Devonian

We only have record from the late 1970s you say, and then immediately you indicate we do have records from before that. You talk about the AMO because, as you are someone who has boxed himself into a corner marked 'it can't be you know what', you have to find another explanation for the obvious. Trouble is the AMO is like the movement of the water in a kettle - it can't be the reason for why the globe is relentlessly warming and it's not the root cause of the changes in the Arctic (some of which are already profound). Finally, you talk about how temperatures 'will' need to warm by 3-5C to see an ice free Arctic not 'would' need to. I think you give it away, you know what is happening but you just can't bring yourself to accept it.

Yes, and yes this is about the Arctic, I think it fair enough to be able to discuss why things happen there (though, this season is not there yet).

Well, anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions mainly, plus various other human driven things like land use changes, deforestation - all of which (it seems to me) are having an ever more marked effect on the the climate system. I don't like the look of this year for the Arctic, though I think antho climate change effect will balance out to be on trend (or a little above) over the years. Any child now who wants to study Arctic sea needs to get a move on though. We have, directly or indirectly, control of this planet but my god we're making an truly awful mess of it

Interesting post. But, its what you don't talk about that is the real concern and, I'd submit, the underlying cause of the changes?

Incredible relative warmth in the western Arctic

I liked you're post but really it's . Ignorance of what we're doing to this planet (often driven to doing) really is, and would be, bliss.

Yes, change is difficult but let me rewrite your post to make a point. Lets take ourselves back to an imaginary protest in London in the late1940s/early 1950s: How many of the protesting kids ( taking time out from class ) have made a practical pledge to change their own lifestyle.. to stop burning coal on their fires? The only way such major change is going to happen is by mass individual action on a practical level. I don't observe a mass London movement of people stopping burning coal on their fires. Like it or not, we live in a capitalist society based on supply and demand - freedom of the people to decide what they burn on their fires....and our democratic system is based on satisfying people's lifestyle and giving them what they want. I am a little bit pessimistic about the future because the rapid change which is required to get rid of dangerous London smogs is just not politically feasible. The majority will not tolerate their freedoms as consumers to burn coal being curtailed, paying more for clean fuel, or even sacrificing their job because it is in an lung health damaging industry. Sorry for the negative post but I think we are not seeing the big changes that are required based on these hard truths. Change doesn't come about by people doing nothing. In the end (in the teeth of Govt opposition) the Uk brought in a clean air act. This is worth reading "It quickly became clear that pollution had become a real and deadly problem, and the smog's terrible effects may have helped inspire the modern environmental movement. Despite this, however, and data from the Ministry of Health indicative of substantially elevated death rates in London, the Government initially resisted pressure to act, and was keen to downplay the scale of the problem due to economic pressures.".

Two references to the risible 'Energy and Environment'. Enough said.

I'd just like to see an updated version of Dr Maue's ACE graph to include this year.

Oh, Ok thanks. 14 million km2 then.

is that 13.89 figure what it was 'now' when you wrote the post, or the maximum earlier this year?

Can you (or anyone) supply a more up to date version of Dr Maue's charts please? To include this year.

No, as BFTV carefully explains, the range can be constrained by the use of various proxys - and tightly constrained.

On that basis we can't say there were ices ages... But, we CAN say there were ice ages on the basis of the proxy evidence - in this case the landforms, the bolder clays, loess, pollens and the rest. So, if we can say there were ice ages on the basis of proxy evidence (not thermometers, no many about then) why do you say we can't we do the same with temperature?

Checking NSIDC it's mostly because of more ice than usual on the Canada/Hudson bay side than both 'ends' of the Russian Arctic which are still in a big deficit? Interesting to watch tho and to wonder how long it will go on.

No, I've never said that and it grossly misrepresents what I think Nearly all of the energy powering the atmosphere, weather and climate comes from the Sun. Without the Sun the Earth would be a rock at a temperature near absolute zero. The Sun warms up the Earth by several hundred degrees, the greenhouse effect several tens of degrees and the anthro effect perhaps a few degrees. What I do also think is that only the anthro effect is materially changing atm.

There's a definite 'heads I win, tails you lose' feel to your post. Anyway, it seems if we get a cold winter it'll be because of the solar minimum and if we don't...it'll be because of the solar minimum.

It's been very mild here in the UK for weeks - and the year so far (to October) in the CET area is +1C above normal. Is it the case that only when the weather goes cold at solar minimum that it's caused by the solar minimum?

The title of the link in the post I replied to was "Climate change protests leads to '22 arrests' over blockade" - it most certainly was about climate change! If you look at my posting style I generally reply to posts giving my pov. You post your views, I post mine. if you don't like my views then I'm sorry but we are both equally entitled to post our views.

Is it me, or can I see straw falling out of your post?

What, and then get the same cynics attack them for traveling there and producing CO2 in the process? I've been convinced by the evidence for anthro climate change decades, and I see no evidence I'm wrong. I think we'll be very lucky if we don't see just 2C total warming, and (given the kind of reaction I see to anything that will really sort the problem) I think we might well burn every scrap of fossil fuel and send atmospheric CO2 up towards 1000ppm - in which case even fresh air will be bad for us (as if it often isn't already...) The people involved in the protest are more convinced than I am, and they think it's important to take action. Good for them I say - criticism is easy, having the cojones to risk prison for what you believe in by taking non violent action is not.

I've looked at the video - if it were by the IPCC and they hid part of the presentation (as GWPF do from minute 44) Tablet would be going on about a world conspiracy to hide data from us

You make the claim. Ok, lets see the 96 wrong models and the 4 right ones please.

You accept the oceans are becoming more acidic then? Or are you simply cherry picking the bits of a paper you like?

Yes. Generally the rain gauges aren't as good as the temperature sensors which are very good. But my point was more about the people who blather on about 'raw' data and how any adjustments of that are a 'manipulation' and dishonest - up to and including Tablets world wide conspiracy by climatologists to corruptly change the data... No, sorry, it's not dishonest to adjust data if you find a new version is more accurate and that better correction can be applied to past data (just like I discovered my past data is wrong and can be given a (not unreasonable I think?) correction to make it more accurate).