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monolith
climber
SF bay area
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Sep 16, 2013 - 11:42am PT
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Summer arctic ice extent, 1870-2012.
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Sep 16, 2013 - 12:01pm PT
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Ron,
It is easy to see natural variability in the data, but a clear trend over a much longer period.
Don't place too much emphasis on one year. Use a three year moving average to smooth the data out.
I have to do that all of the time with decline curves in oil and gas wells, which are almost always hyperbolic to some extent. That depends on the pressure and permeability of the reservoir rock. I usually use a 3 month moving average to smooth out well production declines. They all decline until depleted. Oil and gas wells don't last forever...
We CAN predict the future with a high degree of confidence. I do it every day when evaluating production. I can take a well, run it through some software, and tell you what that well is worth, if you are buying or selling it.
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Sep 16, 2013 - 12:08pm PT
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Ron,
You plot it and see how it compares with the next three years. Don't put too much emphasis on one year, unless you understand the processes involved which lead to ice extent.
I get tired of people always blaming a weather event on climate change. There is a difference between climate and weather.
The green side tosses out bad information as well. That is why you do better reading peer reviewed papers. Of course most of us don't have the math background to understand many of them, but the abstracts provide a summary of the paper and its findings.
It's fun. With health issues, PubMed has pretty much every medical journal article on Earth located on one searchable website. I've used that one a bunch. Very helpful.
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rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
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Sep 16, 2013 - 12:15pm PT
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What a bunch of miserable lying sacks of shet. You have an opponent(The Chief) that uses your exact same tactics on you, you get your asses kicked repeatedly, then instead of admitting you losing or at least have met your match you now scheme about running to MAC for relief .Weak, weak, weak.
Ed you are wrong about the submarine surfacings at or near the north pole in 1958 and 1959. Your article clearly states that the summer 1958 excursion had nine surfacings and the level of detail in the history link clearly states one of the surfacings was at or near the pole. The other news article goes onto to confirm this in the first paragraph obliquely and then launches into what was considered far more important- ten surfacings in winter one of which was through the thin ice at the pole. The Nautilus' crossing was considered far more impressive for the time as it showed the new sub's capabilities and the Skate's surfacing through the ice was considered more impressive than a surfacing to ice free polar lead because, once again it showed the sub's capabilities. Remember this was long before the CAGW debate and scare and we were cold war propagandizing.
Base, I trust you are recovering nicely from your health issue?
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rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
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Sep 16, 2013 - 12:49pm PT
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Ed, the IPCC is set to acknowledge a MWP as warm as today, buried in their upcoming report. Scientists connected to the report are also acknowledging that the models are all wrong in that the Antarctic is showing ice increase and cooling temps instead of the warming and ice loss indicated in the models. The climate sensitivity to CO2 is being dialed down and the current pause duly noted. And still their is rancor among the ranks and member nations because the political wing of the IPCC wants to go full steam ahead with the alarmist narrative. Why, since you already noted the above in various ways and various times are you not elaborating on this?
Many meteorologists are calling for a sixth in a row severe winter in the northern hemisphere, especially Europe. Why is this not being acknowledged as the start of a trend? Now the arctic sea ice has definitely bucked the downtrend of the last decade and since none of it is likely to melt in winter conditions it will have to be called thicker multi year ice next year. Barring extremities of arctic conditions we have yet to witness, the increase trend will continue-how could it be otherwise since their is 60% more ice remaining over that present at the end of the 2012 ice melt season. You guys have profound problems with your opinions and the " GCM's" they are built on. Is it rational to shoot the messenger rather than to examine the contents of the message and pursue other avenues of explanation? It seems to me that Ed, Larry, Mutt, Craig, Mentalcase, Bruce are clinging to their bibles and guns.
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Sep 16, 2013 - 12:52pm PT
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If you have ever walked out onto the arctic sea ice, which I have, offshore of ANWR in early summer, you will plainly see that the ice is a jumbled mess. It moves around a lot and when plates collide, it creates mountainous pressure ridges.
The navy has been measuring ice thickness in the arctic for decades. Did they release that data to the scientific community?
The volume of water tied up in Arctic Ice is insignificant compared to Greenland and Antarctica. NASA and the ESA loaded their launch schedules to their teeth with climate oriented Earth satellites.
The big deal with the loss of summer ice in the arctic will be the massive change in albedo. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to understand that. You will go snowblind very quickly when out on that ice in the summer.
When I was going up there starting about 15 years ago, the ice was attached to the shore until almost August. From the village of Kaktovik, the open water lead was typically fairly narrow, which made finding a bowhead whale much easier. Lately the lead has gotten huge, and they have to cover a lot more water to find a whale.
Unlike over at Barrow, they use motor boats in Kaktovik. It is regulated on the number of strikes. Each village has a certain allotment of strikes.
They toss the first harpoon on by hand, and a huge round red float is attached. The next strike comes from some sort of blunderbuss type of gun that fires an exploding charge into the whale's brain or vitals. Then they have to get ropes around the tail and drag her to shore, where all of the kids stand on top of the whale in a line. Bowheads are big whales.
Just ask an eskimo if they believe in global warming. It is affecting the arctic far more than lower latitudes, and they are having all sorts of problems. Even the Alaskan Republicans believe the science.
There are more ice free days, and these villages are often built right on the water's edge, such as Kaktovik. They get more shoreline erosion because of more waves from more time without the ice protecting the shoreline. Unalakleet had to build a giant sea wall, last I heard. I haven't been up there in a while, but it would be interesting.
During the Cretaceous, it was mainly an ice-free Earth. Sea level was very high, and the Rocky Mountain area was under water from what is now the Gulf, all the way to British Columbia.
Chief can dis that all he wants. Just make him explain that massive pile of cretaceous marine sediments. Here is what the N American craton looked like during the Cretaceous. A lot of the sea level drop was tectonic, but sea levels were several hundred feet higher during that period as well.
You can read about the seaway on wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Cretaceous_Interior_Seaway
It looked sort of like this:
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Sep 16, 2013 - 12:57pm PT
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Ed,
That was the point I was trying to make. The ice moves around in a manner very similar to plate tectonics. They collide and make big pressure ridges. Those are too thick to surface through. There are also areas that were spreading rifts, and they will have thin ice.
This is all illustrated quite well in Ice Station Zebra, a classic. Howard Hughes watched it like a thousand times.
You could find a place to surface a sub almost anywhere under the ice cap. That is why we, and the Russians, keep boomers under the ice. We have the entire Atlantic wired for sound.
That data would be great to study if it were de classified.
Did the navy de classify any of their ice thickness data? Like I said, they have been playing around up there since the first nuclear sub.
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Sep 16, 2013 - 01:32pm PT
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I see that Chiloe already posted about the de classified ice thickness data. It has been getting thinner since the fifties. That makes sense.
Chiloe, you also mentioned a relative's opinion about AGW will cause. He thought it would be severe.
I agree. From just looking at historical geology, which is its own discipline, we are approaching that dreaded Cretaceous level. We aren't there yet, of course, but there will be a tipping point at some time.
The changes are difficult to quantify. That is the entire problem with climate models. I've discussed this with some of my meteorology buddies, and Scientific American had an article on this topic:
It is difficult to say with great precision, "How Hot?" or "How fast will sea level rise."
It is obvious that things will change, but the energy budget of the planet is still not entirely understood, or rather not measured. I'm talking about oceans here. Ocean currents are responsible for most of the redistribution of thermal energy on the planet. We are still learning about the sources and causes that drive these.
I saw a great program on the science channel or Nova on how high saline water is produced at the base of the big Antarctic Ice Shelves, and this heavy cold water drives certain currents.
So the zillion dollar question isn't whether anything will happen, it is a matter of how bad and how soon. You could put Antarctica in a microwave and it would take decades to melt.
My fear is that we will violate one common law in Earth Science. Punctuated Equilibrium.
Punctuated Equilibrium is pretty easy to understand. You have a set of physical conditions, and systems within those settings settle down into a steady equilibrium state. Then something catastrophic comes along and the systems adjust to them creating a new equilibrium state.
You can see it in action by looking at the Colorado floods right now.
You can see it by looking at many river beds. Most of them are underfit for their valleys. Flow was much higher during the Pleistocene ice ages, and the meander wavelength and bench deposits are plainly visible in many places. It is easy to see if you cross the Red River from Oklahoma into Texas. There are benches from each glacial maximum. The meander wavelength is also way too high for the trickle that these rivers carry currently.
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Sep 16, 2013 - 01:36pm PT
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Ron,
Don't focus on individual events. Change will happen slowly over a long time.
The green crowd tends to blame everything on global warming these days. That is equally dishonest.
Just watch it unfold. We may not see things really start big time change in our lifetimes. At my age, I doubt I will see it.
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bobinc
Trad climber
Portland, Or
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Sep 16, 2013 - 01:37pm PT
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Just watch it unravel
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rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
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Sep 16, 2013 - 01:40pm PT
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Bruce I have always been opposed to the "catastrophic" interpretation part of AGW and the minority of scientists and the political organizations pushing them. The remedies these charlatans push would be far more catastrophic than the moderate warming that observed reality indicates. This agenda is the single most dangerous issue out there, in my opinion.
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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Sep 16, 2013 - 01:56pm PT
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Did the navy de classify any of their ice thickness data?
Yes, the Navy has declassified much of their ice data. Kwok & Rothrock (2009) have a detailed analysis:
Kwok, R., and D. A. Rothrock (2009), Decline in Arctic sea ice thickness from submarine and ICESat records: 1958 – 2008, Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L15501, doi:10.1029/2009GL039035
The decline of sea ice thickness in the Arctic Ocean from ICESat (2003–2008) is placed in the context of estimates from 42 years of submarine records (1958–2000) described by Rothrock et al. (1999, 2008). While the earlier 1999 work provides a longer historical record of the regional changes, the latter offers a more refined analysis, over a sizable portion of the Arctic Ocean supported by a much stronger and richer data set. Within the data release area (DRA) of declassified submarine sonar measurements (covering 38% of the Arctic Ocean), the overall mean winter thickness of 3.64 m in 1980 can be compared to a 1.89 m mean during the last winter of the ICESat record— an astonishing decrease of 1.75 m in thickness. Between 1975 and 2000, the steepest rate of decrease is 0.08 m/yr in 1990 compared to a slightly higher winter/summer rate of 0.10/ 0.20 m/yr in the five-year ICESat record (2003– 2008). Prior to 1997, ice extent in the DRA was >90% during the summer minimum. This can be contrasted to the gradual decrease in the early 2000s followed by an abrupt drop to <55% during the record setting minimum in 2007. This combined analysis shows a long-term trend of sea ice thinning over submarine and ICESat records that span five decades.
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Sep 16, 2013 - 02:15pm PT
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Ron,
Yes, climate constantly changes. The entire question is whether or not pumping a lot of CO2 and methane (vented from oil wells NOT gas wells) into the atmosphere is causing the change. It is well known that the greenhouse gasses already keep the planet from freezing over. The biggest greenhouse gas by far is water vapor, and I know that a lot of the modeling efforts go into evaporation.
Chief: Punctuated Equilibrium can be used to describe rapid changes in any complex system. Boulder creek can flow for a thousand years at it's normal level with very little apparent change. A monster flood comes along and the stream morphology instantly adjusts to the new high flow state and tries to achieve the new equilibrium.
So the stream morphology is mainly caused by rare high flow events that can move a twenty ton boulder like it is nothing. The rains will stop and the stream will settle down into a new equilibrium dictated by the change in morphology caused by that one flood.
Understand? It is a simple concept.
My biggest skill is what is called "Sequence Stratigraphy." It is the new and powerful paradigm that replaced plain old "stratigraphy."
What we do is split rock units up based on a time-specific event. We use maximum flooding surfaces, or "high water marks" to split sequences into 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc order sequences.
To back up, what causes changes in sea level? The obvious answer is melting or freezing of water on the continental ice caps.
What drives these cycles, and I could post a log showing a zillion of them, is a big question. One of the top candidates is Milankovitch cycles, which we have discussed to death. They are the orbital and precession cycles of the Earth and its axis. They seem to fit, but I'm no expert on that.
The problem right now is that we are not in a warming period of the orbital cycles. We shouldn't be warming this fast, and it oddly coincides with the rising CO2 levels.
Now correlation does not equal causation, so you have to really dig into this. That is what climate scientists do.
It is a totally valid question, AGW. Ignoring it would be pretty much impossible. You have to keep an open mind. It is just science. Study to increase knowledge.
I've got to get back to work. I've been stuck working the Mississippian age limestones of the northern mid-continent for 5 years now. The Pennsylvanian is much easier. I'm better with sandstones, anyway.
I will leave you with this: sedimentary rocks are the type of rocks which record evidence of ancient conditions through time. Oil and gas is only found in, or in association with, sedimentary rocks. Oil and energy is one of the biggest businesses on the planet, and the research budgets have probably added up to a trillion dollars by now. We know a TON about the history of the planet.
Oil isn't easy to find in commercial quantities. It might seem that way, but a ton of work goes in to find economic discoveries.
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rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
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Sep 16, 2013 - 02:21pm PT
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Base's statement that even the republicans in Alaska acknowledge the reality of climate change is at best based upon ignorance. The political situation up here is nuanced by decades of jousting with the occupying forces of the federal government that treat the state more as a colony than as a full fledged state. Ted Steven's said it best with " If the federal government is going to shut down our industries (fishing, mining, petroleum production on federal lands, logging etc. etc.) and limit our ability for self support they are damn well going to compensate us". Embracing AGW by Alaskans is nothing more than paying the expected homage to secure compensating federal funds. Steven's was an expert at this, even securing hundreds of millions for climate studies for the University of Alaska. If Base was really in touch with what is happening in Alaska he would know that that the Natives decry climate change as a negotiation tactic for increased revenue, usually from the oil companies but also frequently from the feds for purposes like getting stupidly located communitie's moved on the federal dime. When the states surviving industries, like petroleum extraction largely on state land, are threatened by bogus endangered species classifications like the polar bears, you see dems and repubs unite in denouncing the farce of CAGW. The state is always suing the Feds over one limitation of access or another.
Base, I only wish your career last long enough for the rabid enviro's to come for your scalp too.
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Sep 16, 2013 - 02:26pm PT
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I will say this:
Most of the execs and money guys who run the oil companies HATE the idea of global warming. They are like The Chief. His mind is made up so blindly, that he will never consider evidence that does not agree with his position.
He sure acts that way, anyway. The loss of polar see ice is as plain as day, but he attacks the data, attacks whomever gathered the data (even the U.S. Navy says that the ice is thinning!), and on and on.
See? I've made all of these posts and never called anyone a @#$-tard, and idiot, or in any way lost my cool.
I did make a mean post a week or so ago. I'll go delete it. There should be no reason to personally insult each other. The ad hominem attack is well known as the refuge of the mentally incompetent. We shouldn't do it.
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mechrist
Gym climber
South of Heaven
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Sep 16, 2013 - 02:26pm PT
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Ron's post reminds me of the "logic" used by those who argue against gun control legislation based on the notion that people can be killed with bricks.
The physics behind tripling the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere and the implications for Earth's climate has NOTHING to do with electric bills or any of that other bullsh#t.
There should be no reason to personally insult each other.
You are correct, there SHOULD be no reason... yet clearly there is. I have a working hypothesis to explain why there is... it has to do with willful ignorance and low IQ.
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Sep 16, 2013 - 02:29pm PT
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Wasilla? How much time have you spent in eskimo villages? How much time have you spent north of the arctic circle, excluding Prudhoe Bay?
I've spent a ton of time in ANWR. I guess you don't know my history.
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bobinc
Trad climber
Portland, Or
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Sep 16, 2013 - 02:31pm PT
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Yes, Ron A, things are going to get a lot more expensive.
At least I hope so. That's the only way much will change, emissions-wise.
It's like the old Fram commercial: "you can pay me now, or you can pay me later."
If we societally decide to make things more expensive and also use the new revenue to positively affect our climate (vs just sending it to Exxon/Mobil), maybe we can steer things towards overall less suffering.
If we just put our heads in the (tar) sands, we will get what is coming to us...
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rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
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Sep 16, 2013 - 02:40pm PT
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Do you live here Base? I have for 32 years, my wife for 37. Yes I've been to many of the villages, sometimes for months on construction projects. My wife worked throughout the state as a geologist. I know what I am talking about- you don't. Your buddy Jimmy Carter was burned in effigy on the tarmac at Fairbanks after he deceitfully had his interior secretary interface with the state geological department, supposedly to exclude the mineral rich areas from federal protection status, then turned right around and designated the best areas. Jimmy didn't even get off the plane as his effigy burned. We have a long simmering feud with the feds and are ground zero for attack by the environmental NGO's.
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bobinc
Trad climber
Portland, Or
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Sep 16, 2013 - 02:42pm PT
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No method will be perfect but there are plenty of ideas out there. The poor will pay one way or the other, Chief.
We regulate electricity prices, water prices, garbage pick up prices. Gasoline taxes are part of the mix, too. When was the last time the federal gas tax changed, Chief? How much is it?
There's plenty that can be done. If we stay in the false-paradise mode of fossil fuel consumption, what do you think will happen?
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