Tag Archives: Sea ice

Get your ice here! New WUWT Sea Ice Machine

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“Get your ice here! New WUWT Sea Ice Machine“. Ever the helpful researcher, Anthony Watts has collected most of the sea ice graphs and charts into one page. I guess this will help Steven Goddard create his foolish pixel arguments.

Why the sudden return of sea ice to the discussion? Well the record downward Arctic sea ice trend has stopped plummetting quite so dramatically, so clearly global warming is over.

Those ticks up and down? Weather, Anthony. The downward multi-year trend? Climate, Anthony.

Peer reviewed science: Polar bears of the past survived warmth

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“Peer reviewed science: Polar bears of the past survived warmth“: A University of Alaska article about a fossilized polar bear jawbone, called “Polar bears of the past survived warmth“, lets Anthony Watts show his sensitive tree-hugger side:

So next time you have somebody sniffling and tearing up over polar bears and sea ice, show them this research and hand them a Kleenex. Now, they can worry about the polar bears eating hippos in the future.

I guess he didn’t bother reading the article he’s waving around as surly proof:

“Refugia” are places that polar bears may survive without ice. The Svalbard Archipelago may have been one of those places. Biologists today think polar bears would have a difficult time living on land, because other species like the grizzly bear could outcompete them.

The warm period of the Eemian might have come at a time when the polar bear wasn’t such an ice specialist, Talbot says.

Is this what a denialist slam-dunk looks like? Anthony should stick to snickering over inaccurate polar bear illustrations created by graphic artists.

Arctic Ocean ice retreating at 30-year record pace

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“Arctic Ocean ice retreating at 30-year record pace“. Steven Mosher is suddenly sniffing that short-term Arctic Sea Ice trends don’t mean anything. I guess short-term climate trends are only legitimate if they can be used to ‘prove’ that Global Warming is either non-existent or natural. They’re definitely not legitimate evidence that Global Warming is real or man-made. Ah, the hypocrisy.

His understandable indignation was triggered by an article about declining Arctic Sea Ice in The Montreal Gazette that was based on such wild sources as… the measurements of the National Snow and Ice Data Center and the research of University of Manitoba polar scientist David Barber.

Actually, short-term trends aren’t very meaningful for climate prediction. But you can be sure the denialists will swing back to touting them as soon as they can find one that suits them.

WUWT Arctic Sea Ice News #9

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“WUWT Arctic Sea Ice News #9“. Steven Goddard declares that the topic for this Arctic Sea Ice News is “verification of data sources.” Why? Well a big change of focus is needed because this is what the NSIDC reports:

At the end of [May], extent fell near the level recorded in 2006, the lowest in the satellite record

So Steven talks about “concentration” instead of extend or volume, because that value is a little more ‘interpretable.’ He talks about Barrow, Alaska because the ice happens to be a bit thicker there. He talks about recent Arctic air temperatures. He keeps trying to promote the PIPS data because that also looks thicker.

Keep dancing, Steven, but we remember how you were crowing that Arctic Sea Ice Extent back in March was proof that the Arctic was recovering.

NSIDC 2010 Arctic Sea Ice Extent: an inconvenient truth.

Steven’s response to the clinical dismantling of his claims in the comments is to start talking about football (aka soccer) scores.

What is PIPS?

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“What is PIPS?” Steven Goddard defends his continued use of the US Navy’s deprecated Polar Ice Prediction System (PIPS) Arctic Sea Ice model. The US Navy uses it! Case closed. This is the same obstinate mindset that lies at the root of Anthony Watts’ obsession with surface weather station records. PIPS is not intended for climate usage. It is a repurposed navigational tool.

Steven likes PIPS because, as the Navy states, “PIPS 2.0 often over-predicts the amount of ice in the Barents Sea and therefore often places the ice edge too far south.” This is very useful for a desperate denialist.

Steven concludes by stating that any critics “ignore the facts, and post instead what suits their agenda.”  Unsurprisingly, this is actually Steven’s motivation for using PIPS. It’s the easiest to manipulate toward a desired conclusion. Just restrict your analysis to the areas where PIPS over-predicts ice and pass it off as impartial.

WUWT Arctic Sea Ice News #5

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“WUWT Arctic Sea Ice News #5“. Steven Goddard tries to explain that “not much has changed during the last two weeks.” Well, other than the fact that Arctic Sea Ice Extent continues to track well below “normal”. But as we learned a few days ago, Steven has decided that the conventional climatologists were right and Sea Ice Extent doesn’t mean much. Mainly because the evidence isn’t proving useful to him. He’s also very quiet about Arctic Sea Ice Volume.

Still there’s always the Catlin Arctic Survey to mock. They’ve finally arrived at the North Pole, those wimps.

Steven tries to change the subject and talk about some cherry-picked trends from the first half of the 20th Century. Suddenly 1938 is the magical date. Good luck.

Sea Ice Graphs Have Limited Predictive Value

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“Sea Ice Graphs Have Limited Predictive Value“. Steven Goddard decides that since the sea ice charts aren’t illustrating his desired climate trend he’d better start deprecating them. Funny, for a few weeks there he thought they were definitive! Now, they don’t tell you anything until August. Now he admits that:

The fact that April, 2010 had the highest extent in the DMI record tells us little or nothing about the summer minimum.

As a backup, he posts a photo of Barrow, Alaska with dirty-looking snow. Therefore all increased Arctic snow or ice melt is due to dirt, not Global Warming. Got it.

WUWT Arctic Sea Ice News #4

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“WUWT Arctic Sea Ice News #4“. Steve Goddard returns from Venus to make snide remarks about the Catlin Arctic Expedition before offering us his Arctic Sea Ice Extent analysis. Everything’s “normal” as far as Steve’s concerned, so there’s no Global Warming.

Except Arctic temperatures appear to actually be running several degrees C warmer than “normal”. Also the Arctic Sea Ice Extent is currently dropping about twice as fast as it did in 2009. Look for WUWT’s Arctic Sea Ice News updates to be quietly discontinued in a few weeks.

500,000 km2 Discrepancy Between NSIDC and NORSEX

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“500,000 km2 Discrepancy Between NSIDC and NORSEX“. More confusion from Steve Goddard. NSIDC is clearly falsifying the Arctic Sea Ice Extent data because their trend is different from the ArcticROOS one (NORSEX)! It’s lower and dropping faster. This is ‘conclusively’ proven by taking the Sea Ice Extent graphs published by the two agencies and distorting them with a graphics editor.

Um, the two agencies define Sea Ice Extent differently.

Steven seem to think he can draw meaningful conclusions from squeezing and stretching JPG files in Photoshop. That just about sums up his scientific contribution.

WUWT Arctic Sea Ice News #3

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Merry Old Santa. Source: Wikipedia

“WUWT Arctic Sea Ice News #3“. Anthony Watts distracts from the fact that the Arctic Sea Ice Extent is declining very normally and will likely reach a minimum that is once again lower than “normal”.

I don’t think a link to a Wikipedia image of Santa and a meandering sequence of ice charts is enough though.

Are these weekly sea ice updates a way to desensitize Anthony’s followers to the importance of sea ice changes, or just an irrelevant way of boosting traffic?