“Carbon Dioxide irrelevant in climate debate says Professor Richard Lindzen of the Massachusettes Institute of Technology””
The Moral Coward of Kirkcaldy

Tater gets the feelin he wouldn’t be the world’s leadin Climate Scientist if his conclusions contradicted your politics. Here’s why: Name the top climate scientists in the world. Now state what criteria you used to rank them. Now be honest; were you able to do either of these things? No? Then where did you get the idea he was the world’s leader? Tater suspects it’s just a convenient rhetorical device.

Tater

In short, it’s exactly what climate modellers have been expecting for nearly 20 years.

Very true, and the usual suspects cite this as evidence that the Antarctic is cooling (even though measures of sea temperatures show a warming trend). John Cook posted on this very topic the other day looking at why sea ice extent in the Antarctic might be increasing despite rising sea temperatures:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/Watts-Up-With-That-ignorance-regarding-Antarctic-sea-ice.html

So the ice is spreading? (covering a greater extent of water) Into waters which were previously not warm enough to freeze?

Antarctic ice shelves are not the result of seawater freezing, they’re the result of glaciers flowing out over the water. They do melt eventually, but because we’re talking about vast volumes, it takes a long time. The increase in extent is largely down to increased glacier flow rates.

Not sure what the decrease in mass represents

Ice melting. Vast amounts of ice melting (OK, or sublimating.) A decrease in ice mass can only represent one thing – less ice.

are we using consistent sattelite technology to measure it would be my first question.

Yes.

But overall, we can agree that there is no clear picture of polar ice melting?

No. We could agree that there is a clear trend of fairly dramatic melting, but I doubt you will, no matter what data anyone presents.

So climate is an average of what actually happens?

That’s something of an over-simplification. Robert Grumbine explains it quite well here.

The increase only applies to the antarctic sea ice, the west Antarctic ice sheet is most certainly melting, as is the Greenland ice sheet. It is these which are crucial because unlike the sea ice melting land ice has an impact on sea level.

It’s perfectly reasonable IMHO to be skeptical about some of the measures being introduced to combat climate change, but that doesn’t affect the basic scientific arguments for AGW. Now I agree that those of a right wing persuasion may be naturally skeptical about any government action to combat climate change, but do you not think it possible that in come cases their political leanings are leading them to assume bad faith on the part of governments and to give more weight than may be justified to arguments that the scientific case is flawed? Or in more extreme cases that their anti-government feelings are so strong that they actively want to discredit the scientific case to prevent governments taking action regardless of the reality of the situation?

And to answer your question “what justifies us spending money now when a better solution may be available in a few years?” – we have no idea if there may be a better solution available in a few years and the stuff we are pumping into the atmosphere isn’t going to stop absorbing IR radiation and warming the earth just so we can come up with some as yet unknown invention. And making serious reductions to our GHG emissions is going to take time – it can’t just happen overnight, so we can’t afford any additional delay in starting to actually do someting about it.

“@17: While the Antarctic ice extent is increasing, it’s mass is decreasing. It’s spreading out and getting thinner. As for why both poles don’t behave the same, that’s because Antarctica is a whopping massive continent surrounded by ocean, whereas the Arctic is a comparatively small area of sea surrounded by land, which changes all sorts of things. There is no Arctic Circumpolar Current, for one thing…”

So the ice is spreading? (covering a greater extent of water) Into waters which were previously not warm enough to freeze? And this is a trend? Not sure what the decrease in mass represents (are we using consistent sattelite technology to measure it would be my first question), as there is no guarentee it is part of the same process. But overall, we can agree that there is no clear picture of polar ice melting?

“And no, three years is not nearly long enough to draw any conclusions from in this case. If you go out to four years, the linear trend in Arctic sea ice extent is negative, as 2006 had a greater extent than any year since. As a general rule, if your answer changes dramatically with a small change in your period of analysis, you’re looking at noise (aka weather), not climate. That’s basically how you tell the difference between the two.”

So climate is an average of what actually happens? I like that as a definition. Incidentally, predictions are for 2010 to have more ice than 2006, but obviously that depends on the summer weather, wind direction (there is a limited number of places artic ice can actually go, so if the wind is not pushing it there, it stays put) etc. My point stands though that I see no particular reason to be concerned in terms of polar ice melting or otherwise. In fact, the lack of clear patterns of melting or consistent gain in mass suggests nothing dramatic is happening.

http://www.iarc.uaf.edu/people/indiv/iarc_all_staff.php?photo=sakasofu

“Dr. Syun-Ichi Akasofu, IARC Founding Director and Professor of Physics, Emeritus, was the the director of the International Arctic Research Center of the University of Alaska Fairbanks from its establishment in 1998 until January of 2007

and this article highlights Akasofu’s findings:

‘Climate skeptic’ questions conventional thinking

http://www.alaskareport.com/science10064.htm

“If you look back far enough, we have a bunch of data that show that warming has gone on from the 1600s with an almost linear increase to the present,” Akasofu said. He showed ice core data from the Russian Arctic that shows warming starting from the early 1700s, temperature records from England showing the same trend back to 1660, and ice breakup dates at Tallinn, Estonia, that show a general warming since the year 1500.

Akasofu said scientists who support the manmade greenhouse gas theory disregard information from centuries ago when exploring the issue of global warming. Satellite images of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean have only been available in the satellite era since the 1960s and 1970s.”

“Carbon Dioxide irrelevant in climate debate says Professor Richard Lindzen of the Massachusettes Institute of Technology”

http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-7715-Portland-Civil-Rights-Examiner~y2009m8d18-Carbon-Dioxide-irrelevant-in-climate-debate-says-MIT-Scientist

“In a study sure to ruffle the feathers of the Global Warming cabal, Professor Richard Lindzen of MIT has published a paper which proves that IPCC models are overstating by 6 times, the relevance of CO2 in Earth’s Atmosphere. Dr. Lindzen has found that heat is radiated out in to space at a far higher rate than any modeling system to date can account for…..”

Always looking to buy fair trade or union made – non sweatshop sourced stuff.
Being green, into recycling and having a low personal carbon footprint etc.

But they couldn’t accept that I was just as caring and as ethical as they were, even though I turned my nose up somewhat at the ”lifestyle movement” (for want of a better term).

I had to be cold hearted in their eyes – as to say that I wasn’t going to get concerned about my own miniscule consumption in the wider scheme of things …… as it doesn’t make any difference to anything ….. was just not the way a concerned moral person could be. Hence, I had to be the opposite.

That’s partly the reason I am somewhat of a skeptic on this issue. I don’t really trust the commentators.

And no, three years is not nearly long enough to draw any conclusions from in this case. If you go out to four years, the linear trend in Arctic sea ice extent is negative, as 2006 had a greater extent than any year since. As a general rule, if your answer changes dramatically with a small change in your period of analysis, you’re looking at noise (aka weather), not climate. That’s basically how you tell the difference between the two.

“None of the politicians, or the Prince Charles and Al Gores are acting like there’s a crisis which makes me suspicious that they have an ulterior motive for their advocacy. This poll suggests others feel the same way.”

Actually I think it is because they feel that other people should make sacrifices, but their functions are too important. Common human error – assume that your role in achieving something is so vital that it doesn’t matter how you do it.

“But the retreat of glaciers around the world and of the polar ice caps is observable and we need to worry about the long-term implications without raising bogus issues to divert attention from the fundamentals.”

Well, the glaciers are getting shorter in the main. May be linked to the higher recorded tempratures in many places (although note that weather patterns also affect glacier size – wind and precipitation can apparently change their shape).

But polar ice in the Artic has increased year-on-year over the last three years (perhaps not a significant enough period to draw any conclusions to be fair), and in the Antartic even the lowest estimate (perhaps coincidentally, that used in the fourth IPCC report) had a non-significant positive trend (i.e. an increase) over the last couple of decades; that model has now been amended to be in line with most other models in showing a significant positive trend.

So the information is not clear cut. If, as seems very likely, the tempratures were unusually high 1990-2010, then glaciers will get smaller. But if this was a general heating of the globe, should not the ice at both poles consistently melt? Hence my personal jury is still out on global warming: the evidence is not as clear cut as sometimes stated.

And perhaps they could start by having their most public supporters not running up massive carbon footprints. The Copenhagen summit was an orgy of private planes and chauffeur driven cars and it left me thinking as someone else said “When those that tell us that there is a crisis, start acting like there’s a crisis, then I’ll start believing that there’s a crisis”.

None of the politicians, or the Prince Charles and Al Gores are acting like there’s a crisis which makes me suspicious that they have an ulterior motive for their advocacy. This poll suggests others feel the same way.