noiv

Nice, Jethro is back, looks like I found the button . > apparently we don't get weather anymore, we just get climate change. Getting cramped on denial outpost? Don't start to excavate ancient weather reports!

Found here: http://www.tzeporahb...m/excerpts.html The past one hundred years have been a frenzy of development and pollution. We’ve benefited in many ways, but now we’re starting to live the repercussions. It’s as if we’ve thrown a massive party in our parents’ house and have to clean up the mess in the living room before Mom and Dad get home - except in this case it’s our grandchildren’s house that we’ve completely trashed. @quest4peace: Ready to clean up the mess? Or don't you party? + thx on the methane. Robert Grumbine: Why decline in sea ice data is not conspiracy.

quest4peace, really big questions! It would be great to answer them in a post and that's it. But you are right, knowledge is never written in stone. Tomorrow someone might find out the atmosphere collects dark matter and CO2 will no longer behave as greenhouse gas in 5 years. Very stupid example, don't cite that. So what the hell is the value of science? On the other hand the computer you use to write posts here is freaking complex and I assume like me you have no idea why quantum mechanics allows the way they work. The point is you trust because you neither have the capacity nor the time to prove by yourself. Would you believe someone telling you science is wrong and tomorrow all computer will break? Yesterday Achim Steiner, UNEP, urged the council to move on and consider climate change as a security threat (there is a video at un.org, have a look). His points are backed as he put it by "our best knowledge". There is a rumor some countries want "green-helmets closing coal-mines", a sign of lively talks behind closed doors. You may say science is not enough to make decisions of such importance, my answer would be: it is all we have. You have to answer yourself a very long chain of questions until you feel confident enough to get active because of climate change. Take that time, I promise you, it is an outstanding eye opener. As added value you'll gain insight into entropy some people consider as the only starting point to rethink economy. Start with one molecule of CO2 and find out why it resonates to a certain range of wavelengths and thus transforms electromagnetic energy into mechanical which can no longer exit the planet. Think of a tuning fork. Somewhere in the middle you'll find yourself saying thanks to all the bacteria made the oxygen you breathe and kick started the development of plants. And at the very end you'll recognize our current climate as the fine tuned result of a process ongoing since billions of years, build to support life and stable like an elephant balancing on a pushpin. You then don't want to ignore the sign saying: "Don't touch!"

quest4peace, you're right many factors determine the final extent end of September. Some are known others not. A future stable low or high is capable to drastically change ice distribution. Also the extent's 15% threshold is tricky and we have no clue how things look when bottom melting starts removing first year basin ice. Look here how offshore 20°C wind melts the ice: http://www.arctic.io...st-Siberian-Sea, Similar happens in the Beaufort. Have an eye an the forecast maps, or here, to find out what will happen the next days. The next weeks are not on my radar and the overall trend is quite clear in the extent graphs you've posted.

Increasing ice export through Fram Strait.

GW, the PIPS replacing still experimental thickness model has a good grip on drift and extent, but have you seen it shows no thickness change inside the pack in July? Except, of course, north of Ellesmere.

> "Recent observations have found rates of ice bottom melting as high as 1m/month" The quote refers to a paper of Perovich, 2003. 1 m/month in July is a lot but not unprecedented. For a single point it can easily happen, all needed is an upwelling blob of warm water. There are now a few ice mass buoys in Central Arctic, check them out: http://imb.crrel.usa...mil/buoysum.htm. The overall amount of ice thickness data is currently little, Cryosat will hopefully change that. You may want to contact CPOM in London, they will know first. NSIDC: Arctic sea ice extent is now 2.24 million square kilometers below the 1979 to 2000 average.

> All but one sailed through the Arctic circle in wooden sailing ships (perhaps the ice was something 'softer' then?) Arctic circle full of ice? Are you referring to the Medieval Climate Optimum? > and the world is going to end ... Pleasant to read you care. High Arctic Exhibition in London: Future Visions of a receding World

> Chinese sailed around Greenland and traversed both the NW and NE passages in the 1400s... Zheng He's integrated map of the world is a true revealing artifact. Most probably Admiral Zheng sailed around Greenland same way he made California shown as an island. Don't we enjoy a great time, first circumnavigation of Greenland soon on your TV? Press the green button of your remote!

> The other thing I note is the level of fragmentation we see this year? Another potential positive feedback effect. Smaller floes provide more grip to the wind, move faster out of the basin, open polynyas easier and enable edge melting. Personally I can't reject a higher average speed or at least a quicker response to the weather above the ice sheet. 20km per day and more is not an exception. Imagine what a perfect storm really could do... Ice sheet models assume rigid bodies of different size to simulate movement, but verification is difficult as resolution of satellites stops at some hundred meters. The ice edge north of Novaya Zemlya shows blocking caused by large floes is not an issue.

Jethro, perhaps the understanding of climate is little, of an environmental economy it is zero. It will be a a very long go to get a paper same quality as IPCC's on economy, given that subject is beyond science and lacks provable assumptions. So the plan is to wait first for science and then wait for economy and then wait until the top is ready and then until the message was accepted and then until things actually change. Can you imagine something happens, which may let you ask for a shortcut to this plan? CBC News: Exotic species showing up in Canada's Arctic

>>>> Weather in Tiksi, Russia today: Mostly Cloudy. High: 26 °C. Wind SW 22 km/h. >>> Are you trying to illustrate a point there? >> Thanks for pointing to other relevant stations, I'll make my point after I got an answer to the question: "How many trees make a forest?" > Please make your point now, without waffle, because I actually am simple. No, I can't, there is still a simple question to answer. Narsarsuaq, Greenland: +17°C

> To be proven doesn't one have to understand how exactly the world climate works and fully understand every single influence upon it. Not exactly. If you see 45°C on your thermometer in December you scientifically understand temperature without measuring every single atom. Global warming happens because incoming and outgoing radiation is no longer balanced. On a planetary scale it is as simple as that. However, this understanding will not tell you whether people in Europe or America have to adapt more. Icescape: warm Atlantic water in Chukchi Sea?

> aside from the Greenland Sea (slightly pleasing). It is just the opposite of pleasing. All ice passing Fram Strait booked a ticket of the never-come-back-shipping-route. It will ultimately melt in warm Atlantic and has no chance of surviving another season.

Jethro, thanks for your reply. You are challenging my language skills, so it took some time. I agree having science is better than a point of view from e.g. Vatican. But would reading IPCC reports and teaching the knowledge to understand in schools lead to changes? I doubt that. Thousands of scientists have found consensus and compiled all into books available for free to everybody. Nevertheless skeptics exist and they are loud and efficient. Recently I realized nearly all consumer electronics is based on quantum mechanics. A theory 100 years old and you'll hardly met somebody capable to explain even the simplest fundamentals. It works, that's enough to know and the facts are hard to grasp. Same applies to CO2 and its impact on an atmosphere. The point is, it might be too late until scientific thinking has been established. A lot of civilizations collapsed by misuse of their environment and ignoring/not knowing the constraints of a closed system. We know exactly the energy budget of planet Earth, but what for? To me the ultimate driver of humans is motivation and somehow we are all motivated to believe in powerful and copious promises which have the nasty side-effect of vandalizing this planet. I do not see science replacing this pattern, because basically it does not provide emotions, you have to learn to enjoy Heureka!. We are lacking a positive utopia and we are not enough, sigh, motivated to even think about. On the other hand we are very creative under pressure and that's why the Arctic is 'hot'. If you are asking how to positively communicate upcoming life changing consequences to the northern hemisphere I run out of ideas. Proposals? Hudson Bay is now ice free

>> Weather in Tiksi, Russia today: Mostly Cloudy. High: 26 °C. Wind SW 22 km/h. > Are you trying to illustrate a point there? Thanks for pointing to other relevant stations, I'll make my point after I got an answer to the question: "How many trees make a forest?"

Jethro, it looks to me you found a satisfying answer on how and why we are responsible, but I fail to understand the motivation of exploring the question of how much. Isn't that the beginning of an endless journey, which may not even end after you know the history of each single molecule of CO2? And it was not my intention to spread bad feelings. What is your reply when people unfold a plan of the next thousand years, but still struggle to live sustainable the next five minutes? "The fraction of total ice extent made up of multiyear sea ice in March decreased from about 75% in the mid 1980s to 45% in 2011, while the proportion of the oldest ice declined from 50% of the multiyear ice pack to 10%." http://www.agu.org/p...1GL047735.shtml, published 14/07/2011.

> Isn't the important question "have we caused the current melt, if so how much of it"? So, as long as the melting can not be perfectly attributed to humans there is an excuse to continue with business as usual? Does putting a habitable planet at risk by just saying "I'm not convinced" show any sign of accepting responsibility? Weather in Tiksi, Russia today: Mostly Cloudy. High: 26 °C. Wind SW 22 km/h.

Saying Arctic Amplification does not produce a tipping point, does not mean there are no tipping points at all. Isn't excluding tipping points but accepting anomalies an indisputable contradiction in terms? And since when lead combined and powerful positive feedbacks to a linear trend line? Last winter a substantial amount of thick ice escaped through Fram Strait. Now the fractured rest is drifting with ~20km per day towards Beaufort Sea where it will melt first next season. It is time to prepare forgetting about multi-year sea ice and getting comfortable with multi-week sea ice.

> But people can comfortably adjust where they live over periods of decades, .... So, that's the plan: We just invite the next generations to adapt to the consequences this generation has forced, because we failed to adapt to the planet we're living on. The good news is they can't reject the invitation. Arctic just lost 1,000,000 square kilometers of sea ice extent within 8 days during this month (IJIS). Anybody eager to see this happen in 7 days?

> Fortunately, despite appearances, we are not 'actively' trying to trash the planet, ... Can't agree with the line above. Actually we do. We are just pretending not to know and blame scientists for their inefficient work, so that the results can be easily ignored. Ever asked a child hammering a fly to stop and received "Nobody told me it could die."? So we do with the climate and forget we are part of the experiment. Oups. Just learned the metabolic rate of this planet - forcing the continents to drift and once raised the Himalaya - consumes 44 trillion watts. A value we are going to surpass this century. Natural erosion in Australia moves ~100 million tonnes of sediment per year, human exports of coal and iron ore are now at about 600 million tonnes, same continent. We even trigger earthquakes by constructing dams. Need More? Surely, we don't need more alarm. We have the ability to understand and plan our actions, it is just because we are all distracted by business and don't have the time and the money, well not now. What we even need less are such ill-advised appeasements misprizing our own comprehension. The reality is we are trashing the planet and have to face that and then stop it. Back to the subject my question is will an ice free Arctic change anything?