Arctic Ice Discussion (the Refreeze 2012-2013)

[Devonian]

I'd agree with that, but fantasising about runaway warming scenarios isn't realistic either.

Who here thinks there will be runaway warming? Warming running away to 5, 10, 50C? Not me, not anyone. You're strawmanning again...

[BornFromTheVoid]

Who here thinks there will be runaway warming? Warming running away to 5, 10, 50C? Not me, not anyone. You're strawmanning again...

I think it's to do with the methane hydrates/clathrates issue and the potential of, I suppose what could be called, runaway warming from that.

Maybe it's the definition of runaway warming that needs to be clarified?

[Devonian]

I think it's to do with the methane hydrates/clathrates issue and the potential of, I suppose what could be called, runaway warming from that.

Maybe it's the definition of runaway warming that needs to be clarified?

Runaway warming, beyond 10C? Or the clatherites release (but they do anyway - so how much?)? Or it gets like Venus? Or warming continues year after year for centuries?

I'd say greater than 6C is unlikely. But, I don't think to label people who think otherwise as scaremongers, fantasisers or whatever little insult is flavour of the day helps at all.

[BornFromTheVoid]

I agree that the constant insults and digs are unnecessary, but it just seems to be an accepted part of debating climate these days.

I don't think anyone believes unending runaway warming will ever happen, but more so that a self reinforcing feedback loop leading to a climb of several degrees may occur. That would be my perception of runaway warming at least.

[VillagePlank]

I think the potential from AGW, especially with ocean acidification and the like, is of a much more immediate concern

Why? And why 'potential' not 'predicted' ?

Edited November 18, 2012 by Boar Wrinklestorm

[laserguy]

Why? And why 'potential' not 'predicted' ?

The potentials are endless! We could potentially be in an ice age 20yrs from now, potentially I could be a millionaire/ living in a shop doorway/ dead....

[4wd]

Runaway warming could be defined as self re-enforcing positive feedbacks.

There are several here obsessed with promoting that idea.

Without positive feedback loops CO2 alone would struggle to increase global temperatures by even 1C which is hardly devastating.

[VillagePlank]

The potentials are endless! We could potentially be in an ice age 20yrs from now, potentially I could be a millionaire/ living in a shop doorway/ dead....

I sort of guessed that; but that's why I asked the question - I am as confused as the next guy.

[reef]

Can we keep this to discussing Arctic ice?

[ghrud]

Oops wrong room... I thought this was the Arctic Ice Discussion, sorry!

[VillagePlank]

Oops wrong room... I thought this was the Arctic Ice Discussion, sorry!

There isn't any! :lol:

[BornFromTheVoid]

Why? And why 'potential' not 'predicted' ?

"Predicted" is hardly a grammatically correct substitute now is it Nice to see the sceptics turn to semantics for a scientific argument once again though.

Anyway, why it's of more immediate concern than global cooling, is due to there being no forecast genuine physical and plausible mechanism to cause global cooling in the near future.

As complex and difficult as some here seem to find the idea of warming and feedback mechanisms, there are numerous of them at play which are predicted to cause anything from minor to major warming (few tenths to a degree or more in Celsius) over the next few decades.

The ongoing problems and future of ocean acidification probably deserves a thread of its own though.

[Gray-Wolf]

As far as I can see we've aready caused cooliong greater than 1c by our particulate pollution? Luckily we warmed the planet more with our GHG production. As it is we have already offset the drop off into an ice age already and we have plenty more capacity to warm already commited to the atmosphere.

I heard a new term today, 'Technical Debt'. This is when you incurr losses later down the line by wrong decisions today. Like not taking AGW serious for instance? The costs down the line will be immense (how much to re- Site New York?, London? etc.

We should have a new phrase here, 'Technical Warming' , that is the warming we are commited to by the level of GHG's in the air and the amount of GHG's this will release once it's allowed the planet to warm that much.

As it is our 'technical warming' is the thing that keeps increasing as we discover the feedback mechanism that add into the problem?

Runaway warming? Does nature no longer demand 'balance' then? The only type of 'runaway I have heard mentioned is the overshoot of predictions due to 'unknown , unknowns' suddenly becoming 'knowable'?

[VillagePlank]

Nice to see the sceptics turn to semantics for a scientific argument once again though.

Everything is semantics.

That's what the written word is. Unless you have some other magical mystical form of communication, I'm afraid we're stuck with it. Do you prefer to use some form of hitherto unknown form of communication such as telepathy? Something that is yet to reach the rank confused idiotic intellectually deficient minority who dare ask people 'why' they believe in something in the certain knowledge that spin, and propoganda, and a complete script of well rehearsed retorts are already practised and ready to roll, and ready to defeat anyone who dares to even dissent to such a level that expresses curiosity?

Just wondering, nothing more.

Edited November 18, 2012 by Boar Wrinklestorm

[Harve]

What seems to give this prediction more credence is that it seems to be based on physical science rather than statistics; core paper, here. I hope to God they are wrong. Cold kills more people than warm according to here.

That last article is just in the UK and our (poor) adaptation to the cold. There is the 'bigger picture' to consider rather than the direct danger of cold / extreme weather: food production and water supply seem the most obvious issues to me. Whether a warming earth diminishes this more than a cooling earth I don't know.

By the way, why is that report using data from just two stations in a small corner of Europe? That doesn't eliminate the potential synoptic changes rather than actual energy being taken out of the atmosphere, and yet the article is titled 'global'. The more and more of that, the more ridiculous it seems (I didn't hold much hope given the title in the first place).

Edited November 18, 2012 by Harve

[jonboy]

What seems to give this prediction more credence is that it seems to be based on physical science rather than statistics; core paper, here. I hope to God they are wrong. Cold kills more people than warm according to here.

Hi Boar

I have to agree cold is a far greater danger than warming. The solar cycles and there effect on our climate are far to easily dimissed as a primary factor and I do believe that they have been the primary cause of our so called warming rather than down to CO2 and will be the primary cause of cooling over the next 20 odd years.

It is far easier to react to warming but prolonged cold or very cold weather we do not react well to.

[knocker]

And yet the WHO has estimated the 2003 European heatwave caused more than 15,000 excess deaths in France, Italy, and Portugal alone. Heat is also the biggest natural killer in the US. I don't agree with your other comment.

.

[pottyprof]

The ongoing problems and future of ocean acidification probably deserves a thread of its own though.

I agree. The last ocean discussion thread is now archived but I've started a new one.

I heard a new term today, 'Technical Debt'. This is when you incurr losses later down the line by wrong decisions today. Like not taking AGW serious for instance? The costs down the line will be immense (how much to re- Site New York?, London? etc.

We should have a new phrase here, 'Technical Warming' , that is the warming we are commited to by the level of GHG's in the air and the amount of GHG's this will release once it's allowed the planet to warm that much.

I think this subject has more sound-bites than enough. Well.... I don't suppose one more waffle-word will do any harm....

[BornFromTheVoid]

Everything is semantics.

That's what the written word is. Unless you have some other magical mystical form of communication, I'm afraid we're stuck with it. Do you prefer to use some form of hitherto unknown form of communication such as telepathy? Something that is yet to reach the rank confused idiotic intellectually deficient minority who dare ask people 'why' they believe in something in the certain knowledge that spin, and propoganda, and a complete script of well rehearsed retorts are already practised and ready to roll, and ready to defeat anyone who dares to even dissent to such a level that expresses curiosity?

Just wondering, nothing more.

Not quite. Asking questions that have the most obvious answers begets suspicion regarding the sincerity of the questioner, especially when that questioner has demonstrated enough knowledge previously to already have the answers for which he needlessly asks.

Then when given an answer, to once more focus on the line least relevant to the debate does an injustice to the topic, the member and appears as little more than an appeal for popular approval amongst those of his ilk, rather than to gain the insight for which the original question was supposedly asked.

Anywho, IJIS has updated, and we're now just 242k off 2006, which only gains 60k over the next week.

[Gray-Wolf]

Seeing as the Basin is now nearly full I'd be expecting to catch up the other years soon!!! As ever, in the naughty corner we still have Barrentsz,Kara and Baffin. I think by the November Piomas release the basin will be full so any drop in volume will show us how much thinner the ice is this year? If we accept that new formed ice will be roughly the same each year then we can assume (maybe?) that any loss in thickness will be in the older ice reflecting losses over summer?

Though we will never know I wondr how close we came to losing a lot more ice this year with only a few 10's of cm standing between meltout of large sections of the pack?

If 'average' synoptic years can bring us 2012 losses then how will the older ice (if even thinner by next melt season) fare in a similar year? I mean if it lost mass over this summer it will surely do the same next summer and that may be those few 10's of cm that made it through this year that finally go?

They say when the ice finally goes it will be quick and I understand this to mean that the last of the ice will all be of a similar thickness and so start to all disappear over a matter of a few days.

[songster]

If we accept that new formed ice will be roughly the same each year then we can assume (maybe?) that any loss in thickness will be in the older ice reflecting losses over summer?

Not a safe assumption. There's a big difference between 2-week old ice and 3-month old ice, so the fact that this year's ice froze over later will mean it's substantially thinner than previous years. By the time of the maximum in Feb-March it'll be a different story, and first-year ice within the main Basin should be comparable to any other year's first-year ice.

[VillagePlank]

amongst those of his ilk,

Says it all; I guess another multi-year hiatus for me, then ....

[Methuselah]

Everything is semantics.

What about mathematical equations & inequalities, Boar?

[BornFromTheVoid]

Says it all; I guess another multi-year hiatus for me, then ....

I hope you don't leave on my account. Were we not just spouting off-topic nonsense anyway?

Global sea ice area back within 1 million km2 of average

http://arctic.atmos....a.withtrend.jpg

[quest4peace]

The latest ijis value : 9,257,656 km² (November 19, 2012) lost track of any increases /decreases because i haven't looked for while

Do i see a slight up turning of the line? would be nice to join the main pack again at least,after being lowest on record most of the freeze season so far.

http://www.ijis.iarc...aice_extent.htm

And the Extent/concentration map as of yesterday Baffin showing thrusts of ice if you use the daily menu and our side is starting to extend as well at last all be it painfully slowly.

Arctic Sea-Ice Monitor

RTG_SST_HR Analysis

As far as sst anoms go, most of the arctic seems to be 0 to +1 so not massively over, and hudson looking below average Those sst's really are quite stubborn around kara and Barent's though although maybe a hint of them relenting a little? Svalbard still has a notable pool of way above average around it stopping any ice getting there for now.

Edited November 20, 2012 by quest4peace