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The rest / Re: US intervention in foreign lands

« on: February 11, 2019, 09:41:13 AM »

Scheer Intelligence has a very goot interview with Ron Kovic and Danny Sjursen. Ron Kovic is the man who is depicted in the Oliver Stone film "Born on the Fourth of July."

Sjursen: " And I would submit that between Vietnam and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, in one sense we, the collective we, this society has learned very little, and made some of the same mistakes. But then in another sense, the foreign policy elites have learned something rather profound. "

"the foreign policy elite, the militarists who run this government, learned a different lesson. And the lesson they learned is that if you conscript people, if you draft people, if you bring the American people along into a war, then there might be protests. There might be people who turn against that war when the time comes. But if you send a small group of volunteers over, and over, and over again, even to fruitless wars that are not in our national security interests—like Iraq, like Afghanistan, like Syria—you can maintain a war endlessly. "

"I went to Iraq first and then Afghanistan—really shattered those illusions that America was a humanitarian force for good. Instead, in Iraq, I saw us shatter a society that went into a civil war, in addition to attacking us. And watched how we had just completely destroyed that country through our ill-advised invasion. And then in Afghanistan, I found an unwinnable war that was probably more similar to Vietnam than the Iraq War was, in the sense that it turned out that all the Afghans were not Americans secretly waiting to jump out of their skins. They didn’t want the American version of government, and they did not see us as legitimate. "

"What I really saw was the results of American messianism in the world, of American exceptionalism, the notion that we could remake societies in our own image. What it really meant was a whole lot of dead children, a whole lot of car bombs, a whole lot of teenagers shooting each other in the night. And then of course, a whole lot of Americans getting killed as well, although less of us than the Iraqis. When I went to Afghanistan three years later, I no longer had any faith in the wars; I was just a professional. "

"what I found there was slightly different from Iraq. It wasn’t so much a civil war as it was a mass insurgency that we were never going to break. And it turns out, we only held the ground we stood on, which probably sounds very familiar to Mr. Kovic. "

Kovic: " I and other veterans who opposed that war [Vietnam] during that time, in the late sixties and early seventies, we knew that every day was important in trying to save lives. We were here back at home, we had come back from the war, but we knew how important it was that we protest that war, do everything possible to speak out until our voices were raw, against that war. And I remember, you know, sitting behind bars; I hated it, I didn’t like—I was already in a wheelchair for the rest of my life, and here I was inside of a jail cell. It wasn’t fun. But all I could think of was, whatever it takes, you know, to stop this war. I had been inspired while in the hospital by Martin Luther King and others. And I knew that that war that I had fought in and sacrificed in was wrong, and we had to do everything possible, and it was hurting my country deeply as well."

Sjursen: " When I was put in front of those cadets and asked to teach American history in the normal patriotic lens, I couldn’t do it. And I think that was the breaking point. And at that point, I decided to do what Ron Kovic decided to do, which is to speak out every day to try to minimize the number of Americans that die in these wars. And that’s where I’m at now, and I wish it would have happened sooner for me, but I can’t go back and change that. All I can do now is bring a new version of patriotism, and that is dissent against meaningless, harmful wars."

The whole article is very, very worth reading:

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-great-con-of-american-patriotism/

sidd

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Consequences / Re: The Holocene Extinction

« on: February 01, 2019, 11:20:01 PM »

Sulfur Dioxide has continued to increase in our atmosphere, which settles and dissolves in water as sulfidic anions—specifically, sulfites and bisulfites.  Sulfites cleave thiamine at its methylene bridge, causing its destruction.

Thiamine is one of the most unstable of the B vitamins and naturally degrades rather rapidly at pH at or above 7, in the presence of sulfites.

Recent studies of thiamine degradation at ambient temperatures has shown that increasing temperatures accelerate the degradation.

The wastewaters from many of our industries contain sulfites.  Herbicides, pulp and paper, food processing (preservatives), oil recovery, mineral processing, textiles (dyes), and, surprisingly, flue gas scrubbing.  All of this runoff reaches the oceans.

One more way we are contributing to our own extinction.  Destroying an essential (cannot be synthesized by our body) vitamin in our environment, which, because it is water-soluble, is not retained by the body, and must be constantly replenished through our diet.

   

   



     

 

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Science / Re: 2019 Mauna Loa CO2 levels

« on: February 01, 2019, 05:36:57 PM »

Terry, I used to post on the carbon cycle but I haven't kept up reporting. I agree the deep ocean sink of 2 Gt is the only long term carbon sink. It is dependent upon biological processes that are threatened by ocean acidification however. So all the efforts at soil carbon farming or forestation are only stopgap measures. All the terrestrial carbon , or a vast majority of it, moves back into the atmosphere where the ocean can then absorb ~ 25% of it. Of that current 2.5Gt ocean carbon sink only 2 Gt moves into the deep ocean particulate sink, the rest is labile and will over a thousand year timeframe re-enter the atmosphere . We are emitting about 10Gt carbon annually and most of it will cycle back into the atmosphere over the next thousand years whether it goes into terrestrial or oceans sinks.People just have a very hard time with thousand year timescales. If we keep emitting carbon at the current rate nobody will be here to witness what happens in a thousand years anyhow.
 I agree with Lurk that we need to get somewhere close to 100% reduction in carbon emissions. So electrical production, transportation, food production and land use All need to be included in the zero carbon plans. The Tesla /Glory thread is an indication of how most, even very bright people , can't seem to get their brains around zero.  You , Lurk and I are just misfits.
 Sorry to be such a bummer but I have been hanging around the Holocene Extinction thread too long. I realized I haven't even seen a single butterfly for a very long time . I have started to look into other people's automotive grills at their radiators looking for bugs. Not seeing them.
 I realize this is OT but really what point is there in counting numbers on CO2 if we can't admit we are going over the cliff ?

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Policy and solutions / Re: Renewable Energy

« on: January 30, 2019, 05:47:14 PM »

New renewable energy projects are replacing fossil fuel plants as they age out:

Here's an article about the EU:

https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy/news/renewable-energies-chip-away-at-coal-power-stats-show/

New wind, solar and biomass power generation displaced hard coal last year – especially in Germany, France and the UK – according to a 2018 review of European electricity statistics by two leading energy policy think tanks.

Renewable energies continued to pick up last year to reach 32.3% of total power generation in the EU, up two percentage points from the previous year, according to the report, published today (30 January).

Total coal power generation fell by 6% across the EU in 2018 and is now 30% below 2012 levels, the analysis found, confirming the rapid decline of coal in electricity generation across most European countries.

“This was caused by renewables growth in Germany and the UK and by the return of hydro in Italy and Spain,” said the report by Agora Energiewende and Sandbag, two leading energy think tanks.

China:

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/2183960/china-powers-renewable-energy-some-wind-farms-still-struggle

China’s renewable power capacity rose 12 per cent in 2018 compared to a year earlier, official data showed on Monday, with the country still rolling out new projects despite transmission capacity concerns and a growing subsidy payment backlog.

China has been aggressively promoting renewable power as part of an “energy revolution” aimed at easing its dependence on coal, a major source of pollution and climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions.

Total capacity – including hydro and biomass as well as solar and wind – rose to 728 gigawatts (GW) by the end of last year, the National Energy Administration (NEA) said.

That amounted to 38.3 per cent of China’s total installed power capacity, up 1.7 percentage points on the year and around 7 percentage points higher than at the end of 2015.

The USA:

https://cleantechnica.com/2019/01/05/2018-was-a-fulcrum-year-for-renewable-energy-in-the-us/

Xcel Energy, based in Minnesota, has 3.6 million customers in 9 states. It began the transition by announcing a plan to transition to 100% zero emissions energy by 2050 — the first utility company in the US to make that a corporate goal. Economics has a lot to do with that decision. Wind power in the Midwest is abundant and inexpensive but solar farms are also springing up across America’s heartland.

But there is something other than the bottom line at work here. Ben Fowke, Ecel’s CEO, said at a news conference back in December, “We knew we could step up and do more, at little or no extra cost.” His remarks were spurred in part by the latest IPCC 6 climate report and the recent climate assessment published by the US government in November.

Consumers Energy, with 1.8 million customers in Michigan, announced a plan in June to transition to more solar power over the next 20 years. Until now, it has relied on coal-fired generating stations for most of its electricity. “Our vision considers people, the planet and the prosperity of our state and the communities we serve,” Patti Poppe, its CEO said at the time of the announcement.

Northern Indiana Public Service Company said last year it plans to close all of its coal-fired facilities within 10 years. It currently gets 65% of its power from burning coal. It says building new renewable energy resources simply costs less than keeping those coal fired plants open any longer.

Utility companies used to base their future plans on an expectation of rising energy demand. They could justify building new fossil fuel plants because the cost would be offset by selling more electricity. That is no longer the case as the demand for electricity has remained flat for several years. Not only is coal no longer competitive economically but natural gas has a history of fluctuating significantly in price.

https://cleantechnica.com/2019/01/24/quiet-clean-energy-revolution-scored-strong-growth-in-usa-last-year/

1. Record corporate renewable energy purchasing

U.S. corporations have spurred a global movement towards purchasing renewable energy over the last decade, and 2018 was a banner year. Companies in the United States purchased a record 6.43 gigawatts (GW) of renewable power, enough to power more than 1.5 million American homes each year and  more than double the previous record of 3.22 GW in 2015. The number of corporations entering in to renewable energy deals for the first time doubled. There were also a record number of deals through utility-offered, large-scale renewable energy purchasing programs, called “green tariffs.”

A growing number of large buyers are also publicly committing to source 100 percent of their electricity from renewables. Today, there are 53 Fortune 500 companies with 100 percent renewable energy goals; there were 23 companies with the same target in January 2017.

2. U.S. cities make ambitious commitments to renewables

In the absence of a federal renewable energy push, local governments are taking matters into their own hands. More than 300 U.S. cities, towns or counties have made commitments to climate action.1 As of November 2018, 99 U.S. cities have committed to 100 percent renewable energy, up from just 50 cities a year ago.

Of these, six U.S. cities (Aspen, CO; Burlington, VT; Georgetown, TX; Greensburg, KS; Kodiak Island, AK; and Rockport, MO) have already met their 100 percent renewable energy goals through a variety of approaches, including on-site installations, off-site purchases and Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs).

Since many cities are just starting to set these commitments, they are at the beginning stage of the learning curve. In 2019, it will be important to watch how cities can push utilities to provide more clean energy.

There are also large renewable projects underway in India, Brazil and many other countries.  It's not difficult to envision that by 2050 most of the energy production in the world will be from renewables.

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Consequences / Re: The Holocene Extinction

« on: January 18, 2019, 09:52:19 PM »

How awesome and fitting.

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The rest / Re: Immortality

« on: December 29, 2018, 05:53:03 PM »

Well, I'm glad I pulled out of this sermon of yours when I did, because you just told the exact "story" that I was saying needed to be discarded. Yours is the same old "separate man from nature" story we can get from any religion anywhere.

Listen to how you just referred to nature:

"You, as a human being, can't just live like an animal, coming into being without questioning, just eating, drinking, fucking, breeding, dying, end of story."

How disparaging, and just an opinion by the way, and a very simplistic one too. A fallacy, actually.

And here, you give mankind some sort of special, better than nature, imaginary purpose:

"THAT is not your business, not your final imago, you want, you must go beyond carnal needs."

"It all transcends sheer animal existence."

"Transcendence."

So this is just yet another regurgitation of the "we're not like nature, we're on a special magical journey to transcend reality" garbage that, through a bunch of word salad, gives simple minded people who fall for it permission to mistreat the natural world that we are all a part of. That's the actual behavior that emerges out of people when people are fed this tired old religious story of yours. After all, the way you worded it made animals out to be very much beneath you in the purpose you ascribed to them, and then your story elevated yourself into being some sort of special human creature on some cool magical journey to transcend reality, very much more worthy than those eating and fucking grunt animals you just disparaged with your disparaging use of language towards them.

I could walk into any Mormon church and get the same story you know. The exact same story. That's the story that's been imprinted on the civilized mind for millennia now, the one I was indicating needed to be undone and discarded ... and here, you just told it again for us in your own little way.

Several generations of raising children under that sort of a story, and you'll most certainly get people disrespecting the biosphere that supports life on the planet, which is exactly what we see happening right now ... as a result of this story you tell yourself, a story which merely just arose out of civilized living conditions, and has permeated the minds of civilized culture for thousands of years now ... east, west, north, south ... everywhere that civilization has gone, we hear this same silly story told ... that mankind has a goofy magical special purpose, a different purpose from the grunt nature as you just described it, and that this is why man is here! It's a bad story, dude, and has proven to be a destructive one. That's the reality that emerged out of this story you tell ... a bad reality for the rest of life on the planet, and the biosphere that supports that life ... including us.

So how is what you've preached to us here useful anymore as a worldview? This is the same silly story I was suggesting needed to be undone from civilized minds, the "animals only just eat, drink, fuck, breed, die, end of story" crap you just spewed, which means that you've just brushed all other animals in the biosphere off as being beneath you, as being different from you? In your mind, through nothing more than an assertion and a bunch of unsupported word salad ... you've now separated yourself from them, by distinguishing yourself as being created for some superior purpose from them, apart from them, one that you claim is "transcending reality."

That's the exact meaning when people criticize religion for separating man from nature ... they're not talking about something physical ... they're  criticizing a mental attitude people hold in their heads. The attitude you just tried to push at us, and it's a damaging, self destructive attitude.


So, all you're doing here is pushing more of the same old civilized religious thought at people that created the mess we're in; word salad, the exact story that I would've said needs to be undone. The one that intellectually separates man from nature the way you've just done here, and declares him special, which is then when people start abusing the biosphere that they don't regard as being part of this "special purpose" they were created for, the fairy tale purpose you just described for us about "transcendence of reality." That's why it's a harmful fairy tale to tell people. It's lead to very bad results for civilized culture to think this way for thousands and thousands of years.

Boo. You're a dinosaur, dude. There is nothing helpful here, your story only brings damage. You've literally just preached about how mankind is separate in design and purpose from nature, which is the exact religious based story that needs to be dropped. I'd rather talk to a fish than someone like you, any day. You're a very good example of a very big problem.

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Arctic sea ice / Re: The 2018/2019 freezing season

« on: December 26, 2018, 10:31:29 PM »

AMSR2 image for 3rd December contrasted with present extent line (in orange).

The front has extended slowly south in the vicinity of Svalbard but it's tough going against the west Spitsbergen current.

Meanwhile the retreat in the Kara is around 200km long !

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The rest / Re: Arctic Café

« on: December 19, 2018, 03:13:29 PM »

I did an interview with prof. Peter Wadhams for a doc series I am working on about Lake Tanganyika and I am only using a few excerpts. He did find it strange that I wanted his input on the fate of Lake Tanganyika but the interview is of course mainly about the arctic.

Here's the full interview:

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Arctic sea ice / Re: Arctic Ocean salinity, temperature and waves

« on: December 16, 2018, 12:53:29 PM »

An amateur attempt to match argo float 3901910 to amsr2 to see how close to the ice edge it travelled, aug18-dec14. It reported weekly until nov30 and has reporting daily since. Report (cycle) numbers are overlayed onto Greenland, bottom left.
edit:added temp labels

Approximate data based on eyeballing the attached charts is in text below. Timing the temp/salinity data to the animation makes the gif too large. Easiest to download both gifs and step them manually for analysis. (or even better, advice from someone with netcdf skills pls)

The main observation for ice watchers is that the warm current alongside the ice front is ~2.5C at surface recently.

cycle   lat              long          temp C    sal      date
60   80.06547      5.16783      2.75      32.4      0818
61   80.20849      5.23104      5      34.45   0825
62   80.38986      4.78623      2.6      33.65   0901
63   80.48555      6.0284      4.5      34.42   0908
64   80.49247      6.82373      3.8      34.1      0915
65   80.58095      7.16061      4.3      34.1      0922
66   80.44863      8.30625      3.8      34.4      0929
67   80.43952      9.16231      4      34.75   1006
68   80.37718      7.56771      1.5      34.4      1013
69   80.51731      11.28802      0.3      34.1      1020
70   80.84061      14.77375      3      34.75   1027
71   80.85687      16.35878      1.5      34.6      1103
72   81.43671      17.30993      1.6      34.64   1110
73   81.56787      21.71607      -1.2      34.15   1117
74   81.61883      26.34895      -0.7      34.35   1124
75   81.62392      31.29192      -1.5      34.26   1201
76   81.82774      34.03102      -1.1      34.32   1202
77   82.01424      35.80637      -1.6      34.26   1203
78   82.1778      38.04842      2.5      34.82   1204
79   82.28333      39.82095      -1.6      34.23   1205
80   82.29029      39.77042      2.3      34.77   1206
81   82.28489      39.64985      1.8      34.74   1207
82   82.29791      39.56938      2.7      34.86   1208
83   82.25532      39.58456      0.8      34.61   1209
84   82.22805      39.50098      2.7      34.86   1210
85   82.20667      39.35864      2.5      34.86   1211
86   82.21352      39.10944      1.2      34.45   1212
87   82.21687      39.05996      -1.2      34.29   1213
88   82.21415      39.16856      0      34.49      1214

data here http://www.argodatamgt.org/Access-to-data/Description-of-all-floats2
choose 3901910

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Policy and solutions / Re: Coal

« on: December 10, 2018, 10:11:06 AM »

The U.S. has a total nominal capacity of 338 GW from coal as Lurk states, but China has 259 GW from coal just "in the pipeline."

This is true. So is the graph you posted true enough. Though even this needs to be kept in perspective. China's population is 1,417,468,999 as of Sunday, December 9, 2018. And United States of America is 327,772,747 as of Sunday.

So China is 4.3 times the nation that the USA is. Therefore a conversion back to the size of the USA means the Chinese only have "an equivalent" of 259 GW / 4.3 = 60 GW of Coal power plants in the pipeline (assuming your numbers are fair enough).

And that doesn't include the old dirty one they have been closing and are continuing to shut down, much faster than the USA etc are. Nor their annual wind, solar and nuclear power deployments - all of which are running faster and larger than anyone else as they hurry to fulfill international orders for all the products the wealthy in the west want to buy.

China needs energy - what else are they supposed to do? They are working a plan, beating their targets, and will stabilize then start to reduce FF energy use circa 2028. On top of that they are the major renewable energy and battery manufacturing exporter in the world. Can't beat that effort surely?

Lastly the big ticket item is one that is often overlooked - I think because it is so hard to calculate and find the up-to-date numbers on it. The China which 4.3 X the USA is the manufacturing, IT components, and industrial heartland of the USA, the EU, the OECD and many Asia & Sth American nations.

Consumers love Made in China - so do the smaller manufacturing nations who buy a major part of their materials and components 'Made in China'. See? That all needs energy and raw materials. Korea I think is the largest ship builder for a long time - where did they get a significant portion of their steel from?

While Trump criticizes the trade imbalance with China, he isn't complaining about all the GHG emissions the USA is off-shoring to China, Mexico, Japan, Sth Korea, Thailand, Taiwan, Malaysia, Brazil, and even the EU. Trump,nor the American people themselves, are offering to cut US emissions below the old Paris Treaty levels because of this off-shoring of their GHGs to Asia.  

This is why the F&D carbon tax idea included a Border Adjustment system. If China did not apply and equivalent F&D carbon tax to whatever the USA had, then the US would apply their same F&D upon ALL of China's imports.

If China did have a F&D at the same rate, then their exports would automatically be more expensive, but there would be no extra F&D carbon tax applied at the border entry points ... therefore an even playing field.

But of course the world is no where close to this level of cooperation among nations today than it was 20 years ago. Cheers

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Arctic sea ice / Re: Arctic Image of the Day

« on: December 05, 2018, 09:05:41 PM »

Am I the only one that checks in with the webcam in Utqiagvik to see if the house on the left hand side of the image has its door wide open again?  It's cold up there.  Why is the damn door open so often?  Maybe we should call them to let them know?

no your not alone, perhaps that shack is used as a dog shelter or for other animals or perhaps they store something there that should not warm/melt but at the same time should stay protected from precipitation and/or winds.

even though i'm curious like yourself, i'm quite sure that they have a good reason to do things how they do them. people that far up north have learnt early not to neglect protecting their home and stuff. let's see, perhaps we get an answer one day.

It is an arctic entryway, it is designed to stay below freezing but out of the snow and wind. It is a good place to leave gear that will suffer if it thaws. The door will probably get closed when it get colds enough so that the inside temp stays below freezing. If it has a door...

4 Likes

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The rest / Re: The Media: Examples of Good AND Bad Journalism

« on: November 29, 2018, 10:24:21 PM »

From the Guardian article:

A separate internal document written by Ecuador’s Senain intelligence agency and seen by the Guardian lists “Paul Manaford [sic]” as one of several well-known guests. It also mentions “Russians”.

Okay, that's enough, Rob Dekker and Martin Gisser are on board. Anybody denying the veracity, nay truth, of this article, is a paid Russian troll. Show the evidence that proves the opposite (No, that doesn't count. That doesn't count either. Neither does that. See, you have no proof. Putin loses).

Science!

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Policy and solutions / Re: Tesla glory/failure

« on: November 28, 2018, 11:17:22 PM »

A Catholic Bishop, an Islamic Iman, a Jewish Rabbi, and a Tesla saleswoman walk into a bar .......... (fill in the blank)

And the bartender bellows "What is this, some kind of joke?

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The rest / Re: Russia, Russia, Russia

« on: November 28, 2018, 05:07:49 AM »

"People living in glass houses should not be throwing stones." Truism

Jesus: Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, “Friend, let me take the speck out of your eye,” when you yourself do not see the log in your own eye? You, hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.

Buddha: The faults of others are easier to see than one’s own; the faults of others are easily seen, for they are sifted like chaff, but one’s own faults are hard to see. This is like the cheat who hides his dice and shows the dice of his opponent, calling attention to the other’s shortcomings, continually thinking of accusing him.

Short enough?

Lurk: "There are as many fake Buddhists as there are grains of sand on a beach!"

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Permafrost / Re: Northern Hemisphere Winter 2018-2019 Snowcover / Misc Obs

« on: November 28, 2018, 12:59:06 AM »

I calculated how long in each year (2000-2017) a gridcell is covered by snow or ice. The presentation is quite bad with google sites so I recommend viewing the images in the google drive folder or even better download the netcdf file and choose the visualization yourself.

NetCDF & Images:
https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/1QCM9lVx6tg0QGQXgK8NBZmKkYHLQN940

Website:
https://sites.google.com/site/cryospherecomputing/analysis/snow-covered-days

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16

Permafrost / Re: Arctic Methane Release

« on: November 23, 2018, 08:01:18 PM »

Links to papers posted earlier in this thread, to save you the time of looking for them.

https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,12.msg130821.html#msg130821

https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,12.msg126031.html#msg126031

https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,12.msg131768.html#msg131768

https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,12.msg132298.html#msg132298

Current rates and mechanisms of subsea permafrost degradation in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf, published 22 June 2017.

http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms15872

And here is a link to my methane archive so you can see how this progressed over the years to where we are now.  Being able to see where we were 2 years ago, 5 years ago, 10 years ago, provides an important perspective, allowing you to see just how fast and dramatically this has accelerated.

https://cid-yama.livejournal.com/tag/methane

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17

The rest / Re: The Media: Examples of Good AND Bad Journalism

« on: November 18, 2018, 12:58:32 PM »

I've said a couple of weeks ago that I would give my opinion on Bellingcat one last time, after watching a recent documentary a couple of times for work. Might as well do it here.

What I came away with, is that it's a tragic story. Mind you, it wasn't presented as such. It was a documentary that promoted the hero story, of ordinary people just like you and me, who do the things the media or the police should be doing, but don't. It fits in well with that sentiment in consumer culture that anybody can become a hero or a celebrity, like we see exemplified in the immensely popular talent shows on TV.

Bellingcat is simply a pawn in a geopolicital game that is all about money, corporate access, weapons sales and so on. I've seen enough of Eliot Higgins now (but I had already strong suspicions after reading through his Twitter feed), to know that he has a huge ego and narcissistic tendencies. The way he licks his lips, the way his eyes twinkle, when talking about all the media attention he receives, or how intelligence agencies and governments are interested in his work. He is simply in it for the fame, and perhaps the money as well. The same, to a lesser extent, goes for Christiaan Triebert. They're running with this for all they're worth, there's not much ideology or idealism involved.

The others on the team that are presented in the documentary, are mostly nerds (Aric Toler is a perfect example), who get a kick out of doing the geolocation stuff. And rightly so, it's pretty cool what they're doing. But it's very one-sided, and they all have clear biases. One Syrian guy is obviously anti-Assad, and so is mostly interested in collecting and archiving evidence of war crimes perpetrated by the government. That's fine, but it shouldn't be presented as some objective, neutral endeavour, because it isn't. The other two (older) guys have a clear anti-Russia bias, one being ex-Finnish military, the other a German who used to work for the Stasi.

All of this is fine. The problem I have with it, is the implication that what they do, is objective, neutral, evidence-based, transparent, and so on. Some if it is, some of it isn't. Normally, this wouldn't get much attention, like most of what most bloggers do. The reason it does get attention, is because Bellingcat serves the purpose of promoting narratives that people will no longer accept from mainstream media. And the driving force behind Bellingcat, Eliot Higgins, is very eager to fill this niche, in exchange for fame (and probably money). His early embrace with the Atlantic Council and his bragging that a weapons manufacturer was interested in hiring him, attest to this fact. It's a small, but powerful movement that has a hand in a lot of the stories that promote neocon warmongering. From FusionGPS to Propornot, from CrowdStrike to the Magnitsky Prize, it would be quite easy to draw up an organigram, where Bellingcat also plays its role. 

Now, why is this a tragic story? It has all the hallmarks of a tragedy. There's the tragic anti-hero Higgins, who is presented as a hero thanks to his connections, rather than his work (which also relies heavily on connections he wouldn't normally have). And the thing with tragic characters is that it usually doesn't end well for them. In the best case, Higgins gets exposed for what he is. In the worst case, something bad happens to him that serves the propaganda purposes of one of many players in the story, be it the GRU or the NSA or MI6, or whatever.

In a TED talk, I saw Higgins talking about how open-source investigations can be used to 'influence the powerful, challenge the powerful, and hold the powerful to account'. Bellingcat is not doing that. The most powerful organisation in the world is the US Pentagon. If Bellingcat really was about speaking truth to power, 90% of what they'd be doing, would be focused on American empire. It's not. If it would be, if these guys would be real heroes, they'd be withering away like Assange, in some cell or embassy. The fact that they aren't, the fact that they aren't smeared by mainstream media, means they are doing things that the powers that be approve of, things that further the goals of powerful interests.

It's not going to do much good over-all, and it's not going to end well. I feel sorry for everyone involved with Bellingcat, especially for those who are unselfish and mean well. It's a tragic story.

1 Like

18

Consequences / Re: Weird Weather and anecdotal stories about climate change

« on: November 18, 2018, 06:27:14 AM »

Oops.

1 Like

19

The rest / Re: The Trump Presidency

« on: November 14, 2018, 06:59:53 PM »

If you don’t mind, I would like to set up a thread that deals with “the impeachment process”.

The Political theatre/wrestling thread can be used for that. I'd rather see Trump deposed at the ballot box, based on substance (ie policy and a vision for where Americans want to go), than on legal technicalities. I don't believe Russiagate can even accomplish the second, although the rampant corruption could, albeit with a massive effort. But there will be a price for that, because it strengthens Trump's fake argument that he is not part of the establishment, and that the elites wants him out because he is draining the swamp. This argument will be strengthened even further if all the other Washington corruption (also on the Dem side) doesn't get addressed. And then the US is set up for something much worse than Trump.

Now, if and when there is something substantial on the impeachment front, instead of the ratingsbait we've been subjected to for two years now, I may change my mind on whether a special thread is warranted, or whether it fits anywhere else than in the Political theatre/wrestling thread. But for now, that's the place.

1 Like

20

Arctic sea ice / Re: Latest PIOMAS update (November)

« on: November 08, 2018, 03:04:15 AM »

Thanks Juan for the tables. Oct 2018 is the first month since Aug 2017 with a decreased volume compared with the same month a year ago.

You are welcome!
___________________________

Focusing on what has happened…

I started contact with Neven in May or June 2012 and I was shocked with the ASI drop on August, after the Great Arctic Cyclone. I was also impressed by the 2012 PIOMAS Volume graph made by Wipneus. So, when on the first months of 2013 appeared cracks on the ASI, well, several of us were concern of what could happen that year. Finally, 2013 was a good year for the ice and 2014 was even better. It had passed 6 years since 2012 and the collapse has not happened.

Or it has happened? 

On extent, the ASI has not even able to break the 2007 record, not to mention the 2012 record. So, there are some people saying that 2012 is an outlier and even 2007 will be difficult to break. But I don’t like extent! Yes, it is important to measure the effect of the Arctic Ocean albedo. But to measure the ASI drop, I am convinced that we should use volume, even if it is harder to measure than extent.

So, what do I see on volume?

First, volume on 2007 has been broken several times. On volume, 2007 is the ninth lowest on record! And even that September 2012 is still the lowest, the difference between 2012 with 2010-2011 and 2016-17 is not that big.

But on the other hand, while 2012 has not been broken, the decadal average show us that we
have a very different Arctic. By example, look at Aug-Oct average on a decadal basis.  The 1990-99 average of 93.6% changed to 68.5% on 2000-09 and to 39.5% on 2010-18.

So, do we need a catastrophe to prove a catastrophe? From my point of view, the catastrophe has already happened. The 39.5% ice that we have on 2010-18, versus the 1979-2000 baseline, is climate change, not just one year, not weather change.

2 Likes

21

Policy and solutions / Re: Extinction Rebellion

« on: November 02, 2018, 12:48:07 PM »

Hi I am a longtime lurker. Inspired by a post on Jason Box's Twitter feed I was one of the 1000 people at the Declaration of Rebellion for Extinction Rebellion on Wednesday. It was a glorious autumn day and I felt privileged to be at the start of something so significant. https://mobile.twitter.com/extinctionr

5 Likes

22

Arctic sea ice / Re: "Stupid" Questions :o

« on: November 01, 2018, 09:50:26 PM »

What are the predictions for the US winter ?

https://electroverse.net/another-vortex-winter-would-be-catastrophic-says-bank-of-america-merrill-lynch-sending-natural-gas-to-5

"Another vortex would be catastrophic" well, if that's the case, buckle up.  The average for polar vortex displacement / split occurrence is above 1 per winter.

NOAA put out a winter outlook a couple of days ago: https://earthsky.org/earth/winter-2018-2018-weather-outlook-for-us

Figure is from a master's thesis:

Fortin, Ashley, "The Impact of a Changing Climate on the Frequency of Sudden Stratospheric Warming Events" (2017). Master's Theses. 4797.
http://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/etd_theses/4797

1 Like

23

Arctic sea ice / Re: 2018 sea ice area and extent data

« on: October 24, 2018, 05:49:25 AM »

[ADS-NIPR (JAXA)] ASI Extent.

October 23^rd:
   2018: 6,575,429 km², an increase of 183,372 km².
   2010's Avg.: 7,245,129 km², an increase of 116,049 km²
   
2018 is the 2^nd lowest on record.


P.S.
The 1990's average minimum is 6,548,129 km², so todays value is the first on the 2018-19 freezing season in which 2018 is above the 1990's minimum by 27,300 km².

The 1980's average minimum is  7,229,571 km², so 2018 is still -654,142 km² under 1980's average minimum.


Do we need a catastrophe to prove a catastrophe?
Or are we having a catastrophe right now, but we have not notice it yet?

3 Likes

24

Arctic sea ice / Re: The 2018/2019 freezing season

« on: October 21, 2018, 01:41:38 AM »

Sorry I like the guy, he seems nice and all and always responds to everyone very civic way, but he is at odds with established scientific facts, and one has to reject that from the outset.

How many times have you been to the arctic to take measurements?   Im guessing you are reading from an undergraduate thermodynamics textbook and pretending to be an expert.   College text books are great for talking about theory under ideal conditions in the lab.  However, I have been involved in science for almost 30 years, and theory almost never matches reality. 

We have very little observational data from the arctic.  Wayne did us a great service by taking measurements, in the arctic, and reporting them to us.  The real world is very different from what computer models and undergraduate text books say it is. 

I usually keep my mouth shut and just observe on this forum.  Almost everyone who contributes to this forum is really smart.  But lately people who are overbearing, and often times wrong, are dictating the direction of discussion and ruining it for everyone. 

There are many, many things we don't know about the arctic.  If you have a theory great!   But don't call it "established scientific fact" unless you can point to undisputed peer reviewed journal articles that have established those facts through observational data. 

 

4 Likes

25

Science / Re: ECS is 2.5

« on: October 19, 2018, 02:35:26 PM »

Therefore I think it would be interesting to repeat your method on longer time spans, and include pre-1950 data to get a longer term view.

Has anyone done an estimate for ECS based on hemisphere, not the globe? What is the ECS of the Northern Hemisphere?

It seems to me that because the SH is mostly covered with water with the south pole covered with land, and the NH has much larger land surface area with a north pole covered in water, their ECS might be significantly different. 

You all don't ask much, do you?     Actually, I love all the suggestions -- these are great.  Let me tackle the first one first.

Here's the same method, applied to (a) Cowtan & Way, and (b) Berkeley Earth, for the entire length of their data (1850-2017):

Over that time period, the CO2 forcing was 1.914 W/m2 and the total (including solar & volcanic) was 2.036 W/m2, for a ratio of 0.940.  Multiplying the two slopes by 0.94 and dividing by 0.74 (our assumed TCR/ECS ratio) gives ECS of 2.7 (Cowtan and Way) or 3.0 (Berkeley Earth).

Next, for Archimid's truly excellent question about differing values of ECS for different hemispheres:

We can do even better than that.  NASA GISTEMP provides land/ocean temperature records from 1880-present by zone (Arctic, tropics, N vs S hemispheres, etc.) for 14 latitudinal zones.  I applied the same methodology:

* All zones have their own temperatures, but use the same CO2 data (obviously).

* Likewise, all zones use the same CO2/Total_RF ratio (which for 1880-2017 is 0.883).

* Likewise, all zones use the same TCR/ECS ratio (the same 0.74 we've been using all along).  This could well be a problem, in fact I think it almost certainly is, but for consistency let's run with it for now, while I try to figure out how to do this better.

Anyway, here are the results:

ASIF readers will be astounded (NOT!  ) to learn that ECS for the Arctic is much higher than for the rest of the globe. 

Note that I'm rather dubious about the overall validity of this as an estimate of ECS -- the numbers are very much plausible, but as we move from doing this for the whole globe to doing it for latitudinal zones, I am increasingly uncomfortable with the assumed (and fixed) TCR/ECS ratio, plus the assumption that the slopes are actually representative of TCR over this long time period.

With that caveat, here is a table with the CO2 vs temperature slopes, and the final ECS estimates:

Zone	T/CO2 slope	ECS estimate
Glob	2.37	2.83
NHem	2.71	3.24
SHem	2.03	2.43
24N-90N	3.14	3.75
24S-24N	2.09	2.5
90S-24S	1.96	2.34
64N-90N	5.67	6.77
44N-64N	3.38	4.03
24N-44N	2.31	2.76
EQU-24N	2.06	2.46
24S-EQU	2.13	2.54
44S-24S	2.13	2.54
64S-44S	1.56	1.86
90S-64S	2.12	2.54

Thanks to wehappyfew and Archimid for the suggestions.

2 Likes

26

Arctic sea ice / Re: The 2018/2019 freezing season

« on: October 14, 2018, 12:16:39 PM »

I find it interesting that the 365-day mean air temperature is barely cold enough to freeze sea ice.  How warm is the water under that ice?

Why do I always see that question? I wonder if there are any monitoring devices up there? Whatever happened to that camera on Buoy 14? Last I clicked on it I saw a shot from 2 years ago! Why doesn't Neven send a team of crack Sea Ice Forum members up inside 80N and answer some of these questions for us? He's sitting there warm in his mansion...LORD knows where....collecting all the loot generated by this world-class forum, and does nothing to answer these nagging quesions: What is the temperature of the water 753 fathoms under that ice-flow off Ellsemere? How many healthy Polar bears are frolicking in Franz Josephland?
Just send Juan and Jim and Fishoutofwater (PLEASE!) and Wip and Geronimo and set them up with a few tents and a stack of firewood up on some ice-flow circling the CAB, and they can do the rest. Let's get some answers!

1 Like

27

Arctic sea ice / Re: The 2018/2019 freezing season

« on: October 14, 2018, 11:55:03 AM »

Looks like extent gains are finally beginning to get going in the CAB

Oct 13th - Oct 11th

3 Likes

28

Consequences / Re: Climate change, the ocean, agriculture, and FOOD

« on: October 11, 2018, 06:05:00 PM »

Climate Scientist Sees Stage Set for Reprise of Worst Known Drought, Famine

VANCOUVER, Wash. - A Washington State University researcher has completed the most thorough analysis yet of The Great Drought -- the most devastating known drought of the past 800 years -- and how it led to the Global Famine, an unprecedented disaster that took 50 million lives.

She warns that the Earth's current warming climate could make a similar drought even worse.

The Global Famine is among the worst humanitarian disasters in history, comparable to the influenza epidemic of 1918-1919, World War I or World War II. As an environmental disaster, it has few rivals. Making matters worse were social conditions, like British colonialists hoarding and exporting grain from India. Some populations were particularly vulnerable to disease and colonial expansion afterwards.

"In a very real sense, the El Niño and climate events of 1876-78 helped create the global inequalities that would later be characterized as 'first' and 'third worlds'," writes Singh, who was inspired by "Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World." The book details the social impact of the Great Drought and subsequent droughts in 1896-1897 and 1899-1902. ..."Millions died, not outside the 'modern world system', but in the very process of being forcibly incorporated into its economic and political structures. They died in the golden age of Liberal Capitalism"... Its author, Mike Davis, is a distinguished professor at the University of California, Riverside, and a co-author on Singh's paper.

The Great Drought actually was several droughts, Singh found, beginning with a failure of India's 1875 monsoon season. East Asia's drought started in the spring of 1876, followed by droughts in parts of South Africa, northern Africa and northeastern Brazil. There were also droughts in western Africa, Southeast Asia and Australia.

The length and severity of the droughts prompted the Global Famine, aided in no small part by one of the strongest known El Niños, the irregular but recurring periods of warm water in the tropical Pacific Ocean. That triggered the warmest known temperatures in the North Atlantic Ocean and the strongest known Indian Ocean dipole -- an extreme temperature difference between warm waters in the west and cool waters in the east. These in turn triggered one of the worst droughts across Brazil and Australia.

Deepti Singh et al, Climate and the Global Famine of 1876-78, Journal of Climate (2018).

1 Like

29

Arctic sea ice / Re: Arctic Ocean salinity, temperature and waves

« on: October 10, 2018, 11:03:21 PM »

Back to ITP110. X marks the spot on the image below where I think ITP110 is today. An estimate based on the latest drift track above. Salinity at 300m there is modelled at ~34.5. The scales are different but ITP110 had simliar 300m salinity until recently.
If it keeps heading towards the Mclure Strait there should be a significant rise.

1 Like

30

Science / Re: Comparison: forcings from CO2, CH4, N2O

« on: October 10, 2018, 02:09:32 PM »

Here's some more context: a comparison of the WMGHGs to all the other major categories of anthropogenic forcing:

The darkest bars are the forcing over the past 30 years (1988-2018).  Lighter bars are the two previous 30-year periods (1958 to 1988, and 1928 to 1958) for comparison.

What's kind of stunning is that during the past 30 years, every other bar [positive or negative] is less than 10% of the magnitude of the CO2 forcing.

Other comments

* Methane, N2O, halocarbons, fluorocarbons, and tropospheric ozone were the largest non-CO2 forcings [in that order], but all were pretty small.

* Over this period, there has been no large negative anthropogenic forcing.  Aerosols barely produced any forcing at all over the past 30 years, and if you combine the direct and indirect (cloud albedo) effects, they nearly cancel out entirely.

* Non-anthro forcings (solar and volcanic) probably each produced a small negative forcing over the past 30 years (not shown).

* Oren asked about the impact of a 10% decrease in atmospheric methane.  As shown in the previous post, that would create a negative forcing of -0.08 W/m2, basically dropping the methane bar in this graph to near 0.

* a 10% decrease in aerosols would produce a positive forcing of around +0.11 W/m2 (direct+indirect).

Key:

CO2_RF: CO2 Forcing
CH4_RF: Methane Forcing
N2O_RF: Nitrous Oxide Forcing
FGASSUM_RF: Total forcing from all fluorinated gases controlled under the Kyoto Protocol (HFCs, PFCs, SF6)
MHALOSUM_RF: Total forcing from all gases controlled under the Montreal Protocol
TOTAER_DIR_RF: Total direct aerosol forcing
CLOUD_TOT_RF: Cloud albedo effect
STRATOZ_RF: Stratospheric ozone forcing
TROPOZ_RF: Tropospheric ozone forcing
CH4OXSTRATH2O_RF: Stratospheric water-vapour from methane oxidization
LANDUSE_RF: Land-use albedo
BCSNOW_RF: Black carbon on snow

Source:

http://www.pik-potsdam.de/~mmalte/rcps/
http://www.pik-potsdam.de/~mmalte/rcps/data/RCP85_MIDYEAR_RADFORCING.xls

2 Likes

31

Arctic sea ice / Re: When will the Arctic Go Ice Free?

« on: October 10, 2018, 09:36:38 AM »

volume will always show a faster rate of decline than either area or thickness, but will slow down as the other parameters catch up.

I'm not sure this is always true, but I'm not a thermodynamics anything (not an expert nor even particularly knowledgeable).  If a significant cause of ice melt is bottom melt (which will likely increase as thickness decreases, as solar input into this process increases with ice thinness), then declining thickness will accelerate as zero volume approaches, while area remains fairly unchanged.  If area decreases 'at all', it might be a 'fact' that volume will decrease at a lower rate than does thickness (although faster than the area decline).  But I think this doesn't require volume declines to actually "slow down".

It is a case of simple mathematics.  The current minimum sea ice extent is ~60% of the extent measured in 1980.  The minimum volume is ~30% of 1980.  The thickness is ~50% of 1980.  Volume is just a product of these two; and since both are decreasing, the volume must decrease faster.  As extent and thickness decrease, the volume loss will slow because there is less volume to lose. 

This is different from the typical ice cube in a glass experiment, whereby all sides melt equally.  The large disproportionate dimensions leads to a difference in the physical melting properties.  The larger extent (or area) dominates the melting characteristic. 

If one were to assume that volume is the key parameter, and volume continues to decrease at its current rate, then the decline in thickness would need to double and the decline in extent more than triple, so that all three parameters reach zero simultaneously.  That is not what we are experiencing currently.

The key  point  you  are missing is that the thickness is an average measure over the entire ice cap.  The area that is less than 20cm thick at maximum is 20 - 30  times greater than the are that is 2 m thick for the same volume. The simple formula V=A*T  only  works for a single cell.

Over the entire cap the  AverageThickness = sum(( T  * N ) / Total(N))  for all thicknesses where N is the number of cells of a given thickness.  As the ice melts the ratios between the various N's doesn't change much  so the average thickness doesn't change either.

Simple example; there are 100 cells at thickness 0.1m and 10 at  thickness 1m;  after massive melting the number of cells has reduced to 10 at 0.1m and 1 at 1m.  The ratio hasn't changed and the average thickness hasn't changed despite area declining by 90%. 

1 Like

32

Science / Re: Comparison: forcings from CO2, CH4, N2O

« on: October 04, 2018, 02:54:20 PM »

In essence, NedW's very first sentence gave Teapotty and ASLR a green card to post whatever they like in this thread.

What a weird comment.  This thread was started in order to look at quantitative comparisons of the radiative forcing from CO2, CH4, and N2O.  One reason for doing that is because I had the impression that many people here don't have a clear mental picture of the relative magnitudes of the forcings from those three agents. 

I'm not in a position to give (or deny) anyone a "green card to post whatever they like".  People who want to keep threads on-topic will limit themselves to posting things that are on-topic; people who don't want to will post whatever they feel like posting.

I stopped posting because (a) I got busy, and (b) the direct, quantitative comparison called for in the thread title had been addressed nicely here:

and here:

(for the recent past)

(and for the next couple of decades)

Take-home points that relate to the topic of the thread:

1. The radiative forcing from CO2 in recent decades (say, the past 50 years) has represented by far the largest fraction of the total forcing over that time period. 

2. Since the launch of CMIP5, radiative forcing from CO2 has been slightly below what was projected in RCP8.5, and slightly above what was projected in the other RCPs.  Forcing from CH4 has been quite a bit smaller, both in absolute magnitude and relative to what was projected in RCP8.5, but well higher than the other RCPs.  However, this is a short time period.

3. Over the next three decades, the CMIP5 concentration pathways show that CO2 will continue to be the most important climate forcing, with methane at about one-fifth of the CO2 forcing (in RCP8.5, and much less in the other scenarios).  N2O forcing was projected to be smaller.

All of those forcing values were recalculated using the most up-to-date formulations from Etminan et al. (2016).

We probably could have short-circuited a lot of this, by jumping straight to the IPCC AR5's Figure 8.6(d):

which shows the decadally-averaged annual forcing (W m-2 yr-1) for each of the three gases, but (a) I like to calculate things for myself, and (b) the data in the AR5 figure aren't updated with Etminan's forcings, and I wanted to do that.

So that's the main reason I stopped posting in this thread: the questions implied in the thread topic had been pretty thoroughly answered, as far as I was concerned.

1 Like

33

The rest / Re: GOP Losing Ground for the 2018 Mid-Term Election

« on: October 02, 2018, 01:54:11 PM »

Nothing in this procedure is designed to get at the truth. Both sides are hoping that public opinion will win the day... On September 12, Ford's accusations were publicly aired. On that date the Republicans held a 9.2% advantage over the Democrats - today the Republicans hold an 8.4 lead. On September 12 among likely voters, Trump's disapproval numbers were 13.4% ahead of his approvals - today the number is 9.5%.

Meh. Anyone familiar with the science behind polling knows that day-to-day and week-to-week numbers fluctuate, sometimes wildly. As with temperature and Arctic sea ice, the trend is the important thing--and both Trump's and the GOP's numbers have been trending downward for months.

While Kavanaugh's possible sexual indiscretions as a teen have driven most other political discussion from the airwaves, the Democrats have dropped .8% in popularity and Trump's approvals have increased by a whopping 3.8%.

Anyone who dismisses or downplays the issue as Kavanaugh's "possible sexual indiscretions as a teen" should maybe stay out of the conversation. Rape and assault aren't "sexual indiscretions"; they're abuses of power and privilege. And Kavanaugh wasn't some dewy-faced 14-year-old with peach fuzz and raging hormones; he was an upperclassman at Yale, who knew better than to do what he did and acted as he acted. And he has lied about it. Multiple times.

I'd love to see the Republicans crushed in a Blue Tsunami this November. We can use an "October Surprise" - but focusing the media on BS stories about groping a cheerleader through her clothing and a bathing suit may not be message that Americans are willing to coalesce behind.

Again: anyone who dismisses or downplays the issue as a "BS story about groping a cheerleader through her clothing" should maybe stay out of the conversation. Americans overwhelmingly don't want or need a proven liar with a rage-drinking problem, a history of sexual assault, and spoken grudges against both Democrats in general and non-submissive women in particular handed a lifetime appointment to one of the most powerful positions in the nation. Period.

But as always, your "concern" is noted.

3 Likes

34

Consequences / Re: Global Surface Air Temperatures

« on: September 13, 2018, 09:46:09 PM »

In other words, they're basically polar opposites! 

6 Likes

35

The rest / Re: Arctic Café

« on: September 10, 2018, 05:17:27 AM »

The Arctic Sunrise was in San Francisco today, and we visited the ship.
Pictures attached.

I have a close connection with the Arctic Sunrise, and Greenpeace in general, as they are one of my favorite charities. They are working hard to preserve the Arctic; to keep oil exploration out and Nature in.

This is our planet. This is our time.

Let's not waste either.

1 Like

36

Arctic sea ice / Re: When will the Arctic Go Ice Free?

« on: September 08, 2018, 04:00:12 PM »

I believe (and correct me if I am wrong) that this exercise is just curve fitting to the best possible line.  What we lack (me included) is an explanation as to why any particular fit should be chosen.  Oftentimes, a linear fit can approximate a particular data curve over a specified range.  As the data approaches zero, I would expect this to fail, although in which direction is debatable.  In an unknown situation, oftentimes a moving average can best define the trend, as it incorporates recent data, without bias.  Not that it is any more accurate, but it tends to smooth out the data, removing variations which may mislead the eye.  Lastly, extrapolated beyond known parameters is always highly speculative, as we do not know how that affects the environment.  In short, it is a guess.  But we strive to make it the most educated best possible, and your guess may be different than mine, depending on which parameters we each feel might predominate in a future scenario.

Yes it is highly speculative.

>What we lack (me included) is an explanation as to why any particular fit should be chosen.

I try to refer to the models and if they almost all show a Gompertz like shape, then why would you use a different shaped curve to fit the data? A better fit might be one reason but if this gompertz shape does pretty well at reducing the RMSE that seems additional reason to go with it.

Use too many parameters and you can get a better fit and send the extrapolation off in any direction you choose. Hence it is necessary to try to minimise the number of parameters used. This can be considered to be a form of Occam's razor - if you don't need extra complexity to explain the data then that extra complexity is likely just wrong and should be omitted.

These considerations (particularly considering the physics which is what the models do) tends to act to place some limits on where the extrapolation goes.

Yes, it is highly speculative and the more so the further you go away from the known data. But at least it is based on something. If the alternative is making stuff up off the top of your head, and the people doing that sort of thing tend to be concerned about the issue and therefore likely to give a biased view towards catastrophic effects in order to motivate action,.... guess which I think should be preferred?

1 Like

37

The rest / Re: The Trump Presidency (was "Presidential Poll")

« on: September 06, 2018, 05:45:07 PM »

You know, when Donnie ultimately gets around to firing someone, he has a great candidate for his administration out in California.  Duncan Hunter, Congressman from California, has been indicted on charges he misused over $250,000 of campaign funds for personal expenses, which included expenses for FIVE different affairs.  He would be perfect for Donald’s cabinet. 😱

1 Like

38

Arctic sea ice / Re: 2018 sea ice area and extent data

« on: August 22, 2018, 02:11:08 PM »

https://twitter.com/zlabe

Sea ice extent on the Atlantic side of the #Arctic has reached a new all-time record low for the region (combined Barents-Kara-Greenland Seas). Each line shows one year from 1979 (purple) to 2017 (white). The previous record was just last year.

[Daily data is from the @NSIDC]

1 Like

39

Arctic sea ice / Re: The 2018 melting season

« on: August 22, 2018, 05:38:20 AM »

Oh, no one there at the Guardian knows the difference between an iceberg and a floe. A sub-editor just picked some vaguely related click-bait off a Getty stock photo collection. Be grateful there wasn't a scantily clad Inuit carving up narwhale blubber. It is the same with newspaper headlines. Total disconnect with the reporter. Just about every article, every newspaper.

I am more concerned about plagiarism of our site by scientists. Naturally, people trolling earlier about sunspots (#2 on the Skeptical Science nonsense thermometer) is a total turn-off. However this event was noticed here 3 full weeks prior to the Guardian article and has undergone huge technical development on multiple high-visitation forums.

The hit counts here indicate multi-100,000 views of postings and graphics on the article's subject. Please don't tell me that those don't include a whole lot of mainstream Arctic researchers. They come here because it's a huge time saver over daily trawling of satellite resources. Two clicks in the left column, set an alert as many have done, and you can skip over the sunspots and speculation right to coverage of the event.

Plagiarism is failure to cite or credit. Just because it is open source doesn't mean there's no obligation to link. What they are doing is reading the blog, taking the better ideas, and then re-doing the graphics and research text, often ineptly. That's not original research, it's theft. They don't want to credit the site because of loonies here, because it's just the internet, because people mostly post anonymously, because not everyone here is a card-carrying academic scientist.

However I am, the 6,700 cites to my peer-reviewed papers are more than all the scientists quoted in the Guardian article put together. This is plagiarism as it is understood in the scientific world and I am getting real fed up with it.

I got back from vacation with my family last night and this morning discovered the story covered on dailykos by a well intentioned non-scientist. Then I took a quick look at the Guardian article. My scientific career was not as outstanding as A-Team's nor is my contribution to this blog, but I was disturbed about the lack of credit to our group effort at synthesizing the massive amount of data on what's happening to the sea ice.
 
My personal experience with poor scientific ethics by other scientists goes back to my dissertation research. I had a grant from the USGS to do an earthquake research study by a never-used-before methodology. About a year into my research I found out that a USGS researcher was using the same new technique in a way that was unlikely (in my opinion) to produce useful results. His research failed badly and hurt everyone who was working in related areas, especially me. Forty some years later research gate is telling me that people are citing my work which got positive results on an extremely difficult problem that continues to be investigated.

I was badly burned by poor scientific ethics and the anti-environmental science attitudes of the Reagan administration. I went into developing research programs; managing, overseeing and directing nuclear waste safety research for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. All of NRC's waste safety research was eliminated in 1994 when Newt Gingrich & his wrecking crew took over Congress. Not long after that my wife finished her Ob/Gyn residency and we moved to Kauai where I greatly improved my body surfing skills and helped propagate endangered endemic plants.

I still love science and try to contribute what I can but the politics of earth and environmental science in the USA has been brutal and unethical in my personal experience. This latest unethical event is consistent with my experience. A-Team has made spectacular visualizations and done expert analysis and deserves credit for his work. Of course, I feel that, I too, deserve credit for my contributions, but I am not surprised when I don't get it.



As to the TSI: If the tiny decline in TSI were significant sea ice volume and extent would have been increasing for the past twenty years. That is not the case.

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Arctic sea ice / Re: Latest PIOMAS update (August mid-monthly update)

« on: August 21, 2018, 07:00:30 PM »

They should start to use data from UH but U.S. scientist refuse to use non-U.S. data most of the times. sorry if that's not a qualified statement but as an observer in various fields of science and technology one can get the impression. ready to stand corrected if that's an entirely incorrect assumption

Of course that's a wrong assumption, their model was built in 2003 long before AMSR2 was launched. NSIDC is integrated into the model. Overhauling models never comes easy. In addition, there is no historical data for AMSR2 before 2012, while PIOMAS has monthly volume calculations since 1979 and daily calculations since 2000.
I assume recalibrating PIOMAS for AMSR2 data so that it would fit the historical data calculated using NSIDC is doable, but surely very difficult. I am certain this has nothing to do with such U.S/non-U.S politics as you suggested.
BTW, Dr. Zhang is extremely nice. They used to publish PIOMAS data once a month. At some point I wrote to him, told him how much the data was valued at the ASIF, and asked whether they could publish it twice a month. He simply said yes... and they have been doing it ever since.

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Arctic sea ice / Re: The 2018 melting season

« on: August 20, 2018, 11:14:05 PM »

wonder how much elevated SST would affect the forthcoming freezing season

Good question. While we wait for jd to crunch the numbers, it is worth asking whether we should be monitoring -- and comparing year-on-year -- the heat burden in near-surface waters that accrues during melting season. The temperature of open surface water is observable by satellite and the depth of the mixing layer is known though we don't have the temperature profile without operational buoys.

The overall heat budget of the Arctic Ocean is greatly influenced by incoming Atlantic Waters; though these are initially at ~300m depth, they don't exit with all the heat they brought in. Over the short term, this lost heat doesn't much influence temperatures of surface waters.

Other complications come in from sunlight penetrating thinner ice quite effectively, warming the water below. And that sunlight can fuel algal growth on the underside of the ice which then adsorb the energy right there rather than it going deeper in the water column.

In any event, Mercator Ocean only offers 2017 and 2018 for today's date (plus various water depths, not shown). The animation below compares them by arithmetic variations (such as subtraction of pixel RGB values) directly on the graphics. That leads to new colors though and so 2D color legends.

Water temperatures now should have considerable predictive power as to which peripheral ice sectors will melt out over the next month (if only we knew how the floes would move relative to warmer water temperatures). At the end of melt season, these surface temperature pockets suggest lagging areas of freeze-up (if only we knew what air temperatures would be associated with them).

Last winter, elevated Bering Sea temperatures (and lack of ice) were unprecedented. The Chukchi didn't fully freeze until early January. How much of that should be attributed to local SST vs imported SST vs mixing layers vs currents/eddies vs air temperatures?

Compare current to 2007

How? It's in a distorted cylinder projection, doesn't go above 80ºN and is unreadable/unreliable there, plus it would have to be cut down to comparable ice covers which isn't practical without having the data in polar stereographic projection. Are the grid cells really of adequate resolution for the Arctic seas and islands -- I can barely make out Greenland.

 Overall, there are a great many climate statistics like this, really focused on the equator and mid-latitudes, with the poles just bones thrown to the dog. We are not so interested in oblique observation of the Arctic from satellites in equatorial orbits, as is done for example with lightning. Data quality deteriorates with latitude -- even the 80º cutoff is likely a stretch.

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Arctic sea ice / Re: SMOS

« on: August 20, 2018, 09:07:05 PM »

The SMOS images are back online.  Here are some updated graphs obtained using a pixel-counting script.

First, here's a look at the beige pixels, which are at the far right end of the SMOS color legend:






The graph below counts more pixel colors, lumping together all the pixel colors from beige to green in the SMOS color legend (including the intermediate yellow, red and purple colors).  At this time of year, this graph has a good correlation with the September minimum extent.







Finally, here is a weighted average of all pixels in the SMOS image, with each pixel weighted according to its numerical value in the color legend:

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43

Arctic sea ice / Re: 2018 sea ice area and extent data

« on: August 17, 2018, 01:49:29 PM »

I'm happy to have this thread polluted with calls for action. The specifics at this point are doom porn. We have the information we need. It is time for action, starting with resolution on appropriate plan of action.

While cluttering the forum with off-topic posts might make you happy, our experience has shown that most users prefer more focused, on-topic discussions, especially in the most popular threads such as this one, so kindly stay on the rails. There are threads here for talking about policies and solutions; this isn't one of them. Thanks!

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Arctic sea ice / Re: The 2018 melting season

« on: August 15, 2018, 12:19:33 PM »

Some sentinel playground shots of the ice in the north Beaufort off the mid CAA.
And a couple of the shrapnel pouring out of the CAA into Foxe basin. Sentinel may have a tricky and frustrating interface to master. But its worth taking the time. The 250m pixel size on worldview can make stuff like this look like solid ice that's not moving. Clearly not  true.

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Arctic sea ice / Re: The 2018 melting season

« on: August 14, 2018, 06:13:14 PM »

The extremely warm water near the Svalbard on the Fram Strait must come from south. When water at +20C mixes with sea ice and sea water (only -2.5C), water in sea becomes turbulent. I now believe some of the sinking north-heading Gulf Stream current is captured and thrown into surface trajectory. However, this current stir-melting and mixing off NE Greenland may not be entirely novel:

There have been vertical water chimneys and vertical eddies in the Fram Strait area as seen in these three images from 2006 with curvilinear ice formations formed up by the rising eddies. They are seen patterning thick sea ice in curious, curvilinear forms behind the Svalbard. (I showed these to Peter Wadhams and we thought at the time, them possibly being cold freshwater eddies fallen off from continental shelf to the deep water, then warmed and and rising to surface. In that case they would have drifted from the Kara Sea to the Fram Strait. But now the recent developments suggest that these vertical eddies then seen (2006) imprinted on sea ice behind the Fram Strait could be veered off tentacles of the deep current: - sort of grand parents to the eddies now seen north of Greenland.  

A look at the southwest corner of the Lincoln Sea (at the entrance to Nares) on Worldview confirms a very disturbing development as shown by A-Team's recent posts. The ice is actually melting in-situ in the Lincoln Sea, not simply blown northward by winds (as happened in February 2018 for example).
The animation begins around July 1st when the Nares entrance plug first cracked and broke. At first the ice was lifted off Ellesmere to the east, then part of it including some very large floes spilled into the Nares. All of this is rather common for this time of year. But afterwards, as evidenced by the fast ice breaking off the fjord to the right of the image, the ice started moving erratically with open water appearing and growing rapidly within the ice field, showing a very strong melting process. This location should not be having such a rapid melt-out of local ice. It shows both relatively thin ice and (probably) very warm/saline sea surface.
Note the last image is showing another breakup of the fast ice in the fjord.

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Arctic sea ice / Re: The 2018 melting season

« on: August 14, 2018, 05:32:16 PM »

I'll just toss this little essay out, it would benefit greatly from further development (or maybe abandonment):

Excessive heat accumulating in equator waters redistributes itself northward via the Gulf Stream (AMOC); however water volume entering the Arctic must be balanced by water volume leaving. That much was known in the nineteenth century.

Petermann's 1874 map envisioned the Gulf Stream reaching the central Arctic and creating a pocket of open water surrounded by land-based ice, with water volume balance restored by cold water exiting in the Labrador Current. The first half of this hypothesis wasn't abandoned until Nansen and Johansen set off for the pole from the frozen-in Fram in March 1895.

Modern oceanographic considerations (barotropic flow) instead force this branch of the Gulf Stream to follow shelf break bathymetry after rounding Svalbard. Although some Atlantic Water later returns centrally along the Lomonosov Ridge (still following bathymetry, now translocated continental shelf) the remnant core is by now too cool, deep and double-diffused to realize Petermann's hypothesis.

Open water is found north of Svalbard all year now as Gulf Stream (WSC) heat manages to come up somewhat from depth due in part to turbulent eddies over the Yermak Plateau. Return flow occurs primarily via an adjacent EGC countercurrent along east Greenland, with lesser and variable amounts returning through the Fram, CAA channels and the Bering Strait, but with volume numbers always quick to add up.

What then makes the Gulf Stream (WSC) turn right at Svalbard? It is being pushed from behind to move on but can't continue heading north (oceanographic theory) nor go left because it would be rebuffed by massive southward return flows of the EGC.

But if the EGC and the ice-melt freshwater it brings south have been tipped by ever-warming West Spitsbergen Current water into overall system instability, could flows, eddies or upwelling chimneys conceivably turn west advecting part of their flow, rounding north Greenland as we are perhaps seeing this week, with turbulent confusion in surface waters (and to some depth) at both the EGC crossing and the Lincoln Sea, with the Nares picking up the slack in return flow south? Indeed, several earlier current forks have occurred in the AMOC en route.

http://oceancurrents.rsmas.miami.edu/atlantic/spitsbergen.html

https://www.npr.org/2018/04/13/602240020/atlantic-ocean-current-slows-down-to-1-000-year-low-studies-show

This, if it continues for a few weeks along the CAA as it appears to be doing, would lead to the anti-matter version of Petermann's idea, central ice surrounded on all sides by open water. Conceivably this might have happened to a limited extent in previous seasons (volume flow does slow in August per wipneus) but has not been noticeable because masked by more robust ice in earlier years and less diversion of WGC waters.

The gif below compares 2018 to prior Augusts for the years 2012-17, showing that the event this season has no counterpart in the earlier years available.

Here are three gateway papers (71+ cites) to the many many studies of this region, including Goszczko's 2018 review of regional Ekman transport, eddies and water chimneys:

The West Spitsbergen Current volume and heat transport from synoptic observations in summer
W Walczowski et al 28 June 2004 free full text
https://brage.bibsys.no/xmlui/bitstream/handle/11250/2366362/021202.pdf?sequence=1

Mesoscale eddies in the Fram Strait marginal ice zone during the 1983 and 1984 Marginal Ice Zone Experiments
J. A. Johannessen et al 30 June 1987
https://doi.org/10.1029/JC092iC07p06754 Cited by: 120

During the summer Marginal Ice Zone Experiment in Fram Strait in 1983 and 1984, fourteen mesoscale eddies, in both deep and shallow water, were studied between 78° and 81°N. Sampling combined satellite and aircraft remote sensing observations, conductivity‐temperature‐depth observations, drift of surface and subsurface floats and current meter measurements. Typical scales of these eddies were 20–40 km. Rotation was mainly cyclonic with a maximum speed, in several cases subsurface of up to 40 cm s−1. Observations further suggest that the eddy lifetime was at least 20 to 30 days. Five generation sources are suggested for these eddies. Several of the eddies were topographically trapped, while others, primarily formed by combined baroclinic and barotropic instability, moved as much as 10–15 km d−1 with the mean current. The vorticity balance in the nontrapped eddies is dominated by the stretching of isopycnals accompanied by a change in the radial shear. In the most completely observed eddy south of 79°N the available potential energy exceeded the kinetic energy by a factor of 2. Quantitative estimates suggest that the abundance of these eddies enhances the ice edge melt up to 1–2 km d−1.

A Comparative Study of Moored/Point and Acoustic Tomography/Integral Observations of Sound Speed in Fram Strait Using Objective Mapping Techniques
BD Dushaw and H Sagen 17 December 2015
https://doi.org/10.1175/JTECH-D-15-0251.1

Fram Strait, the passage between Spitsbergen and Greenland, is a significant “choke point” for the general circulation of the world’s oceans (Fieg et al. 2010; Schauer et al. 2008). This strait is the only deep connection between the Arctic and the world’s oceans. Through this strait, warm, salty North Atlantic water flows northward in the West Spitzbergen Current, while cold, fresher water, together with considerable quantities of ice (Smedsrud et al. 2011), flows southward in the East Greenland Current. The transports of heat and salt between the Atlantic basin and the Arctic Basin by the deep and shallow current systems in Fram Strait are important aspects of ocean circulation, with profound impacts on the ocean’s climate.

The details of these current systems are, however, difficult to observe. Not only are the natural scales of variability small at these high latitudes but the powerful current systems have turbulent and recirculating features. These features influence and obscure transports of mass or heat. Eddy variability may be an important contributor to these transports.

The Fram Strait moored array (Fig. 1) has been deployed across the strait since 1997 to measure the properties of these current systems (Fieg et al. 2010; Schauer et al. 2008). Temperature, salinity, and current data from this array have been noted for their great variability (von Appen et al. 2015). Even with 16 moorings deployed along a 325-km line across the strait, however, the separation of the moorings (20–28 km) is a few times larger than the natural scales of variability, 4–10 km (Fieg et al. 2010; Nurser and Bacon 2014).

The moored array has therefore undersampled the ocean variability; the Fram Strait moored array forms an incoherent observing array. This situation has made it challenging to employ the moored array data directly to estimate heat flow (Schauer et al. 2008; Schauer and Beszczynska-Möller 2009), or as constraints on numerical ocean models through data assimilation. The high noise of the observations overwhelms the signals of interest to the ocean modelers and introduces the effects of aliasing. Other observing approaches, such as glider or conductivity–temperature–depth (CTD) sections, have obvious, different sets of complications or deficiencies. It is clear that no one type of measurement offers a comprehensive solution to the observation problem in Fram Strait.

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47

Arctic sea ice / Re: The 2018 melting season

« on: August 14, 2018, 04:37:29 PM »

A look at the southwest corner of the Lincoln Sea (at the entrance to Nares) on Worldview confirms a very disturbing development as shown by A-Team's recent posts. The ice is actually melting in-situ in the Lincoln Sea, not simply blown northward by winds (as happened in February 2018 for example).
The animation begins around July 1st when the Nares entrance plug first cracked and broke. At first the ice was lifted off Ellesmere to the east, then part of it including some very large floes spilled into the Nares. All of this is rather common for this time of year. But afterwards, as evidenced by the fast ice breaking off the fjord to the right of the image, the ice started moving erratically with open water appearing and growing rapidly within the ice field, showing a very strong melting process. This location should not be having such a rapid melt-out of local ice. It shows both relatively thin ice and (probably) very warm/saline sea surface.
Note the last image is showing another breakup of the fast ice in the fjord.

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Arctic sea ice / Re: Arctic Image of the Day

« on: August 11, 2018, 04:22:12 PM »

I made this a few years ago. The video shows drifting sea ice around Hopen.

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/YBTVJIH6En8&amp;t=4s" target="_blank" class="new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/YBTVJIH6En8&amp;t=4s</a>

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Arctic sea ice / Re: The 2018 melting season

« on: August 10, 2018, 03:39:43 PM »

The amount of smoke is an indicator that the incoming airmass is very warm.

Do you have any evidence backing up the claim that "amount of smoke" means "very warm" airmass?

I have no evidence that this means "very warm", but as smoke should usually only come from areas where something can burn, the airmasses should be typically be from regions as south as that there can be trees growing and where it was warm (because forest fires usually go with high temperatues). So when smoke is being brought northwards to the Arctic Ocean I would find it plausibel, that the airmasses will bring above-average temperatures with them.

Fair point, although tundras will burn also. Siberia is vast and fires can burn anywhere, and most of Siberia is quite warm in the summer months. But perhaps we shouldn't be trying to read smoke signals like American Indians in 19th century school-boy literature, and simply check on one of the many resources available that give temperature in degrees centigrade.

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Arctic sea ice / Re: Latest PIOMAS update (August)

« on: August 08, 2018, 11:27:59 PM »

the major change in ASI happened in 2007. Since then only minor changes have occurred, expressed mainly in further reduction of volume, especially in OND due to later freezing / intrusion of warmth through the Atlantic side.

Yes, 2007 in some ways had a more dramatic downstream impact than 2012, pinching out MYI classes as well as subsequent volume by the mechanism discussed below. The NSIDC account of Sept-Oct 2007 is at the link below; the overlay of the 2007 minimum on 07 Aug 18 AMSR2 is shown in the attached png.

It looks like most of the 'extra ice' this year will be midway between the NP and Wrangel/NSI. GFS surface winds suggest the peculiar lift-off in the Lincoln Sea will continue a few more days; however a few days of opposing winds later in the month could flatten it against the coast, making the final outline of 2018 ice look even more like 2007.

Delayed freeze-up in the fall prolongs the local melt season in warm-water kill zones and otherwise offer a chance for consolidating winds. This in turn restricts the seed pack to the CAB (recalling that new ice mainly forms on the pack periphery), resulting in an ever higher proportion of FYI relative to SYI.

The second animation shows that ice loss between early August and mid-September is quite variable, with GAC2012 bringing about the most extreme situation in just a few days. Looking at this time series makes me dis-believe the hastily written journal articles post-GAC saying 'oh that ice would have melted out anyway'.

This animation advances in triple frames: first the August 5th for the earliest year, then its September 10th, then the half-overlay of the minimum on the August, pause, then the next triple, up to the 2018 whose minimum and overlay frames are conjectural.

It's also worthwhile to compare each melt season end to its beginning (notably Sept 2017 to Sept 2018) if you take the view that the CAB largely just sits there from year to year (possibly thinning slightly) and melt season primarily consists of undoing undoing the freeze season's new peripheral ice. In that perspective, the year is evaluated by its departure from time-reversibility: did the melt season do less or more than undo its freeze season.

However this year has seen significant inroads into the CAB along the Atlantification corridor, in the Laptev and possibly the Lincoln Sea (where Atlantic Waters eventually exit out the Nares at depth).

While lift-offs are as common and in correspondence with sustained CW rotation of the ice pack (ie anti-cyclonic pressure systems), this one could be unveiling a severely mechanically weakened -- and possibly thinned -- local ice pack.

Recall though the winter Ascat series that showed almost half the very thickest east Lincoln ice getting pushed down the Nares, so quite a bit there is just refrozen matrix, now breaking up into free floes.

Recall too that the interface of the CAB with the outer islands of the CAA was in motion for much of the fall and winter, with huge blocks tumbling end over end and some exiting into a Beaufort-Chukchi stringer. Even though this area might see some of the coldest mean temperatures and historically have been land-fast, in recent years with a smaller rotating rigid body, it is moving fast on the outside of the merry-go-round and coming up against these immovable islands. Much of the very thickest and oldest MYI has been lost in this way.

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2007/10/589/#1October

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