Antarctic Sea Ice Extent is 27.4% above normal as of Feb 7 2014

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Filed under: Antarctic Sea Ice — sunshinehours1 @ 7:05 AM 

Tags: Antarctic Sea Ice, Antarctic Sea Ice Extent   -  Fed 7, 2014

Antarctic Sea Ice Extent  is really on track to have the highest minimum in the modern satellite era.

Antarctic Sea Ice Extent as of Feb 7 2014 was 904,000 sq km above the 1981-2010 mean and 220,000 sq km above 2008.

904,000 sq km above normal is 27.4%. Day 37 was the 20th daily record of the year.

I’ve added the 2008 Highest Minimum point to this graph. Data is here. Click for bigger.

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After notes: 

Article found here:  http://sunshinehours.wordpress.com/2014/02/07/antarctic-sea-ice-extent-is-27-4-above-normal-as-of-feb-7-2014/

http://www.climatedepot.com/. . . . .

Scandinavia, as a climate region of the world, is cooler now than during the Roman Empire.

The Broad View of Holocene Climate from the Swedish Scandes
Volume 16, Number 50: 11 December 2013

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In the introduction to his recent contribution to the cause of deciphering the history of climate change over the entire course of the Holocene, Kullman (2013) writes that "in central and northern Scandinavia, our understanding of the Holocene tree line history has been progressively refined over the past 50 years or so by the use of radiocarbon-dated mega-fossil tree remains, preserved above the modern tree line elevation in peat and lakes and under glacier ice," citing the studies of G. Lundqvist (1959), J. Lundqvist (1969), Karlen (1976), Eronen (1979), Aas and Faarlund (1988, 1999), Nesje et al. (1991), Moe and Odland (1992), Kullman (1995, 2000), Selsing (1998), Kullman and Kjallgren (2000, 2006), Helama et al. (2004), Paus (2010) and Oberg and Kullman (2011a, b). And in further expounding on the subject, the Swedish scientist reassuringly states that "fundamental aspects of glacial, Lateglacial and early Holocene plant cover and landscapes in northern Scandinavia, as inferred by this approach (Kullman 2006, 2008), are consistent with independent fossil, genetic and palaeo-geographical data," citing Paus (2010), Paus et al. (2011), Carcaillet et al. (2012) and Parducci et al. (2012). In fact, he contends that mega-fossil analysis is the only methodology that can "accurately document the existence of a certain tree species at a certain spot and at a certain point of time in the past."

Consequently, Kullman goes on to develop what he refers to as "a synthesis of all previously published - and some new - mega-fossils representing principal tree species in the south and central Swedish Scandes." More specifically, the Swedish scientist's study includes a sample of 455 radiocarbon-dated mega-fossils (258 Pinus, 172 Betula, 25 Alnus) that originated from the present-day tree line ecotone and above, thirteen of which had not previously been published. And the resulting history he developed indicates that "summer temperatures during the early Holocene thermal optimum may have been 2.3°C higher than present," which difference, in Kullman's words, "corresponds to a general cooling trend of 0.24°C/century, which matches the Milankovitch model of orbitally-driven climate forcing (cf. Berger, 1988; Esper et al., 2012) and indicates that this mechanism has operated as the ultimate driver of climate change throughout the Holocene."

Focusing on the last two millennia, Kullman states that "the pine tree line was about 100 m higher than today (i.e., early 21st century) c. 1940 and 1300-930 cal. years BP," while noting that "the same applies to birch by c. 1700 and 1300 cal years BP," which clusters "represent the Medieval and Roman times." And he writes that "mega-fossil and tree-ring studies in the northernmost part of the Scandes and adjacent regions display broadly the same features," citing the studies of Karlen and Kuylenstierna (1996), Karlen (1998), Hiller et al. (2001), Shivatov (2003), Kremenetski et al. (2004), Moberg et al. (2005) and Esper et al. (2012), after which he says that "these temperature anomalies were succeeded by a distinct tree line/temperature dip, broadly corresponding to the Little Ice Age."

In commenting further on these findings, Kullman says that "the emergence during the past two millennia of at least two short-term tree line and thermal excursions to higher than present levels (i.e. early 21st century) indicates that the current performance of the ecological and climatic systems is well within the envelope of the natural variability of the late Holocene (cf. Karlen, 2008; Akasofu, 2010; Curry and Webster, 2011; Humlum et al., 2011; Kobashi et al., 2011; Ljungqvist et al., 2012)." And to make this point perfectly clear, Kullman repeats that "the pine tree line (and summer temperature) was consistently higher than present ... during the Roman and Medieval periods, c. 1900 and 1000 cal years BP."

[In other words,  the earth was a bit warmer during the Roman Empire years than it is, today.  - blog editor]

Thus, as we have long contended, and on the basis of real-world data (properly analyzed), Kullman's analysis of tree-line data, along with the results of the many other studies he cites, jointly provide yet another strong amalgamation of evidence that supports the view that there is nothing unusual, unnatural or unprecedented about earth's current level of warmth.

Sherwood, Keith and Craig Idso

Note:  All emphasis in the text above (red lettering or heavy bold print) have been added by this blog's editor.  the article and "references" have been taken from CO2 Science.  

References
-  Aas, B. and Faarlund, T. 1988. Postglasiale skoggrenser i sentrale sornorske fjelltrakter. Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift 4: 6-16. . . . . .

Forget "man made warming." Think "man made scandals and wealth redistribution."

Editor's notes:  if you understand that wealth redistribution is at the heart of every "crisis" listed below,  you will understand the reason for the continuing "crisis lies" coming out of the the radical Left.  

In 1970, the first Earth Day was celebrated — okay, “celebrated” doesn’t capture the funereal tone of the event. The events (organized in part by then hippie and now convicted murderer Ira Einhorn) predicted death, destruction and disease unless we did exactly as progressives commanded.

Behold the coming apocalypse as predicted on and around Earth Day, 1970:

1. "Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind."  — Harvard biologist George Wald
2. "We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation." — Washington University biologist Barry Commoner
3. "Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from intolerable deterioration and possible extinction." — New York Timeseditorial
4. "Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years." — Stanford University biologist Paul Ehrlich
5. "Most of the people who are going to die in the greatest cataclysm in the history of man have already been born… [By 1975] some experts feel that food shortages will have escalated the present level of world hunger and starvation into famines of unbelievable proportions. Other experts, more optimistic, think the ultimate food-population collision will not occur until the decade of the 1980s." — Paul Ehrlich
6. "It is already too late to avoid mass starvation," — Denis Hayes, Chief organizer for Earth Day
7. "Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions…. By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine." — North Texas State University professor Peter Gunter
8. "In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution… by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half." — Lifemagazine
9. "At the present rate of nitrogen buildup, it's only a matter of time before light will be filtered out of the atmosphere and none of our land will be usable." — Ecologist Kenneth Watt
10. "Air pollution...is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone." — Paul Ehrlich
11. "By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate… that there won't be any more crude oil. You'll drive up to the pump and say, ‘Fill 'er up, buddy,' and he'll say, ‘I am very sorry, there isn't any.'" — Ecologist Kenneth Watt
12. "[One] theory assumes that the earth's cloud cover will continue to thicken as more dust, fumes, and water vapor are belched into the atmosphere by industrial smokestacks and jet planes. Screened from the sun's heat, the planet will cool, the water vapor will fall and freeze, and a new Ice Age will be born." — Newsweek magazine
13. "The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age." — Kenneth Watt

Quotes from "Earth Day, Then and Now," by Ronald Bailey, Reason.com. May 1, 2000.

HOW CARBON GASES ‘HAVE SAVED US FROM A NEW ICE AGE’

Man-made carbon emissions: But it is bad news for the polar bears

Thursday March 11,2010

By Donna Bowater

 Have your say(6)

MAN-MADE carbon emissions are staving off a new ice age, says a leading environmental scientist.

Climate-change expert Dr James Lovelock says the greenhouse gases that have warmed the planet are likely to prevent a big freeze that could last millions of years.

In a talk at London’s Science Museum Dr Lovelock said the balance of nature was in charge of the environment.

He said: “We’re just fiddling around. It is worth thinking that what we are doing in creating all these carbon emissions, far from being something frightful, is stopping the onset of a new ice age.

“If we hadn’t appeared on the earth, it would be due to go through another ice age and we can look at our part as holding that up.

“I hate all this business about feeling guilty about what we’re doing.

“We’re not guilty, we never intended to pump CO2 into the atmosphere, it’s just something we did.”

Dr Lovelock’s comments come in the wake of the scandal at the University of East Anglia where leaked emails suggested climate change data had been manipulated.

The 90-year-old British scientist, who has worked for Nasa and paved the way for the detection of man-made aerosol and refrigerant gases in the atmosphere, called for greater caution in climate research.

He compared the recent controversy to the “wildly inaccurate” early work on aerosol gases and their alleged role in depletion of the ozone layer.

He said: “Quite often, observations done by hand are accurate but all the theoretical stuff in between tends to be very dodgy and I think they are seeing this with climate change. We haven’t learned the lessons of the ozone-hole debate. It’s important to know just how much you have got to be careful.”

According to Dr Lovelock’s Gaia theory, the earth is capable of curing itself. “A planet that is effectively alive can regulate itself and its composition and climate,” he said.

Thomas Crowley, professor of geoscience at Edinburgh University, responded: “People have thought about the possibility of an ice age but it wouldn’t be for many thousands of years.

“Dr Lovelock might be right in the abstract but this does not necessarily mean that CO2 is good now.”

More proof that "global warming" has been a hoax, almost from the beginning.

Global warming 'pause' may last for 20 more years and Arctic sea ice has already started to recover

• Study says warmer temperatures are largely due to natural 300-year cycles
• Actual increase in last 17 years lower than almost every prediction
• Scientists likened continuing pause to a Mexican wave in a stadium
• 
  

By DAVID ROSE

PUBLISHED: 19:32 EST, 2 November 2013 | UPDATED: 20:00 EST, 2 November 2013

The 17-year pause in global warming is likely to last into the 2030s and the Arctic sea ice has already started to recover, according to new research.

A paper in the peer-reviewed journal Climate Dynamics – by Professor Judith Curry of the Georgia Institute of Technology and Dr Marcia Wyatt – amounts to a stunning challenge to climate science orthodoxy. 

Not only does it explain the unexpected pause, it suggests that the scientific majority – whose views are represented by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – have underestimated the role of natural cycles and exaggerated that of greenhouse gases. 

Pause: How the Earth's average temperature defied scientists' predictions by remaining almost the same

The research comes amid mounting evidence that the computer models on which the IPCC based the gloomy forecasts of a rapidly warming planet in its latest report, published in September, are diverging widely from reality.

The graph shown above, based on a version published by Dr Ed Hawkins of Reading University on his blog, Climate Lab Book, reveals that actual temperatures are now below the predictions made by almost all the 138 models on which the IPCC relies.

The pause means there has been no statistically significant increase in world average surface temperatures since the beginning of 1997, despite the models’ projection of a steeply rising trend. 

According to Dr Hawkins, the divergence is now so great that the world’s climate is cooler than what the models collectively predicted with ‘five to 95 per cent certainty’.

Curry and Wyatt say they have identified a climatic ‘stadium wave’ – the phenomenon known in Britain as a Mexican wave,  in which the crowd at a stadium stand and sit so that a wave seems to circle the audience.

Recovery: A new study suggests global warming is at a halt and Arctic seas are starting to recover

In similar fashion, a number of cycles in the temperature of air and oceans, and the level of Arctic ice, take place across the Northern hemisphere over decades. Curry and Wyatt say there is evidence of this going back at least 300 years. 

According to Curry and Wyatt, the theory may explain both the warming pause and why the computer models did not forecast it. 

It also means that a large proportion of the warming that did occur in the years before the pause was due not to greenhouse gas emissions, but to the same cyclical wave. 

‘The stadium wave signal predicts that the current pause in global warming could extend into the 2030s,’ said Wyatt. This is in sharp contrast with the IPCC’s report, which predicts warming of between 0.3 and 0.7C by 2035. 

Wyatt added: ‘The stadium wave forecasts that sea ice will recover from its recent minimum.’ The record low seen in 2012, followed by the large increase in 2013, is consistent with the theory, she said. 

Even IPCC report co-authors such as Dr Hawkins admit some of the models are ‘too hot’. 

He said: ‘The upper end of the latest climate model projections is inconsistent’ with observed temperatures, though he added even the lower predictions could have ‘negative impacts’ if true.

But if the pause lasted another ten years, and there were no large volcanic eruptions, ‘then global surface temperatures would be outside the IPCC’s indicative likely range’.

Professor Curry went much further. ‘The growing divergence between climate model simulations and observations raises the  prospect that climate models are inadequate in fundamental ways,’ she said.

If the pause continued, this would suggest that the models were not ‘fit for purpose’.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2485772/Global-warming-pause-20-years-Arctic-sea-ice-started-recover.html#ixzz2jfk7L0A7
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According to Al the Gore, by 2007, there would not be enough ice in the Arctic to chill a glass of tea. He can't keep a wife and, now, we know, he can't tell the truth.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/09/14/New-Report-Scales-Back-Global-Warming

On September 27, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will release part of their fifth assessment report on climate change. For the first time since 1990, this report will scale back the hysteria on global warming.

Matt Ridley at The Wall Street Journal viewed a few leaks from the 31-page document and talked to one of the senior climate scientists. The temperature rise due to man-made carbon dioxide is lower than their prediction in 2007. Originally a three degrees Celsius increase was predicted, but that number is now expected to be between 1-2.5 degrees Celsius.

Specifically, the draft report says that "equilibrium climate sensitivity" (ECS)—eventual warming induced by a doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which takes hundreds of years to occur—is "extremely likely" to be above 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit), "likely" to be above 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.4 degrees Fahrenheit) and "very likely" to be below 6 degrees Celsius (10.8 Fahrenheit). In 2007, the IPPC said it was "likely" to be above 2 degrees Celsius and "very likely" to be above 1.5 degrees, with no upper limit. Since "extremely" and "very" have specific and different statistical meanings here, comparison is difficult.

Most experts believe that warming of less than 2 degrees Celsius from preindustrial levels will result in no net economic and ecological damage. Therefore, the new report is effectively saying (based on the middle of the range of the IPCC's emissions scenarios) that there is a better than 50-50 chance that by 2083, the benefits of climate change will still outweigh the harm.

Warming of up to 1.2 degrees Celsius over the next 70 years (0.8 degrees have already occurred), most of which is predicted to happen in cold areas in winter and at night, would extend the range of farming further north, improve crop yields, slightly increase rainfall (especially in arid areas), enhance forest growth and cut winter deaths (which far exceed summer deaths in most places). Increased carbon dioxide levels also have caused and will continue to cause an increase in the growth rates of crops and the greening of the Earth—because plants grow faster and need less water when carbon dioxide concentrations are higher.

Ridley pointed out that many papers in the last year have come to this same conclusion. Scientists at the University of Illinois and Oslo University in Norway found the ECS levels would be lower than the models showed. Three papers followed, including one produced by 14 lead authors of the IPCC report, that backed the evidence. Francis Zwiers and others at the university of Victoria, British Columbia found that global warming was overestimated by 100% over 20 years.

No word yet on Al Gore’s reaction to this very important report.

Scientists are struggling to explain a slowdown in climate change

Reuters) - Scientists are struggling to explain a slowdown in climate change that has exposed gaps in their understanding and defies a rise in global greenhouse gas emissions.

Often focused on century-long trends, most climate models failed to predict that the temperature rise would slow, starting around 2000. Scientists are now intent on figuring out the causes and determining whether the respite will be brief or a more lasting phenomenon.

Getting this right is essential for the short and long-term planning of governments and businesses ranging from energy to construction, from agriculture to insurance. Many scientists say they expect a revival of warming in coming years.

Theories for the pause include that deep oceans have taken up more heat with the result that the surface is cooler than expected, that industrial pollution in Asia or clouds are blocking the sun, or that greenhouse gases trap less heat than previously believed.

The change may be a result of an observed decline in heat-trapping water vapor in the high atmosphere, for unknown reasons. It could be a combination of factors or some as yet unknown natural variations, scientists say.

Weak economic growth and the pause in warming is undermining governments' willingness to make a rapid billion-dollar shift from fossil fuels. Almost 200 governments have agreed to work out a plan by the end of 2015 to combat global warming.

"The climate system is not quite so simple as people thought," said Bjorn Lomborg, a Danish statistician and author of "The Skeptical Environmentalist" who estimates that moderate warming will be beneficial for crop growth and human health.

Some experts say their trust in climate science has declined because of the many uncertainties. The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had to correct a 2007 report that exaggerated the pace of melt of the Himalayan glaciers and wrongly said they could all vanish by 2035.

"My own confidence in the data has gone down in the past five years," said Richard Tol, an expert in climate change and professor of economics at the University of Sussex in England.

Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius first showed in the 1890s how man-made carbon dioxide, fromcoal for instance, traps heat in the atmosphere. Many of the exact effects are still unknown.

Greenhouse gas emissions have hit repeated record highs with annual growth of about 3 percent in most of the decade to 2010, partly powered by rises in China and India. World emissions were 75 percent higher in 2010 than in 1970, UN data show.

UN PANEL SEEKS EXPLANATION

A rapid rise in global temperatures in the 1980s and 1990s - when clean air laws in developed nations cut pollution and made sunshine stronger at the earth's surface - made for a compelling argument that human emissions were to blame.

The IPCC will seek to explain the current pause in a report to be released in three parts from late 2013 as the main scientific roadmap for governments in shifting from fossil fuels towards renewable energies such as solar or wind power, the panel's chairman Rajendra Pachauri said.

According to Pachauri, temperature records since 1850 "show there are fluctuations. They are 10, 15 years in duration. But the trend is unmistakable."

The IPCC has consistently said that fluctuations in the weather, perhaps caused by variations in sunspots or a La Nina cooling of the Pacific, can mask any warming trend and the panel has never predicted a year-by-year rise in temperatures.

Experts say short-term climate forecasts are vital to help governments, insurers and energy companies to plan.

Governments will find little point in reinforcing road bridges over rivers, for instance, if a prediction of more floods by 2100 doesn't apply to the 2020s.

A section of a draft IPCC report, looking at short-term trends, says temperatures are likely to be 0.4 to 1.0 degree Celsius (0.7-1.8F) warmer from 2016-35 than in the two decades to 2005. Rain and snow may increase in areas that already have high precipitation and decline in areas with scarcity, it says.

EXCEPTIONS AND CHALLENGES

Pachauri said climate change can have counter-intuitive effects, like more snowfall in winter that some people find hard to accept as side-effects of a warming trend. An IPCC report last year said warmer air can absorb more moisture, leading to heavier snowfall in some areas.

A study by Dutch experts this month sought to explain why there is now more sea ice in winter. It concluded melted ice from Antarctica was refreezing on the ocean surface - this fresh water freezes more easily than dense salt water.

Some experts challenged the findings.

"The hypothesis is plausible I just don't believe the study proves it to be true," said Paul Holland, an ice expert at the British Antarctic Survey.

Concern about climate change is rising in some nations, however, opinion polls show. Extreme events, such as Superstorm Sandy that hit the U.S. east coast last year, may be the cause. A record heatwave in Australia this summer forced weather forecasters to add a new dark magenta color to the map for temperatures up to 54 degrees Celsius (129F).

(Reporting By Alister Doyle, extra reporting by Gerard Wynn in London; editing by Janet McBride)