Real Climate Science

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMrxC-qEHb8]

Conan:   Now, what about … you talk in the book about geothermal energy …
Al:   Yeah, yeah.

Conan:     and that is, as I understand it, using the heat that’s generated from the core of the earth …

Al:   Yeah.

Conan:   … to create energy, and it sounds to me like an evil plan by Lex Luthor to defeat Superman. Can you, can you tell me, is this a viable solution, geothermal energy?

Al:   It definitely is, and it’s a relatively new one. People think about geothermal energy — when they think about it at all — in terms of the hot water bubbling up in some places, but two kilometers or so down in most places there are these incredibly hot rocks, ’cause the interior of the earth is extremely hot, several million degrees, and the crust of the earth is hot …

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/190379/innumerate-al/john-derbyshire

I worked on the Hot Dry Rock program at Los Alamos more than 30 years ago, so I am thinking the idea isn’t quite as new as the inventor of the Internet thinks it is. We never encountered rocks at several million degrees, and I suspect the drill bits might have had some problems if we did.

http://www.independent.co.uk/

http://nsidc.org/images/arcticseaicenews/200805_Figure4.png

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/02/12/taxi-plows-crowd-san-diego/?

I’ve been hit by two of those things in the past year. I trust gun owners much more than I trust automobile owners.

Meanwhile, here in America, the Department of Agriculture reported this week that corn reserves are at their lowest level in nearly two decades. Federal officials, according to the New York Times, say the reserves are down because ethanol producers are buying corn as fast as possible in anticipation of a federal policy allowing the amount of corn-based fuel mixed with gasoline to increase from 10 percent to 15 percent. The price of a bushel of corn has doubled in the face of that demand, going from $3.50 a bushel to more than $7 a bushel

I think we need industry in Europe, we need industry in the U.K., and industry means CO2 emissions.” He was referring to proposals that the EU increase its current carbon monoxide emissions reduction goal from 20 percent to 30 percent.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/

No more sitting in the garage with the engine running.

Since the mid-1970s, Alaska has warmed at three times the rate of the Lower 48 states, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. And with nearly two-thirds of U.S. national parkland located in Alaska, the issue of climate change is especially pressing there, officials say.

In some far northern parks such as Gates of the Arctic, average temperatures are expected to shift in coming years from below freezing to above freezing, crossing a crucial threshold, said Bob Winfree, Alaska science adviser for the Park Service.

“The effects of melting ice and thawing permafrost, I think, will be major,” Winfree said.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/02/12/us-alaska-climate-idUKTRE71B23320110212

In the business world, this would be known as “fraud.” At the EPA, it is known as business as usual.

All of the warming occurred in 1977, with the PDO shift.

Considering just a linear trend can mask some important variability characteristics in the time series. The figure at right shows clearly that this trend is non-linear: a linear trend might have been expected from the fairly steady observed increase of CO2 during this time period. The figure shows the temperature departure from the long-term mean (1949-2009) for all stations. It can be seen that there are large variations from year to year and the 5-year moving average demonstrates large increase in 1976. The period 1949 to 1975 was substantially colder than the period from 1977 to 2009, however since 1977 little additional warming has occurred in Alaska with the exception of Barrow and a few other locations

http://climate.gi.alaska.edu/ClimTrends/Change/TempChange.html

http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/

Concentration is close to 100% across the entire Arctic Basin. With a strong La Nina in progress, this is going to be tough to melt.

The Arctic Ice is preparing itself for a large reduction in sea ice area this summer. The summer of 2007 surprised climatologists when a summer low in ice area was set at about 3 million sqkm. To put that in perspective, in the early 1980’s, the Arctic sea ice would melt back to an area around 5 mil sqkm.

The current ice coverage is 1.1 mil sq km less than what it should be, and should be setting a record low for winter ice area this winter.

http://www.science20.com/

I’ve marked the “missing ice” in red above.  A lot of it is in Quebec and Newfoundland. I’m guessing that the residents there don’t consider themselves to be part of the Arctic.

Some of the “missing ice” is in the Greenland Sea, which is an indication that ice has been retained in the Arctic Basin this winter. Greenland Sea ice gets there by flowing out of the Arctic, and is all doomed to melt in the near future.

Most of the rest of the “missing ice” is in the Sea of Okhotsk, where the ice always melts by early summer.

The point is that winter ice extent tells you nothing about the condition of the ice in the Arctic Basin. Theorizing about the summer minimum based on February extent is just plain daft. As I pointed out earlier, 2006 was the lowest in February and the highest in September in the DMI record.

My forecast is that NSIDC ice age maps will again show an increase in the area of thick multi-year ice this spring.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqJXjo4-SRY]

There is no Springfield 50 years in the future! With global warming trapping the CO2 inside our poisonous atmosphere, our super-heated oceans will rise, drowning our lowlands, leaving what’s left of humanity baking in desert that once fed the world. And in the new Nineveh, darkness falls

The NSIDC is in very good hands.

The cryosphere, however, is not.  If we stay on our current emissions path, if we keep listening to the science deniers of WattsUpWithThat, the planet is headed toward an ice free state.

http://climateprogress.org/

Who would think that bloggers could melt or freeze the Arctic? Anyway, I wish my driveway would achieve an ice free state. And the farms in Mexico which froze this week.

Summer in Antarctica! Soon to be ice free at -56F

http://www.wunderground.com/

“This is not a global event; it is very much confined to the UK and Western Europe”

– Julia Slingo (right after her return from record cold in Cancun)

SEOUL, Feb. 12 (UPI) — Three and a half feet of snow buried South Korea’s east coast Saturday, destroying dozens of houses and stranding drivers, officials said.

President Lee Myung-bak ordered the military in to distribute food to snowbound people and aid cleanup efforts, Yonhap reported.

A highway connecting several cities in the area, including Sancheok and Yangyang, was closed for 18 hours, trapping 250 vehicles in freezing cold.

Meteorologists said two-day snowfall in the area reached 3.6 feet in Samcheok, 3.2 feet in Donghae, 1.8 feet in the mountain pass of Daegwallyeong and 1.4 feet in Sokcho. Gangneung got 2.5 feet on Friday alone, the heaviest single-day total in a century.

The snowfall also forced mass cancellations or delays of buses and trains.

The roofs of dozens of houses, livestock sheds, greenhouses and a bowling alley caved in.

http://www.upi.com/

Remember – the record cold air producing all the snow is actually warm, humid air.

h/t to Marc Morano