"The North Pole Could be Ice Free this Summer" Revisted

[TopGunna]

You may remember an article posted here earlier this summer, predicting that the North Pole might be ice free this summer.

Well, the melt season in the Arctic is over for 2008, and this prediction (like many made by the climate alarmism camp) did not come true. In fact, there is 9% more Arctic sea ice that there was at this point last year.

Arctic Sea Ice Melt Season Officially Over; ice up over 9% from last year Watts Up With That?

It would seem CO2 warming isn't quite as "relentless" as some folks might like you to believe.

 

[Chris]

16 September 2008
Media Advisory: Arctic sea ice reaches lowest extent for 2008
This is a joint announcement with NASA and the University of Colorado at Boulder. The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) is part of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder. NSIDC scientists provide Arctic Sea Ice News & Analysis content, with partial support from NASA.


The Arctic sea ice cover appears to have reached its minimum extent for the year, the second-lowest extent recorded since the dawn of the satellite era. While slightly above the record-low minimum set in 2007, this season further reinforces the strong negative trend in summertime sea ice extent observed over the past thirty years.

NSIDC will issue a formal press release at the beginning of October with full analysis of the possible causes behind this year's low ice conditions, particularly interesting aspects of the melt season, the set up going into the winter growth season ahead, and graphics comparing this year to the long-term record.

NSIDC Press Room: Arctic Sea Ice Now Second-Lowest on Record

 

[Chris]

The Southern Oscillation and the solar cycle have significant effects on year-to-year global temperature change. Because both of these natural effects were in their cool phases in 2007, the unusual warmth of 2007 is all the more notable. It is apparent that there is no letup in the steep global warming trend of the past 30 years (see 5-year mean curve in Figure 1a).

"Global warming stopped in 1998," has become a recent mantra of those who wish to deny the reality of human-caused global warming. The continued rapid increase of the five-year running mean temperature exposes this assertion as nonsense. In reality, global temperature jumped two standard deviations above the trend line in 1998 because the "El Niño of the century" coincided with the calendar year, but there has been no lessening of the underlying warming trend.

Data @ NASA GISS: GISS Surface Temperature Analysis: 2007 Summation

 

[TopGunna]

The Southern Oscillation and the solar cycle have significant effects on year-to-year global temperature change. Because both of these natural effects were in their cool phases in 2007, the unusual warmth of 2007 is all the more notable. It is apparent that there is no letup in the steep global warming trend of the past 30 years (see 5-year mean curve in Figure 1a).
Data @ NASA GISS: GISS Surface Temperature Analysis: 2007 Summation

So all of a sudden, solar cycles and and other natural variations have significant effects on year to year temperature change?? You don't say....

If these factors are all-of-the-sudden important variables in determining climate, then increasing CO2 concentrations must have even less to do with the temperature increases we saw in the 20th century. You can't have it both ways.

 

[Chris]

There are always temperature fluctuations from year to year, but the running mean is continuously upward. And the percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere grows and grows. We have increased the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere 39% in the last 200 years.

 

[dilloduck]

There are always temperature fluctuations from year to year, but the running mean is continuously upward. And the percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere grows and grows. We have increased the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere 39% in the last 200 years.

pretty close to the population increase wouldnt you say ?

 

[Chris]

pretty close to the population increase wouldnt you say ?

Nowhere near.

 

[TopGunna]

There are always temperature fluctuations from year to year, but the running mean is continuously upward. And the percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere grows and grows. We have increased the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere 39% in the last 200 years.

Running mean? You're kidding, right?

Temperature by year is a time-series: the measured data is the real, actual data. When running a time-series analysis, any lay statistician knows that you never, under any circumstance, smooth the series through averaging. I mean surely, you must know that smoothing the data in a time-series can induce spurious signals—signals that look real to other analytical methods.

Statistical shortcomings aside, I am not questioning the increasing levels of atmospheric CO2. I'm questioning the relevance of those increases, when other factors in the climate system have much more explanatory power in predicting temperatures.

Case-in-point: the North Pole was never ice-free this year. As it turns out, we didn't "melt the pole in 50 short years" as a result of atmospheric CO2.

 

[Chris]

Running mean? You're kidding, right?

Temperature by year is a time-series: the measured data is the real, actual data. When running a time-series analysis, any lay statistician knows that you never, under any circumstance, smooth the series through averaging. I mean surely, you must know that smoothing the data in a time-series can induce spurious signals—signals that look real to other analytical methods.

Statistical shortcomings aside, I am not questioning the increasing levels of atmospheric CO2. I'm questioning the relevance of those increases, when other factors in the climate system have much more explanatory power in predicting temperatures.

Case-in-point: the North Pole was never ice-free this year. As it turns out, we didn't "melt the pole in 50 short years" as a result of atmospheric CO2.

Don't worry. We will get there. No question.

 

[Gunny]

Don't worry. We will get there. No question.

Wow. Good comeback. You've been pwned since you opened your flap in this thread.

 

[KittenKoder]

YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.

Environmentalism IS Bullshit.

 

[KittenKoder]

One thing that I find funny, whatever happened to CO? CO2 is a natural bi-product of breathing for most species, CO is the result of machines. Did that 'monster' just disappear?

 

[TopGunna]

One thing that I find funny, whatever happened to CO? CO2 is a natural bi-product of breathing for most species, CO is the result of machines. Did that 'monster' just disappear?

As I understand it, CO results from partial combusition of carbon-based fuels, when limited amounts of oxygen are present. As the internal combustion engine has evolved, it has come to include catalytic converters that oxidize CO, converting it into CO2.

Car exhaust used to contain about 25% CO, but modern-day engines only contain trace amounts (less than .4%, though I'm not sure of the exact figure).

 

[dilloduck]

Nowhere near.

The world population has tripled in the last 70 years.

 

[KittenKoder]

As I understand it, CO results from partial combusition of carbon-based fuels, when limited amounts of oxygen are present. As the internal combustion engine has evolved, it has come to include catalytic converters that oxidize CO, converting it into CO2.

Car exhaust used to contain about 25% CO, but modern-day engines only contain trace amounts (less than .4%, though I'm not sure of the exact figure).

Sorry I missed your post, but you missed my point. I forgot the sarcasm tag, but it was a joke on how they were crying about CO levels rising the suddenly switched to CO2. The problem is that CO2 isn't the problem, it points to a larger less pleasant problem that 90% of the people are in denial about, some because of it's implications, most because they simply do not want to control their breeding.

 

[user_name_guest]

You may remember an article posted here earlier this summer, predicting that the North Pole might be ice free this summer.

Well, the melt season in the Arctic is over for 2008, and this prediction (like many made by the climate alarmism camp) did not come true. In fact, there is 9% more Arctic sea ice that there was at this point last year.

Arctic Sea Ice Melt Season Officially Over; ice up over 9% from last year Watts Up With That?

It would seem CO2 warming isn't quite as "relentless" as some folks might like you to believe.

Global warming is a good way to make a buck. Especially for those former politicians *cough* Gore *cough* who found a way to turn a concern into $$$. Raise operating cost, move to countries that don't care about being green. Problem solved.