Gray-Wolf

Well why don't you enlighten us to the advantages of an overheating planet S.C.? I'd be a much happier bunny if I could see some positives for the majority of inhabitants of our planet? As I see it the science is showing us that change is happening so fast most creatures impacted do not stand a chance of keeping up with it and appear destined for extinction? Our major food producing areas are starting to be impacted by extreme weather events reducing yield and driving up prices (whilst leaving very little for food aid for the starving?) The shifting weather patterns are bringing more damage with it costing the planet record amounts each year. Events like 'Sandy' cannot be a sustainable way of being? Latest research shows us the extra CO2 is actually reducing crop yields. Both Greenland and Antarctica are melting ever faster raising the spectre of rapid sea level hikes as we move into the 'collapse phase of the major outlet glaciers from the ice sheets. Global dimming is now known to have helped slow temperature rises meaning the potential of current GHG loading of the atmosphere has not been achieved. With the continued clean up of Asian polluters this negative temp forcing is set to fall out. Though still not included in the IPCC AR5 report permafrost is now adding into the atmospheric GHG's at an accelerating rate meaning even if we stop adding GHG's tomorrow Nature will add her contribution over the coming decades. I could go on , as you well know, but it will give you something to weigh your positives against L.G.?

Seeing as we've just broken our own record for yearly outputs for CO2 i guess nobody does give a hoot about it all nor believe that we will see changes to our world from it....

As the evidence of AGW becomes clearer and more unequivical you seem to see the denialist blogs increasingly only serving themselves? Mr Watts even bans contributors who post the science showing why his wild claims are wrong and then the 'inner core' of posters spend pages deriding the now muted poster for being so easily fooled! It appears quite surreal? The thing that gives the 'game' away is the wish, from every AGW adherent I have had contact with?, to be wrong in their understanding of just what is occurring and what is set to occur whilst the denialist believe that their view is unquestionably right and there is a deep ,dark conspiracy attempting to overthrow their understanding by the use of lies ,forged data and an over riding need for more grant money? Who would you put most credence in? a person with a mass of science who wishes it was all wrong or a person with a few crafted papers who believes that the majority are fools?

According to some records are only there to be broken and do not signify anything? Be it temp records in USA this year or every single Arctic ice record or global ice min record etc etc. We knew it would be bad but this bad? When you look at the NAO you have to wonder at how it mirrors ice loss through the noughties? Any such peak through the 30's and 40's would set me wondering for sure! Enough folk opined that the 07% loss was just a 'cyclic' event. They even made up a period for the cycle including one other instance of melt at summit. Next year will be interesting as both the NAO and the H.P, seem to be a thing in growth and so we may well expect even worse next year? Though gallows humour it is becomeing amusing to watch the folk, in denial, scrabble from one disaster to the next popping up an excuse as to why it is a 'normal' ,natural, AGW unaffected event. I sense the fun is only beginning though? Anyone know why Mr Watts stayed moot on the record global ice min by the way? He seemed keen on ice records a few weeks back??

But we see an increase in ultra violet in the trop over the past 30 years? This increase is unrelated to solar output but is tied to AGW forced cooling of the strat and CFC impacts? Though we might have got a handle on CFC's the destruction of ozone via low temps is set to increase as global AGW forcings increase? Is this not part of the worry? The minor changes that the sun throws at us are now being replaced by the major impacts our atmospheric experiment brings. We stand to see TSI increase by a number of percent even with solat output of TSI falling off due to the shielding we have placed over our heads being removed. The same for ozone destruction due to lower temps in the lower strat driven by our AGW forcings. It appears akin to standing under a brolly and saying you will not get wet once you put it down when all of the science and data collected tells you it is Ho hum$ing down? In the same way that the collapse of the Arctic was rapid the reumption of warming , via increased TSI reaching the surface, will be just like a tap being turned on. Even with such a shield have we seen temps fall away to 1800's values or are they still coming in at top ten temps? What will occur once we start getting even 1% more TSI at the surface?

What would anyone stand to gain from making up worries about the climate? Why would anyone concern themselves with fossil fuels if they did not cause issues? Why would any group of people stand up to the very industry that allows us the lifestyle we enjoy today if there was not sound reason for their concerns? I just do not get why folk would start flogging such a dead horse in the first place? The only reason I could ever find was that we had unwittingly caused issue by it's use. We figured, in the west, that the ground level pollution was leading to smogs which killed folk. We figured later that some of the gasses produced poisoned the rainfall and caused issues. I do not think anyone really thinks that we could forget such studies and go back to those 'old ways'. Sadly Asia have just stumbled into those old ways and are finding why they should invest monies on cleaning up production (odd that they did not take heed of our experience?). We also know that burning fossil fuels is placing CO2 , locked away from the carbon cycle for millions of years, into the atmosphere (though from the continued increasing emissions you would not think we did??). The question we need to answer is does CO2 in greater amounts in the atmosphere have any impacts? NASA tells us that the climate is currently changing 20 times faster than we have seen under natures forcings alone. What is so different that such an imbalance could exist in nature? Could it be something outside our planet like the sun? We are told that the sun's variability is slight in terms of the amount of energy we receive here at the surface (from historical data and proxy data) and recent alterations in output (both up and down over the past 150yrs) have not caused such changes when we have seen them before in our records. Neither have we seen such rapid changes without the help of impactors or eruptions to reduce the amount of sun reaching the surface. So what has changed? Data plotting changes and extremes would seem to render 'denial' of such changes as pointless so we must find a mechanism that would explain what we have seen. So what else , apart from the rapid build up of GHG's in the atmosphere could drive such global changes?

As far as I understand the science the scale of forcings , when compared to our human forcings, from a quiet sun are negligable? If we are looking at a current reduction of solar energy from particulate pollution (and the brightening of cloud tops due to it's impacts on raindrop size) of between 5 and 8% then the reductions in solar we have measured and have proxy mesures for are miniscule by comparison? That is before we look at the alterations in albedo over the areas science is noting as 'crux' in the polar Jets recent odd behaviours? I still do not see reason to look beyond the most obvious cause for the jets behaviour esp. when the time span of re-evaluation of atmospheric data runs through a couple of solar cycles? Don't get me wrong I have no issue with low solar impacting European blocking, I think the combination of that and ice loss brought us the winter we will all remember in 2010 but I think the changes will have moved on (intensified) prior to the next solar min however extended it might be and that Asian pollution levels will also be dropping offsetting any reduction in the suns energy by our ability to accept that energy? However perverse we may see a steady uptick in incoming solar energy over the next min if the Asian pollution is an issue that is rapidly addressed?

I'd agree Pete! There seems to be a number of things that need to be 'just so' to allow the initial phase but once ongoing albedo loss sequestration of sections of the carbon cycle (lessening available GHG's) speed things along?

I'm sure, as with last years presentations (for those who watched via UTube) the data will be transparent and every effort will be made to make the info accessable to anyone with a bit of nous?

I remeber our 'toxic' lakes too 4. It appears to be part of 'industrialisation'? The bigger worry is when Asia get a handle on the issue and begin to clean up in earnest? Once we 'feel' the full scale of our GHG load, by allowing the sun back in, you will have no issues with how 'hot' it is across the globe!

Seems like we have already taken the decision to carry out a rapid phase of population contraction though 4? The millions already dead via AGW (according to NASA estimates?) do not seem to count here and it will take multi-million casualties/ year for some folk to sit up and take notice? "There are papers that should come with a warning: 'do not read this if you are depressed', or 'please have a stiff drink handy as you read this'. [This] paper is one such example," Professor Pitman said. Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/environment/climate-change/its-the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it-20121202-2ap4l.html#ixzz2DvjHuYga With NASA noting that AGW change is happening 20 times faster than any period of purely 'natural' climate change one has to wonder how some folk can mistake it for such? It is not as though a factor of 20 is easily missed now is it? As it is my fears that the Worse case scenario (from AR4) would be something we would easily manage appear confirmed? The other shocker for me is that the next IPCC report will still not include permafrost melt and the extra GHG's this will add into the mix through the century (11ft melt of permafrost is the conservative estimate over that period with an extra 1.5c min added into the temps in the report above!!!). Have no doubt about it we will lose a great number of what should be healthy humans over the next 50yrs due to the speed of change and the impacts it will have upon our abilities to feed and water the billions on the planet (leaving out the conflicts that forced migrations will surely cause?). We have left the time of uncertainty a while back and now the certainties appear to grow grimer with every year of fresh data as the changes finally bite home. In ten years time I believe that folk will hanker after the likes of 2012 as it will appear a far more settled and stable world to live in.

Maybe we should ask 4WD? He's a farmer and pro Fracking? We might be overlooking something simple in a very complex and messy procedure? I'm sure that the petro giants would have done extensive tersting on the impacts of the technology esp. with their recent press on global pollution via spills etc?

http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/navo/arcticict_nowcast_anim30d.gif Further images of the 'lead' that the southerlies up Fram caused to the ice north of Greenland. We all believed that the ice on the north shore of Greenland and the Canadian Archipelago would be the safest ice in the basin and form remnant ice even after the pack became seasonal. I do not think we can think that any more? The summer melt along the North shore saw a lot of the shore-fast ice melt (and calving of many of the glaciers there?) and a big reduction in the thickness of the ice there. This event shows us that the ice there is no longer welded to the shore and will be prone to export. As it is the thick ice is sat above the trans Arctic Drift and any resumption in Northerlies (as hinted at in the GFS?) must put this ice into Fram proper? I'm not liking the look of this.

From what I'm hearing the Fall AGU will have further updates to the ice loss/Jet migration studies which will confirm that the impacts we have been seeing of a slower, more sinuous polar Jet, as a result of ice loss. Looks like we will be seeing a lot of worrying confirmations, as the first sweep of this years data is discussed, over the next couple of weeks?

We see evidence of the opposite happening though with very cold northern areas but mid lats overheating as the waters terminate there due to ice disrupring the northern leg of it's journey? I think that Arctic cooling pushes south not disruption to the south allowing southerly ice growth? Some folk might seek to downplay the importance of the current albedo flip but both sides of changes to albedo might be the thing that rapidly alters climate? Once we get 'white' surviving summer then we get impacts instantly, the same applies when we lose that reflectivity over summer. Current alterations to those critical weeks over summer stand to drive major alterations across the north and reinforce the trend to albedo losses. In the past this has allowed dormant carbon to leach back into the system and hold onto ever more heat. This time we have already added the GHG's so we instantly are able to hold onto more of the heat.

I would hope that it will take a very long time to melt the planets ice and allow the carbon trapped there to be re-introduced into the system but I do hold a fear that this is the scale of the djin we have let out of the bottle? If we give credence to the report on peat bogs and their importance in the current glacial epoch we seem to have targeted a planetary sink that was key in allowing the glacial contractions in the carbon cycle. Without such mechanisms we would just be on a one way street to bring back to life a carbon cycle not seen since the PETM. The discovery of further permafrosts below a capping layer of glacial ice off Siberia means that we will not only destabilise the deposits from the past couple of ice ages but also one of the greater glacial epochs that locked the buried permafrosts away from the carbon cycle? The loss of Antarctica brings out carbon buried for 40 million years or so!! I'm stuck looking at 125,000yrs ago because the last I heard our CO2 levels were as high as today at that time and that only means liberating the permafrosts (the easiest , most readily available part of the dormant section of the carbon cycle) but also the carbon not seen since 125,000yrs ago (living below 1/3rd of Greenland then open to the air and the majority of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet). The carbon cycle has been larger than the last Ice Free Earth (like before 65 million years ago in the Cretaceous?) so we will not become a 'Venus' but we would become globally near tropical! I am sure I am well out of kilter with my imaginings but merely want to highlight how we must inherit part of the dormant carbon cycle as temps 'normalise' to the elevated temps such GHG levels promote. Once Asia deals with it's surface pollution issues (like we did with our smog issues) and tackles their Acid rain issues (as we did) then global temps will be free to enjoy the kind of accelerated warming that we saw once our measures to reduce polluting in the west bit through the 80's. This time we will not have that warming interrupted by another portion of the planet taking up such polluting ways so we will rapidly move toward the potential temp that our GHG burden allows for. I believe it is only at the end of this rapid warming (20 to 25yrs?) that we will see the worst impacts of the planet throwing off it's ice and melting permafrosts. These threads were meant to discuss the impacts of AGW and sadly turned into a debate about whether AGW was real. Over that time we have shifted into a period where changes are now so great ,and extreme events so frequent, that most have left their doubts behind and now only question the extent of the changes. Whilst this 5 year debate rages we will slip into the period of rapid change and those doubts will also fall. What will the later year of this decade see us debating? The amount of the carbon cycle that we will re-awaken by our releases of Fossil carbon cycle carbon? I was (and still am?) labeled a 'doom monger' due to my fears that the Arctic sea ice would fail before 2020 (folk studying the ice were still wondering whether 2070 or 2100 would be the time it would go) I now see that the speed of warming has had to major drags on it over the past 15yrs and that both those slowing impacts will likely drop out at the same time. As the 'natural cold cycles' and human induced Dimming fall out the increased albedo and dark water warming will add into the next spurt of heating. MetO told us, in 2001 or 02', that warming may slow but rapid warming would resume by 2015. I feel that this will be the case. I do not know whether it was a model that gave them the results or human thinking but the extra evidence we have gained in the years intervening make this prediction now very believable!

To my simple mind you just look at when CO2 levels were this high to get the temp we will reach. This would appear to be at 125,000yrs ago. The thing being that at those temps the planet held less ice and it's natural carbon cycle was larger, in fact large enough to support the levels of CO2 that we have released to bring levels up to todays. As I then see it we can expect to inherit a natural contribution of CO2 just as large as we have placed into the atmosphere over the past 150yrs? Of course even a 39% increase would lead to us drawing comparisons of the planet when it had an even higher CO2 burden/temp and so an even bigger carbon cycle and even more CO2 being released. This does not seem a good cycle to be on as the only end point would be when all the stored carbon was released and the planet was ice free. Not only would we have a carbon cycle as big as the PETM but also have our 150yrs worth of emissions on top of that??? Obviously massively over simplified so if you trim off 60% of such increases then keeping under 2c is just impossible. It seems the folk who dismissed AR4 will now be clambering to use it as some kind of definative text even though the ommisions in areas of it make it a very poor guide indeed! The next report will at least try and factor in sea level rises from Antarctica/Greenland (even though these are only now 'getting going' in earnest) and the impacts of ther natural GHG outputs as ice and permafrost melts.

It just looks odd on the Wokingham site seeing so much disruption in areas we used to see the odd lead open for a few days? I have to wonder at the structural strength of such expanses of thin ice when we know ice breakers have complained of swells running under such ice thicknesses (and the circular mixing that this promotes below the ice?). All in all a whole new ball game.

As the deputy head of the IPCC said at the start of Doha, soon enough it will make more sense to try and single out events which do not have an AGW component. To me the climate is a near sealed system and if we have altered that system then it will impact everything , to a lesser or greater degree, inside that system. Only when temps climb well beyond natural variability will we be in a position to say that events are due to climate change alone and only then when the display characteristics outside the old extremes of our past , unaltered ,climate. It is troubling, at times, to see folk rely on weather events that were part of warmer climates as 'proofs' that all this has happened before?

I've been noting, from the model runs, how the -40's keep being flushed out of the West/N West of Greenland this year? I'd always thought that super cold dense air would take a lot of shifting but it seems to be easily dislodged? Even the 'Beasterly' this morning that looked sourced from Siberia (or at least deep in Russia) came in as a mild wind? Instead of seeing Savage Polar outbreaks I'm seeing more W.A.A. returning type events??? I wonder if this is a glimpse of whats to come with deep cold finding it difficult to stay put and deepen across the Arctic and then frequent warm air incursions 'milding out' some of the other 'cold directions' that used to hit us with this type of frequent blocking? Though I've not looked I bet it's messing up the model discussion thread!

This does seem to clear up the hopes that a few on hear pinned on a 2010 paper claiming that Greenland's melt appeared 'cyclical' and that it had peaked with the 2010 mega melt year. I remember urging caution as the paper was released in the high output 2011 melt (but seemingly to no avail?) and then with the events of this years melt (smashing 2010's mega melt by a similar amount to the sea ice did from 07's mega melt) it was obvious that the paper had a major glitch. I often wonder whether the odd notion that temps haven't warmed since the late 90's has a certain bunch of scientists looking for ways to show a response to the supposed flat-line?

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/11/28/1210514109.full.pdf+html Further confirmation of the human fingerprint on atmospheric changes. How much more confirmation will some folk require?

http://ens-newswire.com/2012/11/30/2012-breaks-records-for-heat-drought-weather-extremes/ Another 'doom mongering report on the record year that 2012 was and 4 will be pleased to learn that that other 'doom mongering' body, The World Met. Organisation, will be releasing a report, on Dec 4th, focusing on the record extremes we have seen over the 'flat-lined' noughties. I'm sure it will disturb our lurkers that most of the recent 'news' and 'scientific papers' put up here have been from those rotter's that accept AGW is happening and so preach nothing other than those scary 'everything is worse than we thought' stories/data sets whilst those pleasant, calming sceptics have refused to enter the fray and balance out the thread with 'good news' stories of how we can see AGW as being a flawed understanding supported by an equal weight of 'Scientific papers' outlining why and showing us the data. Why would they just opt for snipey one liners instead of spreading the good news and crushing the falsehoods AGW believers seem content to spread?

Thanks Knocker! Just had a wider look around at the 'reports' and it strikes me that some folk might miss the acceleration side of this? The initial wording looks at the 20yr span of data and breaks that down into yearly amounts but then they do a 2005 to 2011 span and the rate has increased four fold? There also seems to be an odd disparity in the amounts for ice loss ? it mentions 20gt per year for W.A.I.S. and goes on to say that the E.A.I.S has gained 14gt but no mention of the time period for that gain. i'd imagine certain folk trying to insist that this was a 'yearly' gain but, from what I know, this is from over the last 20yrs (and they do say the gain, due to higher snowfall from an atmosphere holding more moisture, is dwarfed by the losses from W.A.I.S. so maybe it is kinda made clear?) You link this report/paper with the IPCC's release on a 60% increase in sea level rises and it makes for a sobering picture esp. when you bear in mind that the reports are to early to include this years figures from Greenland? EDIT: I'm also becoming a tad dismayed by folk permanantly asking for "The Science" and then having them deny it or call me a 'doomsayer' for bringing the papers to their attention (or telling me I'm scaring the Lurkers???). Suely it is plain I am concerned by the news, week in , week out but they choose to ignore it or give it no credence. Some claim to be 'on the fence' but how can you deny the science they do not like and yet still claim such???

It appears that this full moon tide might have been enough to finish the crack on P.I.G.? The latest MODIS images show the crack now completely across the Glacier and even the hint of rotation similar to what we saw with the Peterman calve this summer (as though it has gone and is just stuck on the bottom....if so it will rotate further and slip off the obstruction floating out into the ocean)