-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
A recent article in the Daily Mail, and picked up by other media, claims an increase in Arctic ice foretells a cooling trend. The article boasts of a 60% increase in sea ice over the minimum that occurred in 2012. While the actual numbers from IARC-JAXA Information System (IJIS) show, as of yesterday, only a 50% increase, this is still a significant expansion.
Professor Judith Curry, climatologist and chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, referred to the title as melodramatic and said of the content of the article: “the ‘cooling’ aspect has been overplayed.” Last year, University of Reading climate scientist Ed Hawkins predicted that “there would be MORE Arctic sea-ice in 2013, compared to 2012.”
An important tool used in analyzing random data is the statistical phenomenon known as reversion to the mean, or regression to the mean. The extent of sea ice at the end of the annual melt, mid to late September, set a extreme minimum in 2012. Using reversion to the mean, it is more likely that the the extent in 2013 will be larger. Exactly what happened. The following graph indicates the variability of sea ice extent and the clear downward trend.
Cherry picking short-term results while ignoring long-term trends is a hallmark of misleading climate reporting. Long-term data needs to be analyzed to average out cyclical dependencies. There is a strong natural variability in sea ice extent and separating the natural from the greenhouse gases requires decades long timescales.
Climate science is an undertaking fraught with complex interactions and unknown cycles with unknown effects. It will take time and money to improve our understanding. However, improvement is mandatory if we are to be responsible conservators of our world.
Climate scientists estimate the amount of sea ice loss due to greenhouse gasses is between 50-70%.
H/T: Dana Nuccitelli, Steven Novella, Climate Dialogue, Alexis Sobel Fitts, Phil Plait.
Darren,
I remember that commercial well. I think it may have been high school for me! 🙂
Claiming that weather = climate is analogous to claiming that one point of a thousand-point parabola = a parabola.
No, it doesn’t. That point means very little by itself. It’s the pattern of points that makes a parabola. The parabola is a long trend, composed of many points, each of which may not fit perfectly into the parabolic trend. But the total collection of points is best fit by a parabola.
And that’s why it’s invalid to say that “Last year’s weather was colder than normal, so there’s no global warming, no climate change.”
This is, perhaps, high-school stuff, right?
http://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/2012-state-climate-earths-surface-temperature
I guess it all starts by how we were brought up. This and what we were taught at my school when I was in grade school was formative for me at least.
See, if you had actually read the sources of the materiel you copied and pasted, you would KNOW what long term averages were.
Case closed.
Here’s an original thought for you
Major Hurricanes are not increasing
F3-F5 Tornadoes are not increasing
Droughts are not increasing
Floods are not increasing
Fires are not increasing
Global warming has paused for the last 15 years
Keep talking. If you repeat it often enough everyone will learn that climate is about long term averages.
LONG TERM AVERAGES OF WHAT ?
WEATHER
Weather includes sunshine, rain, cloud cover, winds, hail, snow, sleet, freezing rain, flooding, blizzards, ice storms, thunderstorms, steady rains from a cold front or warm front, excessive heat, heat waves and more.
Weather is, roughly, about the day to day changes in variables like temperature and precipitation.
Climate is, roughly, about the long term averages of those same variables.
Anyone who wants a more thorough discussion of the two different concepts of weather and climate can check the web site you suggested: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/noaa-n/climate/climate_weather.html
You continue to confuse the data of short term change which describes weather with the concept of long term average which is how we describe climate.
You continue to make the erroneous claim that because both weather and climate deal with the same variables such as temperature and precipitation then the two much be the same. That is specifically wrong. It is revealing that you have not taken the time to understand the basic concepts of which you post so often. Or, perhaps, you are intentionally trying to mislead people.
Keep posting and everyone will learn that climate is about long term averages, and climate scientist find it useful to distinguish the long term averages of climate from the short term variability of weather.
Your posts are in their own way educational, just not in the way you intend.
I know where it came from. Posting random stuff you neither read nor would understand if you read it is the diarrhea part. You have not expressed an original thought since you started commenting here, and you have disdained honest dialogue.
Have some weather:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2DGTYEYmxk
Now how about some changing climate:
P.S. thats NASA’s verbal diarrhea they wrote it. Those are copies from their site. Discuss it with them denier
Ok if you say so denier. Try and deny this
Major Hurricanes are not increasing
F3-F5 Tornadoes are not increasing
Droughts are not increasing
Floods are not increasing
Fires are not increasing
Global warming has paused for the last 15 years
Well done Bob K.!
You don’t have the slightest idea what you are blathering about. Verbal diarrhea. Taking up space in the thread.
Big Fat Mike this is what I read from
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/noaa-n/climate/climate_weather.html
The difference between weather and climate is a measure of time.
Weather is what conditions of the atmosphere are over a short period of time, and climate is how the atmosphere “behaves” over relatively long periods of time.
Climate, however, is the average of weather over time and space.
What Climate Means
In short, climate is the description of the long-term pattern of weather in a particular area.
Some scientists define climate as the average weather for a particular region and time period, usually taken over 30-years. It’s really an average pattern of weather for a particular region.
Weather includes sunshine, rain, cloud cover, winds, hail, snow, sleet, freezing rain, flooding, blizzards, ice storms, thunderstorms, steady rains from a cold front or warm front, excessive heat, heat waves and more.
When scientists talk about climate, they’re looking at averages of precipitation, temperature, humidity, sunshine, wind velocity, phenomena such as fog, frost, and hail storms, and other measures of the weather that occur over a long period in a particular place.
Again bro you can not define climate without daily observations of weather. Without weather there is no climate.
Maybe I need to reverse it for you. Climate=Weather.
If you would bother to read what you post you would know they specifically exclude the idea that weather = climate or ciimate = weather.
Specifically in your own post:
“Some scientists define climate as the average weather for a particular region and time period, usually taken over 30-years. It’s really an average pattern of weather for a particular region. ”
Keep talking. If you repeat it often enough everyone will learn that climate is about long term averages.
The more you talk the more you impeach your self.
Ha ha!
You’re all right, Bron!
Bob K:
bask in it.
Bron,
Can I gloat, now?
Bob K:
Ok, you win.
bigfatmike:
“The science of human sustenance is inherently a social science. Neither physics nor chemistry nor even biology is adequate to understand how it has been possible for one species to reshape both its own future and the destiny of an entire planet. This is the science of the Anthropocene. The idea that humans must live within the natural environmental limits of our planet denies the realities of our entire history, and most likely the future. Humans are niche creators. We transform ecosystems to sustain ourselves. This is what we do and have always done. Our planet’s human-carrying capacity emerges from the capabilities of our social systems and our technologies more than from any environmental limits.”
“Two hundred thousand years ago we started down this path. The planet will never be the same. It is time for all of us to wake up to the limits we really face: the social and technological systems that sustain us need improvement.”
“The only limits to creating a planet that future generations will be proud of are our imaginations and our social systems. In moving toward a better Anthropocene, the environment will be what we make it.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/14/opinion/overpopulation-is-not-the-problem.html?_r=0
What Bob K. said.
Earth will be just fine without us.
Bron,,
No, we’re not going to completely change the climate and destroy earth.
The earth doesn’t care about the climate. It’ll still be here.
We’re going to completely change the climate and destroy ourselves, plus a lot of the complex life, such as mammals, that can’t adapt quickly.
So, don’t worry.