donsutherland1

The JAXA data suggests otherwise. 1990-2007: Mean Melt: 8.897 million square kilometers (59.4% of mean maximum) 2008-2018: Mean Melt: 9.916 million square kilometers (69.2% of mean maximum)

The science doesn't suggest that in 12 years we will "die." That's a caricature of what the science is actually suggesting: time is somewhat limited if the world is to achieve its 1.5°C goal.

If one is referring to the AOC plan, I strongly oppose it. It contains substantial extraneous provisions that have nothing to do with climate/clean energy. Instead, those provisions would dramatically shift the U.S. away from a market-oriented economy. There are far better ways to approach the issue.

The points the guide is making are: 1. Carbon dioxide has a long residency in the atmosphere. 2. Anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions have been the dominant influence for recent warming. The IPCC explained: Anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions have increased since the pre-industrial era, driven largely by economic and population growth, and are now higher than ever. This has led to atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide that are unprecedented in at least the last 800,000 years. Their effects, together with those of other anthropogenic drivers, have been detected throughout the climate system and are extremely likely to have been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century. As the guide is intended for young audiences, it greatly simplifies the conclusions. Concepts such as probability and atmospheric residency are for older students. This is introductory material aimed at providing the big picture. It was vetted by climate scientists and the IPCC.

On August 23, Arctic sea ice extent was 4,412,266 square kilometers on JAXA. Based on sensitivity analysis, the following are implied probabilities for various minimum extent figures: 4.25 million square kilometers or below: 99% 4.00 million square kilometers or below: 86% 3.75 million square kilometers or below: 45% 3.50 million square kilometers or below: 9% 75th percentile: 3.918 million square kilometers 25th percentile: 3.635 million square kilometers Minimum extent figures based on historic 2010-2018 data: Mean decline: 3.776 million square kilometers Median decline: 3.788 million square kilometers Minimum decline: 3.941 million square kilometers Maximum decline: 3.618 million square kilometers Summary: Through August 23, Arctic sea ice extent remains firmly on a path that will very likely result in the second lowest minimum extent figure on record and the second such figure below 4.0 million square kilometers.

Earlier this year, France's Office for Climate Education prepared a guide for teachers on climate science. The guide was written in multiple languages and it was also publicized by the World Meteorological Organization. It would make a useful addition to any early STEM class that covers earth science. Among other things, the guide explains the ongoing warming, climate change impacts at 1.5°C and 2.0°C, potential approaches for achieving the Paris Agreement's target of limiting warming to 1.5°C above the pre-industrial temperature average, and addressing climate change within the context of sustainable development. The guide introduces educators and students to credible resources. For example, one task involves looking up the definition of "climate" on the World Meteorological Organization's website. It also provides a link by which users can visit the relevant portion of the IPCC's 2013 assessment. The report is consistent with the climate science consensus. Among other things, its summary explains: Human activities have caused a 1.0°C rise in the global temperature over the past 150 years. Global warming is likely to reach 1.5°C between 2030 and 2052, if warming continues at the current rate. Our CO2 emissions will remain in the atmosphere for centuries to millennia, maintaining the warmer temperatures long after these emissions were released. The English version of that guide can be found at: http://www.oce.global/sites/default/files/2019-04/ST1.5_final_040419.pdf Under a creative commons license, it can be freely shared, used, and adapted for non-commercial use.

Redundancy doesn't have to cover the whole system. Only a sufficient share of excess power capacity from alternative approaches needs to be available during the transition to cover issues that may arise. Complete failure of the entire system is not a likely scenario. Partial failure is. China is aggressively pursuing solar power and making rapid progress in terms of production cost effectiveness. Nuclear power is another alternative.

I agree. I suspect that such technology isn’t too far in the future (probably a decade or less away).

Multiple steps are required. Bringing about cost parity and later cost superiority (lower costs) is one part of the larger problem. Expansion of the application, including but not limited to issues related to storage is another. Redundancy will still be needed for the foreseeable future, even if solar power ultimately becomes the primary source of electricity.

On August 20, Arctic sea ice extent was 4,507,767 square kilometers on JAXA. Only 2007 (4,877,731 square kilometers), 2012 (4,143,648 square kilometers) and 2016 (4,922,931 square kilometers) had figures below 5 million square kilometers by August 20. Based on sensitivity analysis, the following are implied probabilities for various minimum extent figures: 4.50 million square kilometers or below: 99.9% 4.25 million square kilometers or below: 98% 4.00 million square kilometers or below: 86% 3.75 million square kilometers or below: 55% 3.50 million square kilometers or below: 20% 75th percentile: 3.895 million square kilometers 25th percentile: 3.543 million square kilometers Minimum extent figures based on historic 2010-2018 data: Mean decline: 3.719 million square kilometers Median decline: 3.711 million square kilometers Minimum decline: 3.922 million square kilometers Maximum decline: 3.542 million square kilometers Summary: Through August 21, Arctic sea ice extent remains firmly on a path that will very likely result in the second lowest minimum extent figure on record and the second such figure below 4.0 million square kilometers.

New research has revealed that solar power has reached grid parity in China’s cities. Such an outcome in which new technologies become cost effective with scale and experience has been the norm with major technologies that move from the introductory to the growth phase. The abstract is below: We reveal that all of these cities can achieve—without subsidies—solar PV electricity prices lower than grid-supplied prices, and around 22% of the cities’ solar generation electricity prices can compete with desulfurized coal benchmark electricity prices. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-019-0441-z

It's not an "attack" on person. It's an attack on deeply flawed article that has little to do with science. Noting that Watts does not have a background in climate science and is not an expert in the area of glaciers are both facts. Indeed, if one wants further details, there's question as to whether he, in fact, completed his college studies. http://sourcewatch.org/images/4/4d/Anthony_Watts.pdf That wasn't the point. Thus, the issue about his not possessing expertise in climate science and glaciers was noted. Nothing was mentioned about the above controversy. The major focus was on the flawed article he had written. Iceland is a volcanically active region, but not every volcano is active. The OK Volcano last erupted during the Pleistocene Epoch and may well be extinct. If it is extinct, there's no heat. Watts also posted the NSIDC quote. Nowhere does the quote issue any ranking concerning temperature, much less the claim of "temperature coming in last" as factors related to the retreat of glaciers. Were the Watts framework accepted, OK's retreat would be a relatively rare case due to unique circumstances (location atop a volcano, setting aside that the volcano is dormant and possibly extinct). Instead, as the paper to which I provided a hyperlink (which is one from among numerous studies related to global glacier trends), OK's retreat is part of a broader global trend where glaciers across the world are generally in retreat, even as many of those glaciers are not located atop volcanoes. Why is this the case? If not volcanoes, what factor do they have in common? The global data make the common factor unmistakably clear: temperatures are rising. Multiple high-quality datasets (HadCrut, GISS, NCDC, Berkeley, Copernicus) all show this trend. Further, 98% of the globe has experienced the warmest 50 years on record (Common Era). https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1401-2.epdf Instead, Watts discounted the importance of temperature (something NSIDC had not done). At the same time, he omitted any mention of the Arctic temperature record. That's a material omission. Further, Iceland is expected to continue its ongoing robust warming trend, which has contributed to OK's retreat. https://en.vedur.is/media/vedurstofan-utgafa-2017/VI_2017_009.pdf

The Greenland Ice Sheet holds 7.2 m of sea level equivalent and in recent decades, rising temperatures have led to accelerated mass loss. Current ice margin recession is led by the retreat of outlet glaciers, large rivers of ice ending in narrow fjords that drain the interior. We pair an outlet glacier–resolving ice sheet model with a comprehensive uncertainty quantification to estimate Greenland’s contribution to sea level over the next millennium. We find that Greenland could contribute 5 to 33 cm to sea level by 2100, with discharge from outlet glaciers contributing 8 to 45% of total mass loss. Our analysis shows that uncertainties in projecting mass loss are dominated by uncertainties in climate scenarios and surface processes, whereas uncertainties in calving and frontal melt play a minor role. We project that Greenland will very likely become ice free within a millennium without substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/6/eaav9396

The following is an example of the kind of scientific illiteracy and efforts at disinformation that climate scientists must combat in order to ensure that the public has accurate information concerning climate change. Excerpts from an article by Anthony Watts: The media are abuzz over the first icy “casualty” of climate change: a small glacier in Iceland named Okjökull, also known as “OK.” The claim, made in a press release from Rice University, is that OK became the first glacier in Iceland to lose its glacial status because of global warming... As the U.S. Geological Survey noted, OK is actually an icecap on top of a volcano — located on a volcanically active Iceland. Yes, OK is slowly disappearing, but it is completely disingenuous to say climate change is without any doubt the main reason for OK’s demise. Even if we assume there’s no heat from the volcano, what else could be causing OK’s ice loss? To answer that question, you need to understand how glaciers work. According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC): "A glacier forms when snow accumulates over time, turns to ice, and begins to flow outwards and downwards under the pressure of its own weight[.] … Glacier retreat, melt, and ablation result from increasing temperature, evaporation, and wind scouring. Ablation is a natural and seasonal part of glacier life. As long as snow accumulation equals or is greater than melt and ablation, a glacier will remain in balance or even grow. Once winter snowfall decreases, or summer melt increases, the glacier will begin to retreat." If snow is not added, glaciers don’t grow, and they naturally lose ice due to sublimation, ablation, and melt. I don’t think these people pushing OK’s death fully understand glaciers. The process of ice loss in a high-latitude glacier is mainly due to three things, with temperature coming in last. http://blog.heartland.org/2019/08/the-reports-of-icelands-glacial-death-have-been-greatly-exaggerated/ Now the facts: First, there is no credible evidence to implicate the volcano. Indeed, Mr. Watts claims the volcano may or may not be responsible. The volcano is, in fact, dormant and perhaps extinct. The OK volcano isn't even listed in the modern eruption record, as no known eruptions have occurred for millennia or longer. https://volcano.si.edu/database/search_volcano_results.cfm Second, the NSIDC language Watts quotes notes the role of temperature (underlined), "Glacier retreat, melt, and ablation result from increasing temperature, evaporation, and wind scouring..." Notice the NSIDC language never ranks the role of temperature, even as temperature is the first factor cited. Mr. Watts subjectively injects personal opinion into his piece. Temperature has played a large role. The Arctic has experienced unprecedented warmth during the instrument record and rapid warming over the past 50 years. The data can be found at: https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata_v4/ZonAnn.Ts+dSST.txt (64N-90N) Third, the dramatic retreat of the OK glacier is not an isolated event. Worldwide, glaciers have largely been retreating. That broad retreat has been documented in numerous scientific papers. One such paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo2863 Further, most of those glaciers don't sit atop volcanoes. In sum, Mr. Watts ranked the role of temperature based on a read of the NSIDC's language on glaciers that is inconsistent with the intellectual integrity of that language. He engaged in speculation about a volcano's possible role without looking into the facts about that volcano. In the end, Mr. Watts, who has no background in climate science, much less the study of glaciers, reached an unsupported conclusion that has no foundation in the scientific literature. It is pure opinion spiced with baseless speculation. Its purpose is not to inform, but to mislead.

On August 17, Arctic sea ice extent was 4.635 million square kilometers (JAXA). Arctic sea ice extent remains on track of the second lowest figure on record. If Arctic sea ice extent declines at the 2010-18 mean rate, it would achieve a minimum figure of 3.695 million square kilometers. The median rate would produce a minimum extent of 3.672 square kilometers. Implied probabilities based on sensitivity analysis: 4.000 million square kilometers or below: 84% 3.750 million square kilometers or below: 57% 3.500 million square kilometers or below: 26% Highest 25th percentile: 3.905 million square kilometers Lowest 25th percentile: 3.486 million square kilometers In sum, Arctic sea ice extent will very likely fall below 4.0 million square kilometers for only the second time on record.

Back in late July, both the average statistical decline (2010-18 period) and sensitivity analysis indicated that it was likely that Arctic sea ice extent would fall below 4.000 million square kilometers at its minimum for only the second time on record. Since then, things have remained on track for such an outcome.

This is what denial looks like. The BBC reported: The top 10 warmest years on record in the UK have all occurred since 2002, a new analysis from the Met Office says. Its State of the UK Climate report shows that 2014 remains the warmest year in a temperature sequence now dating back to 1884. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-49167797 The underlying report, which is packed with data, can be found at: https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/joc.6213 Tom Nelson tweeted the following response, "Sounds like complete BS to me: 'UK's 10 warmest years all occurred since 2002' - BBC News" https://twitter.com/tan123/status/1156527168572272640 When it comes to science, "sounds like" isn't a sufficient basis for arriving at a conclusion. It is nothing more than an evasion aimed at circumventing the rigor of the scientific method and its emphasis on evidence.In other words, he reached a conclusion without evidence, without data, without anything of substance to inform it. Put another way, his conclusion is little more than a conspiracy theory based on the implied premise that science and scientists are misleading the world. With respect to such conspiracy theories, the Oxford Research Encyclopedias explains: Conspiracy theories that accuse government of perverting science often view the conspirators as having socialist or totalitarian aims. Some Americans, Canadians, and others have objected to the government inclusion of fluoride into drinking water (Carstairs & Elder, 2008; Newbrun & Horowitz, 1999; Oliver & Wood, 2014b). They argued first that there was a conspiracy of silence to hide the negative side effects from an unsuspecting public (Connett, Beck, & Micklem, 2010), but also that fluoridation was the first step in a growing expansion of government control over an individual’s life, part of a trend in America toward socialism or totalitarianism … once the precedent was set for using public drinking water to medicate the population, the government would argue for the addition of birth control medication, or sedatives or an "anti-hostility" drug. (Reilly, 2006, p. 329)... Climate change denialist conspiracy theories often follow the same logic as other conspiracy theories accusing government. These conspiracy theories make a series of interrelated and often interchangeable claims: (1) that ideological organizations, including government, have used grant money to pervert the science; (2) that the peer-review process has become tainted by an oligarchy of scientists seeking to suppress dissent; (3) that climate science is less about science and more about socialist ideology; and (4) that larger international groups have faked climate science as a scheme to achieve global wealth redistribution or one-world government (Douglas & Sutton, 2015; Goertzel, 2010, 2013; Hurley & Walker, 2004). https://oxfordre.com/climatescience/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228620.001.0001/acrefore-9780190228620-e-328 In the end, when it comes to such flippant responses of denial, the public should reject them absent credible and sufficient evidence to support them. They should not be accepted at face value, especially in the absence of evidence. The absence of evidence reveals them for what they are, one variant in a range of conspiracy theories aimed at discrediting science and scientists.

On July 30, Arctic sea ice extent was 5.998 million square kilometers (JAXA). That broke the daily minimum record of 6.132 million square kilometers, which was set in 2012. It is also the earliest figure under 6.000 million square kilometers. The previous earliest figure occurred on August 3, 2012 when Arctic sea ice extent was 5.911 million square kilometers.

During the natural climate cycles of the past 2,000 years, the timing of peak cold and warm periods (top 51 years) during each cycle differed globally. This time, the ongoing current warm period is starkly different. Instead, the timing of the peak warming (so far, as the warming is continuing) is astonishingly uniform. This suggests an outcome (impact of growing greenhouse gas forcing) that has largely overwhelmed "regionally specific mechanisms." A newly published paper explains: In contrast to the spatial heterogeneity of the preindustrial era, the highest probability for peak warming over the entire Common Era (Fig. 3c) is found in the late twentieth century almost everywhere (98% of global surface area), except for Antarctica, where contemporary warming has not yet been observed over the entire continent. Thus, even though the recent warming rates are not entirely homogeneous over the globe, with isolated areas showing little warming or even cooling, the climate system is now in a state of global temperature coherence that is unprecedented over the Common Era... Against this regional framing, perhaps our most striking result is the exceptional spatiotemporal coherence during the warming of the twentieth century. This result provides further evidence of the unprecedented nature of anthropogenic global warming in the context of the past 2,000 years. The above chart is from the referenced paper. The complete paper can be found at: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1401-2.epdf

It should be noted that even if temperatures are measured in whole degrees, averaging over the entire global network over yearly periods can result in values that involve hundredths, thousandths, etc. In any case, the January-June 2019 vs. January-June 1998 average was nearly 0.3 degrees C.

Through June, 2019 is running well ahead of 1998 in terms of its global anomaly (just under 0.98°C above the baseline vs. 1998's 0.69°C above the baseline on GISS). Overall, through the first six months of the year, 2019 ranked 3rd warmest. 1998 ranked 10th warmest. https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata_v4/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt http://www.columbia.edu/~mhs119/Temperature/

I didn't say anything like that. Instead, I stated that recent changes in solar activity do not explain the ongoing observed warming. That is the point made by NASA, which I quoted. There has been a decoupling of the temperature trend (rising) from solar activity (relatively stable since the 1960s with some fluctuations).

In the wake of the historic heatwaves that rolled through Europe smashing all-time records (including setting 55% of the all-time record highs for France's 1,050 weather stations), it seems that the climate change deniers are in somewhat of a frenzy to redirect public attention from what happened and the underlying scientific basis. That scientific basis concerning the existence of climate change and its anthropogenic driver is now all but unequivocal overall, despite the existence of some residual uncertainties. Two recent examples from Social Media: Joe Bastardi: "Classic horribly biased reporting, BBC puts this out, but refuses to acknowledge that the planet is greener than ever in the satellite era. guess pictures of the greening earth won't lead to deception I dare the BBC to put that latter picture up, the reality of what is going on" Tom Nelson: "'Forward projections of solar cyclicity imply the next few decades may be marked by global cooling rather than warming, despite continuing CO2 emissions' #NIPCC" Reality is different. The denial that is underway has nothing to do with science. It is a rejection of science and the scientific method. A recent paper published in Nature Human Behavior distinguishes between scientific skepticism and the "science denialism" being advanced to mislead the public about climate change. Science denialism must not be confused with scepticism. Scepticism towards scientific propositions is a crucial element of science itself. In fact, it functions as a driving force of scientific debates and increases the quality of new propositions via mechanisms such as peer review and the replication of experimental research. The common ground of this functional scepticism is the scientific ethos that scientists use data to update their prior beliefs regardless of the outcome. However, in contrast to functional scepticism, science deniers accept evidence only if it confirms their prior beliefs--that usually contradict the scientific consensus. This dysfunctional scepticism is driven by how the denier would like things to be rather than what he has evidence for, making science denialism a motivated rejection of science. https://t.co/jysNBwsVA2 Bastardi's point ignores a key point about the "greening" that is underway: Arctic warming is leading to plant growth in a region that previously was too cold to support it. In other words, this plant growth provides confirmation of the climate change that Bastardi rejects. For more than 35 years, satellites circling the Arctic have detected a “greening” trend in Earth’s northernmost landscapes. Scientists have attributed this verdant flush to more vigorous plant growth and a longer growing season, propelled by higher temperatures that come with climate change. But recently, satellites have been picking up a decline in tundra greenness in some parts of the Arctic. Those areas appear to be “browning.” Like the salmonberry harvesters on the Kenai Peninsula, ecologists working on the ground have witnessed browning up close at field sites across the circumpolar Arctic, from Alaska to Greenland to northern Norway and Sweden. Yet the bushes bereft of berries and the tinder-dry heaths (low-growing shrubland) haven’t always been picked up by the satellites. The low-resolution sensors may have averaged out the mix of dead and living vegetation and failed to detect the browning. https://phys.org/news/2018-08-ecosystems-greener-arctic.html Nelson has cited solar activity to advance calls for global cooling to get underway. Yet, global temperatures continue to rise with little credible evidence of a decline and profound evidence of a decoupling from solar activity. http://www.columbia.edu/~mhs119/Temperature/1880-1920base.png The global temperature trend has diverged from solar irradiance. NASA observed: One of the “smoking guns” that tells us the Sun is not causing global warming comes from looking at the amount of the Sun’s energy that hits the top of the atmosphere. Since 1978, scientists have been tracking this using sensors on satellites and what they tell us is that there has been no upward trend in the amount of the Sun’s energy reaching Earth. A second smoking gun is that if the Sun were responsible for global warming, we would expect to see warming throughout all layers of the atmosphere, from the surface all the way up to the upper atmosphere (stratosphere). But what we actually see is warming at the surface and cooling in the stratosphere. This is consistent with the warming being caused by a build-up of heat-trapping gases near the surface of the Earth, and not by the Sun getting “hotter.” https://climate.nasa.gov/faq/14/is-the-sun-causing-global-warming/ It is imperative that the public be able to sort fact from fiction. The body of literature on climate change is large and growing. When it comes to the noisy movement to deny climate change, a good starting point is to ask why those who deny it have refused to put their ideas to peer review. It is easy to fire empty cannons from the sidelines. Peer review requires that one's ideas hold up to rigorous scrutiny that is a defining attribute of science. But, as noted above, science denialism is a rejection of science. Thus, the peer review channel is avoided.

In searching for forecasts for the minimum Arctic Sea Ice extent, I came across one source: https://www.arcus.org/sipn/sea-ice-outlook/2019/july The median figure from that source is 4.28 million square kilometers. The statistical mean that I posted was 3.89 million square kilometers. I will probably re-run the data when I get back from abroad around 8/20 or so. By then, it should be much clearer whether 2019 can make a run at the 2012 record. As I suspect Arctic sea ice data is not normally distributed, like others above, I believe the probabilities for extremely low minimum values are higher than what is shown statistically. I also expect this year to finish with a minimum extent below 4.00 million square kilometers.

Some great charts for changes in Greenland's surface mass balance: http://climato.be/cms/index.php?climato=the-2019-melt-season-over-greenland-as-simulated-by-marv3-9