“ONLY beliefs are true or false, or sentences that express beliefs.” That’s according to Marianne Talbot, University of Oxford, explaining “critical reasoning” in a course available for download through iTunes. A theory, like anthropogenic global warming, is of course, meant to be scientifically-based so it should be open to logical argument and falsification.
Jennifer Marohasy outside Trinity Chapel in Melbourne for a wedding early August 2014. Wearing a possum and sheep skin coat: it was very cold.
Antarctic sea ice has been above normal for a long time and still growing. Plus record cold temps recorded over the last year or so.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/08/22/antarctic-sea-ice-has-been-above-average-for-1000-straight-days/
It's okay, RLP. The Antarctic peninsula is volcanic and active, very common knowledge which the klimatariat is trying to forget in a hurry. Greenland is doing its long term thing (even according to some NASA scientists in unguarded moments).
In spite of ups and downs of that variable thing known as polar ice - including recent low minima in the north - there happens to be lots of sea ice around at present...especially in Antarctica. Lots! Sea ice globally is running above average and Antarctic sea ice has been running on or near record levels (post 1979 running mean by sat). I guess you secretly know that but don't like talking about it?
Did I mention that the Guardian is volcanically silly? Really, RLP, just don't read that infantile tripe and you'll have a better day.
‘Incredible’ rate of polar ice loss alarms scientists
A European satellite has shown ice sheets shrinking at 120 cubic miles a year in Antarctica and Greenland
Robin McKie 24 August 2014
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/aug/24/incredible-polar-ice-loss-cryosat-antarctica-greenland
The planet’s two largest ice sheets – in Greenland and Antarctica – are now being depleted at an astonishing rate of 120 cubic miles each year. That is the discovery made by scientists using data from CryoSat-2, the European probe that has been measuring the thickness of Earth’s ice sheets and glaciers since it was launched by the European Space Agency in 2010.
Even more alarming, the rate of loss of ice from the two regions has more than doubled since 2009, revealing the dramatic impact that climate change is beginning to have on our world.
The researchers, based at Germany’s Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research – used 200m data points across Antarctica and 14.3m across Greenland, all collected by CryoSat, to study how the ice sheets there had changed over the past three years. The satellite carries a high-precision altimeter, which sends out short radar pulses that bounce off the ice surface and then back to the satellite. By measuring the time this takes, the height of the ice beneath the spacecraft can be calculated.
It was found from the average drops in elevation that were detected by CryoSat that Greenland alone is losing about 90 cubic miles a year, while in Antarctica the annual volume loss is about 30 cubic miles. These rates of loss – described as “incredible” by one researcher – are the highest observed since altimetry satellite records began about 20 years ago, and they mean that the ice sheets’ annual contribution to sea-level rise has doubled since 2009, say the researchers whose work was published in the journal Cryosphere last week.
“We have found that, since 2009, the volume loss in Greenland has increased by a factor of about two, and the West Antarctic ice sheet by a factor of three,” said glaciologist Angelika Humbert, one of the study’s authors. “Both the West Antarctic ice sheet and the Antarctic peninsula, in the far west, are rapidly losing volume. By contrast, East Antarctica is gaining volume, though at a moderate rate that doesn’t compensate for the losses on the other side of the continent.”
The researchers say they detected the biggest elevation changes caused by ice loss at the Jakobshavn glacier in Greenland, which was recently found to be shifting ice into the oceans faster than any other ice-sheet glacier, and at Pine Island glacier, which like other glaciers in West Antarctica, has been thinning rapidly in recent years.
The discovery of these losses of ice is particularly striking and represents yet another blow to claims by some climate-change deniers, who argue that the rapid loss of ice in the Arctic currently being observed is being matched by a corresponding increase in Antarctica. CryoSat’s measurements show that Antarctica – although considerably colder than the Arctic because of its much higher average elevation – is not gaining ice at all. Indeed, it is – overall – losing considerable volumes, and in the case of West Antarctica is doing so at an alarming rate.
This point was stressed by Mark Drinkwater, the European Space Agency’s CryoSat mission scientist. “These results offer a critical new perspective on the recent impact of climate change on large ice sheets. This is particularly evident in parts of the Antarctic peninsula, where some of the more remarkable features add testimony on the impact of sustained peninsula warming at rates several times the global average.”
Just another look at Hansen's projections A B and C in 1988.
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/08/24/its-dead-jim-2/#comments Since then co2 emissions have soared ( 95% due to non OECD emissions) but temp is still below scenario C. So how does that work?
Mann thought it was quite okay to call McIntyre and McKitrick frauds, but is suing Steyn for calling him a fraud. How does that work?
http://climateaudit.org/2014/08/22/epa-on-manns-fraud-invective/#more-19513 Surely Steyn should be able to use this info to his advantage in his court case? And Mann was supported by the US EPA. Just incredible.
Antarctica continues to set all kinds of records. Record cold measurements, record ice extent, etc.
http://notrickszone.com/2014/08/23/dramatic-antarctic-freeze-up-iciest-decade-ever-on-record-every-decade-icier-than-the-previous/
Regional Cooling Trend
https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/antarctic_sea_ice_anom-1000days.png
Jennifer,
We agree to disagree then, although it seems that on a lot of points we are in furious agreement.
I would like to run the experiment past you one more time, since either:
a. I have not explained myself well, or
b. My understanding of the GHGE Theory is faulty.
1. A thermos flask, after the silvering has been removed, consists of a vessel, with a narrow neck and a double glass wall separated by a gap of about 5mm.
2. Heat loss from the flask can be measured by filling with hot water and recording the temperature over time with an alcohol thermometer.
3. For heat to escape from the inner flask it must pass the gap between the 2 walls, either by conduction or radiation or both. The heat loss is the sum of conduction and radiation.
4. When the gap is filled with a non radiative gas (eg O2) the radiative component of heat loss can be calculated from the surface area of the inner flask and the Stefan Boltzman equation. Q=es(T1^4-T2^4), where e is the emissivity of glass (0.9), s is the SB constant, T1 is the temperature of the inner glass wall and T2 is the temperature of the outer glass wall.
5. If the gap contains a radiative green house gas the GHGE theory says that the radiative heat loss should be reduced. Specifically radiation is absorbed by the gas and re-radiated, approximately 1/2 outward and 1/2 back to the inner wall. In the best case of a gas which absorbs all the radiation before it gets to the outer wall the radiation heat loss should be reduced by 1/2.
6. A variety of green house gases are readily available, including CO2, CH4(natural gas) and water vapour. Perhaps a mixture of these gases would cover the majority of the IR spectrum.
Any comments are welcome.