52 replies to this topic

[Chris]

Ape - your explanation above is really good about how temperature variations that used to occur over millions of years are now occurring over hundreds of years.  And it's primarily the years since the beginning of the industrial revolution.  Folks who don't think GW is human caused will have to propose another reason for it.

Really...?   And you are the "math" guy.....?   Come on, wake up...!   You can't take the recent data and extrapolate that to the past...!   Since 1880 and you have all the answers...?    I'm like at 600 million years before you and I say my data trumps yours, and in spades...!    Come on chicken little...!  You and your two others here need to start worrying about increased taxes, the CA debt, the next presidential election, ISIS at your front door....!   Trump or Hillary.....!    Climate change is the least of your worries, trust me...!   This was my major....   Of course you think I am in the sixth grade intellectually......   Typical condescending liberal, progressive that you are............But I really do know this stuff.   And you are dead wrong....!   Chris

[apeman45]

Chris - We are not talking politics.  We are talking about science.  This discussion has nothing to do with your fear of ISIS here in Folsom.

[Chris]

Chris - We are not talking politics.  We are talking about science.  This discussion has nothing to do with your fear of ISIS here in Folsom.

Did you notice your Climate Clown "messiah" did not mention anything about the Ice moving from New Jersey all the way to the Antarctic in the sweep of my simple post...?   No, he ignored it...   As he always does.........    Just like he ignores the CO2 numbers from 50 million years ago, 100 million years ago, 150 million years ago....    Your "Climate Clown" messiah has no answers.   Does he....?   Fess up, you know it's true.   Get the drift here yet....?   He ignores any data, any proof, any numbers that do not support his AGW Climate Clown theory.   Chris

 

The CO2 chart again for reference, for reality, for argument, if you can deny, please try............?

 

[GrumpyOldGuy]

Apeman -  Like you, I spend lots of time in the mountains.  Wife and I are from Colorado and return there often for vacations.  We've also noticed dramatic changes in the wild.  40 years ago, the forests in the Colo mtns were lush and brilliant green.  Last summer, while driving there on I-70 we noticed that in many locations vast expanses of forest were completely dead.  We asked locals about it and learned the story.  Winters in the Colo mtns have become shorter and nowhere near as cold.  As a result, not enough native pine bark beetles are being killed during the winter freeze, and the beetles are flourishing and decimating the forests.  I suspect there are numerous other mini-environments that are being affected in similar ways.  Sadly, we get to witness all of this.

[4thgenFolsomite]

Sadly the same thing is happening in our forests in California, tree die-off here is staggering, especially in the southern half of our state.

[apeman45]

Yup.  Fire season is now longer and the fires are much larger.  Here's a list of all the biggest fires in California since 1932.  You'll notice that almost all of them are in more recent years.  I wonder why since our fire fighting abilities have improved.  I drove through the rim fire aftermath last March and the scale of that fire is hard to comprehend.  It was huge!  I was in Yosemite and hiked up the mist trail to the base of half dome at 8000 feet.  There was no snow on the ground anywhere - in March!  Unprecedented!

 

http://www.fire.ca.g...ts/20LACRES.pdf

[Chris]

Hmm...  Didn't we have a record ice sheet down in the Antarctic in 2012, 2013, and 2014....?   Still record ice down there now from what I read...?  Chris

[apeman45]

Chris - Your example of Antarctica is like pointing to a record rainfall year on the island of Kauai to dispel that we are not having a drought in California.  It has been a well documented phenomenon that global warming has increased snowfall in many areas.  GW is causing changes in worldwide weather patterns.  You need to think globally with your examples.  The sum of worldwide temperatures continues to rise at unprecedented levels.  There are many explanations to the increase of the Antartica ice.  One such explanation is the rise of ocean temperatures has increased the moisture in the atmosphere which has caused more snowfall than usual.  Also the thinner overall ice can sink under heavy snowfall causing ocean water to come to the surface and freeze.  Overall weather patterns, low pressure systems and winds all contribute.  Check it out it's called meteorology.  Plus there's the big hole in the ozone layer in Antarctica at play here.  It's not as simple as pointing at one piece of data.

 

Unfortunately the amount of sea ice gained in Antartica pales to the amount lost in the Arctic.  Despite the gains in Antarctic ice we are still losing a net of 13,000 square miles of ice a year between the 2 poles.  That's a lot of ice.  I calculated it out to 6.3 million football fields of ice per year.

 

You have to look at the big picture.  This is what Grumpy Old Guy has been trying to explain to you.  There are major changes ahead which will cause some very inconvenient consequences to humankind.  You can try to explain it away by looking at tiny anomalies but it doesn't work at a global level.  

[Chris]

Chris - Your example of Antarctica.............. It has been a well documented phenomenon that global warming has increased snowfall in many areas. 

 

You have to look at the big picture. 

Wow, too cold here, too warm there, too wet here, to dry there, no ice here, lots of ice there.....?   Everything fits your theory...!   You can't lose an argument if you claim cold or hot, wet or not, ice or not is due to your AGW theory....!   All the bases covered have you....!   Just amazing....!   Any extreme that happens in the Earth's climate is explained by your theory.....!   Does that not sound a little weird to you...?  Kinda goes against scientific principals and logic, don't you think...?

 

And you are so right, about having to "look at the big picture".....!   That is what I have been trying to tell you guys....!    Look at hundreds of thousands of years, millions of years, hundreds of millions years of climate and your "evil" CO2...!   You two are looking back to 1880 for your temperature data and 1958 for your CO2 data....!    That ain't the BIG PICTURE brother, not by a long shot.....!    Chris

[GrumpyOldGuy]

Apeman,  you are correct regarding the net ice surface area between Arctic and Antarctic regions.  The loss of ice at the North Pole far exceeds the gain in ice at the South Pole. 

 

In the Forum titled, "For Those That Love Science...An Interesting Read" we even reviewed the math on this in my post on Jan 3rd at 9:19am:

 

-  The slope of the normalized data for Arctic ice decrease is approx. -4.7% per decade   (data from https://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/)

 

-  The slope of the normalized data for Antarctic ice increase is approx. +0.8% per decade   (data from the same source)

 

-  The net change of ice is then -3.9%, but then needs to be normalized for the differences between Arctic and Antarctic total sea ice areas

 

-  When normalized for the sea ice area differences, the net sea ice change for Arctic and Antarctic taken together is -2.6% per decade

 

An the only plausible explanation is that the planet is getting warmer.  So the example and data of sea ice increase/decrease at the south/north poles is more evidence that GW is indeed upon us.

 

Apeman,  maybe you should repost the list of 193 international organizations that have agreed regarding the causes of GW.  It was in the same Forum noted above on Dec 23rd at 8:00pm

[Chris]

Has the Earth ever done this before...?   Why yes, yes it has...!   How many times...?   Many, many, many times.  Was Man on the planet, industrialized Man when it did happen before....?   No.  Of the last 600 million years of "climate change" you guys are focused on the last 0.0000003% of time, of climate history, since about 1800 and the industrial revolution.   Man is not responsible for your current "climate change" or for what happened in the last 600 million years.  Chris

[The Average Joe]

Are your numbers for SEA ICE, or TOTAL ICE. Big difference as the Antarctic has vastly more total ice by percentage.

 

And this from NASA :On Sept. 19 this year, for the first time ever since 1979, Antarctic sea ice extent exceeded 7.72 million square miles (20 million square kilometers), according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. The ice extent stayed above this benchmark extent for several days. The average maximum extent between 1981 and 2010 was 7.23 million square miles (18.72 million square kilometers).

 

So we gained nearly half a million square miles of sea ice over and above the 30 year average. Contrast that to a loss of arctic ice of around 600,000 square miles over 30 years We are talking about a 100,000 square mile difference. Sounds like a lot until you realize Antarctic growth was nearly that much in a couple of years vs 30 years of Arctic loss. AND, perhaps most importantly, square miles are meaningless unless you adjust for equivalent thicknesses. i.e 100,000 sq miles at 10 feet thick would have the same volume as 1,000,000 sq miles 1 foot thick. Comparing square miles without equalizing for thickness is a meaningless endeavor.

 

Oh, and by the way, according to you, "the only plausible explanation is that the planet is getting warmer..."  Not so. Alterations in global ocean circulatory patterns can easily explain the slight temperature differences that result in more snow/ice in one place and less in the other.  The current and recurring ENSO (El Nino Southern Oscillation) event is a prime example. The global ocean circulatory pattern is not set in stone. It is a fluid system(no pun intended) that is ever-changing due to a multitude of factors. Surely you can concede that that is a plausible explanation?

[The Average Joe]

Update.

Arctic ice volume is a paltry 28 thousand cubic kilometers. Greenland's ice volume is 2.8 million cubic kilometer. 100 times as much! Antarctic ice volume is 30 million cubic kilometers, or nearly 1100 times as much ice by volume as the Arctic. The Arctic has less than 0.1% of the worlds ice. In other words, you are making a fuss about a 3% decline of 0.1% of Earth's ice. Or stated another way, a reduction of 0.003% of Earth's ice.

 

Ohhh...doom and gloom!

[Chris]

Boom...!  

 

That's the sound of the other shoe dropping...!  Or a cleaving iceberg.....?   Well done Joe...!  

[apeman45]

 

 

And this from NASA :On Sept. 19 this year, for the first time ever since 1979, Antarctic sea ice extent exceeded 7.72 million square miles (20 million square kilometers), according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. The ice extent stayed above this benchmark extent for several days. The average maximum extent between 1981 and 2010 was 7.23 million square miles (18.72 million square kilometers).

 

 

"Since the late 1970s, the Arctic has lost an average of 20,800 square miles (53,900 square kilometers) of ice a year; the Antarctic has gained an average of 7,300 square miles (18,900 sq km)."

 

This is the sentence directly preceding Joe's cherry picked quote.  Read the whole article here.

http://www.nasa.gov/...-record-maximum

 

 

 When you consider all the data, just as you need to consider global temperatures and not just microclimates it is impossible to argue the results.  Joe - it's not the volume of total ice melt but the increasing loss per year over a very short timeframe.  What else can it be if not rising temperatures.  It's too late to stop it but what are the consequences and how many trillions of dollars is it going to cost.  

 

Thanks for bringing up ice thickness Joe.  It obliterates the denier argument that global warming isn't real "Just look at Antartica and all that ice!"

 

"But since 2003, losses in the west have increased while gains in the east have stopped, meaning the total volume of ice has decreased markedly. For West Antarctic ice shelves, the rate of ice loss has increased by 70% in the last decade, the paper finds. For example, ice shelves in the Amundsen and Bellingshausen seas have thinned by 8% and 5% respectively over the last 18 years. These two regions alone account for around 20% of West Antarctic ice shelves."

 

Read the WHOLE article here.

 

http://www.carbonbri...veals-new-study

 

You are right Joe - Ocean currents and temperatures do change all the time but not in the arctic or the antarctic and not to such extremes.  Ocean temperatures there have never been so high and melting from the bottom up has never occurred so fast.  This is the new norm.  Ocean and air temperatures are causing drastic changes to weather patterns.