North pole to melt this year?

GT...you either have the worst reading comprehension skills imaginable or you are just showboating. based on your resume, i am guessing the latter.

i have said repeatedly on here that the earth has warmed in the past 150 years. i only question the causation. i also question the timeframe as i believe most of what we have observed is cyclical and can be explained by the multi-decadal oscillations and the sun.

when i mentioned the CO2 being cut by 100% i specifically mentioned my source as being the Grist. i am open to other examples of plans of curtailment, but to date you, a scientist in your own right, have not been able to produce one....nor has anyone else on this thread. so for now i am stuck with the Grist article......

here is the link to that article:

grist article on global emissions

this part in particular needs to be read by you GT:

In reply to:
Click to expand...
 
MOP,

I'm making this as simple as possible - just for you buddy.

The earth's climate is changing. Man seems to be making a significant contribution to that change. The effects of the change are expected to be bad - possibly catastrophic.

Many of us believe that it would be wise to do as much as we can to ameliorate our effects on the environment. To fail to do so makes us, in my mind, criminally stupid.

What percentage C emission do we need to achieve to totally avoid the negative effects of climate change? That boat has sailed. Out task now, if we're capable, is to reduce the effects of our behavior on future generations.

texasflag.gif
 
nsidc.org/images/arcticseaicenews/20101004_Figure3.png

As promised MOP. Here is an accounting for the summer melt low an how it stacks up during the satellite record since 1979. We can certainly look at trends going forward but as mentioned earlier in the year it is the summer low's that are the most important and what we should be focusing on when looking for evidence of trends.

"Average ice extent for September 2010 was 4.90 million square kilometers (1.89 million square miles), 2.14 million square kilometers (830,000 square miles) below the 1979 to 2000 average, but 600,000 square kilometers (230,00 square miles) above the average for September 2007"

"Ice extent for September 2010 was the third lowest in the satellite record for the month, behind 2007 (lowest) and 2008 (second lowest). The linear rate of decline of September ice extent over the period 1979 to 2010 is now 81,400 square kilometers (31,400 square miles) per year, or 11.5% per decade relative to the 1979 to 2000 average."



As the graph shows each of the last 4 September lows has been below the 1979-2000 average. It has gone from around 7.5 Million square Km's in late 70s to about 5 million square km's currently.....actually a bit less than 5 million square km's in 3 of the last 4 Septembers.

Mop, I know you like to look at short term trends and make broader conclusions about them. You saw 2008 and 2009 as upticks compared to 2007 and made conclusions that were just wrong based on that. The trend is sadly still declining. It simply cannot be refuted. The trend is also declining at such a rate that it has to be considered significant, and not something you can just wave your hand at and say it is just cyclical and will reverse itself in the next 5-10 years. There is no evidence to suggest that is the case currently.

It will, as always, be interesting to follow what happens from month to month, but the big news for the year is out and it continues to look bad.
 
hornpharmd...i have not questioned the trend if placed in a 30 year context...but i HAVE repeatedly pointed out that most of that was during a positive PDO which has now reversed to negative. what does this mean? it means more frequent la ninas over and above the more frequent el ninos we have been experiencing since 1979 when the satellite record came on board.

now...the press releast pointed out that the annual average decline has been "81,400 square kilometers" but since 2007's low we have rebounded about 600,000 square kilometers or 200,000 per year. clearly this year was below last year's low, but what makes that particularly interesting is that it was during a very intense El Nino year....which makes it surprising that it was still so far above the 2007 low. we are now staring at a huge winter in the northern hemisphere (my other thread links to Russian Scientists (i believe) who are claiming this could be the coldest European winter in 1000 years. how do you think that will affect the ice? what do you want to bet that next year's low will be higher than this year's?

to claim, as you did, that "There is no evidence to suggest that is the case currently." is false. there certainly IS evidence to suggest that we have recovered some since 2007. the fact that this corresponds nicely with the general sentiment among climatologists that the PDO has reversed and gone negative after being positive for about 30 years coupled with the generally accepted notion that the PDO goes in 60 year cycles of 30 years up and then 30 years down makes this even more poignant. have we "recovered" yet? no. but is there good reason to think we may be in the beginning stages of a recovery? yes. we have recovered 2 out of the last 3 years and are currently watching one of the fastest september/october rebounds we have seen in our short 9 year JAXA record. in fact, we are already above 2009, 2008, 2007 and just below 2005.

in addition to that, our DMI graph (which i have started favoring as i have understood more what it is) has the current extent above 2005, 2007, 2008, and 2009. this is signficant because the DMI measures for 30% concentration instead of 15% concentration like JAXA. and here we are just 2 weeks from the low point of extent and we are above all years posted except for 2006.

DMI graph

so yes....there is evidence to support the claim that we could be watching a change of regimes between the Positive PDO and the negative PDO signaling the beginning of an increase in Arctic sea ice minimums.
 
oh...since it will last alot longer here.....this is the article and tv report about the possibility that Europe is about to have their coldest winter in 1000 years. now, my guess is that if this is true, we have little way of really knowing it, but the point is that forecasters are predicting an extraordinarily cold winter in Europe:

coldest winter in 1000 years.
 
no actually GT...i am VERY interested in the answer to my question and you clearly are NOT interested in (or not capable of) answering it. i have been asking this question of my AGW friends for at least 2 years and the Grist article is the ONLY response i have ever gotten. in fact, the guy i was debating with put forth the grist article proudly as a refutation of my complaint that i never see a clearly outlined strategy with actual benchmarks......but it only strengthened my secondary point: we aren't going to be able to do anything approaching what is necessary to actually change anything so we ought to focus on innovation if we are truly convinced AGW is real.

if 100% is what is necessary by 2050 and we need to "peak" in our CO2 emissions by 2015.....we aren't going to meet those goals short of a major energy breakthrough based upon new innovations. regardless of whether or not i believe in AGW (i don't except in the under 20% realm and probably under 10% realm) i am all for innovations that clean up other things that i DO believe are messy. so if we can find a way to get to clean energy with innovation, i am all for it.
 
By 100%, you mean carbon neutral (ie zero emissions)? This certainly has not been the goal of any cooperative UN program which have merely tried to get people to stop increasing carbon emissions and reduce them to some historic level (1990 I think). For all the histrionics from the deniers, nobody has done much of anything to actually control CO2 emissions.

Why do I keep envisioning bacteria in a petri dish?
 
read the article paso....the claim (and it could be wrong, as i have said it is just the ONLY answer i have gotten that is not a dodge like GT's) claims that the only way to really have an impact (i think it only claims we would reduce global warming predictions by 1/3rd by 2100 if we were to succeed at 100% reduction) is to reduce emissions by 90% and sequester the remaining 10% to effectively cut back CO2 by 100%.

the other goals you mention, if the article is correct, would have negligible effects on longterm global warming. to me, that makes them less than worthless because they cost a HUGE amount of money and impact on the global economy and hold back developing economies in a way that is terrible all for negligible effects.

oh...and as for the "histrionics" of deniers, i think we are much more upset about the 10's of billions of dollars spent on this as well as the possibility of crippling world economies based upon AGW theory.
 
So is 2100 the only deadline?

What happens in 2150 or 2200 if we just keep going? Is there any amount of CO2 that will matter?

This is just more silliness from the side that wants to do nothing.
 
so still no answer to the very simple question paso? aren't you a scientist too? why do you and GT have such a difficult time suggesting an article or giving us your own specific suggestions to the question of how much do we need to do to have an effect? isn't the question of cost-effectiveness important?

look man...to prepare now for something that is 100 years in the future is a fool's errand. it would be like our 1900 ancestors trying to plan ahead for meeting the future demands of insulation of homes at a mass level. or countless other (no doubt better examples because that was admittedly a strange one on my part) examples could be advanced. at some point it is just stupid to try to prepare for future contingencies that may easily be solved by future innovations.
 
implement Kyoto

I think you have this inverted. My side has proposed a number of diferent initiatives. Your side has delayed and done nothing. I just want us to take a step toward limiting carbon emissions in my lifetime to give me some hope for my great grandchildren.
 
paso...you aren't keeping up. i am asking how much do we need to do by when to affect what amount of change? i am asking the simple question of what would Kyoto actually do if we fully followed it globally? or something along those lines.

the initiative i suggest is that we work on innovations, because regardless of whether or not AGW is true i think we need to move toward alternative fuels anyways, but i am not too impressed with the options given yet.
 
MOP, you're like the bystander at a fire asking how much water we need to use to control the fire. It's a silly question. You do what it takes. You do what you can.

Even if we reduce C emissions 100% tomorrow it won't totally negate anthropogenic climate change. The effect has already begun and anything we do will have a considerable lag time. That shouldn't discourage us from doing everything in our power to change our behavior. Every step in the right direction makes the future a bit brighter.

texasflag.gif
 
it is not a binary choice if that's what your question is...but it certainly is a choice. where are we going to put our emphasis and where are we going to spend money to follow through? once again...not binary, but emphasis will be shown by how we choose to spend our money. i think innovation should be the primary focus as reduction is unlikely to do much at all.
 
i understand the basic principles and even YOU can't provide a plan for reduction with what the effects would be. heck you can't even point to a peer-review article even though i am begging for one! yet, you tell us we should get our science only from peer-reviewed articles. why are you not able to provide one GT?

at any rate, reduction of the rate of increase in CO2 is a non-starter that won't affect even remotely what is coming down the pipe if AGW is true. you and i both know that and your hemming and hawing just makes my point. if you have an article for us to read that disagrees with that present it to us GT. i know this isn't your area of expertise, but i am sure you are more knowledgeable than most of us about where to find such an article. so help us out here GT.
 
paso....what i am asking is VERY simple....all i want is for someone (you, GT, accurate or anyone else) to turn me on to a paper or an article or a plan that shows reasonable goals of reduction and/or sequestering and how those goals will affect the climate by certain future dates. why is this so hard to understand? we all know about Kyoto and even that has proven impossible for most nations to meet, but from what i have seen it would take about 30 kyotos or something 30 times as drastic as kyoto to even make a dent on the expected warming due to AGW theory.
 
great paso....i do appreciate it, that's the first answer aside from the Grist article i have ever gotten. but that's really only working from the ppm rather than from a clearly outlined strategy for how we would reduce the entire world economy's co2 production. so i give you a D+ for effort, but much more is lacking than is present in your answer.
 
by the way Paso....here is a great link to a recent New Scientist article about the sun, which only makes my point. we DON'T know what the sun is doing in regards to climate change but more scientists are getting on board with it having a possible effect. there are all sorts of questions ranging from cosmic rays' role in cloud formation (ala Roy Spencer) to radiation and total solar irradiance questions. all in all we are looking at a very interesting time in history and my guess is that we know VERY little about the actual causes of climate change. this article actually mentions that the drop off in sunspot activity may be responsible for last year's cold winter and this year is shaping up to be even colder:

New Scientist
 
hornpharmd....you are hilarious. you are either purposely ignoring my point for the sake of rhetoric or you just don't understand the concept. i am in total agreement that the 30 year trend is down. i have said that MANY times....so try to let it sink in this time. my only point is that IF the trend were to reverse, it would take time and would not instantaneously reverse the trend of 30 years of general downtrend. so if 2007 IS the beginning of a reversal, we have seen about 600,000 square kilometers of growth since then.

in ANY trend reversal, the beginning is not going to be a snap back reversal to the beginning point of 30 years earlier. do you understand now? i don't know how to make it any clearer. my point is that in the last 3 years we have seen SOME recovery...not a full recovery to the beginning point. heck, if we saw that, it would be the most frightening sign in climate for the past 10,000 years. but a turn back towards growth in ice is something. this winter's seemingly frigid nature could dramatically increase ice build up and add to the 600,000 square kilometers i mentioned.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Weekly Prediction Contest

* Predict HORNS-AGGIES *
Sat, Nov 30 • 6:30 PM on ABC

Recent Threads

Prediction Results Threads

2024 Schedules

Back
Top