Tag Archives: Sea ice

Sea Ice News – Call for Arctic sea-ice forecasts, plus forecast poll

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“Sea Ice News – Call for Arctic sea-ice forecasts, plus forecast poll“ (May 19, 2011). Pull the other one, Anthony Watts! I almost shot tea out of my nose reading Anthony’s blithe claim:

It has been awhile since I’ve done a sea-ice report. That said, not much of note has been going on in the sea-ice arena, we are in that time of year when all of the years converge into a tighter grouping.

I guess his stalwart bobble-heads were starting to need reassurance that Global Warming was still over. Unfortunately there are a few differing opinions out there:

Anthony even thought he could bluff his way past his own chart. Nice try. He does try to bury it among a busy collection of eye-glazing squiggles and bar charts.

Nothing to see here, says Anthony... My annotations in red.

Sea Ice News #33

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“Sea Ice News #33“. Anthony Watts tells us that the ice is coming back. Global Warming is over! Too bad the trends haven’t actually changed. Still, keep talking about it. If you really want Sea Ice News, go to the National Snow and Ice Data Center and ignore Anthony’s spin.

Figure 3. Monthly December ice extent for 1979 to 2010 shows a decline of 3.5% per decade. Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center.

Also, why are “residents of Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic asking what happened to the sea ice cover this year”? (Climate Central) As NSIDC director and senior scientist Mark Serreze says, “These are areas which should’ve frozen over in late November and they’re still marine at this point, which is very unusual.”

Cryosat ice mission returns first science data

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“Cryosat ice mission returns first science data“. Yes, Cryosat, which measures sea-ice thickness using synthetic aperture radar, has started returning usable data. Strangely, Anthony Watts directs his readers to the disgustingly “alarmist” BBC for more information.

Now I suppose we simply have to wait 30 years for Anthony to begin to accept that the disappearing Arctic Sea Ice is statistically meaningful. After-all, this is “just the first data”!

Sea Ice News #32 – Southern Comfort

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“Sea Ice News #32 – Southern Comfort“. Anthony Watts tries to explain why he’s been avoiding the topic of Arctic Sea Ice. Apparently because the precipitous drop in Arctic Sea Ice, which Anthony is careful not to display until the end of his post, isn’t nearly as interesting as the statistically insignificant rise in Antarctic Sea Ice. Even though Arctic conditions are primarily affected temperature and Antarctic conditions are primarily affected by ocean currents.

Cue bold-faced muttering about “healthy skepticism”, hidden data (oops! it was there all along) and wounded references to nasty scientists making accusations of breathtaking denialist ignorance. Oh, and apparently Tamino’s takedown amuses Anthony.

Sea Ice News #31

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“Sea Ice News #31“. Anthony Watts discusses Joe Bastardi’s idiotic half-cocked accusation of fraud in the NSIDC’s Sea Ice data. You know your ‘team-mates’ are becoming a liability when even Anthony has to walk back their claims and even try to minimize the damage by admitting things like: “eyeballing can be an error prone activity, and a risky bet.“

Anthony has the gall to lay the final blame on the NSIDC for not publishing their daily data. Why, because they release data on a weekly basis, an over-eager denialist might jump to a rash conclusion!

Eyeballing is the only tactic Anthony’s can use to pretend he has a factual point in the Global Warming discussion, isn’t it? Oh, there’s cherry-picking too.

Sea Ice News #25 – NSIDC says 2010 3rd lowest for Arctic sea ice

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“Sea Ice News #25 – NSIDC says 2010 3rd lowest for Arctic sea ice“. Anthony Watts says to ignore that the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) press release reporting that September’s “Arctic sea ice extent was the third-lowest in the satellite record”. Don’t click-through and read it, just take Anthony’s word that it contains alarmist “zingers”. Like this outrageous statement:

Over the summer of 2010, weather and ocean conditions in the Arctic ranged from warm and calm to stormy and cool. Overall, weather conditions were not extremely favorable to melt, but ice loss proceeded at a rapid pace.

Focus on the JAXA and DMI charts, which suggest that in October “things are icing up quickly”. Well duh, it’s winter up there already…

Anthony and the slowly rehabilitating Steven Goddard can always find a cherry-picked counter-example. In this case, Anthony tries to deflect attention from the overall September record by talking about “a quick turnaround” in October and includes several of Goddard’s dumbed-down photoshopped graphics that only show the start of winter increase. He’s also careful to exclude  avoid any reference to Arctic Sea Ice volume.

The actual science-based NSIDC analysis is here.

Surprise: Peer reviewed study says current Arctic sea ice is more extensive than most of the past 9000 years

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“Surprise: Peer reviewed study says current Arctic sea ice is more extensive than most of the past 9000 years“. A blogger discovers a paleoclimate paper by McKay, et.al. in the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences from 2008 and Anthony Watts is on it like white on rice. “Peer reviewed!” “More ice now than ever!” “Natural!!!!”

Oh, it’s only referring to a bit of the western Arctic. Oh, they’re only comparing to Arctic Sea Ice extent of a decade ago, when there was in fact rather more sea ice. Oh, they aren’t suggesting that such low ice extents were common. Oh, dinocyst proxies are a bit dodgy. Oh, the paper is merely titled Holocene fluctuations in Arctic sea-ice cover: dinocyst-based reconstructions for the eastern Chukchi Sea, not “there’s more ice than ever now!”

Website News

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So I’m back again after another layoff… What was I up to? Well aside from returning to the algore secret world headquarters for new orders and getting my brain-washing topped up, I was enjoying a warm (too warm I tell myself ominously) month of summer training and racing in triathlons. I was also helping, in a small way, run the Toronto International Film Festival.

Of course Anthony Watts and friends have been busy without me. Unsurprisingly, they’ve said absolutely nothing new. The Arctic sea ice has continued to recede despite their daily protestations and crowing about momentary tiny reversals. They still darkly accuse reality-based scientists of being money-grubbing communist liars. They’re still finding phrases to work themselves into a lather over, with “global climate disruption” being the latest definitive evidence that “warmers” are slippery-tongued con artists. Apologies and retractions, as long after the fact as possible, as still trickling out of the deceived mainstream media. “Lord” Monckton is still threatening to sue anyone that criticizes him. Fox News cobbled together another collection of denialists to explain it all to their viewers.

What’s new? There have been some entertaining developments, randomly selected.

  • Judith Curry, the “climate scientist” who changed teams (err, tribes), has started blogging with the kind help of our friend Anthony Watts. The results are naturally mixed but perhaps the process will restore blood-flow to her brain.
  • Bjorn Lomsberg is now pretending that he never doubted global warming, he just wanted us to solve it with tech. Nice fig-leaf.
  • Anthony is trying to diversify into protecting Australian farmers from municipal gubmints. Good tie-in for the gubmint haters.
  • Steven Goddard has left his post (for “personal reasons”) at Watts’ Up With That’s Department of Arctic Sea Ice is Thicker Than Ever after he started snapping at his teammates again in his ferocious self-defense of factual ignorance. Never mind, Thomas Fuller is warming up in the bull(shit)-pen.
  • Anthony tells us once again that nothing man can do can have any impact, so why the fuss? Just ask any former professor, they’ll tell you that global warming is simply a “corrupt social phenomenon.”
  • Thomas Fuller tries to tell everyone that he’s just an open-minded guy who really does believe in global warming, just not that much. I guess Climategate slandering isn’t paying the bills after-all. The Way Things Break gives him a big hug.
  • Anthony gives some more support to right-wing think tank-er Indur Goklany’s kooky mantra that we should be fighting malaria with DDT (and Rachel Carson was a murderer) theory. This brought a snort of derision from Tim Lambert at Deltoid.

So much fun I’ve missed out on! Well time waits for no man.

I can make a small contribution here though. There were two films at Toronto International Film Festival that touched on climate change. Cool It was an uncritical documentary about Bjorn Lomberg and his ideas on climate change. I really wanted to catch a screening, but my schedule didn’t allow me to get to it. My contacts tell me that it was very poorly attended, but I would have loved the chance to see some of the local denialists bouncing around the 75 seat theater chosen to screen it in. The documentary Force of Nature: The David Suzuki Movie, was also playing, it won the Cadillac People’s Choice Documentary Award. So much for the tide of public opinion turning against the “climate change alarmists”.