NYC Letter: Hot/Cold, Part I

Day 246 of CHOPE

(A) The reality is that we are running out of time. Earlier this month, a 25 mile wide ice bridge connecting the Wilkins Shelf to the Antarctic land mass shattered, disconnecting a shelf the size of Connecticut from the Antarctic continent.

(B) The truth is that the threat we face is not an abstract concern for the future. It is already upon us and its effects are being felt worldwide, right now. Scientists project that the Arctic will be ice-free in the summer of 2013. Not in 2050, but four years from now.

John "Henny Penny" Kerry (D-MA),
alerting us to the end of ice
(A) WASHINGTON April 22, 2009 (Boston Globe)
(B) WASHINGTON August 31, 2009 (HuffPo)

A NOSE FOR HYSTERICAL SCIENCE
The Amazing Criswell Of Global Warming

Bad news for fans of Mr. Kerry stocking up on Popsicles for iceless 2013:

But when might these threats materialise? According to a recent New Scientist article, Mojib Latif, a climate modeller and IPCC author, has suggested that we may be in for one or two decades of lower temperatures. This trend – ironically reported at a World Meteorological Organization conference on predictions of the short-term impacts of global warming – is, according to Latif, caused by natural variations in the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and the Atlantic Meridional Oscillation (AMO). The NAO was also blamed for at least part of the most recent warming trend.

At the same conference, it was reported that higher than usual summer losses of Arctic ice were partly due to natural cycles, and that this year's loss is likely to be much lower than for the last two years. It seems that some mainstream climate scientists are at last ready to discuss the relative contributions of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions and natural cycles in determining climate trends. Whatever the outcome of the debate, it is good for the scientific community that it is happening.

But where do the Henny Pennys get their hysterical science? From Chicken Little scientists with grant-adjustable climate models. For example, just last year, the North Pole was going to melt away, which has Mr. Kerry so worried.

NORTH POLE MAY BE ICE-FREE
FOR FIRST TIME THIS SUMMER

June 20, 2008 (NGN) - Arctic warming has become so dramatic that the North Pole may melt this summer, report scientists studying the effects of climate change in the field.

"We're actually projecting this year that the North Pole may be free of ice for the first time [in history]," David Barber, of the University of Manitoba, told National Geographic News aboard the C.C.G.S. Amundsen, a Canadian research icebreaker.

What Mr. Kerry isn't telling you -- because as a soi-disant climatologist he is ignorant or as a politician it queers the pitch -- is that a North Pole melt is not a comprehensive Arctic melt.

The melt would be mostly symbolic—thicker ice, pushed against the Canadian continental shelf by weather and Earth's rotation, would still survive the summer.

That said, it appears North Pole ice will beat out Mr. Kerry's iceless 2013 prediction.

ARCTIC ICE TO LAST DECADES LONGER THAN THOUGHT?

September 21, 2009 (NGN) - This year's cooler-than-expected summer means the Arctic probably won't experience ice-free summers until 2030 or 2040, scientists say. Some models had previously predicted that the Arctic could be ice free in summer by as soon as 2013, due to rising temperatures from global warming.

[Hat tip: Hot Air]

Some models -- and some senators, we would add.

Another thing excitable senators, scientists, and global-warming headline artists are not telling you is that reliable Arctic ice measurements date back only to 1979. A single, a mere, 30-year record for major climate patterning requiring the context of centuries to manifest itself. The established record is hardly longer than many of the predictive windows of the climate models themselves. That a climate model can one year predict an iceless Arctic only to be proven wrong the next because of computational or conceptual defects or an omitted key variable, should give us all pause.

[The pause.]

CHOPE.

The sky is falling.

Posted by Damian at September 23, 2009 11:45 PM