Arctic Updates

[Hairball]

Cosmic, I've seen arctic sea ice charts extracted from the raw data that show way more ice that yours, cba making an picture account right now, go to www.solarcycle24.com and look in the um, climate change part of the forum, New Zealand scientist posts charts he takes from the raw data. He'll give you the spreadsheet and where to get the numbers if you ask nicely. You'll be surprised.

[wintler2]

Hairball, i've seen pro-polluter propaganda extracted from Faux News that shows way more verisimilatude that (sic) yours, cba making another username right now, go to www.bigoilisyourfriend.com and look in the um, bullshit for the braindead part of the forum, New Zealand scientist posts charts he takes from the raw data. He'll give you the fake controversy and where to get the talking points if you ask nicely (Heartland Institute). You'll (continue to) be unsurprising.

[Hairball]

Chill Wintler,global temperatures haven't risen in 10 years, we're in no immediate danger, even if you're right about CO2

EDIT ah, I see we're adding 78,000km2 of Arctic sea ice per day (5.5 Connecticuts)

[Cosmic Cowbell]

EDIT ah, I see we're adding 78,000km2 of Arctic sea ice per day (5.5 Connecticuts)

Um...because it's approaching Winter in the northern hemisphere?

Before you waste too much more time with this particular argument HB, understand that Arctic sea ice (it's min/max extents) ebb and flow between seasons. It grows in winter and melts in summer. The chart I posted was simply measuring the daily extent, and it's loss as it approached the commonly accepted time frame between growth and loss. The minimum extent is normally reached late summer/early fall and then begins to grow again. It is near the minimum extent that arctic sea lanes have opened up the past few years (for the first time in centuries if not millenia).

Maybe you understand this already. I simply found your recent post in the thread somewhat confusing, if not confused...



Carry on.

[Hairball]

Wow, ice grows in the winter, really? What a revelation, I'm shocked.

Has the entire arctic already melted?

Do we have any way to know that it hasn't completely melted at any time in the last 3million years(it certainly wasn't there 4 million years ago)? (Clue: they don't take ice cores from the arctic to fabricate their global temperature record).

[Cosmic Cowbell]

Wow, ice grows in the winter, really? What a revelation, I'm shocked.

You certainly seemed to think so when you went out of your way to edit your post with:

ah, I see we're adding 78,000km2 of Arctic sea ice per day (5.5 Connecticuts)

Going so far as to bold "per day".

I do however appreciate your attempted effort to enlighten us with your AGW "wisdom", however misguided I find it. Of course your dripping sarcastic wit somewhat betrays you.

BTW- While I do understand that I may be misinterpreting your suggested number of 78,000KM "2" as implying the first number being "squared", which would bring us to approximately 608,400,000KM of ice being created "per day". I would be interested in either A) you correcting my interpretation, B) providing a link to the site whereby you obtained the number or C) correcting your statement with something factual.

Hairball: (hacker slang)

1. [Fidonet] A large batch of messages that a store-and-forward network is failing to forward when it should. Often used in the phrase “Fido coughed up a hairball today”, meaning that the stuck messages have just come unstuck, producing a flood of mail where there had previously been drought.

2. An unmanageably huge mass of source code. “JWZ thought the Mozilla effort bogged down because the code was a huge hairball.”

3. Any large amount of garbage coming out suddenly. “Sendmail is coughing up a hairball, so expect some slowness accessing the Internet.”

http://www.answers.com/hairball

I'm partial to #3 here, especially the "garbage" and "slowness" descriptors...

[Hairball]

Wow, ice grows in the winter, really? What a revelation, I'm shocked.

You certainly seemed to think so when you went out of your way to edit your post with:

ah, I see we're adding 78,000km2 of Arctic sea ice per day (5.5 Connecticuts)

Going so far as to bold "per day".
I'm partial to #3 here, especially the "garbage" and "slowness" descriptors...

My apologies, typo, should read 78,000km^2 which is 5.5 Connecticuts. And the fastest growth of Arctic sea-ice ever recorded. The source is the Japanese Space agency's JAXA sattellite http://tinypic.com/r/v4ng1s/6. Are you aware that that the source you use make it clear that they underestimate the amount of sea ice by between 10% and 25% (via computer algorithm) depending on season because they can't tell the difference between ice and clouds? They never overestimate it.

2007 was the year of lowest Arctic ice extent.

Wait, sorry, 2007 was the year of lowest Arctic ice extent.

[Hairball]

Wow, ice grows in the winter, really? What a revelation, I'm shocked.

You certainly seemed to think so when you went out of your way to edit your post with:

ah, I see we're adding 78,000km2 of Arctic sea ice per day (5.5 Connecticuts)

Going so far as to bold "per day".
I'm partial to #3 here, especially the "garbage" and "slowness" descriptors...

My apologies, typo, should read 78,000km^2 which is 5.5 Connecticuts. And the fastest growth of Arctic sea-ice ever recorded. The source is the Japanese Space agency's JAXA sattellite http://tinypic.com/r/v4ng1s/6. Are you aware that that the source you use make it clear that they underestimate the amount of sea ice by between 10% and 25% (via computer algorithm) depending on season because they can't tell the difference between ice and clouds? They never overestimate it.

2007 was the year of lowest Arctic ice extent.

Wait, sorry, 2007 was the year of lowest Arctic ice extent.

I should have made clear that all of the sources underestimate this way, not just because they make corrections because they confuse ice with clouds, but also because they think puddles on ice are open water.

There is a clear upward trend in minimum Arctic ice since 2007.

[wintler2]

Hairball reminds me alot of slimmouse, another AGW 'sceptic' who trolled these pages for far too long - same endless stream of pro-polluter propaganda, no admission of error or even modicum of uncertainty. All thats lacking is the "its an elite plot" theme, but then i don't read all his (betcha its a man) posts.

'Fess up hairball, have you ever posted here under another username?

[Hairball]

Hairball reminds me alot of slimmouse, another AGW 'sceptic' who trolled these pages for far too long - same endless stream of pro-polluter propaganda, no admission of error or even modicum of uncertainty. All thats lacking is the "its an elite plot" theme, but then i don't read all his (betcha its a man) posts.

'Fess up hairball, have you ever posted here under another username?

Never posted under another name and didn't look in when I was banned. They're pumping CO2 into oil wells now to "sequester" it, since this makes getting the oil out easier I guess even the oil companies get a dividend.

Arctic ice is recovering, admit it.

[Jeff]

Never posted under another name and didn't look in when I was banned.

Um...you were banned?

[Hairball]

Never posted under another name and didn't look in when I was banned.

Um...you were banned?

Wasn't I? Didn't get notifications for days. Am I about to be banned? :\

Whatever side of the argument you are on, I'm sure you'll agree that these "artists" who bought carbon credits to travel to the arctic and release a cannister of CO2 are pretty much out of their tiny minds:

http://www.capefarewell.com/diskobay/carbon-emissions/

[Sweejak]

Wasn't I? Didn't get notifications for days. Am I about to be banned? :\

This is pretty common for me too and a few others, I don't know why it happens but sometimes topics that you've subscribed to don't launch an email notification.

[Jeff]

Climate change causing 'corrosive' water to affect Arctic marine life: study
Margaret Munro , Canwest News Service
Published: Thursday, November 19, 2009

Scientists have uncovered a large expanse of "corrosive" water in the Canadian Arctic that is putting the marine food web at risk.

The waters have been so altered by climate change and melting sea ice that plankton, shellfish and fish may have trouble building their protective shells and skeletons, an international team reports Friday in the journal Science.

The oceanographers have documented a "rapid" drop in the levels of carbonate, a compound used to produce shells and bones, in the top 50 metres of the surface waters of the Beaufort Sea and more northerly Canada Basin over the last decade. The levels are now so low the water is at "corrosive" levels and they warn the "Arctic ecosystem may be risk."

"In actual fact, they'll dissolve the shells," says co-author, Fiona McLaughlin, a research scientist with Fisheries and Oceans Canada.

The Arctic marine system has been hit by what McLaughlin describes as a "triple whammy" - acidification of sea water, stunning rates of ice melt, and upwelling from the deep ocean.

The first is related to the way the world's oceans are growing more acidic because they soak up about a third of the carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere through the burning of fossil fuels. The CO2 makes sea water more acidic and decreases the availability of carbonate, which could be potentially catastrophic to marine ecosystems.

McLaughlin says in the Arctic, this acidification process is happening faster than in southern regions because cold water absorbs more CO2 than warm water.

The remarkable retreat and thinning of the Arctic sea ice has had an even more pronounced impact on the carbonate levels, the team reports. Sea ice contains extremely low levels of the compound, which is squeezed out of the ice as it crystallizes. And melting ice has generated huge volumes of low-carbonate water, diluting and reducing the concentration of the shell-building compound in the top 50 metres of water, which are normally the most productive.

McLaughlin recalls how in the late 1980s, the impenetrable ice pack confined the scientists and their icebreaker, CCGS Louis St. Laurent, to the southern Beaufort. In recent summers they have been able to cruise through open water hundreds of kilometres north into the Canada Basin. "It's great for science and being able to explore," she says. "But jeepers, I did not expect in my lifetime for this to occur."

The ice retreat has also led to a third process putting the ecosystem at risk. Winds now howl across open waters once covered by pack ice, and storms can carry deep water up onto the shallow continental shelf in the southern Beaufort, the researchers report. Like melted sea-ice, these deep waters are low in shell-building carbonate.

The corrosive waters are now confined to the Arctic, but they're expected to start flowing into the North Atlantic in about 10 years. "Water doesn't stay in the Arctic forever," says McLaughlin.

She says the findings underscore the urgent need to slow climate change. "What this is saying is that we have to control CO2 emissions," says McLaughlin. "That's the only way that we can stop processes such as acidification of the oceans."

...

http://www2.canada.com/topics/technolog ... id=2242554

[Jeff]

Acid in Arctic waters eating away at shellfish
Marine food chain could be threatened
NUNATSIAQ NEWS

Greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles, power stations and industries far to the south are putting shellfish in the Arctic Ocean at risk, an international team reports in the Nov. 20 edition of the journal Science.

Acidification may put “some species at risk,” the researchers said, saying this could have a major impact on the entire marine food chain.

And acidification is expected to increase as sea ice cover decreases due to global warming, they say.

Ten years of study in the Beaufort Sea showed the seawater is becoming more acidic and fresher, which means there’s less of minerals and carbonate needed for shell formation.

...

Research carried out in the Svalbard Islands off Norway’s northern coast also suggests Arctic seawater is likely to reach corrosive levels within 10 years.

The seawater will then start to dissolve the shells of mussels and other shellfish, according to Professor Jean-Pierre Gattuso, of Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique.

A little shellfish eaten by baleen whales, salmon, herring and various seabirds would be at risk, he said, and its disappearance would have a major impact on the entire marine food chain.

By 2100, the entire Arctic Ocean will be “corrosively acidic,” he said.

http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/stories/a ... hellfish_/