Climate Conversation Group

The nuclear-powered USS Skate at an ice-free North Pole in 1959. (Click to go to the Real Science list of newspaper articles.)

Australis posted this link to Steven Goddard’s Real Science list of newspaper articles for us here in comments. I highly recommend it.

Whenever anyone – anyone at all – becomes anxious over apparently excessive melting of Arctic sea ice, this long list of previous such meltings will demonstrate that Nature can cope with it and bounce back from it.

Whenever anyone tries to alarm others with the modern, allegedly excessive, melting of Arctic sea ice, this long list of historical events will stop them in their tracks and prevent alarm.

It’s what we might call proof that modern sea ice melting is not unprecedented, despite the efforts made by the likes of Greenpeace to make us believe that it is.

Speaking of Greenpeace

For example, in August 2009, Greenpeace were caught in a lie. Read more… »

The Associated Press chills our blood again with a story on record Arctic sea ice melting.

Arctic sea ice melted this summer to the second lowest level since record-keeping began more than 50 years ago, scientists reported Thursday, mostly blaming global warming.

“This is not a random event,” said oceanographer James Overland of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “It’s a long-term change in Arctic climate.”

Only in 2007 was there less summer sea ice, which has been dramatically declining since scientists began using satellites to monitor melt in 1979.

So, unless I’m mistaken, in each of the last four years there has been more ice than there was in 2007. That sounds like a recovery — it’s certainly not getting worse. Read more… »

The way some people talk, you’d think the Arctic was burning.

What a joke, doctor

At the Huffington Post, “field biologist” Dr Reese Halter talks of the “unprecedented warming of our globe” and claims that “missing” Arctic sea ice is a “wake-up call.” He says the news of Arctic sea ice reaching its lowest point since the start of satellite observations in 1972 (actually 1979) is “outright heartbreaking.”

The heartbroken biologist meanders through observations on the climate, economics and some waffling, brainlessly misleading arguments against climatic scepticism. Read more… »

The beautiful Arctic.

Georg Heygster, head of the Physical Analysis of Remote Sensing Images unit at the University of Bremen’s Institute of Environmental Physics, announces a new record Arctic ice minimum today.

Ignoring the fact that they actually report 140,000 square kilometres more ice today than in 2007 (the previous record minimum) because of altered methods, the good Georg raises more questions than he answers. Like any good climate scientist. First (though this could be the AFP reporter):

Arctic ice cover plays a critical role in regulating Earth’s climate by reflecting sunlight and keeping the polar region cool.

QUESTION: At the last minimum, in 2007, how much did global temperature rise due to the reduced ice cover? ANSWER: Global temps did not rise in 2007 — they fell about 0.4°C. Any albedo effect reducing global temperatures is likely to be insignificant. Read more… »

Village fires cause global warming, apparently. But the immediate local health risk is more important, so our scientists shouldn’t be so short-sighted. (Sorry about the tongue-twister.) Before anything, we should improve the fireplaces themselves. How hard can it be?

How convenient this is! With all the doubt now falling on the culpability of carbon dioxide (“carbon”) in the crime of global warming, the worried warmists have wheeled in a new culprit accused, already chained and bearing a conspicuously disreputable name — Black Carbon.

Just as CO2 has been wilting under an intensive examination and showing undisputable signs of innocence, how lucky to have soot standing by to shoulder the blame on behalf of we horrid humans. Read more… »

Andrew Revkin – Dr Who?

Warmist internecine strife has never really appeared on my radar, but now it’s actually spoiling the image. How encouraging it is to my sceptical heart to hear leading warmists brawling in their little playground. They express perfect hatred for each other.

Are they frustrated that their warmist preferences for scientific conclusions and policy recommendations are becoming as last season’s fashions? Does it sting their vanity that they can do nothing to halt the loss of face that now disfigures their darling beliefs in global warming?

Does the sudden, inexorable and widespread use of the terms “scam”, “myths” and “fallacies” associated with “climate change” drive them insane with rage? We can but hope. Read more… »

The mighty Merz Glacier. When sea ice fills this area after a piece is knocked off and floats away, why and how is the freezing of the water influenced?

A story in the NZ Herald a few days ago talked about giant Antarctic icebergs:

A massive iceberg struck Antarctica, dislodging another giant block of ice from a glacier, Australian and French scientists said.

The end of the mighty Mertz Glacier had been repeatedly hammered by the 97-kilometre-long iceberg as it moved in the ocean currents. Note that there’s no mention of global warming to explain this “breakup” of ice.

This event was driven entirely by mechanical forces …

… until the final paragraph, when the article talks about oxygen levels and quotes “a leading climate expert”, Steve Rintoul:

Oxygen levels being fed into the world’s ocean currents are now changing “and the overturning circulation currents will respond to that change,” Rintoul said. Observing what happens “will … allow us to improve predictions of future climate change.”

One wonders whether Rintoul is accurately quoted.

It is understandable that the overturning circulation might transport water of differing oxygen levels around the oceans, but it is incredible that differing oxygen levels might affect the overturning circulation.

I do not understand how observing the effects of oxygen on the overturning circulation might have any effect on our predictions of “climate change”, much less allow us to improve them.

Further explanation is required, and it ought to have been obtained by our beloved Herald before publication of this nonsense.