NCAR Can Distinguish Man-Made Melt From Natural Melt

“When you start looking at longer-term trends, 50 or 60 years, there’s no escaping the loss of ice in the summer,” Kay says.

Kay and her colleagues also ran computer simulations to answer a fundamental question: why did Arctic sea ice melt far more rapidly in the late 20th century than projected by computer models? By analyzing multiple realizations of the 20th century from a single climate model, they attribute approximately half the observed decline to human emissions of greenhouse gases, and the other half to climate variability.

http://www2.ucar.edu/

h/t to Marc Morano and Tom Nelson

About Tony Heller

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28 Responses to NCAR Can Distinguish Man-Made Melt From Natural Melt

  1. Grumpy Grampy ;) says:

    When they start talking like that it becomes obvious they are selectively picking the best period to support their claims! I think I have heard a name for that activity!!!!

  2. Rick K says:

    “Kay and her colleagues also ran computer simulations to answer a fundamental question: why did Arctic sea ice melt far more rapidly in the late 20th century than projected by computer models?”

    Let me get this straight: they used a computer model to analyze their computer models?

    Yeah. That’ll work.

    • suyts says:

      lol, yep, and their models conclusively show that their models are useless! Next up, models to determine if models determining the veracity of models are correct. It’ll take them several runs on super-computers to be sure about the outcome……… of course.

  3. Grumpy Grampy ;) says:

    In the world of virtual reality you can only run virtual tests. At work we had a phrase for that Pure F’n Magic. PFM!

  4. Latitude says:

    It’s not scientific misconduct or sloppy science…..
    …..when your wife does the peer review

    Global Warming Link to Drowned Polar Bears Melts Under Searing Fed Probe

    “There needs to be due diligence, and we need to challenge and investigate every single claim. The public expects that,” Ebell said. “But we find over and over that shoddy science has been put forward, and in some cases, dishonest and manipulated science, and they say, ‘Trust us,’ ” Ebell said.

    Send money anyway………………

    http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=45447&s=rcmp

  5. Paul H says:

    The rowers to the “North Pole” seem to have had a spot of ice bother!!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3L23fgpJf0&feature=player_detailpage

  6. “Kay and her colleagues also ran computer simulations to answer a fundamental question: why did Arctic sea ice melt far more rapidly in the late 20th century than projected by computer models?”

    Scratching my head here boss…. Now why could anything happen in a different way to what models predict? Errmmm……

    Notice here that “natural variability” induces melting, therefore warmer, whereas “natural variability” this century has induced global cooling. Seems that “natural variability” operates in whichever way is most convenient for your current argument. Silly me thought “variability” meant both up and down. I seem to learn something new every day.

  7. julienne stroeve says:

    Ok…I’m going to weigh in here since I have just spoken with two reporters about this paper.

    What the paper is trying to accomplish is to quantify the relative contributions of natural to anthropogenic changes in the observed record of summer sea ice decline. They look at various time-scales and the results suggest that sea ice variability on short time-scales (i.e. 2 to 10 years) can show increases or decreases but that this does not contradict the long-term secular change in the ice cover. Even through the 21st century, it is equally as likely for the sea ice extent to increase or decrease on time-scales less than 10 years, but for trends greater than 20 years in length the trends are large and negative.

    The model results also showed that in order to get the observed rate of decline you need to have natural variability that reinforced the anthropogenic change. This is not surprising and something those of us studying sea ice have known. 2007 is a perfect example of that, you have a long-term thinning, so that when the atmospheric forcing of summer 2007 came along it was able to remove a lot of ice.

  8. Paul H says:

    According to this study of ice melt around Svalbard “The degree of summer melt was significantly larger during the period 1130–1300 than in the 1990s.”

    http://www.glaciology.net/Home/PDFs/Announcements/Svalbard-summer-melting–continentality–and-sea-ice-extent-from-the-Lomonosovfonna-ice-core

  9. Latitude says:

    So it’s business as usual for the climate computer games….

    More ice – consistent with global warming
    Less ice – consistent with global warming

    snowrain, warmcold, wetdry, droughtflood…………

    All consistent with natural variability, and consistent with a time line that no one will be around to verify

  10. julienne stroeve says:

    I completely agree that computer models are not observational evidence, they are a tool to understanding how components of the climate system work and interact with each other. I don’t think they are useless when viewed in that context. The study doesn’t really say anything new from what we already know, they simply attempted to quantify it in their model. This helps the modeling community improve their models and better understand their models responses.

    • Grumpy Grampy ;) says:

      Steven does not provide a smiley with a zippered mouth!

      • Latitude says:

        Little Ice Age…………..

        NASA defines the term as a cold period between 1550 AD and 1850 AD and notes three particularly cold intervals: one beginning about 1650, another about 1770, and the last in 1850, each separated by intervals of slight warming

      • Grumpy Grampy ;) says:

        I disagree with NASA! I would probably claim they are FOS regarding that period!

  11. Latitude says:

    It’s even funnier when you put it together this way………….

    “When you start looking at longer-term trends, 50 or 60 years, there’s no escaping the loss of ice in the summer,”

    “Since accurate satellite measurements became available in 1979,”
    (for the math challenged, we don’t even have 50 years of records)

    “The simulations also indicated that Arctic sea ice is equally likely to expand or contract over short time periods under the climate conditions of the late 20th and early 21st century.”

    “Even though the observed ice loss has accelerated over the last decade, the fate of sea ice over the next decade depends not only on human activity but also on …………………………………………………………… climate variability that cannot be predicted.”

    “one of the world’s most powerful computer climate models”

  12. Wayne Ward (truthsword) says:

    I happen to think models are the opposite of useful. They are fun for hobbiests, exactly 0% useful to real world applications.

  13. John Marshall says:

    Kay seems surprised that ice melts in the summer. Who was her PhD supervisor, Mickey Mouse?

  14. Mike says:

    More ice – consistent with global warming
    Less ice – consistent with global warming

    Remeber the new slogan is Climate Change. That way both more ice and less ice is consistent. You need to get your Politics straight.

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