North pole to melt this year?

That graph is hard to read in the 2000-2020 range. The black line to the pink line is clearly off. Are we still in the 95% confidence range with the most recent data?
 
I am pretty sure that we are still below the 95% line, but I could not find a chart that went to 2009 with the projections on it or that was in percentages rather than ice extent. The problem with the IPCC chart is that you need to translate the percentages into actual ice extent.

I found a chart from NOAA in percentages.

seaice2009fig2-sml.jpg


This chart goes through 2009. September of 2009 was 5.1 million sq km which is about 25% below 1979.

The Link

In looking at my IPCC chart, we are not supposed to get to 25% until a bit after 2020.
 
so the Arctic ice is in a statistical deadheat with 2004 and 2009....currently it is slightly behind both, but with a few more probable days of ice growth it looks like it will actually surpass both......2008 is not out of reach but still unlikely.
 
so its safe to say that 2007 wasn't noteworthy as the lowest year on record? particularly now that it is in the rearview mirror....but then, what was this thread all about when hornpharmd started it?

regardless...i agree with you, but i also think things trend up and then down.....so these times are interesting.
 
the "trend" is not up and down

the trend is steadily down for the last 30 years

there is noise in individual years and an apparent although not yet conclusive increase in the rate

imo 2007 was a wakeup call
 
exactly paso, so you find a way to ignore larger trends in the case of 2007 and still say it means something.....and i say the fact that we have seen growth the past 2 years COULD be significant, but may not be. only time will tell.
 
the arctic sea ice extent moved into 4th out of 8 places today.....and it still has a chance of moving into 3rd place. Regardless, short of some crazy ice accumulation, the 3rd, 4th and 5th places are all statistically a dead heat (no pun intended here to overly sensitive AGW enthusiasts).
 
thanks Paso....at the same time....i have posted a link to another study that Roy Spencer has been working on (not peer-reviewed) that shows that the UHI might have skewed warming reports to the point where we may have effectively zero warming in the US since the 70's.
 
This is just completely and utterly false. There is a reason it is not peer-reviewed or published.

The GISS data is from satellites. How is this influenced by urban heat islands and are adjustments made?

And what about the rising ocean temperatures (both air and water)? The ocean is something like 70% of the land surface. How can this be influenced by urban heat islands?

There is foolish and then there is just crazy. This is just crazy.

Temperatures are not rising and yet all sorts of ice is melting. How is that possible?
 
actually, the GISS is not from satellites...at least not primarily. there are only 2 sets that are satellite only....that is RSS and UAH (the one that Roy Spencer actually oversees). so not sure how you got that idea....it does seem that the GISS allows for Satellite considerations when filtering data, but that is not their primary source of data.

as for your comment about the ocean temperatures, i am not sure that we are allowing the data to be 70% affected by the ocean data. can you show me the data that suggests that?

your last comment just makes you look a bit silly....do you not know that there are a HOST of things that cause ice to melt? temperature is only one of those.
 
the majority of GISS is satellite data since it is used for ocean temps (I think it is all but it might just be most) and the ocean is around 70% of the earth's surface
 
could you show me a link? i didn't have that impression at all, but it is hard to confirm one way or another...i could just be mistaken obviously, but i would love to move forward with empirical evidence rather than just hearsay.
 
well, this is a surprising year. i keep expecting the ice extent to take a dramatic dip, and it has briefly, but then it keeps stretching out. Currently it has moved into 2nd place for this time of year for the last 9 years:

IJIS

AMSRE_Sea_Ice_Extent.png
 
I don't know how I missed this in the OP, but I noticed it tonight when going back to see in which year the north pole was at enough risk of melting to start this thread.

"I agree that life does not begin after fertilization."

To which I ask, is there a commonly accepted biological definition of a living organism that a newly fertilized human zygote does not meet? Or have I misinterpreted the quotation in that it is supposed to mean life does not begin after because it begins at fertilization?
 
kgp...that quote confused me for the same reasons. my pro-life side decided they meant that life DOES begin at fertilization...but perhaps that is just wishful thinking?
 
man...they just corrected the ice UP! it is now the 2nd highest day it has been this year. we are basically in a statistical tie with the high mark of the season which came on March 8, three weeks ago. this is getting very interesting. probably just a local high before it starts to plummet (it is well overdue) but still fun to see in the short term.
 
In case the OPoster or others remain confused about the living nature of a zygote, I have linked below to a reasonable primer on life. I know this is off the main topic (for which I apologize), but it directly addresses an issue raised in the OPost. To summarize, believing that a newly fertilized human is not alive is your prerogative, but it flies in the face of biological scientific thinking.

Wikipedia on Life
 
I agree that the intro at wiki states that a definition should be broad and that one precise definition is not universally accepted. Wiki goes on to list characteristics of life and sample definitions, pretty much all of which apply to zygotes. I am not arguing for or against abortion here, merely pointing out that the original poster committed a gross mischaracterization if he (as his text seems to mean to me) stated that the "scientific community says" that "life does not begin after fertilization." You have heretofore appeared to struggle against those who want to inject their philosophies into questions of science. I get the feeling from your posts that your field is not primarily in the life sciences, but I have little doubt you are savvy enough to gather that human zygotes, far from what was stated in the OP, meet essentially all established tests for life.
 
'A zygote may be "living" tissue, but it cannot have a viable existence separate from its host. Since humans are normally stand apart entities (ie not symbiotes), you could argue that it is not alive until viability.'

As I am sure you will recall on further reflection, there are species which are dependent to varying degrees during their life cycles on either conspecifics or other organisms for their survival. Humans are but one such species, and there is nothing "unhuman" or "unalive" about being in an early and sexually immature stage of a life cycle. Not from a scientific standpoint, anyway. For those who want to argue their own philosophies, however, I can see that such a distinction might become more meaningful.
 
fwiw (which on this issue is not much) my minor (two courses short of a double major) was biology

A zygote absolutely has the potential to be a viable entity. I would probably classify it as "alive" in a technical sense sort of like your liver or heart is alive. Prior to viability, it is something less than fully "alive" at least in a philosophical sense.

While I don't think wiki is the greatest of sources on this issue, I think a zygote generally meets many of the tests for life although so do most organs in your body. This is why it is sort of a tough question. As I recall from biology class, we generally classified life as the ability to replicate and organize. From the wiki material, one could argue that a zygote absent its host could not metabolize, could not maintain homeostasis, and did not have the ability to reproduce.

As I posted earlier, I think this issue is semantics because really what each side is arguing is that the zygote/fetus/baby does not have a soul or spirit that is being killed when aborted. I do not know the answer to this question (and I suspect nobody does) but it makes me very uncomfortable. It makes me so uncomfortable that I am willing to agree to far more restrictions on abortion provided we do a better job of making every child a wanted child.
 
"A zygote absolutely has the potential to be a viable entity" Unless you are trying to change the subject, we are not discussing (independently) viable entities (as if an organism independent of its environment existed in nature). We are discussing whether the OP claim that 'the "scientific community says" that "life does not begin after fertilization."' I have seen your opinions on the matter, but not one single source defining life in a way that would suggest that the OP is correct. Is this how you feel when arguing with anti-CC posters who insert their philosophy into arguments against your science?
"While I don't think wiki is the greatest of sources on this issue" Exactly. You will note that I referred to it as a primer.

"I think a zygote generally meets many of the tests for life" I am glad you think so. "although so do most organs in your body." Of course, most of the organs in my body are living parts of an organism and are of course alive. They do not meet quite as many tests for living organisms as does a zygote because they are not organisms but merely large and organized portions of one.

"As I recall from biology class, we generally classified life as the ability to replicate and organize." Your vague and undergraduate recollection is essentially correct and includes zygotes. I am not sure what value is gained in listing evidence against one's position.

"As I posted earlier, I think this issue is semantics because really what each side is arguing is that the zygote/fetus/baby does not have a soul or spirit that is being killed when aborted." No. Absolutely not what I am arguing here. I am 100% not discussing philosophy, and only anyone arguing against me is introducing it. I am refuting a false claim made by the OP and quoted earlier in my post. I am talking science. I am willing to discuss the philosophy of this elsewhere, but I am calling out a false claim about science and you are apparently defending it. I would think you would be sensitive to such a notion, on this of all threads.
 
I think the original statement was a philosophical one since the comment was when "life begins" not whether a piece of tissue is "alive." From a pure biological perspective, a zygote absolutely is life. This, however, is not what I think the original poster intended from the context of his comment. This is an area where being very precise with words is important and often our language, particularly when used as an ordinary person, may fail to properly convey the meaning we intend.

I think this is a subject better suited for Quack because I think we probably agree on it.
 
strange days....today is the new high for the 2010 winter ice extent....for some reason this winter just won't end up there (the negative AO?) at any rate, it is now solidly in 2nd place for total extent but also this is the latest annual peak on record (which is only 9 years so i am not trying to overstate it i promise!)
 
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