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"A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence" - David Hume
This paper caused a frisson excitement among deniers who immediately proclaimed Global Warming Is Not Happening/ Was Happening but now Has Stopped or some such incoherence.
Here a good article explains the ramifications. Are the world's glaciers threatened by climate change? | Leo Hickman | Environment | guardian.co.ukRecent contributions of glaciers and ice caps to sea level rise
Thomas Jacob,
John Wahr,
W. Tad Pfeffer
& Sean Swenson
The surprising finding, reported in this new study, that satellite evidence shows that there wasn't any loss in ice mass between 2003 and 2010 in the wider Himalayan region has, again, been welcomed with much delight by climate sceptics. However, the headline finding distracts somewhat from the rest of the data presented in the paper. It shows clear evidence that other regions, most notably Greenland and Antarctica, recorded a significant loss in ice mass over this same period. But, because this was largely expected, it didn't become the headline.
But look, too, at the significant net loss of ice mass in regions such as Alaska, Greenland and Antarctica. The overall picture is that, yes, there are regional variabilities, uncertainties and stability, but that there was a net loss of ice mass globally - 536Gt (+/- 93Gt) - between 2003 and 2010.
"A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence" - David Hume
Latest news from NASA:
NASA Mission Takes Stock of Earth's Melting Land Ice
Using satellite measurements from the NASA/German Aerospace Center Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), the researchers measured ice loss in all of Earth's land ice between 2003 and 2010, with particular emphasis on glaciers and ice caps outside of Greenland and Antarctica.
The total global ice mass lost from Greenland, Antarctica and Earth's glaciers and ice caps during the study period was about 4.3 trillion tons (1,000 cubic miles), adding about 0.5 inches (12 millimeters) to global sea level. That's enough ice to cover the United States 1.5 feet (0.5 meters) deep.
"Only when the last tree has died, the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught will we realize that we cannot eat money."
In the antarctic, can you explian why has the WAIS warmed more that the rest of the land mass. From the images they appear to due more to regional effects rather than global warming.Originally Posted by SirCharles
Last edited by kront999; 11th February 2012 at 11:05 AM.
It is a very good question, and prompted a bit of research (which, of course, you could have done yourself).
Here is Antarctica if it had no ice.
So the West Antarctic Ice Sheet sits on bedrock that is below sea level and is much more exposed to the oceans that East Antarctica. Hence the differential in melt rate.
Professor Michael Oppenheimer gives an identical explanation in this video, if you wait until the second last segment.
http://www.videojug.com/expertanswer...ast-antarctica
"A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence" - David Hume
I have done my own searching. I'm just interested in what ye come up with. The video tells me nothing.It is a very good question, and prompted a bit of research (which, of course, you could have done yourself).
Here is Antarctica if it had no ice.
So the West Antarctic Ice Sheet sits on bedrock that is below sea level and is much more exposed to the oceans that East Antarctica. Hence the differential in melt rate.
Professor Michael Oppenheimer gives an identical explanation in this video, if you wait until the second last segment.
http://www.videojug.com/expertanswer...ast-antarctica
Nullius in Verba
It is a very good question, and prompted a bit of research (which, of course, you could have done yourself).
Here is Antarctica if it had no ice.
So the West Antarctic Ice Sheet sits on bedrock that is below sea level and is much more exposed to the oceans that East Antarctica. Hence the differential in melt rate.
Professor Michael Oppenheimer gives an identical explanation in this video, if you wait until the second last segment.
http://www.videojug.com/expertanswer...ast-antarctica
Methinks SirCharles and OTJ suffer from a severe case of groupthink!
Oregon State Universityl
Groupthink
Summary:
Groupthink occurs when a homogenous highly cohesive group is so concerned with maintaining unanimity that they fail to evaluate all their alternatives and options. Groupthink members see themselves as part of an in-group working against an outgroup opposed to their goals. You can tell if a group suffers from groupthink if it:
1. overestimates its invulnerability or high moral stance,
2. collectively rationalizes the decisions it makes,
3. demonizes or stereotypes outgroups and their leaders,
4. has a culture of uniformity where individuals censor themselves and others so that the facade of group unanimty is maintained, and
5. contains members who take it upon themselves to protect the group leader by keeping information, theirs or other group members', from the leader.
Groups engaged in groupthink tend to make faulty decisions when compared to the decisions that could have been reached using a fair, open, and rational decision-making process.
Groupthinking groups tend to:
1. fail to adequately determine their objectives and alternatives,
2. fail to adequately assess the risks associated with the group's decision,
3. fail to cycle through discarded alternatives to reexamine their worth after a majority of the group discarded the alternative,
4. not seek expert advice,
5. select and use only information that supports their position and conclusions, and
6. does not make contigency plans in case their decision and resulting actions fail.
Group leaders can prevent groupthink by:
1. encouraging members to raise objections and concerns;
2. refraining from stating their preferences at the onset of the group's activities;
3. allowing the group to be independently evaluated by a separate group with a different leader;
4. splitting the group into sub-groups, each with different chairpersons, to separately generate alternatives, then bringing the sub-groups together to hammer out differences;
5. allowing group members to get feedback on the group's decisions from their own constitutents;
6. seeking input from experts outside the group;
7. assigning one or more members to play the role of the devil's advocate;
8. requiring the group to develop multiple scenarios of events upon which they are acting, and contingencies for each scenario; and
9. calling a meeting after a decision consensus is reached in which all group members are expected to critically review the decision before final approval is given.
For detailed information read:
Janis, I. (1972). Victims of Groupthink. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.
Janis, I. (1982). Groupthink: Psychological studies of policy decisions and fiascoes. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.
Last edited by kront999; 11th February 2012 at 02:26 PM.
Nullius in Verba
Is the hockey stick, that source of embarrassment for climate warming proponents, still being displayed?That doesn't explain the "hockey stick".
The explanation is simple, the hockey stick is a characteristic shape obtained by fitting random uncorrelated brownian data to an upwards slope, and as a result it is proof that the dendrocronological data used for the fit is uncorrelated to temps (garbage) and can not be used. It is proof of garbage in, garbage out. It is bad science and bad analysis.
It is easy to generate a 'hockey stick' by using a math package, Matlab or even Excels (it needs a gaussian number generator):
1) Generate a sequence of gaussian random numbers.
2) Integrate the random sequences to create brownian (red) noise. Call the sequence number 'tree rings' and go back a thousand years or more. the random number corresponds to the estimated temperature.
3) Choose a temperature profile to be fitted (upwards slope) by picking a sloping line or pick your favorite data source (GiSS etc). This data corresponds to the last 100-150 years of your 'tree ring' data or the last 1/4 or so of the data (the random numbers you just generated)
4) Now make the bold assumption that the random garbage data is correlated to temperature, and do a principal component analysis fit on it, basically give more weight to those runs that match the temperature data and less weight (or discard) those that do not match the temperature data (basically the data analysis process used by Mann, et all).
5) Average the random runs using the weighting factors found, and voila! there is a hockey stick.
Hum.. strange.. could it be a mistake? repeat with other random data and voila! another hockey stick. Hum, there is something wrong with the analysis... use another type analysis (one that weighs those data runs that match data more heavily that those that don't) and voila! another hockey stick.
A Hockey stick is a characteristic signature of using random data (data that has a poor relation to what you are trying to fit it to , like tree rings to temperature) in your data fit.
Last edited by andrejsv; 11th February 2012 at 03:46 PM.
So what? A random walk can occur in nature, or you can generate one on a computer. That does not mean that all random walks are computer generated.
Funny how hockey sticks just crop with with all sorts of different data.
Yet another confirmation of the so-called Hockey Stick, a new Northern Hemisphere temperature reconstruction from a Swedish team, based on sediments, pollen, speleotherms (minerals deposited by water) and tree rings.
http://www.clim-past.net/8/227/2012/cp-8-227-2012.pdf
Northern Hemisphere temperature patterns in the last 12 centuries
F. C. Ljungqvist1,2,3, P. J. Krusic3,4, G. Brattstršom3,5, and H. S. Sundqvist3,4
1Department of History, Stockholm University, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden
2Centre for Medieval Studies, Stockholm University, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden
3Bert Bolin Centre for Climate Research, Stockholm University, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden
4Department of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology, Stockholm University, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden
5Department of Mathematics, Stockholm University, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden
Correspondence to: F. C. Ljungqvist (fredrik.c.l@historia.su.se)
Received: 30 September 2011 – Published in Clim. Past Discuss.: 13 October 2011
Revised: 21 December 2011 – Accepted: 22 December 2011 – Published: 3 February 2012Another paper for you to read.
- We conclude that during the 9th to 11th centuries there was widespread NH warmth comparable in both geographic extent and level to that of the 20th century mean.
- Our study also reveals that the 17th century was dominated by widespread and coherently cold anomalies representing the culmination of the LIA. Understandably, the centennial resolution of this study precludes direct comparison of past warmth to that of the last few decades.
- However, our results show the rate of warming from the 19th to the 20th century is clearly the largest between any two consecutive centuries in the past 1200 yr.
"A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence" - David Hume
A lot to take in in that article but would I be correct in surmising that this is good news in that it gives more time to avert the dreadful repercussions of melting Himalyan Glaciers for the Indian subcontinent?
"Gods are fragile things; they may be killed by a whiff of science or a dose of common sense." - Chapman Cohen.
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