Real Climate Science

“when temperatures than they are today”

Scientists say current concerns over a tipping point in the disappearance of Arctic sea ice may be misplaced.

Danish researchers analysed ancient pieces of driftwood in north Greenland which they say is an accurate way to measure the extent of ancient ice loss.

Writing in the journal Science, the team found evidence that sea ice levels were about 50% lower 5,000 years ago when temperatures than they are today.

They say changes to wind systems can slow down the rate of melting.

They argue, therefore, that a tipping point under current scenarios is unlikely.

While modern observations by ship and by satellite give us a very accurate picture of the recent state of the ice, historic information is limited. The ice comes and goes without leaving a permanent record.

But a Danish team believes it has found an indirect method that gives a clear picture of the ice loss dating back 11,000 years.

Dr Svend Funder from the Natural History Museum of Denmark led several expeditions to inhospitable regions of Northern Greenland. On these frozen shores the Danish team noticed several pieces of ancient driftwood. They concluded that it could be an important method of unlocking the secrets of the ancient ice.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14408930

h/t to J Calvert N

The University of Tennessee bookstore in Knoxville has decided to stop selling packages of breath mints poking fun at President Obama after a Democratic lawmaker complained.

The product is called, “Disappoint-mints” and features a blue and red picture of the president on the label.

State Rep. Joe Armstrong told The Knoxville News Sentinel he found the breath mints offensive.

Continue reading →

Somalia is suffering its worst drought in 60 years.

It’s always difficult to tell what might be driving extreme weather events like the Horn of Africa drought. Climate change is often fingered as the culprit, but the 2007 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change actually predicted that East Africa would receive more rainfall as temperatures warmed, not less.

Most immediately, the current drought seems connected to severe drying conditions resulting from the La Nina phenomenon that lasted from June of last year to this May in the Pacific Ocean, and which be connected to record-breaking drought in Texas as well. But according to a new study published today in Science, La Nina—and the its warm counterpart El Nino—has affected the climate of faraway East Africa for at least 20,000 years. A group of scientists from Germany, Switzerland, the U.S., the Netherlands and Belgium examined sediments that have built up over thousands of years in Lake Challa, at the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Kenya, drilling into the ground—much as climate researchers use ice cores in Greenland or Antarctica to reveals details about the state of the climate in the Earth’s past.

http://ecocentric.blogs.time.com/

Hopefully John won’t start crying. They had a chance to restore investor confidence and instead chose to behave like complete idiots.

Few people in the real world believe your bullshit any more, Barry . You might have to try actually acting like an adult at some point in your life.

Two feet of sea level rise!

http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/

http://www.weatherstreet.com/hurricane/2011/Emily.htm

The red line represents the minimum amount of loss likely over the next month. It could melt back further than that, but probably not less.

On balance, the US was wetter than normal in July.

“It’s been a long, tough journey. But we have made some incredible strides together. Yes, we have. But the thing that we all ought to remember is that as much as good as we have done, precisely because the challenges were so daunting, precisely because we we were inheriting so many challenges, that we’re not even halfway there yet. When I said ‘change we can believe in’ I didn’t say ‘change we can believe in tomorrow.’ Not change we can believe in next week. We knew this was going to take time because we’ve got this big, messy, tough democracy,” President Obama said at a campaign fundraiser in Chicago on Wednesday night.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/

 

After waiting for Cryosat2 and a successor to PIPS2 for years, sea ice experts seem to have chosen to ignore the new data, and instead cling to their PIOMAS model and Hansen’s claims about record temperatures. The core of Arctic Basin ice is clearly recovering in thickness, age and extent.