Scientists link frozen spring to dramatic Arctic sea ice loss | Environment | guardian.co.uk
In tomorrow’s paper, they will explain why a witch weighs the same as a duck.
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What is the air speed of a swallow?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2R3FvS4xr4
Where can I purchase a shrubbery?
I grew up very near to the rabbit’s cave. I visited the cave when I was 8 – it was a disused copper mine. I found some nice crystals of pyrite and a little bit of malachite and that was me hooked on geology.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwVsqqRrMwE&feature=player_embedded
And what shall be the count when thou lobbest the holy hand grenade?
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He’s not a scientist. He’s a very naughty boy.
Excellent!
For our soccer loving host
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So how does that work? If you accept that more open ocean in the summer heats up the arctic atmosphere, how does that make it colder in the winter? Or more precisely move the jet stream?
It’s total BS.
30 years ago they were proclaiming that lots of ice in the Arctic was causing Spring to be cold.
How does melting ice – the very act of melting requires significant heat input – how does melting ice heat the ocean or atmosphere ??
Only the act of freezing into ice releases the latent heat of fusion.
And how can the atmosphere ever provide sufficient energy to have much effect on water with the 1000 to 1 deficit in density – let alone counting the latent heat of fusion ??
Like all climate “scientists” these guys do not understand something most primary schoolers are taught – or are they taught any real science anymore ?
The idea is that open water lets the sun in, which increases water temps by up to 5C. This also leads to an increase in atmospheric water vapour. However, attributing the recent snowstorms to Arctic sea ice loss (as this newspaper tries to do) sounds tricky, as we’re actually at the peak period of sea ice cover right now, and it’s pretty much close to the average of the last decade or longer.
And how would that generate blasts of cold air travelling very far away from the pole?
Will, did you notice that when they were saying that…
…the air temp was way below freezing
I think I already made the observation that The Guardian seems to be citing papers that don’t actually support what they are claiming. At least if they are trying to blame the current weather on global warming.
As an autodidact, I have observed, during the course of many exchanges in forums such as this, that Global Warming believers, like Big Bang believers, do not even know the difference between a phenomenon and a theory*. And yet they claim to be qualified scientists. Seems to me that academic scientific qualifications ain’t worth shit.
* E.g. Gravity is a phenomenon. Relativity is a theory which seeks to explain the phenomenon of gravity. And I already know that a gang of phony “scientists” will seek to contradict me, thereby proving me right.
The claim appears to be based on this paper. I found a link that isn’t behind a pay wall:
http://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/pnas.pdf
In this Guardian article, it is now quoting a researcher who is directly contradicting the UK Met Office’s own Chief Scientist, as quoted in their own article (see below). In effect, you can take your pick of which facts to believe in at any given point:
She [Julia Sligo, Met Office Chief Scientist] also said that suggestions the volume of sea ice had already declined by 75% already were not credible. “We know there is something [happening on the thinning of sea ice] but it’s not as dramatic as those numbers suggest.”
What conclusions are there when the Guardian likes to quotes one “Scientist” who is making a claim that another, senior scientist, has previously said “not credible”?
It keeps the readership numbers up.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/mar/14/met-office-arctic-sea-ice-loss-winter
I know what’s going to happen: the ice caps will move to the equator and the tropics will move to the poles.
Can’t “you lot” see what you are doing to the planet???!!!!!
The desperation of the global warming crowd is clearly at work here. They must invent some ridiculous pseudo-scientific justification for the all the blizzards and cold temperatures wreaking havoc on regions of Europe and North America. Their pet theory is in shambles, but because of their bloated egos, they cling to their theory like a kid clutching his favorite Teddy Bear. They are a sorry, intellectually corrupt lot.
I’m not sure it’s pseudo science, but as far as science goes, it’s not of high quality. I think people would be more impressed if they predicted these things before they happened, rather than tried to fit an explanation to them afterwards.
Anybody remember this?
http://www.disasternews.net/news/article.php?articleid=4536
Obviously very excellent stuff, whatever the author was smoking, imbibing or injecting.
Oh just shut your gob and pay Al Gore his kingly ransom. Now go back to sleep!
An increase of snowfall is NOT the same thing as a decrease in temperature. Increased snowfall isn’t from cold — it’s from increased humidity trapped in the air. The warmer than normal summers are causing more than normal levels of humidity to get trapped in the air, which then falls as snow when it gets winter time.
Stop being a mindless idiot. The US and Europe are having the coldest March in decades, and snow covering places that are normally in full spring bloom. Anyone with an IQ over 10 understands that means cold.
No — cold is cold. And snow is snow. One is caused by nothing more than lack of heat. The other is caused by a combination of a lack of heat PLUS moisture. And anyone with an IQ over 1 knows that.
You can have greater snowfalls with the greater moisture, even if the cold isn’t as cold. There is a substantive fallacy involved in concluding that more snow therefore means more cold and not more trapped moisture.
Idiot alert!!!!!!!
new talking point……air below freezing holds more moisture
…film at 11
Latitude,
That is NOT the new talking point. You’re committing another fallacy…
I will suggest that you are misconstruing or misunderstanding. Warm air traps more water than cold. Indeed it does. But the cold air following a very humid summer/autumn will contain more water than the cold air following a regular summer/autumn. We’re not talking about the CAPACITY of cold air to hold water. Indeed, the same temperature air will have a maximum capacity to hold water vapor across all scenarios. Air that is 10 degrees in 1990 holds a maximum amount of water that is exactly the same as air that is 10 degrees in 2013. What’s FALLACIOUS is to think that the cold air during every winter holds it’s maximum capacity. A winter that follows a mild summer will have less moisture trapped in the air, and therefore less snowfall.
Air temperatures have been running far below normal north of 35N. What kind of idiot would talk about warm air under those circumstances?
Steven,
You’ve called me an idiot quite a few times without any justification. That’s your right to do. It doesn’t bother me. It does, however, show you to be quite a reactionary.
I am not convinced one way or the other as to whether the entire planet is heating up gradually. The loss of the ice at Antarctica certainly isn’t caused by a regional cold spell, though.
What I don’t think has been studied enough is the overall shift in air currents across the planet. If some areas are getting colder than they used to be, while other areas are getting warmer, it could just be all due to a shift in air currents — no warming or cooling of the entire planet, just a rearrangement of the warm and cold areas. That’s certainly a possibility. However, even if the only reason we’re losing the ice at the pole is because of a shift in air currents, the fact still remains that it will have a net warming effect on the planet — because that radiant energy isn’t being directed back out into space, but absorbed by the planet.
In short — if you are not concerned by the loss of ice (no matter if it is caused by human activity, purely an increase in the Sun’s output, shifting air currents, or a combination of all three), then I can only wonder what DOES cause you to be concerned…
You made the claim that the snow was due to warm air. I pointed out that the air has been running far below normal temperatures. Why don’t you put your thinking cap on and realize that you are talking gibberish?
Steven,
I made the claim that increased levels of snow doesn’t necessarily imply a decrease in temperature. That might be true in areas that never got cold enough to actually create snow, but now they are… But it’s not true in all areas. Some areas get more snow simply because the air around them is more humid. And as I have tried to explain — poorly, it seems — that increase in humidity is likely from the increased GLOBAL temperature. You said that the region north of 35N is colder than normal. So? The air currents currents still move the humidity from the equatorial region into the north. It’s not like the air is fixed above the region directly below it.
The amount of moisture air can hold is determined by the temperature. Cold air can hold less moisture.
The fact that there may be warm air somewhere else on the planet has no effect on the local absolute humidity.
The reason that the snow line is far south this year is because there is cold air much further south than normal.
Steven,
Of course cold air can hold less moisture than warmer air. But that doesn’t mean that it DOES. There is a difference between it’s maximum capacity and how much it happens to be carrying AT THE MOMENT. Consider this: The air above Arizona during August is very hot — and very dry. It COULD hold more water in it if the water was THERE. But the mere fact that it is warmer doesn’t MEAN that it therefore DOES hold more water — only that it COULD hold more water.
Or put another way — I don’t care how much cold you have, you can’t make snow with just cold. You still need the water vapor. And because of that very simple fact, showing larger-than-normal snowfalls doesn’t, by itself, prove that it’s colder. It could be because it’s colder, on average, in that area — and therefore the water vapor that before dropped as rain, is now dropping as snow. OR, it could be because the temperature stayed the same, but there was an increase in water vapor.
Unless you are changing the laws of thermodynamics, saturated air at lower temperatures holds less moisture than saturated air at higher temperatures. The air is always close to saturated during a snowstorm.
You’re confusing “can hold” with “(now) holds”, first of all. It only adds to the confusion. The mere fact that colder air has a lower capacity to hold water vapor than warm air does NOT mean that all warm air has more water vapor in it than all cold air. That’s why I pointed out Arizona in the heat of summer. Sure, that air COULD hold more water vapor if there was a source providing it that additional water vapor. But absent that source of additional water vapor, that hot air will remain dry.
Likewise, it can be 30 below zero outside, and dry as hell too. That’s a situation where it’s cold as hell, yet very little, if any, snow. Now compare that situation to 20 above zero (still way below freezing) and lots of water vapor — that’s going to be a situation where it’s actually a warmer winter with more snow. Snow is frozen water vapor, not frozen cold. Increase the water vapor, and you can increase the amount of snow while keeping the temperature constant.
Snow extent is an excellent proxy for temperature.
“Snow extent is an excellent proxy for temperature. ”
Except when it’s not.
I’ve lived on this planet long enough to know that you can get enormous amounts of snow dumped on you by Mother Nature no matter the temperature, provided it is at least below freezing. So pointing to a blizzard situation doesn’t prove that region has suddenly become colder. It could actually be warmer, yet still below 32F/0C.
You are continuing to conflate snow depth with snow extent. Snow extent is large when cold air extends far away from the pole. It has nothing to do with snow depth. We are talking about snow extent.
If you think about your graph, and how the data is collected, it will be thrown off by blizzards and heavy-than-normal snowfalls, simply by the fact that the snow will be counted as snow coverage until it melts away — regardless of the actual temperature.
As a matter of simple logic, all I am saying is that it is an improper INFERENCE that more snow = more cold. There are situations where you can get more snow, yet have warmer temps, and you seem to reject that notion out of hand.
Where I am at present, I’ve had a chance to observe the correlation between temperature and snowfall over the course of several weeks. It’s negative, i.e. when it gets cold it snows; when it warms up, it rains.
From what I can gather that’s not an uncommon experience.
rw,
That is the thinking process of a child, I am sorry. It doesn’t address the nuance of heavier-than-normal snowfalls during warmer-than-normal winters. Sure, it has to be below freezing to form into snow. But that does NOT mean that the more below zero, the more snow will fall.
For Epinoia’s edification…
“Over 1/4 billion hourly values of temperature and relative humidity observed at 309 stations located across North America during 1948-2010 were studied. The water vapor pressure was determined and seasonal averages were computed. Data were first examined for inhomogeneities using a statistical test to determine whether the data was fit better to a straight line or a straight line plus an abrupt step which may arise from changes in instruments and/or procedure. Trends were then found for data not having discontinuities. Statistically significant warming trends affecting the Midwestern U.S., Canadian prairies and the western Arctic are evident in winter and to a lesser extent in spring while statistically significant increases in water vapor pressure occur primarily in summer for some stations in the eastern half of the U.S. The temperature (water vapor pressure) trends averaged over all stations were 0.30 (0.07), 0.24 (0.06), 0.13 (0.11), 0.11 (0.07) C/decade (hPa/decade) in the winter, spring, summer and autumn seasons, respectively. The averages of these seasonal trends are 0.20 C/decade and 0.07 hPa/decade which correspond to a specific humidity increase of 0.04 g/kg per decade and a relative humidity reduction of 0.5%/decade.”
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-11-00003.1
“Guest post by Forrest M. Mims III
I was an “expert reviewer” for the first and second order drafts of the 2013 Intergovernmental Report on Climate Change (IPCC) Assessment Report 5 (AR5). The names and reviews of all the reviewers will be posted online when the final report is released. Meanwhile, reviewers are required to not publish the draft report. However, the entire second draft report was leaked on December 13, 2012, without IPCC permission and has subsequently received wide publicity.
My review mainly concerns the role of water vapor, a key component of global climate models. A special concern is that a new paper on a major global water vapor study (NVAP-M) needs to be cited in the final draft of AR5.
This study shows no up or down trend in global water vapor, a finding of major significance that differs with studies cited in AR5. Climate modelers assume that water vapor, the principle greenhouse gas, will increase with carbon dioxide, but the NVAP-M study shows this has not occurred. Carbon dioxide has continued to increase, but global water vapor has not. Today (December 14, 2012) I asked a prominent climate scientist if I should release my review early in view of the release of the entire second draft report.”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/14/another-ipcc-ar5-reviewer-speaks-out-no-trend-in-global-water-vapor/
RE: “For Epinoia’s edification…”
Beuller? Beuller? Epinoia?