The percentage of the Arctic Ocean consisting of ice at least five years or older remains at only 7%, half of what it was in February 2007. Moreover, a large area of the multiyear ice has drifted to the southern Beaufort Sea and East Siberian Sea (north of Alaska and the Lena River delta), where warm conditions are likely to exist later in the year.
We thought we’d point out to any interested WUWTers that actually warm conditions have existed in the southern Beaufort Sea and East Siberian Sea for quite some time now. However it appears as if the powers that be in WattsLand had other ideas:
Them:
Caleb says:
April 3, 2014 at 7:06 pm
RE: Tom in Denver says:
April 3, 2014 at 9:12 am
I think we need to pay less attention to 2 meter surface temperatures, and more attention to the temperature of the sea. Any time a polynya forms the sea is getting severely cooled by churning winds. Also the ice that has been moved south is going somewhere. In the case of Baffin Bay it was surging south right along the coast of Labrador and out into the Atlantic, creating above-average ice-extents in an area adjacent to the Gulf Stream.
Us:
Surface air temperature anomaly plot for January to March 2014
The self proclaimed “world’s most viewed site on global warming and climate change”, otherwise known as the “Watts Up With That?” blog, recently published an article entitled “Arctic Sea Ice Appears to Have Reached Maximum And Other Ice Observations”. Since I’ve been speculating about the date of the 2014 maximum Arctic sea ice extent myself I avidly read the article but found myself ultimately somewhat perplexed. There were lots of graphs and charts displayed, but there was no sight or mention of what seems to me the most relevant one of all. The long term trend. Here is an expurgated version of my attempts to bring this oversight to the attention of the Watts Up With Thatters:
Us:
A “dull” comment about Arctic sea ice trends
Them:
Re: Michael Jennings says:
March 26, 2014 at 7:07 am
[snip . . this is dull. Put some content into your contributions or you are just trolling . . mod]
Us:
At the risk of repeating myself, here’s the latest dull content out of NSIDC:
Do you see the blue line heading for the bottom right?
Snow White needs to get up to speed on the Scientific Method: skeptics have nothing to prove.
Rather, the onus is on the alarmist crowd to provide scientific evidence showing that their CO2/cAGW conjecture is true. They have failed miserably.
But there is no scientific evidence supporting their belief in manmade global warming. None at all. Every last climate model has failed. They were all wrong.
The alarmist crowd is fixated on Arctic ice, instead of on global ice cover. Why? Because that is their last forlorn hope; every other climate scare has been debunked. Well, it’s time to debunk the ‘disappearing Arctic ice’ scare, too:
Global sea ice is at it’s 30-year average [the red graph – click in chart to embiggen]. We already know about the polar see-saw, in which the NH and SH poles balance each other out. That effect can be clearly seen in the global ice chart above.
There is nothing either unusual or unprecedented happening. What we observe now has happened before, repeatedly, and to a much greater degree. Rational folks understand that. It is called the climate Null Hypothesis, and it has never been falsified. The Null Hypothesis is a corollary of the Scientific Method. So is the fact that the onus is on those who produce the catastrophic CO2/AGW conjecture, to suport their belief with scientific evidence.
But there is no evidence proving that Arctic ice is in unprecedented decline. None at all. There is no evidence to prove that the current Arctic ice fluctuation is anything other than natural climate variability. Occam’s Razor says that natural variability is by far the most likely explanation.
The Arctic ice scare is just the same as all the other climate scares. It is promoted by religious True Believers, who expect everyone to share in their Chicken Little panic.
But that only works on those who are ruled by emotion, and fright is an emotion. Scientific skeptics, OTOH, are logical, and therefore they are unaffected by the silly ‘Arctic ice’ scare.
Us:
So to summarise, you cannot muster a single chart to refute my assertion about Arctic sea ice decline, let alone “hundreds”.
For your edification, and for that of the writer of the original article who for some strange reason neglected to include a graph showing the long term trend in Arctic sea ice maximum extent, here is one I prepared earlier:
Provisional NSIDC annual maximum Arctic sea ice extent graph for 1979 – 2014
I’m sorry Snow White (or Mr Hunt, if you prefer), but I think that a little courtesy would be in order. I’ve read every word on the link you’ve provided, and the central theme of your original post was that “there was no sight or mention of what seems to me the most relevant one of all. The long term trend [of Arctic sea ice]“. You described more than one attempt to bring this deficit to the attention of WUWT.
Given that Michael D posted on your page at April 9, 2014 at 4:01 pm, politely pointing out that the WUWT sea ice page has just such data presented, it would seem a basic courtesy to either acknowledge his assistance (in this blog or yours) and either thank him, or explain why graph does not answer your criticisms.
I acknowledge that your arguments seem to have moved on to volume now, but they have been addressed by others, and better than I could have done. As an aside, I suppose I could run a blog with limited data about Antarctic sea ice coverage and volumes. I’m sure that I would be criticised, with comments explaining that I was looking at the mural through a microscope, and that the Antarctic buildup cannot be considered in isolation. I think that such criticism would be valid – your thoughts?
Us:
As you can see from the historical record, I asked on more than one occasion for someone to supply a link to “A long term (let’s say 30 years or more) graph for any measure of Arctic sea ice “quantity” showing anything other than a trend in the direction of the bottom right hand corner.” Nobody did. Nobody suggested looking at the WUWT sea ice page either, presumably because no graphs fitting my description can be found on there.
There’s accusations flying around the blogosphere in all directions at the moment on the currently very hot topic of “Recursive Fury”, also referred to as “Conspiracist Ideation” in the literature.
By way of a little background, this time last year the learned journal Frontiers in Psychology published a paper called “Recursive fury: Conspiracist ideation in the blogosphere in response to research on conspiracist ideation”. The lead author is Stephan Lewandowsky who is now Chair in Cognitive Psychology at Bristol University just up the M5 motorway from here. If you click that first link you will note that rather than being able to read the paper you will instead find a note from the editors that reads as follows:
In the light of a small number of complaints received following publication of the original research article cited above, Frontiers carried out a detailed investigation of the academic, ethical and legal aspects of the work. This investigation did not identify any issues with the academic and ethical aspects of the study. It did, however, determine that the legal context is insufficiently clear and therefore Frontiers wishes to retract the published article. The authors understand this decision, while they stand by their article and regret the limitations on academic freedom which can be caused by legal factors.
That form of words has changed recently, because for last twelve months or so it has said instead:
This article, first published by Frontiers on 18 March 2013, has been the subject of complaints. Given the nature of some of these complaints, Frontiers has provisionally removed the link to the article while these issues are investigated, which is being done as swiftly as possible and which Frontiers management considers the most responsible course of action. The article has not been retracted or withdrawn. Further information will be provided as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience.
Contrarians bully journal into retracting a climate psychology paper. After threats of frivolous libel and defamation lawsuits, a journal will retract an academically sound paper.
Nobody likes being called a conspiracy theorist, and thus climate contrarians really didn’t appreciate Recursive Fury. Very soon after its publication, the journal Frontiers was receiving letters from contrarians threatening libel lawsuits. In late March 2013, the journal decided to “provisionally remove the link to the article while these issues are investigated.” The paper was in limbo for nearly a full year until Frontiers finally caved to these threats.
The University of Western Australia (UWA: Lewandowsky’s university when Recursive Fury was published – he later moved to the University of Bristol) also investigated the matter and found no academic, ethical, or legal problems with the paper. In fact, UWA is so confident in the validity of the paper that they’re hosting it on their own servers.
Click that link if you want read the paper and discover what all the fuss is about. In addition to all the virtual newsprint Stephan Lewandowsky has also released a video telling his side of the story. Here it is:
At this point you may possibly be wondering what all this has to do with The Great White Con? Well, we’re obviously concerned at the apparent threat to academic freedom posed by “contrarian bullying”, as are lots of other people. However there’s more to it than that from our perspective. Take a look at the section of the video starting at about 2 minutes 40 seconds. In it you will spot a headline we are extremely familiar with here at GWC Ivory Towers, from the very same Mail on Sunday article by David Rose that persuaded us to launch this humble site last September! As Stephan puts it (at 3:20):
The bottom’s falling out of the Arctic, so we have a serious problem. We have a problem with the planet, but we also have a problem with the fact that in my opinion the public’s right to be informed accurately is being violated through the injection of disinformation at a time when the clock is ticking and the planet is accumulating energy.
We felt sure Mr. Rose would have some comment to make on such a controversial topic, and we were not disappointed. Over on Twitter once more the following conversation ensued:
Them:
@hockeyschtick1@ClimateDepot The Soviets medicalised dissent by jailing opponents in mental hospitals. Lewandosky is not so different.
USS Skate (SSN-578) made submarine history on 11 August 1958 when it became the first submarine to surface at the North Pole
Us:
It would seem to be the USS Skate on 11 August 1958 when it became the first submarine to surface at the North Pole. What is this picture of?
NASA Worldview “true-color” image of the North Pole area on September 2nd 2013, derived from bands 1, 4 and 3 of the MODIS sensor on the Terra satellite
Them:
Frozen ice. What is my prize?
And basically yours is just a snipe hunt. Mine disproves your hysteria.
Us:
No prize I’m afraid. The correct answer is vast areas of open ocean. Plenty of room for every submarine on the planet.
Them:
Sorry, there is no open water. Check your picture again. So you are reneging? Typical.
Us:
I have checked again, and I still see lots of open water underneath a thin veil of cloud. Perhaps you should arrange a hasty visit to an optician? Luckily microwaves can see through clouds, even if you cannot. Here’s another satellite image of the North Pole area from September 2nd 2013, this time a University of Hamburg visualisation of data from the AMSR2 sensor on board the Japanese SHIZUKU satellite.
AMSR2 image of the North Pole area on September 2nd 2013
Earlier on this morning a debate about censorship started over on the so called “Real Science” blog. Unfortunately after a couple of attempts it became clear to me that my participation was not welcome.
Them:
A question about censorship is posed on the “Real Science” blog
Perhaps “conversation” is somewhat too strong a word? We have somehow managed to engage the Mail on Sunday’s top investigative journalist (AKA David Rose) in a debate about sea ice on Twitter. For some strange reason he tried to change the topic from the Arctic to the Antarctic!
Particularly in view of the recent inclement weather in this neck of the woods, I thought perhaps you might be interested in taking a closer look at the most recent evidence concerning this “hot topic”?
I hope you enjoy your meeting!
Best wishes,
Jim Hunt
AKA “Snow White”!
Them:
Hi Jim,
Thanks for drawing our attention to the blog. It is not a topic that we’re planning something on imminently, but it is something we are certainly keeping an eye on and will come back to in future.
With the able assistance of some of the regular readers of Steve Goddard’s so called “Real Science” blog I have drawn up a checklist of questions to answer should you (or any “sceptics” you may be aware of) be suffering from the delusion that the sea ice in the Arctic is “recovering” or “rebounding”:
Us:
1. Is the NSIDC daily Arctic sea ice extent number for March 8th 2014 the lowest on record for that day of the year? Yes or No?
2. Is the Cryosphere Today Arctic sea ice area number for March 8th 2014 the lowest on record for that day of the year? Yes or No?
3. Is the IJIS Arctic sea ice extent number for March 9th 2014 the lowest on record for that day of the year? Yes or No?
4. What credible evidence can you provide to show that “The Arctic is getting colder”?
5. In what way has the NSIDC’s data been “contaminated by Mann”?
6. Where might one find “empirical data that hasn’t been contaminated” if not from the likes of NOAA/NASA/JAXA et. al.
8. How much sea ice do you suppose will be left in the Gulf of St. Lawrence by September? [2014-3-12 20:26]
9. Which version of “the [thickness/volume] truth” do you choose to believe? [2014-3-14 09:30]
10. When was it that the DMI “changed the way they read/interrupt coastal features [which] they incorporated into their extent/area numbers”? [2014-3-15 15:08]
11. Why have we been accused of “a lie” and “put on ignore”? [2014-3-16 15:12]
12. Please be so good as to provide us with a link that describes “the modeling used by NSIDC to ‘create’ these numbers” [2014-3-20 13:00]
Now seems like an entirely appropriate time to bring the latest “Shock News!” from the Arctic to the attention of the “mass media” here in once Great Britain. Here’s a copy of an email I sent to John Wellington over at The Mail earlier today:
Us:
Re: PCC – Global cooling in an ideal world
Hello again John,
Further to our previous correspondence on this controversial topic here is the latest “shock news” from the Arctic, hot off the presses down here at Ivory Towers:
In view of the recent inclement weather in this neck of the woods, perhaps you could forward it on to one of your finest investigative reporters for me?
Best wishes,
Jim Hunt
Them:
It’s now March 15th 2014, and this morning I received a “Dear Jim” note from John:
Dear Jim,
Nice to hear from you and I trust you were not hit by the West Country floods, climate-influenced or not.
I have discussed your message with a colleague who is interested in these things and we conclude that March is a little early in the year to be drawing significant conclusions. I have been shown some different graphs that appear to show 2014 is not dissimilar to the last few years. I am attaching these for your information.
Best regards
John
Us:
Dear John,
Thank you for your kind words. We’re situated halfway up Haldon, so we avoided the worst of the inclement weather. The top of the hill took a bit of a battering however.
The entrance to Haldon Forest Park on February 24th 2014Haldon Forest Park on March 8th 2014
Our garden suffered a bit too, but thankfully the house was OK.
A new spring gushes from the side of Haldon Hill on Valentine’s Day 2014
Regarding your own attachments, perhaps in the first instance you might ask your colleague to explain why he or she chooses to send you a NORSEX Arctic sea ice extent graph rather than one from the NSIDC, which I believe we established last summer is The Mail’s oracle on such matters? Please take a good look at the latest NSIDC equivalent to the Antarctic extent graph you sent me, which I attach for your convenience.
NSIDC Arctic sea ice extent graph for March 13th 2014
Whilst you’re at it perhaps you could also ask your colleague to answer at least the first three of these simple questions:
You may also wish to pass on to your colleague the shock news that earlier this week the daily atmospheric carbon dioxide readings from Mauna Loa rose above 400 ppm almost 2 months earlier than last year?
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