Antarctic Sea Ice Extent

[The_Global_Warmer]

Stop trying to personalize this attack me on a personal level. I have a job, kids, plenty of responsibilitys.

i am attacking things like your notion of sea ice volume being soooo much higher when its not.

You didnt even post a reference or graph that supports it. It takes a 30 sec google search.

[Alpha5]

Stop trying to personalize this attack me on a personal level. I have a job, kids, plenty of responsibilitys.

i am attacking things like your notion of sea ice volume being soooo much higher when its not.

You didnt even post a reference or graph that supports it. It takes a 30 sec google search.

Hey man, I like your posts a lot, and I happen to love the stuff you bring to the table, but I have to say, the blurb you put in your sig (colored in blue) in regard to meteorologists is a bit to far i think. I respect your passion for your view, but to a certain point, challenging meteorologists like that is bit much, and quite frankly it comes off as slightly arrogant.

Not trying to start a flame war, just a little advice

[ORH_wxman]

Hey man, I like your posts a lot, and I happen to love the stuff you bring to the table, but I have to say, the blurb you put in your sig (colored in blue) in regard to meteorologists is a bit to far i think. I respect your passion for your view, but to a certain point, challenging meteorologists like that is bit much, and quite frankly it comes off as slightly arrogant.

Not trying to start a flame war, just a little advice

Its pretty much a direct jab at me and a few other red taggers who post in here who do not share his view on climate change and policy action...you are correct, it comes across as extremely arrogant.

[Jonger]

Its pretty much a direct jab at me and a few other red taggers who post in here who do not share his view on climate change and policy action...you are correct, it comes across as extremely arrogant.

He is basically a no show in technology threads. If anything, that's the ONLY thing that matters if you ask me.

We currently don't have any way to convert the planet to 100% renewable overnight without telling half of the planet to take a dirt nap.

[csnavywx]

N. Hem sea ice is already in a non-linear multi-feedback response. The Antarctic, as of yet, does not appear to be exhibiting this behavior. In a generalist mathematics sense, a linear-type response (such as the Antarctic) cannot cancel a non-linear type response. In other words (and this might be oversimplifying it) an exponential progression cannot be cancelled by linear progression.

[The_Global_Warmer]

Its pretty much a direct jab at me and a few other red taggers who post in here who do not share his view on climate change and policy action...you are correct, it comes across as extremely arrogant.

No Sir, Arrogance is thinking I would put that in there over a semantically arguing. Arrogance is holding the ultimate power nationwide and completely burning it to the ground so far. Climatologists, Geologists are nobodies. The only group that has any power and is followed, watched, beloved, worships, listened to and ultimately respected by well over 200 million Americans who see you TWC, see you on the internet at noaa.com, see you on local tv all over the country, in many markets like the one I live in you get 3 times the tv ratings sports do. Local weather people all over have thousands of followers on blogs, chat boards, tv news sites following you like your almost infallible in your craft.

And overwhelmingly until recently hundreds, maybe thousands of red tagged qualified professional's influencing millions have denied this impending problem, potential catastrophe that will cost families lives, and this country ultimately TRILLIONS financially. They place there unequivocal trust in you, when you make that public assertion or non-assertion as so many have it set's in stone an idea that can be irrecoverably forged in so many cases.

It is arrogant to think you are not these gatekeepers between the truth and the public, arrogance is lulling them that it is ok, when you know it's not ok, Furthermore your fields utter lack of respect to stand up for the nearly universal acceptance and forecast-ed consequences climatologists and geologists agree on to whatever degree it may be. If 1 life will be ruined or 100 million it's your duty to inform the public.

I am sure you will dismiss my words as blah blah blah. I will delete my signature out of respect for those who clearly have a better grasp on it and have taken the proper action in speaking for hundreds of millions lives.

[The_Global_Warmer]

I want to reiterate that is not directed at ORH in particular, ORH does not deny global warming or the long term cost and side effects.

My position on this stems from a couple fact's that are not necessarily fair but are real and true and we all know it here.

Meteorologists in the Military or whom work for NOAA or like the hundreds if not thousands of local tv mets all over the United States are Public Servants. Whether you like it or not, whether you want the responsibilities and duty's or not isn't up for debate, if you go on tv or write FD's and fill out forecasts for the public or fly planes into Hurricanes its you're responsibility to protect and serve the lives in the United States and all over the World. This is basically a universally scientific understanding. Regardless of your personal beliefs if there is a possible danger in this field which is not just meteorology, it's climatology, glaciology, geology, physics, chemistry, all contributing parties to informing the public of present, near future and far future weather event's based on the best available data is not only your duty as PROFESSIONAL'S it's a RIGHT of the American people to know. And at this point NOAA, NCDC, NSIDC, NASA, AMS, and The United States Armed Forces unilaterally support Human forced climate change as a fact. Every single person reading this knows people in this country and all over The Planet Earth are going to die from this, they will lose loved ones, they are going to leave a mess to their children and Grand Children, it doesn't matter if 100, 10000, 100000K people die over this, every single person has a right to be fore-warned and given a chance to voice there interests through votes, through charity, or whatever mean they deem fit. It's undeniable that this precious information has been pissed on so bad, mostly not by loyal serving Met's but when those met's don't say a word or let there own ideology stop them from properly pubically acknowledging the data in front of them it's going to eventually COST and not in a good way. And if our science community of professionals at least stands together that there is a problem and we need a real public open forum on this we can keep the Bull Crap out and then take this semantics argument mainstream so the public can choose a desired course of action. At-least we can know as Professional scientists, science enthusiasts, science hobbyists, and just a large group of VERY SMART PEOPLE WITH A COMMON LOVE FOR THE FURTHER EDUCATION, KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTAND OF ALL THINGS SCIENCE we through the kitchen sink at it, we left it all on the table, we did all we could whatever metaphor you choose, it has to be done.

When we elect ORH to go on National TV and host a two hour factual based program pre-screened and endorsed by a super super majority of all professionals in this field it's not going to be to sway public policy, it is to inform everyone the facts as we know them now and the future potential of this using an conservative base and finally offering a suggestive measure of preparation to some degree.

Just to throw out an idea. If we took 20 billion from the Military and Commissioned A special Military Unit for Homeland Security to prepare against climate change.

Every two year we send ORH back on National TV, streaming live to the world the progress of this special unit, what they are doing, what is next, and an update by the entire community and any new suggestions based on this transparent data.

It sounds to good to be true, to idealistic, well if so then we will never learn from our mistakes.

We have been blitzkrieg before, and preparations for that which many powerful informed people knew was coming could have saved tens of millions HUMAN LIVES people who deserve a shot at 80, 90, 100 years and not end before because of Gross Negligence.

If in the long run it never materializes so what. If we blow 750 billion between now and 2050 preparing and it doesn't happen, that is nothing, because if it does happen, the preparation will save LIVES.

Our Species is capable of great things, we rule the Animal Kingdom, this planet, and our solar system with no equal in this moment or a million years from now.(unless we do worse than global warming and give advanced robotic machines nuclear weapons and sentience)(oh and if we evolve, even if we are not hominids by then, we still were human so they are us) are we so vein that our children, our gods, our loved ones are not enough for us to cherish and protect, love and serve that which has given us our gifts of exponential expanding knowledge which is the Earth and Sun. But the sun is doing great and gives his regards, but he is worried about our futures, he promises he has life on Earth's back's for another billion years or so but can't guarantee us much after that. But he hopes we restore this rock back to the way nature intended his Eminence to naturally rule this kingdom and pleads that it's subjects(mostly refering to the homo's, sapiens that is.) find ways to quickly ascend passed things that mess up the natural order of things, he assures me that we can do this quickly, swiftly, and for all man kind.

[ORH_wxman]

It is arrogant to think you are not these gatekeepers between the truth and the public, arrogance is lulling them that it is ok, when you know it's not ok, Furthermore your fields utter lack of respect to stand up for the nearly universal acceptance and forecast-ed consequences climatologists and geologists agree on to whatever degree it may be. If 1 life will be ruined or 100 million it's your duty to inform the public.

I completely lost you on this part.

The whole point of the climate debate is that we don't know the magnitude of consequences. Our duty is to report the uncertainty in the science and the results as is and not mislead people into thinking "the science is settled" just like its not right to mislead people into thinking there is zero problem.

If sea level isn't rising like we thought it would, then we should report that. If arctic ice is melting faster than we thought it would, then we should also report that. If global temperatures haven't risen in over 10 years, then we should report that too.

The uncertainty in the peer reviewed projections is very large. It's irresponsible to only tell us the "worst case" scenarios that have a very low probability of occurring. We might have a VEI 7 volcano eruption in the next 50 years that would be devastating for agriculture. Should we start warning everyone? Get ready for the disaster? Its probably more prudent to tell them the chances are there, but its pretty low.

The biggest threat AGW provides is a very quickly changing climate. However, if the changes are gradual rather than "accelerating", it's much more managable. Thus far, the changes have been gradual overall. Sure, there are areas where we've seen faster changes such as the Arctic, but that does not prove that the globe is in an accelerating downward spiral anymore than Antarctica gaining ice disproves it. The polar regions have always seen the fastest changes, with or without AGW.

[GaWx]

forkyfork, on 19 September 2012 - 02:41 PM, said:

http://www.skeptical...gaining-ice.htm

"One must also be careful how you interpret trends in Antarctic sea ice. Currently this ice is increasing and has been for years but is this the smoking gun against climate change? Not quite. Antarctic sea ice is gaining because of many different reasons but the most accepted recent explanations are listed below:

i) Ozone levels over Antarctica have dropped causing stratospheric cooling and increasing winds which lead to more areas of open water that can be frozen (Gillet 2003, Thompson 2002, Turner 2009).

and

ii) The Southern Ocean is freshening because of increased rain, glacial run-off and snowfall. This changes the composition of the different layers in the ocean there causing less mixing between warm and cold layers and thus less melted sea ice (Zhang 2007)."

Let's assume for the sake of this discussion that the above reasons are what has caused the increased Antarctic sea ice (I have no way to know for sure whether it is that, cooling down there, or something else.) Wouldn't that mean that this is a way for the Earth to naturally fight back the warming? With more ice down there, doesn't that later help cool things in the S Hem. via increased albedo and other feedbacks? If so, might that also start to occur in the N. Hem. at some point? If so, would that possibly prevent runaway N. Hem. warming due to anthropogenic forcing?

I'm still waiting for an answer to the above. Anyone?

[csnavywx]

I

forkyfork, on 19 September 2012 - 02:41 PM, said:

http://www.skeptical...gaining-ice.htm

"One must also be careful how you interpret trends in Antarctic sea ice. Currently this ice is increasing and has been for years but is this the smoking gun against climate change? Not quite. Antarctic sea ice is gaining because of many different reasons but the most accepted recent explanations are listed below:

i) Ozone levels over Antarctica have dropped causing stratospheric cooling and increasing winds which lead to more areas of open water that can be frozen (Gillet 2003, Thompson 2002, Turner 2009).

and

ii) The Southern Ocean is freshening because of increased rain, glacial run-off and snowfall. This changes the composition of the different layers in the ocean there causing less mixing between warm and cold layers and thus less melted sea ice (Zhang 2007)."

Let's assume for the sake of this discussion that the above reasons are what has caused the increased Antarctic sea ice (I have no way to know for sure whether it is that, cooling down there, or something else.) Wouldn't that mean that this is a way for the Earth to naturally fight back the warming? With more ice down there, doesn't that later help cool things in the S Hem. via increased albedo and other feedbacks? If so, might that also start to occur in the N. Hem. at some point? If so, would that possibly prevent runaway N. Hem. warming due to anthropogenic forcing?

I'm still waiting for an answer to the above. Anyone?

This is a question of linear vs non-linear responses being able to cancel each other out. I answered this (indirectly) on the previous page. It is notable that the cool anomaly seems to be concentrated around the Ross Sea. This is an interesting area for submarine topography and a spot which some GCMs/CMs have persistently tried to place a regional cool anomaly. There's a paper about this. I'll dig it up after work.

[ORH_wxman]

Friv, I find your signature interesting in that you call Antarctica a "lie"....what is someone lying about it on?

You seem to imply that anyone who doesn't believe the arctic is representative of the planet as a whole WRT AGW is lying. Does that mean we shouldn't talk about the cooling in Antarctica? Or the very realistic possibility that Antarctica is gaining ice mass? Or that the global tmeperatures haven't warmed in 11 years?

None of this disproves the GHG theory. It just puts doubt into sensitivity...or at least instantaneous sensitivity. It also doesn't mean that we shouldn't look to find solutions to AGW. But calling people liars who say Antarctica is gaining ice while the Arctic is losing it accomplishes nothing.

I posted it in this thread because this is about Antarctica and was wondering exactly what the "lie" was about Antarctica?

[csnavywx]

Friv, I find your signature interesting in that you call Antarctica a "lie"....what is someone lying about it on?

You seem to imply that anyone who doesn't believe the arctic is representative of the planet as a whole WRT AGW is lying. Does that mean we shouldn't talk about the cooling in Antarctica? Or the very realistic possibility that Antarctica is gaining ice mass? Or that the global tmeperatures haven't warmed in 11 years?

None of this disproves the GHG theory. It just puts doubt into sensitivity...or at least instantaneous sensitivity. It also doesn't mean that we shouldn't look to find solutions to AGW. But calling people liars who say Antarctica is gaining ice while the Arctic is losing it accomplishes nothing.

I posted it in this thread because this is about Antarctica and was wondering exactly what the "lie" was about Antarctica?

I think it had more to do with this:

[ORH_wxman]

I think it had more to do with this:

But thats pretty silly to say....because the exact same thing could be said to anyone for focusing only on the arctic region...especially recently since the rest of the globe is cooling in comparison to the arctic.

Since when did the arctic replace our global climate?

[TerryM]

Perhaps Larry Hamilton's latest chart will show the triviality of Antarctic expansion when compared to Arctic contraction.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v224/Chiloe/12_Climate/2012_sea_ice_CT_min_zpse639989a.png

Terry

[csnavywx]

But thats pretty silly to say....because the exact same thing could be said to anyone for focusing only on the arctic region...especially recently since the rest of the globe is cooling in comparison to the arctic.

Since when did the arctic replace our global climate?

I'm sorry, this post doesn't make much sense to me. Are we talking about the last decade of air temps only? Because nothing I've seen suggests any medium or long term cooling (or even any statistically significant short-term cooling).

The posts in question here were literally a complaint by Friv about the argument moving to ever more nebulous details. The common cycle around here (and in most denier arguments around the internet for that matter) is:

1) Post massaged, truncated and/or cherry picked data or just outright lie.

2) Get debunked (the time it takes to do this varies).

3) Retreat to next, more obscure detail.

4) Repeat process one or more times.

5) Get to a detail where it's obscure enough or unprovable to declare... "AHA! Take THAT you warming doomists! AGW isn't real!"

It's frankly horsesh*t. It's also hilarious. But this is what passes for actual debate. That's what he was ticked about.

[tacoman25]

I'm sorry, this post doesn't make much sense to me. Are we talking about the last decade of air temps only? Because nothing I've seen suggests any medium or long term cooling (or even any statistically significant short-term cooling).

He was saying that if you ignored/removed the Arctic warming over the last decade, you would actually get a cooling trend for global temps. As pointed out in another post recently, the global temp trend 2001-present with GISS is completely flat. And that's with a warming Arctic over that period.

[ORH_wxman]

I'm sorry, this post doesn't make much sense to me. Are we talking about the last decade of air temps only? Because nothing I've seen suggests any medium or long term cooling (or even any statistically significant short-term cooling).

The posts in question here were literally a complaint by Friv about the argument moving to ever more nebulous details. The common cycle around here (and in most denier arguments around the internet for that matter) is:

1) Post massaged, truncated and/or cherry picked data or just outright lie.

2) Get debunked (the time it takes to do this varies).

3) Retreat to next, more obscure detail.

4) Repeat process one or more times.

5) Get to a detail where it's obscure enough or unprovable to declare... "AHA! Take THAT you warmers! AGW isn't real!"

It's frankly horsesh*t. But this is what passes for actual debate. That's what he was ticked about.

He has a signature that is completely unfounded...that's what someone like me is asking. You think its fine, I am asking "what lie is going on with the Antarctic?".

And the bolded part seems to be the exact direction many other people go in here too. Most people agree there is warming...that is NOT where the debate lies. If that is where it lies, certainly not to any serious extent in this particular forum. The debate mostly lies in a few factors:

1.) How quickly are we warming?

2.) How accurate are our climate models with the changing variables?

3.) How fast are threats like sea level rise changing?

4.) How accurate and to what magnitude is attribution to extreme weather WRT AGW?

5.) How significant a role is natural variation playing in our weather?

I don't find any of these questions to be unreasonable since most of these questions are very debatable in the peer review science.

And you are correct the cooling is "not significant" in the past 11 years. The warming isn't in the last 15 either. Whatever we want to call it...its pretty much a flat line and it wasn't expected nor predicted by GCMs or by the IPCC. Its fair (at least IMHO) to raise certain points in the climate debate and it doesn't have to mean you don't believe in AGW. Simply asking "why" is good enough in any science...but apparently in here it has become more and more taboo amongst certain posters to even question the "why" to the observations.

[ORH_wxman]

He was saying that if you ignored/removed the Arctic warming over the last decade, you would actually get a cooling trend for global temps. As pointed out in another post recently, the global temp trend 2001-present with GISS is completely flat. And that's with a warming Arctic over that period.

You are correct...however, its still insignificant since the period isn't really long enough and the magnitude not great enough...but yes, the rest of the globe minus the arctic is a cooling trend since 2001.

[tacoman25]

He has a signature that is completely unfounded...that's what someone like me is asking. You think its fine, I am asking "what lie is going on with the Antarctic?".

And the bolded part seems to be the exact direction many other people go in here too. Most people agree there is warming...that is NOT where the debate lies. If that is where it lies, certainly not to any serious extent in this particular forum. The debate mostly lies in a few factors:

1.) How quickly are we warming?

2.) How accurate are our climate models with the changing variables?

3.) How fast are threats like sea level rise changing?

4.) How accurate and to what magnitude is attribution to extreme weather WRT AGW?

5.) How significant a role is natural variation playing in our weather?

I don't find any of these questions to be unreasonable since most of these questions are very debatable in the peer review science.

And you are correct the cooling is "not significant" in the past 11 years. The warming isn't in the last 15 either. Whatever we want to call it...its pretty much a flat line and it wasn't expected nor predicted by GCMs or by the IPCC. Its fair (at least IMHO) to raise certain points in the climate debate and it doesn't have to mean you don't believe in AGW. Simply asking "why" is good enough in any science...but apparently in here it has become more and more taboo amongst certain posters to even question the "why" to the observations.

Great post.

The debates and discussions that go on in this forum are, for the most part, quite nuanced and complex. There are a lot of factors that play a role in climate, and there is a lot of variation in exact viewpoints on climate change.

It does get frustrating when people try to make it into a black/white, believer/denier issue.

[The_Global_Warmer]

my signature about Antarctica is an exchange on Neven's blog between two people that I thought was funny when discussing the typical postings on the denier blogs and subsequent comments that were absurd and chalked full of lies.

As far Antarctica's sea ice being above normal.

Most of the ice is very thin, any new ice like in the 800,000km2 region that is above normal in area is likely 0.10-0.30CM thick. This really shows how little this means. We have seen catastrophic sea ice volume losses in the arctic. As of now 13,300km3 from 1979-2012 sept min. That is ginormous compared to these tiny changes in Antarctica's sea ice.

But before anyone has posted the composition of the sheet at the South Pole they demand or question why they don't get equal attention. Below is why.

We utilize satellite laser altimetry data from NASA's Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) combined with passive microwave measurements to analyze basin-wide changes in Antarctic sea ice thickness and volume over a 5 year period from 2003–2008. Sea ice thickness exhibits a small negative trend while area increases in the summer and fall balanced losses in thickness leading to small overall volume changes. Using a 5 year time series, we show that only small ice thickness changes of less than −0.03 m/yr and volume changes of −266 km³/yr and 160 km³/yr occurred for the spring and summer periods, respectively. These results are in stark contrast to the much greater observed losses in Arctic sea ice volume and illustrate the different hemispheric changes of the polar sea ice covers in recent years. The uncertainties in the calculated thickness and volume trends are large compared to the observed basin-scale trends. This masks the determination of a long-term trend or cyclical variability in the sea ice cover. It is found that lengthening of the observation time series along with better determination of the interannual variability of sea ice and snow densities will allow for a more statistically significant determination of long-term sea ice thickness and volume trends in the Southern Ocean.

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2012/2012JC008141.shtml

[SVT450R]

Area looks like it peaked just under 2007 record high coming in second highest.

[TerryM]

With the Southern Ocean warming, can it be too far in the future before we see a collapse?

Terry

[ORH_wxman]

With the Southern Ocean warming, can it be too far in the future before we see a collapse?

Terry

The Southern Ocean isn't warming. At least according to our typical NOAA Reynolds SST data.

[TerryM]

The Southern Ocean isn't warming. At least according to our typical NOAA Reynolds SST data.

Just quoting some stuff from Jeff Masters - haven't researched that side of the world, and probably won't - things are happening too fast here to keep up.

Terry

[PhillipS]

The Southern Ocean isn't warming. At least according to our typical NOAA Reynolds SST data.

I keep seeing that statement - but when I look at the NOAA charts this is what they post:

Maybe it's me but I don't see a long-term cooling trend for the SH. It looks like the SH has warmed by more than 1 C over the instrumental period. Less than the NH, granted, but still significant warming.

They did not have an SST only plot up but here is the table from the same webpage:

Anomaly Rank

(out of 133 years) Records °C °F Year(s) °C °F Global Land +0.95 ± 0.21 +1.71 ± 0.38 6^th Warmest Warmest: 2007 +1.12 +2.02 128^th Coolest Coolest: 1893 -0.73 -1.31 Ocean +0.42 ± 0.04 +0.76 ± 0.07 11^th Warmest Warmest: 1998 +0.57 +1.03 123^rd Coolest Coolest: 1911 -0.50 -0.90 Land and Ocean +0.56 ± 0.10 +1.01 ± 0.18 9^th Warmest Warmest: 1998, 2010 +0.70 +1.26 125^th Coolest Coolest: 1911 -0.51 -0.92 Ties: 2006 Northern Hemisphere Land +1.08 ± 0.26 +1.94 ± 0.47 4^th Warmest Warmest: 2007 +1.29 +2.32 130^th Coolest Coolest: 1893 -0.82 -1.48 Ocean +0.42 ± 0.05 +0.76 ± 0.09 10^th Warmest Warmest: 2010 +0.57 +1.03 124^th Coolest Coolest: 1910 -0.49 -0.88 Land and Ocean +0.67 ± 0.15 +1.21 ± 0.27 6^th Warmest Warmest: 2010 +0.80 +1.44 128^th Coolest Coolest: 1893, 1913 -0.52 -0.94 Southern Hemisphere Land +0.61 ± 0.15 +1.10 ± 0.27 8^th Warmest Warmest: 2005 +0.94 +1.69 126^th Coolest Coolest: 1917 -0.73 -1.31 Ties: 2011 Ocean +0.43 ± 0.04 +0.77 ± 0.07 11^th Warmest Warmest: 1998 +0.60 +1.08 123^rd Coolest Coolest: 1911 -0.52 -0.94 Ties: 2007 Land and Ocean +0.46 ± 0.07 +0.83 ± 0.13 12^th Warmest Warmest: 1998 +0.65 +1.17 122^nd Coolest Coolest: 1911 -0.53 -0.95

Well, the table's formatting got a bit hosed when I copied it - but the relevant data is the SH SST anomaly for 2012 YTD is 0.43 C which is the 11th warmest in the 133 year record - only ten years have been warmer. How do you see that as a cooling trend?

[The_Global_Warmer]

ORH is referring to this. As a caveat that region is land/ice covered throughout a lot of the year, so it's not that large of a sample.

(13) Southern Ocean Sea Surface Temperature (SST) Anomalies

(90S-60S)

Monthly Change = +0.019 deg C

[dabize]

But thats pretty silly to say....because the exact same thing could be said to anyone for focusing only on the arctic region...especially recently since the rest of the globe is cooling in comparison to the arctic.

Since when did the arctic replace our global climate?

You can't be serious.

There is water (albedo 0.15) under a large area of Arctic ice, which has never melted out completely in the past few thousand years. The Arctic sea ice is showing every sign of doing this within the next few years - all that is needed is significant melting to occur in the Arctic basin 3 weeks earlier than it is occurring today. This will definitely happen - the Arctic sea ice is clearly on the proverbial banana peel after this years melt season.

This WILL cause a massive increase in absorbed energy that can be calculated and WILL: 1) accelerate GIS melting, 2) cause heating of the Arctic atmosphere and shallow seabed areas and 3) probably alter the weather of most of the NH. This is global enough for me. Notice that I didn't even get to CH4 and the ESAS.

BTW, this is not true of the Antarctic, which can never (well not soon) lose most of its highly reflective surface during high insolation season, since this consists of Antarctic ice sheets and ice shelves. Antarctic sea ice melts every year and is clearly not a significant factor .

The uncertainty is mainly in the precise form that the "severe consequences" of ASI loss will come - will it be:

drought?

SLR?

heat waves?

disease?

all of the above?

Yes, it might take a couple of decades for the nasty stuff to kick in, but I'm in my 50's (older than many here) and I'm fully expecting to be around in 20 years. So this is of more than academic interest to me.....let alone my kids.

[PhillipS]

ORH is referring to this. As a caveat that region is land/ice covered throughout a lot of the year, so it's not that large of a sample.

(13) Southern Ocean Sea Surface Temperature (SST) Anomalies

(90S-60S)

Monthly Change = +0.019 deg C

Thank you, Friv, that helps me understand where ORH is coming from. So, if one limits the region to just a portion of the Southern Hemisphere, and also trims the analysis period to just a portion of the instrumental period - one can generate a plot with the appearance of a weak cooling trend. Wow - impressive.

Silly me, I was concerned they might be cherry picking.

[Snow_Miser]

Thank you, Friv, that helps me understand where ORH is coming from. So, if one limits the region to just a portion of the Southern Hemisphere, and also trims the analysis period to just a portion of the instrumental period - one can generate a plot with the appearance of a weak cooling trend. Wow - impressive.

Silly me, I was concerned they might be cherry picking.

How is Will cherry picking? We're not talking about the entire Southern Hemisphere, just the Antarctic and the surrounding waters.

[TerryM]

It appears I misspoke - Masters actually charted the temperature rise of the Southern Ocean Surface Air Temperature, not SST.s

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=2237

He did have a few words for "contrarians" trying to distract from the Arctic

"This analysis is highly misleading, as it ignores the fact that Antarctica has actually been warming in recent years. In fact, the oceans surrounding Antarctica have warmed faster than the global trend, and there has been accelerated melting of ocean-terminating Antarctic glaciers in recent years as a result of warmer waters eating away the glaciers. There is great concern among scientists about the stability of two glaciers in West Antarctica (the Pine Island and Thwaites Glaciers) due the increase in ocean temperatures. These glaciers may suffer rapid retreats that will contribute significantly to global sea level rise."

ORH understands AGW, and how it raises temperatures globally, so he's aware that the Antarctic ice sheets must eventually add to the SLR we're now experiencing. I'm just not sure I understand why he thinks it's of immediate importance.

Terry