-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.
bigfatmike:
you dont think that improved farming technology will help with that at the point in time we have 36 billion people?
Historically the amount of land required to feed a person has dropped due to crop yield and other scientific improvements.
There was a time when people were saying exactly what you are saying in regard to 1 billion people.
Prosperity reduces birth rates, or so it seems that the most developed countries have the fewest births.
Bron,
Ok which is it … socialism is causing damage to the global climate system … socialism is causing the polar ice caps to melt … or both … or neither?
On the flip side of the flat Earth warm causes polar ice caps to melt.
How about on the other flip side you are on … socialism causes polar ice caps to melt?
What … there are no poles on a flat Earth?
Joe Blow 1, September 16, 2013 at 8:59 am
…
Paul Ehrlich
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… SearchScope=*ignore*|*ignore*|||fromyyyy=1960|||l-word=*ignore*|*ignore*
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Ignore ants.
“Paul Ehrlich” in Ancient Geek means “ignore all scientists except Paul Ehrlich circa 1971” …
How can a hurricane be hitting Mexico and South Texas and a Typhoon be hitting Japan at the same time … even as we “speak?”
Joe Blow is so disappointed in his daddy who taught him that the Earth is flat:
. I guess typhoons and stuff only hit the underworld where non-whites live?
1971
“I’m scared,” the lean, intense scientist (Paul Ehrlich) told an interviewer. “I have a teenage daughter whom I love very much. I know a lot of young people, and their world is being destroyed – my world is being destroyed. I’m 37, and I’d like to live to be 67 in a reasonably pleasant world, not die in some kind of holocaust in the next decade.”
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/46076134?searchTerm=paul%20ehrlich&searchLimits=l-textSearchScope=*ignore*|*ignore*|||fromyyyy=1960|||l-word=*ignore*|*ignore*
Blacks Feel Population Control as Genocide
There is no reason blacks should be concerned with saving a world they don’t have a piece of.
Paul Ehrlich
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=yH9GAAAAIBAJ&sjid=GCsNAAAAIBAJ&pg=2556,3871090&dq=paul+ehrlich&hl=en
Mankind has lost the ability to feed itself and 100 of millions of people will die between 1970 and 1985.
Paul Ehrlich
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=DGhkAAAAIBAJ&sjid=q3wNAAAAIBAJ&pg=2008,2049287&dq=paul+ehrlich&hl=en
Giving society cheap, abundant energy … would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun.
– Paul Ehrlich, “An Ecologist’s Perspective on Nuclear Power”, May/June 1978 issue of Federation of American Scientists Public Issue Report
I find it a bit odd, that someone would present numbers as if they’re well-established, and not have the curiosity to do simple calculations. As in “Well, that would mean this much food per person.”
Those numbers fall apart immediately. How much of a time investment is that? 30 seconds?
I didn’t believe a word of the claim that 10,000 people could be fed by 3 acres of land. I immediately thought that the writer of the article, or the fellow in charge of growing the food, were mistaken.
I guess that’s the state-of-the-art in science denial. Throw numbers around, unthinkingly. If any numbers are used, at all.
But the whole idea is a diversion. It doesn’t address whether global warming is real. It doesn’t address whether global warming is the result of human activity.
The world is over-populated, right now. Too many humans using resources at a non-sustainable rate. By-products of human activity, changing the environment to one we can’t live in.
How ludicrous is it, that people argue that birth control, of all types, is “immoral”?
What’s the alternative to birth control? Some deity coming down to save us? Hold your breath until that happens. At least you won’t be emitting carbon dioxide.
Does the amount and degree of naivete shown in some of the comments surprise anyone? Years ago, I read Paul Ehrlich’s “The Population Bomb” when it first came out. Made quite an impact on me. Some of Ehrlich’s predictions have not come to pass, but no futurist expects to be 100% on target. However, just because his predictions did not happen within the time he predicted does not mean they won’t happen in the near future. He has continued his studies on population, and at our current rate, it still looks bleak. We are heating up the planet and plundering our own resources. It is a bit like big business robbing your retirement account on a global scale.
Dr. Ehrlich and his wife work at the Department of Biology and the Center for Conservation Biology at Stanford University, continuing to research population issues.
http://e360.yale.edu/feature/too_many_people_too_much_consumption/2041/
My head is spinning with all of this math!! 🙂
and how many would starve because of one tornado. that’s a very small basket to put all of your eggs into.
So all you deniers who say Kansas can feed 36 billion people tell me where that water is going to come from to grow the plants let alone hydrate 36 million people? And then tell me how the peoples quality of life is going to be. You sound like Christian Dominionists.
Great old movie Gene!
Bron 1, “I am basing my calculation on 10 people per acre. That splendid table article says 10,000 per 3 acres.”
As much as I like the Splendid Table, we know that data is compromised. It has already been noted that the interview at the Splendid Table contains several statistics, 10,000 people, 3 acres, 40 tons of food and 200 acres under cultivation, that are presented in a confusing juxtaposition. Without clarification, not contained in the interview, interpretation of that data is impossible.
Your estimate of 10 people per acre would lead to an estimate of 24.7 people per hectare or .0405 hectares per person.
That number is well below the UN’s FAO 1993 statistic for bare minimal substance from .07 hectares per person which yields 14 people per hectare
The UN statistic for 2006 average is .22 hectares per person which leads to 4.5persons per hectare
In addition, it is likely that UN statistic of 14.3 persons per hectare is unsustainable over the long term due to factors like soil depletion.
Based on the UN data it seems unlikely that one hectare could support as many as 15 let along 25 people. And that would be a bare subsistence diet. A more reasonable number would be more like 5 people per hectare or perhaps a few more.
With all due respect, your number of 10 persons per acre leads to hectare/person calculations so different from estimates we can trace to the UN that to be convincing you need to present more of an explanation of why we should accept 10 people per acre.
Of course you could always advocate for Smith’s solution of cannibalism via Soylent green. That would certainly increase efficiency by recycling the meat produced by the vegetarian diet.
Whether the use of Soylent green would lead to efficiencies of 24.7 persons per hectare, however, is an entirely different question.
Darren,
Oddly enough, I just watched “Soylent Green” on Friday. It was the AMC feature along with “Logan’s Run”. I always forget that Joseph Cotten is in that. And what a performance by Edward G. Robinson! Still works today despite the crazy clothes and Heston’s famously wooden acting. They’re supposedly remaking it. I’ve heard with David Fincher (Se7en) directing and Leonardo DiCaprio in Heston’s part, but it’s still in development which means who knows if it’ll even get made.
Population density of New York City = 26,953 people per square mile
1365069800 hectares * 2.47 acres/hectare = 3364312406 acres
3364312406 acres/1.2 acres/person = 2,803,593,671.67 persons.
Bare subsistence diet = 19,500,997,142.85 persons
0x000F00D 0x000F00D 0x000F00D
Soylent Green is People !!
“We all know the way to create wealth. It isnt socialism.”
I’m sure the millionaires of Norway and Sweden will be surprised to hear that, Bron.
Really, you need to quit thinking socialism is a monolithic single thing. It no more is that than capitalism is that. It’s a tool. A tool is only as good as the user. Market socialism (especially when paired with democratic socialism) works just fine. Better than most. Why? Because it pays to maintain that which is necessary for a healthy prosperous society like quality universal healthcare and education and other public infrastructure which enriches the whole society instead of thieves at the top like corporatist capitalism and fascism. India couldn’t make socialism work thirty some odd years ago for the same reason China can’t make democracy work: they’ve never had a social tradition that works like those models. They both have long standing forms of caste systems that are inherently anti-egalitarian (in any sense of the word). That being said, that barrier is purely psychological, not physical.
Bron, you said you didn’t want to live in a socialist country. Twenty years ago is ancient history. Besides, the driving force in India’s economy going back through English rule was one of robber barons telling the locals what they could and could not do. So which is it? Socialism then or socialism now? Either one is wrong.
OS:
People do just fine in Singapore.
Anyway prosperous people tend to have fewer children. Have a prosperous world population and slow population growth.
We all know the way to create wealth. It isnt socialism.