Gray-Wolf

You do tend to have your 'black and white' view paint a bleak picture of things P.P. ! I cannot name one person on these threads who has maintained there is only one cause for recent climate change and not acknowledged that 'natural drivers' have driven , and been augmented by AGW, for the 1900's. The problem is that AGW has both an inertia built into it's forcings and is then further complicated by positive reinforcements once it becomes a force rivaling the 'natural' forcings. LI always seemed hell bent of showing the past changes could easily be attributed to 'natural' without the need for AGW forcings when AGW forcings at that time were consumed overcoming climate inertia and their own flip side of dimming? The 21st century appears to have started with climate inertia being overcome and climate shift gaining steam. Once the polar ice secumbed to melt out then both the energy freed up from ice melt and the energies now absorbed (and re-emmited) begin to show impact even in a period of negative natural forcings.

We must have someway of recognising the 'reorganisation of ice crystals' or we would not know how much the snow layer is 'soaking up' recent melt at lower levels these days?

As I mentioned I do not have issues with other solar processes, more impacting than TSI and it's cyclical variation, just the scale of those impacts compared to the human induced ones? As mentioned in my last post any lessening of the current load of 'dimming' pollutants would appear to offer far greater forcing than anything we know of from the sun (as seen in physical and proxy records)? Even without humankind cleaning up it's pollutants from the combustion of fossil fuels we are now seeing important 'state changes' impacting the way the planet consumes it's energy and the heat budget of the planet. When you look at the period of time that the Arctic region is now accepting over 80% of incoming solar, instead of reflecting back into space 90%, you can see a net 'gain' from outside the system. when you factor in the energy, already in the system, that was formally spent melting ice into water over summer you start to see how important this shift is. When you then take on board the findings on first year ice's abilities to transmit energy into the ocean below (over 3 times that of older ice) and the continued thinning of the winter pack allowing more energy into that ocean from 'sun up' (and not just once the ice has formed melt pools) makes me wonder what scale of reduction in the energy budget we would need to offset that alone? Though only a few years ago that we debated the LI some of the concerns I voiced back then are beginning to now add into the system and other impacts appear to now be queued up in the wings (portions of our dormant carbon cycle re-animating and soil drying/rain forest drought/peat wetland destruction ect.). I continue to support your efforts in highlighting the importance of the LI theory but feel that the impacts of AGW were not accurately portrayed (due to lack of data?) and that now that we are overcoming the long period of climate inertia positive feedbacks will exaggerate the rate of change allowing temps to attain the level current GHG levels dictate?

But surely this is the 'thing'? Over the coming years the amount of 'shielding' from the sun, that particulate pollution has brought to TSI and pan evap rates, will fall away as Newly developing nations clean up their acts (as we did from 50yrs ago). NASA again posted an article stating quite clearly that you could not blame the sun for the warming as it only varies 0.1% in output over the solar cycle? The data would have us believe that many areas of the planet have a net reduction of over 5% incoming energy due to the 'Dimming' impacts so if we clean up only 50% of that mess we end up with an increase of solar of 2.5% or 25 times the influence that the solar cycle brings to the planet? Even if we look to other soar outputs which may have a ten fold greater variability than the energy we measure over the solar cycle that is still less than half of what cleaning 50% of current particulate pollution brings to the planet? I have never argued that solar variability does not have impact upon the climate system it just appears that the variations in output appear dwarfed by what man has introduced into the system? And , in the background, climate inertia is increasingly overcome as the 'extra energy' ice loss/early snow loss/albedo flip/ocean warming brings us speeds the process ever faster (we used to use the oil tanker as an analogy of climate inertia......I believe we are now in motion so the energy used up driving the initial change is now available on movement alone and not 'hidden' overcoming the inertia?). The planet is now losing the heat sink that helped keep temps down whilst man steadily increases the atmosphere ability to hold onto heat. Mother N. is now also joining in this atmospheric outing by re-introducing part of the carbon cycle long dormant (now that inertia has been overcome) so even if we cease our production of GHG's we still stand to inherit a fair chunk more over the years. Oil Tanker or collapsing Dam...things occur very slowly, almost imperceivably, to begin with but once ongoing changes rapidly appear.

Hi B.W.! I don't think we can ignore the deep ocean warming as we are now entering a time where some of the early warming, subducted into the deep oceans, is now starting to return to the surface. This means that all the waters to come will be progressively milded out, We know that the atmosphere is being primed to hold onto more heat than it used to but I'm concerned about changes to the way energy is used around the planet under warming. It is easy enough to look at the Arctic Basin ans see a place where once energy was spent melting ice all summer now experiencing a period where those energy drains no longer span all of summer (freeing up energy to be utilised in other areas), or the fringes of Greenland where energy used to be utilised in melting all summer long but now is freed up for other tasks from May through Sept, but what of the energy of the oceans that used to be spent equalising the temp of cold bottom waters as they re-surfaced once those waters are no longer as cold (demanding less energy to bring them up to surface temps?) To me it appears that warming is 'feeding back' on itself by allowing large increases in 'free energy' where once the balance was maintained by 'cold' needing to be warmed? Add into that any energy 'lost' due to dimming (NASA puts the figure as high as 50%!) as Asia cleans up it's act we can see that warming is not just about GHG's and their increasing concentrations in the atmosphere but the redistribution of energies, once in balance, now warming is altering the planet? As I recall LI had a near constant input but the 'tap' filling the bucket is now running at an ever increasing rate whilst the hole in the base is narrowing due to CO2 sink failures/ice loss/Albedo flip. The period of climate inertia (where Mother N had checks an balances to hold back change) is ending.If this 'inertia' was an elastic band then it has reached it's limit and will now spring back to it's new state (further increasing the rate of change)

http://psc.apl.washington.edu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/schweiger/ice_volume/Bpiomas_plot_daily_heff.2sst.png Gives us an idea of how we are doing compared to last year.

Hi G.S.! Much the same as outside the basin ice extensive/extreme snow still seems to melt out before it could be useful in the albedo side of things? I think the same mechanism that brings us the deep H.P. winter systems (and extreme cold) also leads to Summer H.P.'s leading to extreme dry and heat? It's almost as it the boundaries for temp are being stretched at both ends but that the heat , via the oceans , is winning out (the continents heat and cool real fast but the oceans do not respond as quickly leaving a 'last year' residue to plump up the following one).

I'd love to see your efforts get the recognition they derseve B.W. (and C.Bob). I'm sure there is plenty of room in the climate shift to accomodate? As for 'the oceans' They have been ex[posed to a slow upward temp rise for at least 150yrs now so surely there 'forcing is now only just coming to the fore? (deep ocean heat returning to the surface etc?) With some areas of the planet warming much faster than others there is also the issue with the shelf seas in those regions acting on a short term 'seasonal' way (but offsetting past heat transport into those regions backing up heat further south??) I told you's guys at the time that such close scrutiny made me dizzy.....big pictures and constant revision I can handle but close,crisp focus????

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/national/2012/13 I wonder how the global year will pan out? I think we started at 19th warmest but then clawed our way through to a top 4 position? Not bad for a nina year eh?

problem being that we have not been seeing sustained cold across the basin? If we believe PIOMAS then the ice is even thinner than the past years where we saw ice export of the thicker ice? If we believe the 'Strat Warmers' the the polar vortex is just about to be blown out of the basin with little chance of it re-forming before the spring equinox is up on us? With FY ice increasing it's share of the basin (again) it is a concern to have read how much more energy this ice type allows into the waters below compared with the older ice. To me it means a threefold increase in what energy used to get into the basin even before the ice has gone. If this is the mechanism that allows the mega algal blooms to develop then we have an even darker surface to concentrate this energy on early in the season further speeding up the loss of the FY ice. Last year we 'apparently' saw 3m+ of Canadian Archipelago FY ice go by Aug. How much 3m FY ice do we have in the basin? To me it seems a safe bet that an average year will again take the vast majority of the F.Y, ice. Add into this the amount of 'multiyear ice' which is FY ice welded onto the base and we may be looking at very thin multiyear ice come Aug. Any recurrance of the cyclone will surely mangle this ice leaving only fragmented ice throughout the basin. Fragmented ice exposes more surface area (to it's mass) than solid ,contiguous ice and so melts out far faster. That is an 'average year'. what if we get an above average year???

Firstly 4 the AGW impacts, and associated augmentations, are not a constant and grow with time. Initially AGW forcings had little impact on 'natural climate cycles' but as time rolled on it's impacts grew. The 'accellerated warming we saw was the 'positive temp forcing' augmenting' the natural warm drivers. When we entered the 'negative natural temp forcings', back in 98/99 AGW offset their impacts making their 'negative forcings' mute. As those 'negative cycles' peak (with the last extended low solar adding into the winter of 09/10) warming still occured. In fact , once PDO-ve ends and we realistically find it's 'start and end dates' I think many folk will be surprised at just how much it has now 'milded' under the general warming of the planet. AGW is now itself augmented (not just by the negative impacts of 'dimming') by the rapid changes across the arctic. Because this is a brand new, rapidly evolving forcing, I do not think that the MetO can have weighted it's impacts to the extent that we will see them over this short period. For me I would observe that though we can see a 'shift' in circulation patterns since 02' (primarily short term over Barrentsz and Kara) it is only the past 2 or 3 years that has really started to show a major influence on northern hemisphere circulation. Though the high side of the revised temp forecast is still impressive I feel that the MetO have bowed to the pressures of the very vocal 'No warming' mantra we are bombarded with from certain areas of the climate debate. Sadly this will prove to be a lose/lose situation with any increase in temps above the latest forcast mean being heralded as a sign that they do not know what they are talking about and ,should the temps follow forecast, a climb down on their behalf rom an 'larmist' position. My personal take on things is that we have one factor that the meto cannot predict. this would be the reduction in particulate pollution from Asia. This will have immediate impacts as pollution dropping out of the atrmosphere is not replaced and a longer term impact as the 7 year lifetime of the pollutants plays out. couple this with the increased forcings across the Arctic/Sub Arctic and we have two very positive forcings to add into the growing AGW forcing. I feel that the PDO-ve (whose workings are not fully understood) is now in it's final phases (as opposed to entering the peak of it's influence) and we will see an increasing tendancy toward neutral temps from the end of 2013 onward (the 'milding' of the PDO has been noted since the 1980's but we have not had a chance to see how this impacts a full -ve cycle yet) and it's 'ending will co-incide with a 'Super Nino' (as was called ...in reality a Nino pushing global temps beyond the 98' spike). This 'Nino' may well already be in the pipeline for later this year though? So , let us see how warm 2013 turns out to be? Last years Nino year proverd to be a record warm 'nino year' (again) and , as of today, we are looking at a 'neutral' year. Should MetO's temp forecast for this year prove 'ballpark' then the windup to the Nino year should push temps further with the Nino year spiking higher than that (

http://environmentalresearchweb.org/cws/article/news/51955 This puts things into crisp focus. With the recent papers on much larger sea level rises we are already beginning to see why we should take such warnings seriously.

I applaud the sentiment BFTV but we saw 3m+ of FY ice melt out of the CA latitude last year? Couple that with how much of the 'older ice' is really 'older ice' and not FY ice welded onto a skim of 'older ice' and we might be better prepared for melt season? I know none of us wish to be labeled 'Doomsayer but surely it is better to show your fears/weaknesses than try and appear 'strong' knowing this will be challenged later down the line?' I fear for the coming melt season in that it may challenge last year record losses. Our last record took 5 years to break so what would an instant breaking of those records signal? The same goes for Greenland. Four calls it an 'outlier', yet it is in line of the logarithmic increase in melt? And what of global temps in this 'negatively skewed' period of natural drivers? What if we see a continuation of current logarithmic trends?

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/04/the-dr-david-viner-moment-weve-all-been-waiting-for-a-new-snow-record/ Yeah! Recovery!!!

I kind of think that the MetO are being a little heavy handed with their treatment of low solar and PDO-ve? My own view has an uptick in TSI globaly, due to Asia continueing to clean up emmisions and the 'drop out' of older pollution that is not being replaced. This 'uptick' in energy arriving is augmented by the 'new energy' entering the system from the impacts low snow/ice and the saving of the energy usually speny on melting such over summer (plus the net gain from the albedo flip in terms of warmed land/Ocean?). If none of these factors were brought into consideration I can see why folk would look to peak PDO-ve (which I also feel has 'peaked' and so will trend neutral and not strongly Neg) and the end of solar cycle 24 as a reason for surpressed temp rises, sadly I do see these factors as being as important in their weighting that MetO have given them? This is a personal view based purely on what I have seen, learned and project (no graphs included 4!) so make of it what you will but I worry that the changes the Arctic has brought into play will, pardon the pun, snowball.

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/makingwaves/global-heating-revisited/blog/43566/ I find this section to be of most interest; Change in Radiative forcings, 1800 to Present: 1. Heating: Solar irradiance: Compared to pre-industrial solar energy, the sun’s energy output has fluctuated between zero and + 0.3 Watt/m2 over the last two centuries, yielding a slight heating effect that could account for about 5% (or less) of the observed temperature increase. Human Greenhouse gases: The heat forcing from human carbon and other gases has risen from approximately zero in 1800 to + 3.1 Watt/m2 today, rising annually, and which accounts for about 95% (or more) of Earth’s temperature increase over the last two hundred years. 2. Cooling: Volcanoes have had an intermittent cooling effect, by releasing aerosols, particles of ash and sulfur-dioxide that scatter and absorb sunlight. The cooling impact – most recently from the El Chicon and Pinatubo eruptions in 1982 and 1991 – is localized, intermittent, and short lived. On average, volcanoes have had a slight cooling effect. Human aerosols rise from burning tropical forests, coal and oil, and now exceed the impact of volcanic aerosols. The effect has reached about -1.6 Watt/m2, a cooling, which has mitigated the impact of heating from human greenhouse gases. Determining the Net Forcing is a simple matter of adding and subtracting. The effects of volcanoes, solar fluctuations, and human land use changes, net out to virtually zero. Human greenhouse gases and human aerosols are the only energy forcings that have serious temperature impact, and the math is simple enough for grade-school children: + 3.1 Watt/m2 heating from human greenhouse gases – 1.6 Watt/m2 cooling from human aerosols + 1.5 Watt/m2 net heating. So how much heat is this? Consider a typical 1500-watt space heater that can be used to heat a room. Earth’s surface area is 510 trillion square-meters. Multiply this by 1.5, and we see the net heat forcing is about 765 trillion watts. This is the equivalent of placing 500 billion such electric space heaters across Earth’s surface, land and sea, 30 meters apart, running 24 hours per day, 365 days per year.

Yet another worrying development involving 'odd' behaviours of the n. Hemispheres 'average' ciculation patterns? As with our monsoon summers let us all hope it is a transient thing and that once the Arctic settles into it's new state the N.Hemiphere will also settle into new patterns which do not involve such extremes? As it is any mid continent forming a static H.P. over winter will cool. When it happens here our model watchers call it 'Faux cold' but there is nothing 'Faux' about the cold in Russia, China and India a.t.m.!!! Sadly the same applies in summer with static H.P.'s feeding into their own 'weather' but this time it is the heat that leads to a drying of the land lowering relative humidity and further enhancing the very hot temps. Watch for the new Russian drought and wildfires this upcoming summer and China?) hopefully the monsoonal weather over the indian continent will mean they will not suffer in the same way? The other worry with these new 'averages' in N.Hemisphere pressure patterns is the one in Southern Greenland. This bled into Canada/U.S. very early in the year last year leading to their sweltering spring setting the scene for the drought conditions and aiding in Sandy's impacts on N.Y./east coast. If this is an area of H,P, that will again dominate expect a return to drought for the U.S. and conditions that will start to surpass the dustbowl years. also watch out for another period of melt at Summit camp, Greenland, as waves of heat from the U.S. wash over the tops there.

Once again I'd implore folk to look at what kind of an energy 'change' we'd need to see a 'year 'round' ice free conditions in the Arctic? I'd hope to agree with BFTV and not see such poor ice that we lose it as soon as the sun is up in the Arctic! Should we see extreme weather across the basin of such a scale that we lose the separation between warm atlantic bottom waters and the frsher, colder waters above then we may well find ourselves again on a planet which has a warm polar region all year (remember the PETM had to have maintainwed temps above 50f over winter to support the critters and vgetation we see as far north as Ellesmere Island). If our introduction of GHG's promotes the re-animation of our hibernating Carbon cycle then we will find our planet ice free and with CO2 levels above those in the PETM. 400ppm =no ice on west Antarctica and Greenland only 2/3rds ice covered. 450ppm was when Antarctica first started to accumulate ice. We are at the 400ppm already and the 'hidden carbon' that was part of the carbon cycle back then is only starting to re-join the current carbon cycle. I make it 120ppm that was taken out by ice sheets , permafrost and peat bogs that dropped the CO2 levels to the point we were at before the industrial revolution. In the past 150yrs the 'fossil Carbon has started to impact global temps (and so climate) but still has a way to go before it 'balances' back out.....of course that is another 120ppm on top of the current 400ppm (plus our 2ppm/year if we carry on as we are this year) giving us 520ppm or well above that at which Antarctica Froze so we then have that melt out to face and it's carbon cycle to re-animate. As it is there appears to be no 'safe ' way of undoing the damage and , as noted, we still have a long way to go before we see the full impacts of what we have in the atmosphere today. With the Arctic on the verge of a seasonal pack we are at the point where the majority FY ice in the basin can absorb 3 times as much energy as it did when covered in multiyear ice (even when still ice covered). How can we move back to the old Arctic? Even poor years put more energy into the basin than perfect storm years with Multiyear ice cover!!! This 'new Energy' is the game changer.

Over time I think that has to be a given? For now a high melt out before Aug is the issue and I think the year we go 'seasonal' will show us just that? I do not think the 'seasonal' pack will just be a few days in Sept but will occur when ice is near gone by early Aug. Once all of the ice is FY ice then what chance do we have of recovery? Remember a lot of the 'older ice' today has had a couple of melt cycles and so is now only a 'crust' of older ice with FY ice welded on below. With a season like last years I have to wonder how close the remaining ice was to melt out when re-freeze began? The poor behaviour of the older ice in last years melt season showed us that we cannot go on thickness alone but must look to it's min thickness the season before to judge how it will perform over the new melt season. This property of FY ice to be it's own Achilles heel will prove to be very important now we have so much of it? Remember the discussions of the 'blue ice' last summer? FY ice produces far more melt ponds than older ice so the flooding of the pack (and dip in albedo) is going to be key in the early removal of ice. Again, think of it's behaviour over an 07' synoptic year?

I'm sorry 4 but the permafrost issue is taken very seriously due to it's impacts on structures, infra-structure and coastal erosion so the north slope has many deep measuring stations. Were the thaw to stop they would see it instantly and , more over, be very pleased to see it! Last springs extension of the Bering Sea ice must give us a clue into what is happening up there. In 2010 even Mr Serreze said the 'ice factory' phenomena was an unusual one unlikely to repeat but what have we seen since? A full Arctic recovery or an isolated area reacting to new synoptics? We know melted Sea Ice impacts up to 1,500km inland so what of 'new' sea ice? How do you think that impacts the land? If we see a good 'horseshoe' of cold in the Pacific this summer i'd guess the temps will be there will be impacted again? Seeing as we are well into PDO-ve (onset 1998) then we should not expect these augmented impacts to last long but should we expect to continue to see the odd synoptics? I think we must.

I think we have to accept that , come Spring, the amount of FY ice cripples any chance of the ice surviving. We now know that FY ice allows up to 3 times the suns energy through the ice allowing it to melt from above, below and even inside! We saw up to 3m of ice go in the CA last summer and all before Aug! So how do we get out of this feedback loop?

I'm sure it would J' but there is 'change' and there is 'Change'? We would have seen variations in the sea ice extents from region to region but would we have seen the Basin wide impacts we see today? We would have had drought and fire in the amazon but would there be as few trees there as we have today? We would still have had a Gyre in the Mid-pacific but would it have held an island of plastic over a mile across? Would the Ozone over Antarctica have developed a hole? I've been mulling over just how much energy used to either be used up melting ice or reflected back into space back then compared to now. Do you think that both the changes across the Arctic are within the remit of Natural Variation and that they do not present a cause for climate instability as they stand today? To me I see a period of Climate Inertia when constant forcing is applied. I do not know how long or how great that forcing is but I do know that past epochs of 'forcings' have lead to climate change over the long term. Though i concede Nature has provided the greater forcings over the period there has been a growing 'forcing' from man's efforts. This 'forcing' is now compounded by the positive feedbacks we see across the Arctic Basin (in terms of raw energy now available to the system and not GHG releases or Carbon sink failures). I've always maintained that once Mother Nature kicked in it would dwarf our piddling efforts and I believe that through the noughties we started to see Mother Nature 'kick in' with her contributions and the speed with which She is working is shocking. Changes to Northern Hemisphere circulation is in it's infancy, so much so that we still have debate, but I believe that very quickly debate will be silenced by the speed and scale of the change. If NASA see change happening 20 times faster than we have seen through 'natural Forcings' before how will this scale/speed of change impact on global Weather patterns? We do not care. Coal will match oil usage by 2017 so any show that the planet gave a chuff about GHG's , Pollution, Climate shift end there. Only changes so shocking that no one questions what has occurred will make us alter and remove 'cost' as an obstacle to bringing about such change. Whilst we still cling to the way of being that brought us here we cannot act.

http://www.theweek.co.uk/uk-news/weather/50809/extreme-rainfall-rise-climate-change-blame When you think about it how else can the world react when you have boosted it's potential to retain heat and reduced it's ability to reflect incoming solar over a decadal time scale? In the UK we have seen a 0.7 degree rise since the start of the Ind. Rev. Does anyone think that the next 0.7 degrees will take that long to accrue? When you think of the amount of energy needed to reduce the Arctic ice volume by 50% from 1950 to 1979 and then reduce what was left by 75% from 1979 to 2012 you can glimpse what i mean? The inertia that the planet once had is now running out and the amount of energy available to the climate system is not only increasing because it is no longer spent on melting ice to water but also because more is absorbed at the surface (where that ice/snow used to live). All of this 'free energy' is also ever more 'trapped' by the increase in global GHG's. As with the ice melt the graph for change is convex with a slow steady beginning and then a rapid spike. We watched the ice go now watch temp generated global weirdness take off at the same rate. What would an 07' ice melt extreme look like if it was converted into an uptick in extreme weather across the Globe? Well sit back and wait for it....I've a feeling it won't be long!

Pacific coastal Alaka is getting colder if you check the data points/settlements that are reporting this and only over winter, Oncw you enter the area impacted by the Arctic Ocean you see a continued trend of warming with record year following record year. This is in keeping with the 1,500km impact inland from lost sea ice and I imagine the core PDO-ve Pacific will do the same to the land inland from that coast? If this makes such news now then what will happen in a few years when we swing back PDO neutral and Positive. The anoying part of it is the reaction it is bound to bring from the usual quarters.

C'mon guys! What do you think it would take to see the planet take the action we seem to be told we need to take before reaching a point that we are told is irreversible? Will any Govt. sanction that level of spending without a disaster of a scale to panic all nations into action? As for ice sheet stability? Are we going to see an 07' like sea ice wake up call from a rapid decline in Greenland/West Antarctic ice sheets causing us to recognise the present dangers? We know all of Greenland's sea terminating glaciers are being impacted by warm Atlantic bottom water and that beyond a certain point the Fjord Floor dips away into the central basin under the ice sheet. How much longer before we see the basin taking on waters? We have papers showing the way the warm bottom waters are being drawn in by cold outflow so what then occurs if we step this action up a few levels? When you speak in such dismissive terms you must , in the least, have equal evidence to that which points to us heading into disasters due to inaction. Now may be a good time to show us this re-assuring news?