et al (2012) who show (according to Zwally et al) 5.4 mm/year uplift, Zwally et al use an estimate of 8 mm/year uplift.

  2. Q&A: Is Antarctica gaining or losing ice?

    Sifeher,

    Please calculate how much water you could pump up 1,500 meters using all the power produced by five 1000 MW nuclear reactors (cost $50  billion for the plants alone).  Disregard friction in the pipes.  Estimate the diameter of the pipes needed and how long they would have to be.  

    I think you will find that the amount of water that you could theoretically pump unto the top of an ice sheet is so small compared to a 1 cm rise in sea level that it would be a waste of time.  Many proposals for geoengineering fall over because of the immense size of the ocean and the enormous amount of energy that has to be removed.  Proposals to remove CO2 from the air and pump it underground require a business as large as all current companies that remove the carbon from the ground combined.

  3. Q&A: Is Antarctica gaining or losing ice?

    Sifeher, you are aware that the average elevation of the East Antarctic ice cap is 3000 meters, and that most of it lies above 2000 meters, right? Please tell me that you've done the math to calculate the energy requirement to pump a Gt of water that high.

  4. Q&A: Is Antarctica gaining or losing ice?

    I think understand the limitations/concerns with altimetry based datasets that this group used for measurement of ice gains/losses.

    Thus, how do these new data coincide with the GRACE datasets, which show significant mass-losses from the Antarctic region?

    Is it plausible that we have less-dense snow and ice, which is showing 'more ice' from altimetry, but the gravitational data is still correct in showing actual mass losses from the continent? The gravimetric data have lower spatial resolution than the hi-res altimetry, so it's more challenging to tell where the ice losses/gains are using that method, but if the two methods are showing vastly different directions (GRACE shows losses since 2002), there is clearly an underlying assumption that is incorrect, or an error that is unaccounted for.

    From my physics background, the gravimetric data do not 'lie'; if you are detecting lower mass, there simply HAS to be less ice. The altimetry data are inferring mass based on height variations, and perhaps the density variation in the ice is bigger than people have assumed....

    Anyone w/ some 'real' glaciology background able to 'weigh in' (pun intended) on this?

  5. Q&A: Is Antarctica gaining or losing ice?

    Regarding my idea (Comment 1.) of slowing or stopping SLR by pumping sea water onto the Atarctic ice shield to freez (btw, it would be easier to do it on the WAIS and it may help buttressing glaciers and high speed ice flows), but  Jim Eager's comment (3.) is right, a lot could go wrong. That is why I am proposing that we should start testing the IBUC on small scale in connection with the current WISSARD project of NSF along the grounding line of the Ross Ice Shelf. There are a lot of unknowns and risks, but unlimited SLR is a certain global desaster in time. Does anyone believe we will be able to reverse GW by GHG reduction? I don't. I believe we be lucky if we can limit GW to 3 - 4 C by 2100. But even if we could stay below 2 C, Ocean waters will continue to stay warm for centuries, especially if projections of an extra long interglacial period are right. SLR is a problem that needs geoengineering solutions. We have time to develop them, but we better start now. Anyone has a better idea?

  6. Q&A: Is Antarctica gaining or losing ice?

    This paper is nearly identical to one publish in 2012 that did not receive as much attention. But something else may be going on:

    "The paper also pointed out the difficulties in measuring the height of ice in Antarctica, saying that improved tools are needed to better perform the task.

    The US space agency is currently developing a new satellite capable of a more accurately measuring long-term changes in ice in Antarctica.

    ICESat-2, which will be able to “measure changes in the ice sheet within the thickness of a No. 2 pencil,” is planned for launch in 2018, according to NASA glaciologist Tom Neumann."

    Source: https://www.rt.com/usa/320554-antarctica-gaining-ice-nasa/

    This paper is seeking support for a follow-up satellite mission, ICESat-2. Whether or not it works, is another question. Just Antarctic accumulation of snow from warmer seas and the higher humidity has long been predicted in the model reports I've read. 

  7. Q&A: Is Antarctica gaining or losing ice?

    This is what I love about science...  I observe something and make an hypothesis. Jon observes something different but related - he proposes an alternative hypothesis that is not ncessarily in conflict with me.

    Unfortunately the rest of the story is not quite as wholesome:

    Mine and Jon's hypotheses are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but someone in an unrelated field eg journalism "detects" a story and posts unscientific crap that mis-represents my and Jon's research to peddle a previously debunked unscientific claim.

    Rant over but thank you for a most informative post - I had wondered how the "mismatch" would be resolved.

  8. Antarctica is gaining ice

    The wind patterns around Antarctica have been changing over long term observation: the fact that the southern hemisphere is colder than the northern is the start of all methodical theory regarding climate change.

    I can't believe Venus ever had water but if it did the science says our oceans will never boil away as there are too many negative feedbacks, the presence of Antarctica obviously being the main one!

  9. Q&A: Is Antarctica gaining or losing ice?
    What about the sea level budget ? Due to the hard work by Cazenave, Leuilette, Miller and many others the budget was thought to be balanced between steric and mass components, with the latter estimated at 1.5mm/yr. Now, if this paper is to be believed, something other than Antarctica is contributing 0.5 mm/yr to mass component of SLR. This leaves Greenland melt, GIC (other glaciers and ice caps) melt, and land aquifer withdrawal as candidates. I find it quite difficult to believe that any of these was underestimated to such an extent.
  10. Arbitrary focus on hurricane wind speed has birthed a new climate myth

    There also seems to be an arbitrary focus on only the Atlantic Basin.  Note the "Hurricane" in the title.  Yet the relative quiet vis a vis hurricane landfalls in the USA is not necessarily reflective of the Pacific basin nor the Indian Ocean.

  11. Q&A: Is Antarctica gaining or losing ice?

    Hmmm, pumping Gts of relatvely warm salt water directly up onto the East Antarctic ice sheet. Now what could possibly go wrong with that?

  12. Q&A: Is Antarctica gaining or losing ice?

    Correction: In comment 1 - Typo: ...through... should read ...throw...

  13. Q&A: Is Antarctica gaining or losing ice?

    This new NASA report just points out that we can't rely on bets and pieces of data on global warming (GW). It is a global phenomenon, as the name implies, thus we need a global indicator to measure it. Global mean sea level rise is the best such indicator.  It is clearly rising and maybe accelerating. The only thing can through it off is increased snow (ice) accumulation on Antrctica, which removes sea water from the oceans and deposites it in frozen form on the huge land area of Antrctica. - - This phenomenon could lead to a potential geoengineering solution to reduce SLR by pumping seawater onto the Antarctic ice sheet that would freez and stay there for centuries or milenias (The average surface temperatures over most of Antractica are well below freezing year around and likely to stay there even with much more GW). I call this idea the Ice Build Up Concept (IBUC). It would be costly and challanging, but from an engineering standpoint it is feasible. And if we consider the socio-economic costs of potential multi-meter SLR, what is "costly"? I have proposed it to the NSF, but they are not interested in geoengineering solutions.

  14. Homogenization of Temperature Data: An Assessment

    Yes, I've tried the other worlds with this too. With perfect uncondounded breaks, I recover the 'global' trend in all the worlds except the challenging world 6.

    I think there is a subtlety I haven't grasped here. My naive understanding is that with perfect breaks, the fragment method should capture the trend however many breaks there are, until you reach the point where there are not enough runs to bridge all the gaps. More breaks (whether due to confounding or there being more breaks in the data) should add noise to the trend, but that noise should be distributed evenly around the trend.

    But that doesn't seem to be the case. It's as if the trends for neighbouring stations with runs bridging breaks come from a different distribution to the station we are trying to recover. If I were determining the breaks empirically I can see why this would be the case, but this is the perfect break case.

    I don't know if this 'perfect breaks' problem has any relevance to the real world. But it's certainly important for my understanding of the problem.

  15. Antarctica is gaining ice

    If Antarctica really has been gaining mass, we are in deeper doodoo than we knew, because sea level has been rising fast even without any contribution from Antarctica. As the years pass, Antarctica's lowering of sea level (by accumulating water as snow and ice) will decrease until eventually (20 years Zwally estimated) Antarctica will start to contribute to sea level rise. So I very much hope Zwally's new study turns out to be wrong.

  16. Homogenization of Temperature Data: An Assessment

    Kevin, yes when there are many breaks in a short period in a network, it can be hard to determine which of the stations contains the break. I think that is what you call confounding. Unfortunately, the kind of inhomogeneities that cause network wide biases are often the kind that happen troughout the network during a short period, such as the introduction of Stevenson screen or the introduction of automatic weather stations.

    If you have detected all breaks at the right positions, it should be possible to develop a correction method that corrects the large-scale trend error without systematic bias. There would still be a noise error. The decomposition methods (used by the homogenization methods PRODIGE; HOMER, ACMANT) is able to do so and is just a few lines of code as well.

    When you work with the validation dataset for homogenization methods of NOAA, it is best not to use only world 1. This dataset has a broad span from too easy to too difficult cases/worlds. If you only test on one, you may easily get the wrong impression about the performance of your method.

    You should compare the errors in homogenization (or at least systematic errors such as the undercorrection of trend biases) with the global mean temperature change, not with the local weather noise.

  17. Antarctica is gaining ice

    The Zwally et al (2015) pdf.

  18. Antarctica is gaining ice

    At this point Zwally et al is quite the outlier, both from GRACE data alone and from the collection of other Antarctic mass balance work. 

    • Zwally et al might be wrong (or rather, far more wrong than other estimates, outside error bounds), perhaps due to the a snow/ice compaction model that is rather different from what is generally used - a very small error there would throw off their computations. 
    • Zwally et al  might be completely right, indicating that their compaction model is correct and nobody elses is, calling into question all those other works along with GRACE calibrations. I consider this rather unlikely. 
    • Or Zwally et al might be off-base, but other studies are overestimating mass loss somewhat. 

    We're going to have to wait and see how the science progresses. At this point, however, most of the evidence indicates some mass loss from the Antarctic continent, Zwally et al is inconsistent with both the GRACE gravity data and estimates of the sea level rise budget, and we need to be careful not to fall prey to 'single-study syndrome'.

  19. Antarctica is gaining ice

    From the dictionary for Myth:

    1. a person or thing having only an imaginary or unverifiable existence

    2. an unfounded or false notion

    With this new study and other earlier ones from Nasa, and even the continual record Antarctic sea ice extent lately, Myth isn't the right word for the statement "Antarctica is gaining ice". It's in fact got some fairly substantial factual backing.

  20. Antarctica is gaining ice

    Recommended supplemental reading:

    Is Antarctica Gaining or Losing Ice? Hint: Losing., Phil Plait, Bad Astronomy, Slate, Nov 3, 2015

  21. Antarctica is gaining ice

    As I understand it, the GRACE results from NASA measure differences in gravitational pull to determine the mass of ice while the Zwally study (also NASA run) measures the height of the ice/snow cover, estimates how much of that height is ice vs snow, and then computes the resulting ice mass.

    Is there evidence of significant error/uncertainty in the GRACE data? If not, wouldn't it be inherently more reliable than Zwally's method? Basically, Zwally's study gets to 'net ice gain' by making different assumptions about the amount of snow cover. Assume more snow and we're back to 'net ice loss'. Yet GRACE doesn't have that issue at all... it reacts to gravitational pull. Differences in ice/snow elevation would have a neglible impact on gravitational pull. Only the total mass would matter... so how could it be showing less gravitational pull if there were more mass?

  22. Antarctica is gaining ice

    "Does this make the myth true?"

    Myth? It's a new study. It's a good information service that points out uncertainties and alternative opinion. Such opinion may be weighed honestly against other opinion. The results here are a minority view (along with previous Zwally paper). Would it be good to give a robust appraisal of the topic, or reject alternative views if they interfere with the messaging?

    Mod reply says SkS is updating old rebuttal posts. I like robust posts that include uncertainties, indicate alternative opinion and sum up honestly. I'm fairly confident that will happen.

    (Thanks for the reply, JH)

    Moderator Response:

    [JH] You're welcome. 

    The issue of whether Anatartica is gaining or losing land ice is fairly complex and the all-volunteer author team is busy sorting through all of the recent research on this topic.

  23. The Brave New World of Ecomodernism

    Any rational discussion of what will happen in the future nneds to take into account how industrialized civilization actually operates. Technological systems irreversibly use limited natural material resources to provide the goods and services society has become so dependent on. These systems also produce irrevocable wastes, including those that have contributed to irreversible rapid climate disruption and ocean acidification and warming. These technolgical systems age despite the use of natural resources for maintenance. Their operation is an unsustainable process. But most of society will find hard to survive as many of the services, including the contibution to food production and supply of potable water, decline rapidly in the decades ahead.

  24. Antarctica is gaining ice

    Regarding MA Rodgers' response in 433...  "Be mindful that this is not the first time in which Zwally has proclaimed the ERS & ICESat data as showing a net rise in Antarctic ice."

    What happened with the previous claim?  Was it shown to be in error in the 2013 paper co-authored by Zwally?

  25. Satellites show no warming in the troposphere

    Roy just posted Nov data for UAH, and it's starting to show a spike.

  26. Satellites show no warming in the troposphere

    I dont think there is criticism of S&C for adjusting satellite data - given changes in satellite, sensors available, orbits etc, there would be problems if they didnt. There is criticism of those who think satellites are better than surface records because they believe they are adjusted less, and also fof S&C because of their stalling in releasing source code and algorithms.

    RSS has been under suspicion for some time, and see for example analysis here. It will be interesting to see how the MSU indexes respond to the El Nino since in the past, there has been very strong tropospheric response to ENSO. Radiosondes will provide another measure of that response so we have another way to validate the MSU indexies.

  27. Antarctica is gaining ice

    @ 431 & 432 (barry & peter),

    Re: phys.org/news/2015-10-mass-gains-antarctic-ice-sheet.html#jCp

    I read it a bit differently:

    Although the article states: 
    A new NASA study says that an increase in Antarctic snow accumulation that began 10,000 years ago is currently adding enough ice to the continent to outweigh the increased losses from its thinning glaciers.

    This should be put into context, as Zwally also says that within a couple of decades (should the current loss rate remain) the losses will catch up to the gainings: "If the losses of the Antarctic Peninsula and parts of West Antarctica continue to increase at the same rate they've been increasing for the last two decades, the losses will catch up with the long-term gain in East Antarctica in 20 or 30 years—I don't think there will be enough snowfall increase to offset these losses."

    Am I correct to assume (if this study is correct), that net ice gain would only occur if we reduce the curret rate of ice loss?

  28. Homogenization of Temperature Data: An Assessment

    Thanks Victor. I've been trying to test some of those possibilities for the trend recovery.

    I tried homogenizing the 'world 1' data using the known breaks to construct the fragment library, using either the confounded or unconfounded breaks. The confounded breaks lead to underrecovery of the trend.

    I then constructed my own source data using the same breaks, so that I could be sure that the breaks were exactly correct. Same problem. So, unless I've made a mistake the issue isn't down to errors in the breaks or missed small breaks.

    I hadn't thought about the trend uncertainty, but the weather noise in the station trends is large compared to the errors in the homogenization, so that doesn't look like it. And with my new iterative unconfounding step I do recover the full trend for the benchmark data.

    It's a really interesting problem. If it's not a bug there may be some nice science hiding in there.

  29. Homogenization of Temperature Data: An Assessment

    However the simple homogenization method presented in the report underestimates the impact on global temperatures, both in synthetic benchmark data for which we know the right answer (Figure 2), and in the real world data. Why is this?

    One of the ways of understanding this is seeing the computation of the corrections as a regression method. Any error you make, breaks you could not detect because they are too small, spurious breaks you set, errors in the date of the break, will reduce the explained variance of the computed corrections.

    There is also a noise errors in the trends you compute, but the explained variance smaller than 100% means that on average you always underestimate the size of the corrections. A colleague of mine has just submitted a proposal to develop a bias correction method and compute the trend uncertainty after this bias correction.

    The sea surface temperature is corrected based on measurements and models of the measurement process. There is thus no reason to expect these corrections to be biased. They could still be wrong, naturally, especially because there may have been changes in the monitoring of sea surface temperature that have not been considered, but there is no reason to expect improvement in insight to change this trend in any specific direction.

    Combining this, it is more likely than not that we underestimate the magnitude of global warming. This would fit to many other changes in the climate system that go faster than expected (Arctic sea ice, AMOC, snow cover, lake and river temperatures, sea level rise, climate sensitivity from observations compared to other methods, precipitation trends, etc.).

  30. Satellites show no warming in the troposphere

    I find it interesting that Dr. Roy Spencer gets a lot of (mostly deserved) criticism here for his interpretation of temperature data, and all the corrections to the UAH temperature data.  Yet what really puzzles me is that when I visited Dr.  Cowtan's Temperature trends site

    http://www.ysbl.york.ac.uk/~cowtan/applets/trend/trend.html

    ALL the global, land/ocean, satellite data sets show about +1.4°C ± 0.2°C/decade warming for the past 20 years, EXCEPT for RSS, which is only +0.04°C per decade in that time frame.  Similarly, at 30 years, the average warming is about 0.175°C/decade and RSS remains noticably lower than the other sets.  So it seems all the agjustments to UAH have brought it more in agreement with the surface data, but it does beg the question what's with RSS?

    Moderator Response:

    [PS] Fixed link

  31. Antarctica is gaining ice

    barry @431 & peter @432.

    Be mindful that this is not the first time in which Zwally has proclaimed the ERS & ICESat data as showing a net rise in Antarctic ice. A workshop paper in 2012 (abstact & video with gap in coverage - here) also resulted in calls here at SkS for revision to this post (along with more forceful demands elsewhere by the likes of the Lord Protector of Wattsupia).

    This time round, the journal article is so hot-off-the-press it has yet to appear on-line so it's a little early to be getting all excited. Until the new finding is appraised, best we make do with Hanna et al (2013) which is a paper co-authered by Zwally. It broadly discusses work in-hand plus future developments before concluding:-

    "However, it is unlikely that these refinements will change the consensus picture emerging: while Antarctica as a whole is losing mass slowly (assessed to be contributing 0.2 mm yr-1 sea-level equivalent by IMBIE2), Greenland, the Antarctic Peninsula, and parts of West Antarctica are together losing mass at a moderate (~ 1 mm yr -1 sea-level equivalent) rate today (~70% of this mass loss is from Greenland) and rates for each are becoming increasingly negative." (my bold)

    Figure 1 from Hanna et al (2013) demonstrates this 'emergence'.

    hanna2013fig1

    Figure 1 caption. Summary of Antarctic and Greenland mass-rate estimates. In the studies published before 20122 (left) and in 2012 (right) each estimate of a temporally-averaged rate of mass change is represented by a box whose width indicates the time period studied, and whose height indicates the error estimate. Single-epoch (snapshot) estimates of mass balance are represented by vertical error bars when error estimates are available, and are otherwise represented by asterisks. 2012 studies comprise IMBIE combined estimates2 (solid lines), and estimates by Sasgen and others16,20 and King and others11 (dashed lines), Zwally and others19 (dot-dashed lines), Harig and Simons89 and Ewert and others90 (dotted lines).

    Note that it is not just a need to reconcile this most recent Zwally paper with the other methods employed to assess East Antarctic ice balance. Both the linked pages @431&432 quote Zwally pointing out that these ERS & ICESat data have to be also reconciled with SLR data.

    And my answer to peter's question "Would this Zwally paper make the myth true?"  that answer would be  - "No". ERS & ICESat data continue to provide some evidential support for the 'Antarctica not losing ice' position which remains strongly a myth when presented as unequivocal fact, and doubly so when the mythical Antarctica ice balance is then presented as some natural global thermometer. Indeed, does it even work as a thermometer for Antarctica?

  32. Sea level rise is decelerating

    Kerry... You're doing a classic "missing denominator" calculation. You've estimated out that the number of ships displacing sea water is a very large number. That's your numerator. Your denominator is the total tonnage of all the earth's oceans, and that would make the result an extremely small number.

  33. Sea level rise is decelerating

    Kerry Randell @42, taking your figures on total tonnage, and assuming the average container loss rate extends back to 1945, and that the average ship tonnage loss is 250 with the average loss also extending back to 1945, that yields a total 31,054,617 tonnes lost as a rough estimate.  Given that the density of sea water is 1.025 Tonnes per meter cubed, that leads to an estimated displacement of 30,297,187 m^3 of displacement.  Averaged over the ocean surface of 361, 132,000 km^2 of surface area, that leads to an estimated 0.000084 milimeter rise in sea level based on your assumptions, for the entirety of lost shipping in the 20th century.

    However, that is likely a significant overestimate.  The mass of water displaced only equals the mass of the object if the object is floating.  If it sinks, the water displaced equals the volume of the immersed object, which is necessarilly less than the volume of water equal to the tonnage of the immersed object, for if it were not, the object would float rather than sink.  Ergo, your initial assumption is completely wrong headed.  The mass of water displaced by various vessels sunk at sea is far less than the displacement of the vessels.

  34. Antarctica is gaining ice

     "A new NASA study says that an increase in Antarctic snow accumulation that began 10,000 years ago is currently adding enough ice to the continent to outweigh the increased losses from its thinning glaciers.

    The research challenges the conclusions of other studies, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) 2013 report, which says that Antarctica is overall losing land ice."

    http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/nasa-study-mass-gains-of-antarctic-ice-sheet-greater-than-losses

    Does this make the myth true?

    Moderator Response:

    [JH] Link activated. 

  35. Sea level rise is decelerating

    The rising Oceans,Global warming or not.

    Simple experiment:
    Fill a bucket to the top with water, then add a brick.
    What happens the water overflows the weight of the lost water equals the weight of the brick, it's called displacement.
    Add some thing to a body of water what happens?
    Throw a brick in the ocean, no noticeable difference.
    But throw billions of tons of bricks in and float thousands of ships and boats of all sizes on then we have Oceans rising,
    melting ice:
    add a large block of ice in your bucket then fill the bucket to the top, the ice floats above & below the water, as the ice melts will the water overflow? Remembering displacement,
    Check out below for some reasons for the rising of the oceans.
    Listed below is just a small amount of the reasons.

    Apparently in WW1 a total of 375 U boats sank 6596 merchant ships, a total of 12,800,000 tons.

    The Japanese lost 1,178 Merchant Ships sunk for a tonnage total of 5,053,491 tons. The Naval losses were 214 ships and submarines totaling 577,626 tons. A staggering five million, six hundred thirty one thousand, one hundred seventeen tons,
    (5,631,117 tons), 1,392 ships

    It's estimated that 10,000 of these large containers are lost at sea each year, Average tonnage 18 tons
    180,000 tons per annum

    According to an annual analysis from insurer Allianz, 94 ships on average(over 100 gross tonnes) each were completely lost in 2013. There are many reasons for a complete loss. “Foundering” (which means sinking or submerging) caused the vast majority of the big losses

    Over 30,000 large Ships over 500 tons launched since 1975 not to mention the 100 of thousands sail boats small yatch's ferries etc

    Now lets add the land Pushed into the ocean to build Airstrips, Islands & Erosion.
    Where doe's the water go, It just disappears, yeah right. “IT RISES”
    -
    NEWTONS LAW:
    For every action, there is an equal (in size) and opposite (in direction) reaction

  36. 2015: A Very Bad Year for the Global Warming Policy Foundation

    Here's something to think about .....

    It was the downside year of the '97-'98 el Nino that set the record not the year leading into it. Having the record warmest year 2 years in a row is already unprecedented but there is a very good chance 2016 could be the third year in a row or at the least a Top 3 year in the 2014-2016 cluster

    I predict that in 10 years these same Deniers will be going "Global Warming ended in 2015 so there is nothing to worry about" 

  37. Catching up with the Younger Dryas: do mass-extinctions always need impacts?

    What created the many elliptical Carolina Bay landform depressions?
    And what caused the Younger Dryas cooling period 12,900 years ago?

    Could these two seemingly disparate topics be linked in any way? Ralph Ellis takes a look at current research on both of these subjects, and discovers that they are likely to be linked to a large meteoric impact in the Great Lakes region some 12,900 years ago. It was the ejecta from this impact that created the Carolina Bays, and it was the same ejecta that blanketed the Earth and caused the Younger Dryas cooling period.

    LINK

    Moderator Response:

    [RH] Shortened link.

  38. Antarctica is gaining ice

    Recent study shows mass balance increasing.

    http://phys.org/news/2015-10-mass-gains-antarctic-ice-sheet.html#jCp

    Worth mentioning in the OP as an update? Or wait for the study to become available?

    Moderator Response:

    [JH] Link activated.

    Like many of the SkS Rebuttal articles, the OP is in need of update. The all-volunteer SkS author team has embarked on an intitiative to update the Rebuttals. 

  39. There is no consensus

    KiAnCa @ #714 : You have my sympathies, for your desire to gain good quality scientific information about the amount of global warming going, and how severely the problem is building. As you have doubtless already noticed, the mainstream media generally does a poor job in supplying realistic information ~ and it gives an inordinate amount of space to anti-science propagandists (with lawyer-type rhetoric designed to make you think black is white, or that there are so many "doubtful" shades inbetween, such that there is nothing meaningful in this whole universe).

    You will find a vast amount of science-based info on this website . . . but you have my sympathy, because that info is not presented as a giant-size single meal where you simply chew your way through from one end of the pie to the other end.

    Best (a) if you go to the Home page, central top region, and click on the small box titled "The Big Picture" . . . and then follow to areas that interest you,

    or (b) on the Home page, click on the nearby box titled "Newcomers, start here" . . . and look down to the second heading, titled "Good starting point for newbies" where [second line of the paragraph] you can click on "Warming Indicators" and from that go to "Evidence for Global Warming (intermediate)" . . . where you can follow your interests. I must  point out that this particular section generally holds info up to about 2010 ~ and so doesn't directly mention all the additional weight of scientific info in the last five years [i.e. all the newer "hot year" global records and even faster Ice Melt and sea-level rise]. No great matter, since the "sufficient evidence" was already overwhelmingly convincing, long before that date [indeed, in a recently publicised scandal, it appears that Exxon already had convincing evidence of the CO2/Warming problem by 1979],

    or (c) if your scientific education is already above average, then you can simply skip to the "Arguments" [on Home page] and pursue any of the 170+ "arguments" [arranged by Climate Myth] which interest you, and delve further from there. The Myths are quite entertaining, because the info there does neatly deflate all the rubbish/nonsense talked by the small number of shills & mavericks who oppose the mainstream science (i.e. the mainstream science which results in virtually all the climate scientists being in accord with the consensus of 97% . . . or nowadays more likely 99% )

    Good hunting ~ and please use the appropriate thread's Comments Section for any questions that you want clarified.

  40. There is no consensus

    I'm looking for the data on climate change. I haven't been able to find it. I don't care how many agree, I want to know what evidence they base their opinion on. I was taught to question, not swallow. Please just post the data on climate, not the politics of popularity. Thank you.

    Moderator Response:

    [DB]  Data and codes are openly available, and have been for years:

    http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/data-sources/#Climate_data_raw
    http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/data-sources/#Climate_data_processed
    http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/data-sources/#GCM_code
    http://oco.jpl.nasa.gov/science/dataproducts/
    http://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/
    http://daac.gsfc.nasa.gov/
    https://earthdata.nasa.gov/about/daacs
    https://www.wmo.int/pages/themes/climate/climate_models.php

    Note that the Muir Russell Commission was able to do a full global reconstruction from the raw data linked to from the above page, WITHOUT ANY CODE, in a mere 2 days (when asked, they replied "any competent researcher could have done the same).

    The Auditors over at McIntyre's Climate Audit have been struggling with their "audit" reconstruction for many years now.

  41. 2015 SkS Weekly Digest #43

    I am intrigued at this discussion of limiting global warming as it is contrary to the understanding of this physical scientist of what has happened and what will happen in the future. Fossil fuel emissions have been the major contribution to the carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere rising to 400 mpm with an associated absorption in the oceans. This has created, in Hansen's terms, a blanket around the Earth which has caused the atmospheric warming by reducing the radiation out into space. This warming process will continue even if the rate of emissions is greatly reduced. Absorption of carbon dioxide will also tend to reduce the blanket effect, so the rate of increase in atmospheric warming but it will still increase. It is an irreversible process in a time scale relevant to industrial civilization. in addition, while it is not receiving the attention that is warranted, ocean acidification and warming is also an irreversible process that is under way. 

  42. A Rough Guide to the Jet Stream: what it is, how it works and how it is responding to enhanced Arctic warming

    Chuck Wiese - Francis and Vavrus are under exactly zero responsibility to indulge the complaints of someone who hasn't done the work, who isn't willing to write a Comment or a dissenting peer-reviewed article. 

    You have been disagreeing with recent research with (unclear) references to textbooks from the 1950's - has it not  occurred to you that our knowledge of various phenomena may have improved in the interim? Or that recent papers are discussing recent developments, developments that may not have been covered back when you received your training? I might as well argue that plate tectonics is absurd, based on a textbook from the 1920's. 

    If you indeed think that Francis and Vavrus (not to mention the many authors of recent papers discussing these works without rejecting them) are completely and in an elementary fashion wrong, do the work. Otherwise, regardless of the accuracy of your assertions, you will be considered a crank whose views lack support. 

    On a related note - the opening post was written with direct reference to peer-reviewed literature, which is all the support required; it's supported by that work. Your repeated claims that you, because of your background and training, know better consist of an Argument from Authority - and without actual data, theory, references, or work pointing out where those papers have erred, that's a logical fallacy. 

  43. A Rough Guide to the Jet Stream: what it is, how it works and how it is responding to enhanced Arctic warming

    Chuck Wiese @82, John Mason in fact provides a reference for his claims in the discussion he had with Jennifer Francis, and in the paper you are referred to for further reading (Francis and Vargus, 2012).  That is, as the Sun has cooled (very slightly) the Earth has warmed. That might be enough for some, but if any key point of the article were challenged, we would expect Mason to provide appropriate data, explicate the reasoning behind the claim and/or provide a suitable reference if no other commentor was able to do so before hand. That is, we would expect the same standard we apply to you, and that you apply to Jennifer Francis, but fail of in your own behaviour.

    In fact, you have challenged a key point, but the reference for that point is already given in the article (ie, Francis and Vargus (2012)) and the relevant section has been quoted by commentors above.  You yourself have identified Francis as making the claim, so it is not in dispute that Mason has a suitable reference for his claims.  Nor would it be in dispute that you had a suitable reference for yours if you would only quote the relevant passages from the difficult to obtain references you use, something you steadfastly refuse to do.

    With regard to the deleted posts, I believe they were deleted due to being off topic, contrary to both the comments policy and the direction from the moderator @73 above, a direction you have chosen to ignore.  It is unfortunate that your rejection of the moderators claim @59 above that you "...expressed a rejection of basic greenhouse theory" has been deleted, but that claim was made before the indication of a strict application of the rule requiring that you remain on topic.  It is still open to you to rebut the moderator's claims at one of the SkS posts that discuss basic greenhouse physics.  No comment of yours was deleted for being off topic prior to that notice.  Furrther, the moderator making the claim @59 has not deleted any of your posts, and some miscommunication may have been involved.

    By all means, however, become yet another denier who interprets their inability to comply with the simple requirements for posting at SkS as censorship of their views.  As the views expressed are not a grounds for moderation - that claim is and has always been false.  The failure to comply, however, seems to indicate that deniers are unable to express their views in a clear, evidence based manner while remaining on topic (ie, not wondering of into some form or another of a Gish Gallop).  That does not speak well for the coherence, or emperical basis of those denier views.

    Moderator Response:

    [JH] Wiese's most recent post was a moderation complaint and was deleted. He had been advised to review the SkS Comments Policy but apparently chose not to do so. 

  44. It's cooling

    ARRS

    You don't define what you mean by deep ocean. 

    If you mean the true Abyssal ocean, below 2000 meters then there has seemingly been little warming.

    If you mean the ocean down to 2000 meters there has been warming And it is not an extrapolation of anything. It is a measurement using the ARGO system.

  45. A Rough Guide to the Jet Stream: what it is, how it works and how it is responding to enhanced Arctic warming

    Chuck Wiese @80 sets up a hypocritical standard such that:

    "If anyone who had anything to do with this work diasagrees with my assertions, they owe it to the public to explain them and defend. To claim they disagree without an explanation is not acceptable."

    But he insists it is not incumbent on him to defend and explain his assertions.  Indeed, as he claims his views are based on standard (but out of print, and unavailable second hand) textbooks, it should be very easy for him to defend and explain his views by showing the derivation of the relevant formula, or failing that, quoting the textbooks for their derivation.

    Indeed, not even that is being asked of him.  We would be content if he simply listed the scientific papers in which the result was first derived (that being far more likely to be accessible than out of print, and unavailable second hand text books).  Most recently MA Rodger @77 has reduced the request on his behalf to a mere listing of the formula numbers in the text books that purportedly contain the formula.  Even that request is, apparently, to much a demand on Chuck Wiese in defense of his views.

    Yet he thinks it is incumbent on atmospheric scientists to devote time to defending their views against any internet crank that has the wit to send them an email.

    That is not how science works.  Any such communication from a scientist is, and must always be only a courtesy.  If it is not, you place a blank check on scientists time such that internet pseudo-scientists can at will permanently prevent them pursuing further research, or even their mandated teaching requirements (if university based).  Rather, the way science works is that, if you think there is a problem with a paper, you pursue it through (ideally) peer reviewed responses - the step Chuck Wiese refuses to make.

  46. A Rough Guide to the Jet Stream: what it is, how it works and how it is responding to enhanced Arctic warming

    Moderator: In response to your most recent post, whether there is a desire by me to publish such a paper is irrelevant. What is relevant is that I have personally written to both of these authors and asked them to explain their claims and demonstrate where I could be wrong. Vavrus never responded and Francis offered no other explanation of why my assertion is incorrect, but only and without any explanation insisted she is correct.

    This is not how anyone should be approaching problems in science. Regardless if a paper is reviewed and accepted for publication as this one was, the reviewers may very well not have been versed in atmospheric scienvce as they should be. In addition, the authors have a responsibility to defend their own work and answer questions if they are approached directly as I have approached them. Their failure to do this is surely an indication the isues I raised are valid. That is a reasonable assertion until they can state they addressed my concerns in the review process, they are wrong and give a reference or explanation.

    If anyone who had anything to do with this work diasagrees with my assertions, they owe it to the public to explain them and defend. To claim they disagree without an explanation is not acceptable. Ms. Francis is employed by Rutgers University and Vavrus by the Unviersity of Wisconsin and both receive funding from taxpayers. 

    Chuck Wiese

    Meteorologist

    Moderator Response:

    [JH] You are now skating on the thin ice of excessive repetition which is prohibited by the SkS Comments Policy.

    Please note that posting comments here at SkS is a privilege, not a right.  This privilege can be rescinded if the posting individual treats adherence to the Comments Policy as optional, rather than the mandatory condition of participating in this online forum.

    Please take the time to review the policy and ensure future comments are in full compliance with it.  Thanks for your understanding and compliance in this matter.

    [RH] The way people approach the problems of science is through publishing research. You've thus far been unable to provide supporting research for your claims, and contrary to how people actually approach the problems of science, you've only made claims that you understand this stuff while no one else does. It's quite obvious that you are the one who does not adhere to a scientific approach.

    In terms of what is "owed to the public," the only thing that is owed has already been delivered. Dr. Francis has published her work in the peer reviewed literature, as scientists are expected to do. If you have a challenge to the conclusions of her research it is your responsibility to submit those to peer review. Apparently this is something you're unwilling or incapable of doing.

  47. A Rough Guide to the Jet Stream: what it is, how it works and how it is responding to enhanced Arctic warming

    Oops, I should have said arctic air would 0.24C warmer within a decade.

    It would (simplistically) be 2.4C warmer within a century; I imagine, however, that arctic amplification is closely associated with the loss of ice albedo, and that given that observation and IPCC projection indicate a summer ice free arctic by mid 21st century, the amplification will slow.

    BTW, in all of the above "warmer" refers "warmer than today". If you assume that the temperate region (Texas, in my example) warms at the global average then you need to half the difference. 

  48. A Rough Guide to the Jet Stream: what it is, how it works and how it is responding to enhanced Arctic warming

    Re: @76

    The jet stream, as I understand it, acts a barrier that inhibits air currents from crossing it. If the meanders in it increase, then air currents can progress further south (or north) before encountering it. This allows cold air from the arctic to progress further south in the places where the jetstream meanders to the south, and warm air from temperate regions to progress further north where the jetstream meanders to the north. Furthermore since the jetstream acts a barrier to these air masses mixing, the cold air will remain cold since it will not come into contact with warm air.

    I do, however take your point that arctic amplification will make arctic temperatures warmer than they were in the past. The trend the atmospheric temperatures over the last 15 years is about +0.12 degC/dec. Let us (for the sake of argument) assume that arctic temperatures are double that rate. However comparing temperatures:

    Average March temperature in Nuuk between -7 and -11 C

    Average March temperature in Austin Texas between +22 and +10C

    would suggest that the fact that the arctic air would be slightly (0.24C) warmer than it would otherwise have been, is dwarfed by the fact that the larger meanders of the jet stream allow the cold (albeit slightly less cold) air penetrate further south.

  49. A Rough Guide to the Jet Stream: what it is, how it works and how it is responding to enhanced Arctic warming

    Chuck Weise Meteorologist @75.

    Thank you so much for confirming that the equation I presented @73 is not the equation you are talking about. Given the adverse circumstance here, I do struggle to get to grips with this equation and its derivation. In that regard, can you confirm that the your equation is of the form presented @74. And also concerning it's derivation, the references you quoted @35 as your sources of this equation are:-

    " "Dynamic Meteorology and Weather Forecasting", authors Godske,Bergeron, Bjerknes and Bundgaard. American Meteorological Society Volume 605, 1957, Chapter 11, Hydrodynamics of the Atmosphere. ... (and)  " Dynamical and Physical Meteorology" Haltiner and Martin Chapter 12, Horizontal Frictionless Flow, 1957 ISBN 57-8005."

    While you appear reluctant to venture an explanation for the derivation of this equation, likely because "this topic is long, complex and math intensive" in your eyes, such reference books as these do tend to number all the equations they present. So it would be simplicity itself to provide the equation number of this formula within these two chapters. This would be most helpful.

  50. Interview with Gavin Schmidt

    The impact of another issue on feasible policies to tackle climate change needs to be taken into account in discussing what is likely to happen. Every one, including the climatologists, are very dependent on the services provided by the exisitng infrastructure (from the satellites through a range, including being able to fly round the globe, to the computera and instruments). The operation and maintenance of this infrastructure as it ages entails the irreversible useage of a wide range of irreplaceable natural resources. The inevitable decline in these services will have a significant impact on what can be done to cope with climate change. Coping with climate change is a predicament for society. But coping with the loss of services is another one that makes the fromer more difficult.

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