Peter Sinclair of Climate Denial Crock of the Week is doing a volunteer job for years because he's concerned, not paid!

Graphs of the Day: Arctic Sea Ice and Volume

August 25, 2011



The familiar NSIDC arctic sea ice area graph for August 24.

We’re heading toward another near record low – no sign of the recovery so confidently predicted by climate deniers over the last few years (you betcha!).

Just as interesting is the graph of ice volume below – which is even more definitive and graphic than the area.

Note the blue triangles at the bottom. That’s this year’s ice, well below the 2007 collapse.



The NSIDC has a new “Icelights” page, wherein they’ve invited interested parties to submit their best estimates, as of june, for this year’s sea ice minimum, experts as well as not-so-experts.[/LEFT] [LEFT]Below – I’m sure none of my regular viewers will be surprised with the predictably brain-dead inaccuracy of science denier Anthony Watts and co. in the projections made for this year’s final numbers.



According to the graph, Watts et al use a “heuristic” technique for estimating sea ice. Wiki defines “heuristic” as -
“experience-based techniques for problem solving, learning, and discovery.”

Given Watt’s rich experience in being grossly misinformed and misinforming, this current estimate fits the profile, with real-world ice having blown by Watt’s Pollyanna “experience based” estimate with weeks still to go in the melt season.



Oh, and that oft-touted “increase” in southern hemisphere sea ice? Not so much this year. (not that it ever outweighed what’s being lost in the north..)



and here



We’ll approach the minimum sometime in the next few weeks, I would imagine. I’ll start working on my sea ice annual review sometime soon.

Great post on Skeptical Science about IPCC temperature predictions.

Accurate Climate Models
[This chart] in particular shows once again that even two decades ago, global climate models were making very accurate projections of future global warming. As with Broecker (1975) and Hansen (1988), the accuracy of the IPCC FAR global warming projections put a dagger in the myth that models are unreliable. These results also add to the mountains of evidence that climate sensitivity is in the ballpark of 3°C for doubled atmospheric CO2.

Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: IPCC FAR

Agnotologist, your hour has come!!!

Agnotology as a Teaching Tool: Learning Climate Science by Studying Misinformation : Stoat

ABSTRACT: Despite the existence of a clear scientific consensus about global warming, opinion surveys find confusion among the American public, regarding both scientific issues and the strength of the scientific consensus. Evidence increasingly points to misinformation as a contributing factor. This situation is both a challenge and an opportunity for science educators, including geographers. The direct study of misinformation--termed agnotology (Proctor 2008)--can potentially sharpen student critical thinking skills, raise awareness of the processes of science such as peer review, and improve understanding of the basic science. This potential is illustrated with examples from a small, upper-division collegiate weather and climate class. Key Words: global warming, agnotology, misinformation, active learning

Worth keeping an eye on Hurricane Irene this weekend, though it has already hit the News bulletins.

Jeff Masters and Governor Chris Christie of NJ (another Republican would-be President who accepts climate science) are talking about "1-in-100 year floods", and "worse than 1938", which was a real monstrosity.

Gov. Christie on Hurricane Irene: “From a Flooding Perspective, This Could Be a 100-Year Event.” | ThinkProgress

Dr. Jeff Masters' WunderBlog : Irene an extremely dangerous storm surge threat to the mid-Atlantic and New England : Weather Underground

What's it got to do with climate change? Maybe something, maybe not - let's wait for the scientists to tot the statistics at the end of the season. It looks like another spectacular addition to a year of weather disasters for the USA.

There's been an ongoing dispute rumbling on betweeen James Annan and Roger Pielke Jnr. about the the IPCC forecasts and the meaning of its probability scale.

If you are interested in such matters - check out John Nielsen-Gammon's blog where he gives the best exposition of the matter I have seen.

Roger Pielke Jr.’s Inkblot | Climate Abyss | a Chron.com blog

N-G is a climate scientists's climate scientist - he has even picked up brownie points along the way by helping Anthony Watts with his statistics.

Originally Posted by owedtojoy

There's been an ongoing dispute rumbling on betweeen James Annan and Roger Pielke Jnr. about the the IPCC forecasts and the meaning of its probability scale.

If you are interested in such matters - check out John Nielsen-Gammon's blog where he gives the best exposition of the matter I have seen.

Roger Pielke Jr.’s Inkblot | Climate Abyss | a Chron.com blog

N-G is a climate scientists's climate scientist - he has even picked up brownie points along the way by helping Anthony Watts with his statistics.

Yes an interesting peice thank you, of more interest to me at least is the running dialog between n-g and Pielke the senior.

Although I would say this post from the comments section sums up the situation nicely.

Dr. J says:
August 25, 2011 at 11:18 am

An excellent article, as usual Dr. n-g, I of course fully agree with both Dr.s Pielke. The problem is not whether or not human CO2 is increasing and has some effect on global temps, of course that is true and is theoretically and data based. The problem is the significance and magnitude of the effect vis a vis other myriad climate factors. And further, for the greater unwashed population that activist climatologists are trying to influence, why is that problem of such overwhelming significance that we should undertake drastic policy actions to alter it, or indeed, would those actions really do anything in human time frames we could actually see and benefit from. This is where the whole stack of cards comes down, in my opinion. In fact, I just submitted an abstract for a presentation at the annual AGU meeting in Frisco, I doubt it will be accepted, as we know how careful AGU is not to allow such things (it owuld upset the clanish Princess of China dining event), but that is the topic of it.

It seemed an apposite name for use on this thread!

ConCERN Trolling on Cosmic Rays, Clouds, and Climate Change

How the weight of climate science swayed another skeptic

Scientists find evidence that Greenland's glaciers are melting faster than expected.



=> Greenland glaciers show record losses (msnbc, 22 August 2011)

=> Greenland Glacier Melting Faster Than Expected (ScienceDaily, 18 August 2011)