Climate-gate

[iceaura]

You and the APS seem to have different opinions on that------They jumped right from "no significant rise", to "stasis" without skipping a beat.

It's hard to take anyone seriously who bases their entire analysis on the year 1998, as if that were a threshold year rather than a freak confluence and statistical outlier.

That's a denialist misrepresentation of the data from the propaganda efforts of ten years ago, long debunked.

 

[sculptor]

From iceaura:

...Observation shows significant rise in the past 15 years - the trend line has a significantly positive slope. ... .

From Nature:

Average global temperatures hit a record high in 1998 — and then the warming stalled.
...
Now, as the global-warming hiatus enters its sixteenth year...

 

[sculptor]

What do you see as the likelihood of solar influences beyond TSI? Is it coincidence that
the stasis has occurred during the weakest solar cycle in about a century?

 

[Trippy]

I agree and never said otherwise. My point being precisely that - I. e. the IPCC does select from the literature (If I wanted to be mean, I could say "cheery picks" but that is not correct; however, they give zero consideration to the more dire literature) and then summarizes, in projections with ONLY short term validity.

You can't actually say that with any degree of certainty - unless you're on the IPCC you can't comment on what they have and have not considered, you can only comment on what they have and have not included in their reports or commented on in their reports. They may well have considered the 'more dire literature' you refer to and chosen to disregard it on the basis of its supporting evidence (or lack there of).

(Due to putting the data selected in a linear summary). That is simply a linear extrapolation from when the data used was publishd. In other words, they find what the slope of the change curve about 3 years ago (the average age, at best of the literature data they use) and extend it into the future.

That's not how it works at all.

This image:

Is a summary of where they believed the various components of radiative forcings stood in 2005 based on the results of the models examined (eg HadCM3) You'd know this if you had looked at the description for the figure and done even peliminary research into s2.9 of IPCC AR4.

To make my point very clear (as you don't seem to have grasped it yet) let me again use trig function sin(x) in the linearized form, sin(x) = x to forcefully make the point. At zero extension from the origin, this gives sin(0) = 0, 100% correctly. The slope of the curve sin(x) is 1 at time 0 (the origin) Thus the error made by extending this linear slope is small if x is small - extending moldel's summary of conditions existing ~3 year ago, slightly into the future is not bad. I.e. sin(0.1) truly is 0.09983341664 and the linearized version gives 0.1, less than 0.3% error; but the sin(1.0) is truly 0.8414709848 but the lineraized version give sin(1) = 1 an error of about 16 %; but the sin(2) truly is 0.90929743 but linear version gives sin(2) = 2, more than 100% error.

No, I've understood your point completely - my point is that it is increasingly clear that your objection is predicated on a misunderstanding of what you're looking at, just like the objections you raised to Kasting's paper when I first showed it to you. Again, let me repeat. The IPCC does not write models. They write summaries of models. The image you seem to be hungup on is not a model, nor is it a prediction, it is a summary of the state of the radiative forcings in the atmosphere in 2005 according to the models they are using to make the predictions.

The farther into the future you make a prediction with a linerarized model of a non-linear function, like global warming with many CHANGING mutual feed backs, your error grows rapidly. This is why IPCC's projections with it linerazed model become almost silly in 6 years or more. Why they correct their old prediction in each new report. Why I told Billvon the IPCC's linerized model (actually not even a true model, but a snap shot of conditions about 3 years prior to report date) was not the best for making decade or more predictions of future conditions. For example when the arctic ocean would be essentially ice free - not their ~ 2060 but like 2016 (50/50 chance, I think or by 2018, 90% chance I think).

So close and yet so far. You're absolutely right. It's not a model, it's a snapshot of the conditions in 2005. The only person who thinks that it is a model, or seems to be attirbuting predictive powers to it is you. That diagram is not the basis of their predictions for the future. The basis of their predictions is models such as HadCM3, you can even download the data sets for HadCM3 that were prepared for the IPCC by the Hadley Center. The 'decade of predictions' are not made by the IPCC, they're made by third parties and summarized by the IPCC, and the predictions are certainly not a linear extrapolation of the atmosphere as it was in 2005.

Observing this fact is not a statement that the IPCC did poor research - I know the do essentially none, but only read the literature for facts (at least those they can use without great threat to the oil industry). The point I make is that the IPCC places those chosen facts into a linearized model of global warming despite global warming being a highly non-linear problem - with catastrophic and very rapid change in the historic records! - That is impossible to occur in the linearized model the IPCC has made. - oil company profits are safe for some decades.*

Once again - The IPCC does not 'place those chosen facts into a linearized model', the IPCC does not prepare models, they prepare summaries of models.

I agree and said so here:No the IPCC "model" does NOT have feedback loop in it, not even implicitly. It has the FIXED effect at some point in time of some feed back loops in other models in it; but as noted in bold red of my self quote above there is no changing effect of feed back loops in the IPCC's linerized summary of fact in the literature.

The fact that you're still saying this goes to show you haven't understood what I was actually saying. I was talking about HadCM3 not the IPCC models, which the IPCC does not have because they write summaries of the results of runs of other peoples models.

I am not Ignoring your two Hadley related posts - in fact when you first said I was, I went back an read them both a second time. Problem is those two post ignore (do not speak to) the main point I have been making. I agree the IPCC used literature data derived form models that have feed back loops, but then the IPCC FREEZES THE RESULTS in a linearized model built on UNCHANGING constant values. Linearly extrapolates from point in time already ~3 years old to get a briefly valid prediction of a very non-linear problem, Global Warming.

No they don't. Again, the fact that you're still pushing this proves you're not understanding what I'm saying. The IPCC makes no novel predictions of their own, they summarize the predictions made by other peoples models. IPCC AR4 used:
BCC-CM1 (Beijing Climate Center, China).
BCCR-BCM 2.0 (Bjerknes Centre, Norway).
CCSM3 (NCAR, USA).
CGCM3 (Canadian Centre for Climate Modeling and Analysis, Canada).
CNRM-CM3 (Meteo-France).
CSIRO-MK3.0 (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Australia).
ECHAM5/MPI-OM (Max Planck Institute, Germany).
ECHO-G (University of Bonn, Germany and Korea Meteorological Administration, Korea).
FGOALS-g1.0 (LASG/Institute of Atmospheric Physics, China).
GFDL-CM2.x (GFDL, USA). Source code for AM2.1 (atmosphere only)
GISS-AOM, EH, and ER (NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, USA).
ModelE, either using the f90toHTML tool, or directly in its repository.
INM-CM3.0 (Institute for Numerical Mathematics, Russia).
IPSL-CM4 (Institut Pierre Simon Laplace, France).
MIROC3.2 (U Tokyo and JAMSTEC, Japan).
MRI-CGCM2 (Meteorological Research Institute, Japan).
PCM (NCAR, USA).
UKMO-HadCM3 and HadGEM1 (Met Office Hadley Centre, UK).

And so any graphs you see are a summary of the range of results produced by these models.

Basically true. They could have 100% valid data, at the time it was published in the literature, yet when frozen in FIXED numerically values of "radiative forcing" in their linerized model of highly non-linear problem, they are (to use an expression from my years in APL/JHU's space department when one of our satellites became very sick) in "deep yogurt" with any prediction more than few (say 5) years into the future (~ 8 years from when the data was valid).
BTW, few know the huge role APL/JHU has played in the US unmanned space program. Invented more than a dozen new satellite systems and designed several hundred satellites, often building the first few of each series launched - for details on each series, skim this long report: http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a066299.pdf

They haven't frozen anything. What they have done is said "At this time the models we have examined make this range of predictions about the atmosphere as it is now, and this range of predictions about the future."

Billy T - let me repeat. I understand precisely your point. You're concerned that the IPCC have presented a linear model of a non-linear problem. My point is that your concern fails it's first test because the IPCC does not present their own models, they present summaries of other peoples models. There is no IPCC climate model, there is only IPCC summaries of the range of predictions made by third party models.

 

[iceaura]

From Nature:
Average global temperatures hit a record high in 1998 — and then the warming stalled.

If you use 1998 as some kind of threshold year, the base of your analysis, your analysis is statistically incompetent - at best.

Doesn't matter who you are. That's a famous fact now - no excuses.

Meanwhile, the statistically standard, competently derived trend lines of global surface temperature have had significant positive slope for the past fifty consecutive years at least. There has been no stasis.

Is it coincidence that
the stasis has occurred during the weakest solar cycle in about a century?

There has been no stasis.

 

[sculptor]

Quote Originally Posted by sculptor
From Nature:
Average global temperatures hit a record high in 1998 — and then the warming stalled.

If you use 1998 as some kind of threshold year, the base of your analysis, your analysis is statistically incompetent - at best.

Doesn't matter who you are. That's a famous fact now - no excuses.

Meanwhile, the statistically standard, competently derived trend lines of global surface temperature have had significant positive slope for the past fifty consecutive years at least. There is no stasis.

Nature still thinks highly of themselves:
"Nature is a weekly international journal publishing the finest peer-reviewed research in all fields of science..."

WOW poor "Nature" declared incompetent right here on sciforums
how the mighty have fallen

 

[Billy T]

What do you see as the likelihood of solar influences beyond TSI? Is it coincidence that
the stasis has occurred during the weakest solar cycle in about a century?

Not entirely coincidence in my opinion, as it is true as can be seen in very recently revised graphs below air temp rise paused at 0.60C for nearly a decade:

But magnitude of solar variation, only about 0.25W/m^2 (peak to minimum) seems to be too small to explain it all, but the timing is correct peak was about 2000 or 2002 and that is when the shorter running temperature averages turned slightly down.

I'm no expert, but do know a little about thermal pulses applied to a surface that was in thermal equilibrium with another, say the air. It takes time for it to propagate inward.* Thus a step function increase in heating,which remains constantly applied, lets the temperature at the surface rise for a while due to heat entering (crossing the surface form the air) faster than it can propagate deeper into the denser material, like water; however, eventually for quite some time, a nearly constant thermal (decreasing temperature) gradient will be established near the surface, which removes heat as fast as it is being applied (provided, of course, the the leading edge of the heat pulse is still advancing into the original equilibrium deeper layers.)

The top layers of the ocean, are however, more complex than simple thermal step propagating into solid as they have a great deal of wave/wind driven vertical circulation. Thus this mixed layer sort of had a uniform temperature, for a while until the temperature of the top of the not-mixing deep-ocean begins to feel the full temperature step. So now the rate of thermal conduction (not convection) into the deeper layer is taking heat from the more uniform temperature upper layer at about the same rate they are receiving heat from the air - I. e. this is sort of a "cooling pulse" working its way up to the air surface, rather rapidly as the wind/wave mixing continues.

In summary: For a while the top layers warmed and took less heat from the air as they were warmer so more heat was raising air temperature rapidly. Then, perhaps by chance in about 2002, the cooling effect of deep ocean was felt at the surface, so more of the falling TSI was going into rewarming the top layers. (and even less was available for raising the air temperature).

This is just a "story" I have strung together to help amplify the effect of falling TSI that began in about 2000 or 2002 at the latest as that decade or more of declining TSI or well below average TSI does not to me seem, by its self to be enough to have effectively clamped the temperature at 0.60 C increase for a decade. I make no claim my "story" is true.

---------------
*In US's SW, the natives made homes of adobe (mud and sticks or just sun dried mud bricks) with well designed wall thickness. I. e. the thermal delay for a thermal pulse applied to the surface by the rising sun, was about 12 hours, so the cold air chill in the evening was moderated by the delayed heating pulse arrival at the inside wall. (and conversely, the cold chill of the night fought the heat of the day for those inside). Most dumb "palefaces" fight nature with air conditioner and fossil fuel heaters. I have been in adobe homes in two summers while working at LASL. - very pleasant inside on a hot July day.

 

[iceaura]

Nature still thinks highly of themselves:

And they may be right - I would not slander any publication on the basis of your quote mining of them. Look at what you tried to do to Raymo.

But if anyone who claims we are in a global surface temperature stasis is using 1998 as their threshold year, it's claim dismissed. You don't even have to think about it.

And that's the great thing about this scientific stuff - authority does not hide basic error. We all make stupid mistakes. We don't have to keep making them, of course - why are you still quoting people who draw their trend lines from the year 1998? Can't you look at a graph for yourself, and see what the problem is?

 

[billvon]

You and the APS seem to have different opinions on that

That's fine. I rarely take my opinions from other people. I prefer basing it on the actual data.

 

[Trippy]

On the question of the 'stasis' consider this graph, prepared by me:

The blue line represents the average annual anomaly based on the calendar year (1990 is Jan 1 1990 to Dec 31 1990).
The red bar represents the trend according to linest. The trend has one end fixed at 2013 and the other end tied to the year in question.
Data is the GISS data set from 1980 to 2013. I chose this range because, basically, I'm lazy. I'm lazy because I haven't updated the temperatures in the spreadsheet since March of this year (spreadhseet available here - I have nothing to hide), and I'm lazy a second time because even if I had updated my spreadsheet I'm too lazy to try and do my years any other way.
Data is using the NASA GISS dataset.

It shows that the trend since 1998 has been positive inspite of the fact that 1998 appears to have been unusualy warm. The question of statistical significance of that trend at any confidence level is not one I have addressed.

Addendum: And I jnust spotted an error - I'll correct it and repost.

 

[Trippy]

Updated graph:

Updated spreadsheet: link

 

[brucep]

The oil industry would probably rather you didn't listen to the Hadley - they're responsible for HadCM3 HadCRUT3 and numerous other things, they've been involved in climate change research since the late '60s and have been producing gridded data sets since the late '70s and have demonstrated 0.8k warming over the last 150 years. Much of this thread is mud slinging trying to get something to stick to them to discredit them in the eyes of the public - that's where the whole FOIA scandal comes in.

The point being that while Billy T might believe that big oil has influence over the IPCC, it's not the IPCC generating the science, it's people like Archer, Mann, and organisations like Hadley and NASA that are generating the science. The role of the IPCC is to summarize the science for politicians and the general public.

This is, I think, where Billy T has gone off the track. The IPCC relies on the results of third party results, analyses those results and computes what it thinks is the most likely outcome based on the range of those results. The IPCC does not control the models, it does not write the models, it is not responsible for the models in any way, and while 'big oil' might have influence over the IPCC and how strongly worded its reccomendations are, it is not neccessarily in control of the science.

Then we get back to my point regarding HadCM3 which Billy T seems to have chosen to ignore.

A model does not have to have a feedback loop explicitly written into it in order for the feedback loop to spontaneously arise, it only has to have variables that influence each other. This is a GOOD thing, by the way, because that's the way they arise in the real world.

I'll give you and example:
f(t) = f(E) + f([CO2]) + f([CH4]) + f([N2O]) + f([RmCnH2n+2-m])
This, according to Billy, is a linearized approximation of the problem. I'm contending that the problem is actually that Billy hasn't dug deep enough, rather than that the science is being supressed.
t is temp, E is energy, and I hope the rest is obvious.

For example:
If
f(E) = f(Long)xf(albedo)xf(insolation)
And:
f(albedo) = f(t)xf(long)
f([CH4]) = f(long)xf(t)x(albedo)xf([OH.])

Then we have built our arctic feedback into our 'linear' model. Billy T is focused on the final numbers published by the IPCC without looking into how they were derived.

Also note - In the post I asked Billy T to read again, which he currently appears to be ignoring - I said nothing about the soot issue that he is now fixated on. Indeed, forest fires are a seperate issue to the reduced carbon uptake of the amazon forest in response to decreased rainfall due to increased temperature.


I'm not real clear what you're referring to here - look, my only point is that the explanation Billy T seems to be pushing as an undeniable fact isn't the only possible explanation. In my opnion it doesn't even seem like the most probable explanation. Call me a pollyanna if you want, I really don't care, I simply do not share Billy T's cynicism in this matter. If I'm wrong, you know what, I'm fine with that.


My job is enforcing environmental law - I spend 37.5 hours a week trying to safe-guard the environment for my children and being paid to do so.


And there in lies the problem and the solution - welcome to the modern world, the new american dream, and the realities of hypercapilistic society where I have heard consultants advise clients that they can save money by lowering their standards of waste treatment before discharge due to a change in loading patterns.

Thanks for the comments. What I was referring to was the role the oil industry played in denigrating the science, you speak of, in the hope that the intellectual dishonesty would forestall any change to the status quo. The scary part is the intellectual dishonesty seems to have had a major effect on doing just that. The hope would be 'we' could get the oil industry to work on finding ways to contribute to the resolution of any threat rather than sticking with the status quo 'stonewall'. As soon as it becomes 'clear' that the status quo 'is out' they'll get on board to find another path to the bottom line. They can be pretty good at doing that. Basing my observation on the time I spent working inside the present model.

BTW thanks for the work enforcing important regs.. It makes a big difference. It made a big difference in SoCal where the refineries were abusing the environment before the environmental agencies laid down the law.

 

[Billy T]

... You're concerned that the IPCC have presented a linear model of a non-linear problem. My point is that your concern fails it's first test because the IPCC does not present their own models, they present summaries of other peoples models. ...

Yes, but very selective in what they summarize. Guy McPherson also does no research - only summarizes that of others, including two from Met Office Hadley Centre, UK - see it listed twice below. In their first 6 years ago they predicted 2C rise by 2100, but two years later, upped that to 4C by 2060!

My point here is that if you have a biased POV, or must get government approvals prior to release of your summary of other's research, there is literature to support your POV, even world recognized experts like Hansen. Here is part of Guy's recent update:

Guy McPherson presented an updated version on the campus of the University of Massachusetts. All information and sources are readily confirmed with an online search, and links to information about feedbacks can be found at: http://lackofenvironment.wordpress.com/2013/02/19/what-on-earth-are-we-doing/

Large-scale assessments

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (late 2007): 1 C by 2100

Hadley Centre for Meteorological Research (late 2008): 2 C by 2100

United Nations Environment Programme (mid 2009): 3.5 C by 2100

Hadley Centre for Meteorological Research (October 2009): 4 C by 2060

Global Carbon Project, Copenhagen Diagnosis (November 2009): 6 C, 7 C by 2100

United Nations Environment Programme (December 2010): up to 5 C by 2050

These assessments fail to account for significant self-reinforcing feedback loops. The IPCC’s vaunted Fifth Assessment will continue the trend as it, too, ignores important feedbacks. On a positive note, major assessments fail to account for economic collapse. However, due to the feedback loops presented below, I strongly suspect it’s too late for economic collapse to extend the run of our species.

Taking a broad view

Astrophysicists have long believed Earth was near the center of the habitable zone for humans. Recent research published in the 10 March 2013 issue of Astrophysical Journal indicates Earth is on the inner edge of the habitable zone, and lies within 1% of inhabitability (1.5 million km, or 5 times the distance from Earth to Earth’s moon). A minor change in Earth’s atmosphere removes human habitat. Unfortunately, we’ve invoked major changes.

Here are just a small sampling of positive feedbacks:

Methane hydrates are bubbling out the Arctic Ocean (Science, March 2010). According to NASA’s CARVE project, these plumes were up to 150 kilometers across as of mid-July 2013. Whereas Malcolm Light’s 9 February 2012 forecast of extinction of all life on Earth by the middle of this century appears premature because his conclusion of exponential methane release during summer 2011 was based on data subsequently revised and smoothed by U.S. government agencies, subsequent information — most notably from NASA’s CARVE project — indicates the grave potential for catastrophic release of methane.

Warm Atlantic water is defrosting the Arctic as it shoots through the Fram Strait (Science, January 2011). This breakdown of the thermohaline conveyor belt is happening in the Antarctic as well.

Siberian methane vents have increased in size from less than a meter across in the summer of 2010 to about a kilometer across in 2011 (Tellus, February 2011)

Drought in the Amazon triggered the release of more carbon than the United States in 2010 (Science, February 2011)

Peat in the world’s boreal forests is decomposing at an astonishing rate (Nature Communications, November 2011)

Invasion of tall shrubs warms the soil, hence destabilizes the permafrost (Environmental Research Letters, March 2012

Greenland ice is darkening (The Cryosphere, June 2012)

It’s not merely scientists who know where we’re going. The Pentagon is bracing for public dissent over climate and energy shocks, as reported by Nafeez Ahmed in the 14 June 2013 issue of the Guardian.

His summary of other's data is mass extinction by 2030. Hansen agree unless both "geoengineering" and rapid reduction in CO2 release rate begins "now."

 

[sculptor]

Updated graph:

Updated spreadsheet: link

Curiously, during the last 2 years arctic and antarctic ice volume is still increasing, while the temperature trend is up?
Did I read that accurately?

 

[billvon]

Curiously, during the last 2 years arctic and antarctic ice volume is still increasing, while the temperature trend is up?
Did I read that accurately?

No; arctic and antarctic ice _extents_ are up; volumes are down.

 

[sculptor]

Or:

Satellite data shows that Arctic sea ice was 50 per cent thicker in Autumn 2013 than it was in Autumn 2012, according to the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC).

Data from the European Space Agency's (ESA's) CryoSat satellite which is equipped to measure the thickness of sea ice using radars shows that Arctic sea ice volumes grew by 50 per cent last year. This is due to an increase in ice thickness, since sea ice extent declined by around 3 per cent.

In a statement issued on 5 February, the NSIDC said: “Preliminary measurements from the CryoSat show that the volume of Arctic sea ice in autumn 2013 was about 50% higher than in the autumn of 2012. In October 2013, CryoSat measured approximately 9,000 cubic kilometers (approximately 2,200 cubic miles) of sea ice compared to 6,000 cubic kilometers (approximately 1,400 cubic miles) in October 2012.”

 

[Trippy]

Yes, but very selective in what they summarize.

In your opinion anyway - you yourself have already admitted that at least some of the sources you use are themselves biased, but in different directions.

Guy McPherson also does no research - only summarizes that of others, including two from Met Office Hadley Centre, UK - see it listed twice below. In their first 6 years ago they predicted 2C rise by 2100, but two years later, upped that to 4C by 2060!
My point here is that if you have a biased POV, or must get government approvals prior to release of your summary of other's research, there is literature to support your POV, even world recognized experts like Hansen. Here is part of Guy's recent update:

Here's the thing.

Guy McPherson presented an updated version on the campus of the University of Massachusetts. All information and sources are readily confirmed with an online search, and links to information about feedbacks can be found here.

Large-scale assessments

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (late 2007): 1 C by 2100

Here's the IPCC's 2007 predictions:

source

They predict a likely range for warming of 0.3 to 0.9k if maintained at levels in the year 2000, but up to 6.4k of warming for the A1F1 scenario Source scenario descriptions can be found here.

Hadley Centre for Meteorological Research (late 2008): 2 C by 2100

No. In 2008 Hadley examined several scenarios:
At one end they modeled an immediate reduction of carbon emissions by 3% per year - this is their basis for the prediction of 2k warming by 2100, emissions reaching a sustained rate of decline of 3% per year by 2010.
Delaying reduction of emissions to 2030 results in an additional 1k warming over the first scenario (3k total warming) by 2100.
An early reduction of 1% per year gives an additional 0.8k warming over the first scenario by 2100 (2.8k warming total)
A delayed and slow reduction (presumably 1% starting in 2030) gives rise to an 2k additional warming over the first scenario (4k total warming).
Finally, no action results in a 7k warming by 2100. eg Source

At the time, it was written up by some blogs as Hadley Center: “Catastrophic” 5-7°C warming by 2100 on current emissions path" eg source

United Nations Environment Programme (mid 2009): 3.5 C by 2100

UNEP, as near as I can tell, said no such thing. As near as I can tell they say that even if we held at the 2005 levels of emissions we would be committed to a warming of between 1.4 and 4.3k which is inline with IPCC AR4's A1T, B2, and A1B scenarios (Source - it's in Chapter 1).

Hadley Centre for Meteorological Research (October 2009): 4 C by 2060

Once again, that's not quite what happened. First off they stated that a 4k warming from pre-industrial temps was likely, and that it would be reached by 2070, possibly as early as 2060, and this isn't that different from what they said in 2008. This arrived at by appling HadCM3 to the IPCC A1B A1FI scenarios. Here' s the conference that produced the headlines: source Here you can hear about Betts talking about it source - you should really take the time to listen to this Billy T.

"One of them gets to the 4 degrees by 2060, and most of them get there by the 2070's which is not inconsistant with the IPCC's simple models."

Global Carbon Project, Copenhagen Diagnosis (November 2009): 6 C, 7 C by 2100

The copenhagen diagnosis essentially re-iterates IPCC's AR4 predictions (see above) Source.

United Nations Environment Programme (December 2010): up to 5 C by 2050

To be honest, I have been unable to source this claim. As near as I can tell the timeline outlined by McPherson was first outlined here which gives this report as the source of the claim, however, I have been unable to find that claim within the cited source, or any alternative source for this claim. This is their December 2010 report but I can't find that specific prediction in it. I can find one or two that might be mistaken for it though.

As near as I can tell the only thing that has actually changed in all of this is the certainty of the expectation of exceeding 4k at or by the end of the century.

 

[iceaura]

Curiously, during the last 2 years arctic and antarctic ice volume is still increasing, while the temperature trend is up?
Did I read that accurately?

The trend line for minimum Arctic ice volume has a significant negative slope, and has since the 1970s if not earlier.

If we were to adopt the APS statistical analysis methods, we could spot a couple of longterm hiatuses in the decline - from 1982 until 2002, and then again pretty much from 2008 until 2014, which means that according to APS quality analysis there have been only 5 years of decline in the last thirty. So we can imitate the APS and ask a bunch of hard questions of these alarmists who are trying to claim that Arctic sea ice is declining - or we could look at a standard trend line analysis:

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl...act=rc&uact=3&dur=3849&page=1&start=0&ndsp=30

 

[Billy T]

This NASA Report was called: “Is a Sleeping Climate Giant Stirring in the Arctic?”

... Miller, principal investigator of the Carbon in Arctic Reservoirs Vulnerability Experiment (CARVE), a five-year NASA-led field campaign studding how change is affecting the Arctic 's carbon cycle. Current climate models do not adequately account for the impact of climate change on permafrost and how its degradation may affect regional and global climate. {bold added by Billy T.}

"The Arctic is critical to understanding global climate." Miller said, "Climate change is already happening in the Arctic, faster than its ecosystems can adapt. ... "Permafrost soils are warming even faster than Arctic air temperatures - as much as 2.7 to 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 to 2.5 degrees Celsius) in just the past 30 years, As heat from Earth's surface penetrates into permafrost, it threatens to mobilize these organic carbon reservoirs and release them into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide and methane, upsetting the Arctic's carbon balance and greatly exacerbating global warming."

Caption was: Permafrost zones occupy nearly a quarter of the exposed land area of the Northern Hemisphere. NASA's Carbon in Arctic Reservoirs Vulnerability Experiment is probing deep into the frozen lands above the Arctic Circle in Alaska to measure emissions of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane from thawing permafrost - signals that may hold a key to Earth's climate future.
Arctic permafrost soils have accumulated vast stores of organic carbon - an estimated 1,400 to 1,850 petagrams of it (a petagram is 2.2 trillion pounds, or 1 billion metric tons). That's about half of all the estimated organic carbon stored in Earth's soils. In comparison, about 350 petagrams of carbon have been emitted from all fossil-fuel combustion and human activities since 1850.

Most of this carbon is located in thaw-vulnerable topsoils within 10 feet (3 meters) of the surface. If climate change causes the Arctic to get warmer and drier, scientists expect most of the carbon to be released as carbon dioxide. If it gets warmer and wetter, most will be in the form of methane.
{Billy T inserts a question:
What do you think 500% more CO2 (or worse, part as CH4) than ALL MAN HAS RELEASED since 1850 may do to life on Earth if released in three decades? }

The CARVE campaign flights are conducted aboard a specially instrumented NASA C-23 Sherpa aircraft from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Va. Most of the time, the CARVE scientists fly the plane "down in the mud," at about 500 feet (152 meters) above the ground. The low altitude above the Arctic surface allows the scientists to measure interesting exchanges of carbon taking place between Earth's surface and atmosphere.

 

[Billy T]

Two views of same facts:

An ice dam in 2012 blocked the out flow of Canada's largest river (Mackenie) storing up largest ever volume of water at > 12C - when it broke that mass of warm water did melt a lot of ice. Why one point is not used for trend line curve fit. More details, including temperature color coded map of the surge of warm water about week or two after dam broke at: http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?97892-Climate-gate&p=3223149&viewfull=1#post3223149 I.e. the cold (dark blue) arctic water pre dam collapse becomes bright red in second photo.

Note the difference between 2012's black and light green lines is 20% - I.e. in one year, due in part to the surge of more than 12C into Arctic Ocean, 1/5 of all the arctic ice melted. There is now very little "multi-year" ice left. It can all melt in 2015, as the first curve's trend line suggest it will (or as I suggested was 50% probable many posts ago.)