FEEDBACK FOLLIES

Thanks Geoff

Splendid precision, chaps. Five metres of sea level rise in 89 years. Well done, James and Makikiosan.

"To explain the difference between the ice core and deep ocean records, Hansen and Sato argue that there are several positive feedbacks that come into play at temperatures near the present temperature, and they would accentuate the tendency of polar regions more strongly than the rest of the globe."

Feedbacks are fun. If you can't reconcile your datasets, just infer a a positive (or negative) 'feedback' that - presto - allows you to get the outcome that best suits your confirmation bias.

Fascinating to see alarmists now retreating to the remote past - the mirror image of the distant future and often just as unfalsifiable - desperately seeking "evidence" for future apocalypse.

Your notion that a couple of degrees of warming would be "catastrophic" is puzzling, even if one accepts (i) a Victorian bushfire rating can be applied legitimately to a global event, and (ii) their imaginative (inferred, not proven)feedback forcings.

How can "ice sheets disappear", when the average annual surface temperature of continental Antarctica is between -25C and -55C? The coldest month recorded at Russia's Vostok Station (in the Australian Antarctic Territory) was August 1997 (-75.4C) and the warmest, December 1989, a pleasant -28C. Surely it will take more than 2C to melt (and move) kilometres-thick ice in deep basins (not on slopes)?

Incidentally, ClimateCodeRed's graph (deliberately?) refers to an IPCC (2007) 'forecast' of 2-3C. Yet the IPCC 3AR (page 744) emphasises: "we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and hence long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible."

For me, the only thing more intriguing than the Hansen-Makiko kind of alarmism is your belief that (i) 'warming' has a single cause; (ii) is dangerous; and (iii)can be reversed merely by turning down the global anthropogenic carbon dioxide dial.

Proving (and predicting) causality, especially in a coupled non-linear chaotic system that is weather/climate, is beyond the powers of even our best climate astrologers.

Alice (in Warmerland)

Thanks for that Geoff. Your reliance on the sound research of Hansen and Sato is appreciated and confirmed by several other research teams that show that the melting of Greenlands glaciers which form the worlds second largest icecap is almost certain to raise global sea levels by 7 metres. The Greenland ice cap will reach a point of no return (tipping Point) by 2040.

The facts are set out in a New Scientist article p 8 ( 9-1 - 2011 ) entitled "Greenland poised on a knife edge". Also See Mernild's models that show that after 2040 nothing will prevent the ice cap from vanishing entirely. Says Mernild "glaciers havn't responded to temperature rises. Even if warming stops, melting will go on"..... "it does not look nice"

Journal of Hydrometeorology,DOI:10.1175/2009JM1140.1

It's not the -75 degree temps. it's the ice is sitting in warmer water than freezing.

'The danger from global warming may have moved from “Extreme” to “Catastrophic”.'

Far more accurate prophecies predict the earth warming a lot more than the leaned Professor predicts. The difference is that bible prophecy always comes to pass while Green faith built on extremely dubious 'science' is about telling fellow believers what they want to hear. Higher electricity bills will only hurt the poor. Hopefully the funding will shift to true science instead of this 'consensus' nonsense.

Geoff. You quote research based on ice cores as evidence of the guilt of CO2 in the future demise of the planet as we know it. But the Vostok ice core showing many warmings and coolings over 400,000 years shows that temperature rise precedes CO2 rise by around 800-1000 years, and therefore cannot be caused by it. Your graph shows the Medieval Warm Period to have been cooler than today. A little more research, for example http://www.co2science.org/subject/m/subject_m.php will reveal several hundered peer reviewed papers showing that the MWP was real, global and warmer than today. Human history tells us that vines were grown 200 metres higher elevations in Germany, certain cereal crops were grown at higher latitudes in Scandinavia than today, and so on - all suggesting temperatures 1 degree C or more higher than today. The Minoan and Roman warm periods were the same - and all with no evidence of CO2 as the main driver. Yet another ice core (GISP2) shows warmings, for example at the beginnning of the Holocene as fast as 8 degrees in 40 years, and coolings such as 4 degrees in 20 years at the end of the MWP, all far faster than the minuscule rate of change which so excites doomsayers such as Hansen and yourself. Sea level has been rising since the end of the Little Ice Age, following a period of relative stability, but it is still lower over most of the planet than at the time of the Holocene optimum. Despite your claim to the opposite the rate of rise has not been increasing in the last hundred years and indeed the rate as determined from satellites during the last 5 years has fallen. It is very easy for people such as you to give an air of authority to half truths and dodgy forecasts and mislead the general reader. You shouldn't do it. An open-minded look at the forecasts of Jim Hansen since 1988, whether related to temperature, sea level, ocean heat content and so on, should be enough to convince you that he should not be your source.

COUCH CATASTROPHILIA

Hey PEST

Perhaps you should take Jon J's advice?

If and when your 'exponential' process ever speeds up to dangerous levels we will all be safely dead, so why panic? I prescribe a deep breath, a dose of http://tinyurl.com/46o7g4j and a good lie down. And next time Hansen calls, don't answer.[Posted by Jon J, Tuesday, 8 February 2011 11:25:13 AM]

From http://tinyurl.com/46o7g4j

"A letter published in Nature on 27 January explains how increased melting in warmer years causes the internal drainage system of the ice sheet to ‘adapt’ and accommodate more melt-water, without speeding up the flow of ice toward the oceans. The findings have important implications for future assessments of global sea level rise."

“It had been thought that more surface melting would cause the ice sheet to speed up and retreat faster, but our study suggests that the opposite could in fact be true,” said Professor Andrew Shepherd from the University of Leeds School of Earth and Environment, who led the study.

“If that’s the case, increases in surface melting expected over the 21st century may have no affect on the rate of ice loss through flow. However, this doesn’t mean that the ice sheet is safe from climate change, because the impact of ocean-driven melting remains uncertain.”

Where would we be without: "X remains uncertain", but its impact is sure to be BAD?

In Warmerland, one thing is CERTAIN,folks: NOTHING IS SAFE FROM CLIMATE CHANGE!

Alice (in Warmerland)