A little while back the climate change community was all abuzz with news that a new hockey stick graph had been reported in the peer-reviewed literature. Believers in the consensus were cock-a-hoop and it was reported in all the usual places. Within OLO a thread entitled "Too Fast" was started to celebrate the breakthrough paper.

The paper was called Marcott et al 2013 and purported to show the temperatures over the past 11300yrs. It showed a steady rise for 5000yrs or so, then a steady decline for 5000yrs up to around 1900 when temperatures rapidly rose, wiping out all the decline in the previous 5000yrs.

Unfortunately for the authors (but fortunately for those who treasure the truth) Steve McIntyre looked into the data behind the graph and the results have been sensational.

Long story short, the authors, who originally were crowing that “What we found is that temperatures increased in the last 100 years as much as they had cooled in the last 6,000 or 7,000,” are now back-tracking as fast as they can and are reporting “the 20th century portion of our paleotemperature stack is not statistically robust, cannot be considered representative of global temperature changes ..“. ie you can't rely on anything their data says about the 20th century.

So we don't have a hockey stick but an upturned U-shaped graph where the all the bumps are ironed out by averaging with a resolution of ~300yrs. The authors are also conceding that their work can't rule out the likelihood that there have been many other periods like the 20th century where temperatures rose by 0.5 degrees or so. Finally to make matters even worse for the authors there is more investigation into the processes behind the paper with some not ruling out professional misconduct on the part of the authors.

The other interesting aspect to this is to see how well the 'clarifications' from the authors are reported given that the original, now discredited graph was widely covered by the press.

MHaze,

You’re a bit slow off the mark. Isn’t this the same report Poirot was crowing about here: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=5668#157478

It seems she swallowed it hook line and sinker--ROFL

(now watch, she is going to come in with some yada about how bad Lord Monkton is, to throw you off the trail)

mhaze,

Ho hum.....

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2013/03/22/the-tick/

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2013/04/02/for-the-record/

Have you guys an explanation for the rate of warming in modern times?

Or do you subscribe to the line that nasty Marcott smeared out all the warmish periods in the Holocene?

I suppose it's nice to have a hobby, but hunting down and thrashing hockey sticks is so passe these days.

"We already know what happened in the 20th century."

Okay boys, obviously the game's up....

Apparently, according to the "NO CARBON TAX Climate Skeptics Party", we're heading for a mini ice age...and it's already upon us!

http://theclimatescepticsparty.blogspot.com.au/2013/04/mini-ice-age-has-started-prof-warns.html

Fascinating......

Poirot. "Have you guys an explanation for the rate of warming in modern times?"

That's too big a question to answer here. I'll simply observe that we are comparing a detailed instrumental record for maybe a couple of hundred years containing multiple adjustments to a proxy record of the last 10,000 years. Although I can't comment as an expertly informed observer, I am suspicious proxies are unable to match an instrumental record for accuracy or reliability. If they did, we could scrap thermometers tomorrow and rely on reading tree rings or teabags or something for contemporary scientific research.

Regardless, Tamino as I observed earlier is twisting and turning like mad to save the day. But simply put, the confirming uptick is not there. You may wish to read Marcott's own response here:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/03/response-by-marcott-et-al/

Here's a relevant quote:

"Q: What do paleotemperature reconstructions show about the temperature of the last 100 years?

A: Our global paleotemperature reconstruction includes a so-called “uptick” in temperatures during the 20th-century. However, in the paper we make the point that this particular feature is of shorter duration than the inherent smoothing in our statistical averaging procedure, and that it is based on only a few available paleo-reconstructions of the type we used. Thus, the 20th century portion of our paleotemperature stack is not statistically robust, cannot be considered representative of global temperature changes, and therefore is not the basis of any of our conclusions. Our primary conclusions are based on a comparison of the longer term paleotemperature changes from our reconstruction with the well-documented temperature changes that have occurred over the last century, as documented by the instrumental record. Although not part of our study, high-resolution paleoclimate data from the past ~130 years have been compiled from various geological archives, and confirm the general features of warming trend over this time interval (Anderson, D.M. et al., 2013, Geophysical Research Letters, v. 40, p. 189-193; http://www.agu.org/journals/pip/gl/2012GL054271-pip.pdf).

And another:

Q: Is the rate of global temperature rise over the last 100 years faster than at any time during the past 11,300 years?

A: Our study did not directly address this question because the paleotemperature records used in our study have a temporal resolution of ~120 years on average, which precludes us from examining variations in rates of change occurring within a century. Other factors also contribute to smoothing the proxy temperature signals contained in many of the records we used, such as organisms burrowing through deep-sea mud, and chronological uncertainties in the proxy records that tend to smooth the signals when compositing them into a globally averaged reconstruction. We showed that no temperature variability is preserved in our reconstruction at cycles shorter than 300 years, 50% is preserved at 1000-year time scales, and nearly all is preserved at 2000-year periods and longer. Our Monte-Carlo analysis accounts for these sources of uncertainty to yield a robust (albeit smoothed) global record. Any small “upticks” or “downticks” in temperature that last less than several hundred years in our compilation of paleoclimate data are probably not robust, as stated in the paper."

SPQR:"You’re a bit slow off the mark. Isn’t this the same report Poirot was crowing about here"

Not so slow...I actually referred to the earlier thread when I wrote.." Within OLO a thread entitled "Too Fast" was started to celebrate the breakthrough paper."

As Churchill said "A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on."

Now I'm not saying Marcott et al is a lie but the same dynamics apply. The paper was issued and the spin was touted by the authors and in all the usual publications, long before the basis of the paper could be analysed. Its only now that people like McIntyre have been able to pull it apart that the authors are backtracking on their original claims. What I'm most interested here is seeing just how many of the publications, blogs etc that carried the original dire warnings, now report the fact that the authors are looking to add all sorts of caveats to their pronouncements.

Finally for anyone still interested, there are a host of articles and comments out there on the usual blogs. But I rather like some of the discussion at Curry's place.

http://judithcurry.com/2013/04/02/were-not-screwed/

And as far as skeptics go, I like TonyB's explorations. Can't comment on how good they are, but fascinating just the same. Some examples:

http://climatereason.com/LittleIceAgeThermometers/
http://climatereason.com/Graphs/Graph01.png

And for some really out there and engaging discussions with a solid skeptical flavour, Tallbloke's blog is great.

http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/

I am particularly intrigued by their support for the Nikolov & Zeller proposition. It works for me at the Occams Razor level as opposed to the convoluted reasoning in standard greenhouse gas theory.

mhaze thats exactly my point. Marcott et al is NOT about recent warming, it's a good paper exploring the holocene temperature profile. Their mistake was adding that stupid uptick and I'll bet you we know where that came from. The paper is agreed by most to be very good apart from that.

But it's the unseemly haste with which the uptick was seized by all and sundry as proof of AGW that is most telling. Just like it is with Poirot.

Poirot says "I suppose it's nice to have a hobby, but hunting down and thrashing hockey sticks is so passe these days".

I think it is very sporting of your B grade global warming harpy scientists to keep setting up all these poorly contrived hokey sticks.

Tearing them to pieces gives the boys something fun to do, on those long cold nights, & lets them show everyone what a bunch of pretenders those still pushing the fraud really are.

Hey guys,

Nice to know there's another "skeptic" here to swell the ranks, who appears to have come stocked with compendium listing "skeptic" sites.

OLO's nearly as solid with deniers as Watts and Nova.

I'm sure you'll all be much happier if I sit on the sidelines and take notes (There's enough material [here] for an entire conference)

Have fun.....

Poirot! I'm disappointed. You mean that was only the five minute argument? I would've paid for the whole hour... :)

Oh for heavens sake will you denialists give up on this “it’s not happening nonsense”.
Just look out of the window and see what is going on right now.
A shipping line is to start a service around the North of Russia is a bit of a clue there?
As well as that here is an article about the Arctic which shows that there are big changes there.
Arctic Ice Breaks Up in Beaufort Sea.
http://robinwestenra.blogspot.co.nz/2013/03/the-polar-ice.html?spref=fb
We are also continuing to find even more ways to increase the rate of global warming such as the increase of methane emissions from CSG leaks which even a denialist would agree is a much more potent gas than CO2.

Poirot wrote: "OLO's nearly as solid with deniers as Watts and Nova."

Yep,as always OLO carries a fair representation of the views of the general public who long ago worked out this was all nothing to worry about and most definitely nothing to waste money on.

Robert LePage
"Just look out of the window and see what is going on right now."

OK....wet, chilly, 3 deg below normal. Yep I can see why you're so scared :)

"A shipping line is to start a service around the North of Russia is a bit of a clue there?"

Wow, and its not as though the Arctic has been ice free before, right? Oh wait....http://phys.org/news143738391.html

"will you denialists give up on this “it’s not happening nonsense”."

I'll try to explain it to you Robert. Its not that people think it (warming) isn't happening. I'd venture that very few people think there hasn't been warming in the last 200yrs. the issue is what has caused the warming - man or natural forcings. Just saying, as you do, that its warmer therefore the case is proven, completely and utterly misses the point.

The Marcott paper shows that temps previously were higher than now, presumably caused by natural forcings. Its yet to be shown that the current mild warming is not primarily natural

OK I give up.
But I hope I will still be around ( within the next 10 years or so) to say, "I told you so".

"But I hope I will still be around ( within the next 10 years or so) to say, "I told you so"."

I think you might need to wait a bit longer than 10yrs. The current projections, even from the warmist UK Met office, is for the current cooling and/or stasis to continue for at least another 5 yrs. So even if things then turn around and warmed like it did in the late 1970's, it still wouldn't be much warmer than now.

Not so fast, mhaze...

Have you any information on sea levels during similar warm periods during the Holocene?

Oh looky, here's some:

http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v5/n9/full/ngeo1536.html

Do you have any projections related to the rapid rate of warming in modern times?

Do you have any opinion on glacial melt and what effects it may have?

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/05/world/americas/1600-years-of-ice-in-perus-andes-melted-in-25-years-scientists-say.html?smid=tw-nytimesscience&seid=auto&_r=0

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2013/04/03/science.1234210

Nah...it's all happened before, so no probs.....

Poirot,

You really can't get past the idea that any current warming must be man-made can you?
OK, so when there was higher temps in the earlier Holocene, the sea levels were higher. So what? If the warming is natural, there's really bugger all we can do to prevent it so we'd just have to adapt to the higher levels.

Its not a question of saying "it's all happened before, so no probs.....". But it is a question of saying it happened before we started burning fossil fuels, was therefore natural and is probably natural now. So recognise that there may be problems with the warming and stop blowing money on fruitless efforts to stop it and start spending money on mitigation. that is if you believe the warming will continue, which I don't.

BTW, we were talking about Arctic sea-ice melting. How much sea level rise do you think will occur if all the sea-ice melts?

Let me try and summarise again. We've had 1 deg warming in the last century. Its been good. A further 1 deg will be better. But whether we get it or not is entirely out of our hands. We can no more control the weather than we can control the solar cycles (which are of coarse linked!!). So, if the warming continues, enjoy the benefits and mitigate the detriments. Saying that the last time we had this level of temperature, some things were bad and therefore we need to 'do something', completely misses the point.

Poirot, I had a look at that link to the German report and the sunspots.
Interesting because the Maunder minimum does not refer to a temperature
minimum but to a sunspot minimum. That a temperature minimum occurred
at the same time, may or may not be a coincidence.

I have been noting because of my use of HF radio for many years the
sunspot count. I make contact every afternoon with a friend near
London and I can assure you that radio condx (abv conditions) are
worse that I have ever experienced, especially since we are supposed
to be approaching a maximum which occurs every eleven years.
Last year or the year before there were several days with zero
sunspots an unheard of thing.
So if indeed there is a connection between sunspots and global warming
and/or global cooling, it will soon become apparent.
It may well explain the pause in warming as condx have been poor since
before the last cycle.

The Ionospheric Prediction Service publishes sunspot counts
continuously so it might be worth keeping track.

Bazz,

Yes, the fact that the Maunder Minimum coincided with the Little Ice Age, might have been a mere fluke. But then when we realise that the next time the sun ran through a series of weak cycles, called the Dalton Minimum (around 1800) the world also suffered a period of falling temperatures - think Napoleon and the retreat from Moscow - there seems to be less of a coincidence.

And now, as we find the (perhaps) beginning of another period of weak solar maxima, the temps appear to stall. Are we headed for another Dalton minimum (or worse yet, another Maunder Minimum) with the consequent fall in temps? There are more than a few scientists and many solar scientists who think so. One of them is Abdussamatov who someone mentioned earlier and who has been predicting exactly this for over a decade.

We also have Svensmark, who has a theory about how a weaker sun will affect the climate via cosmic rays (ie weak sun -> more cosmic rays hitting the earth -> more clouds -> more heat being reflected backinto space). IF this theory is correct, it adds a whole new layer of complication since the temps will be affected not just by the strength or otherwise of the sun but also by the amount of cosmic rays the earth is exposed to. (As the solar system moves through the galaxy, the amount of cosmic rays passing by increases and decreases.) I have seen some research suggesting this (the movement through the galaxy), may help to explain moves into and out of ice ages

Who'd have though that that big yellow thing in the sky could affect our climate, eh?

Of coarse, if it turns out that it was the sun all along, there are going to be a lot of embarrassed people around. Indeed so many red faces that they may re-heat the earth just with their radiance.:

mhaze, Bazz,

Interesting article....the implications of ice melt.

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2004/05mar_arctic/

Poirot,

Two things of note re your last post:

1) Your report was nearly a decade old: “March 5, 2004”
2) It cited this little gem: “But the facts do suggest that the changes we're seeing in the Arctic could potentially affect currents that warm Western Europe, and that's gotten a lot of people concerned."

Ahem! it was pointed out to you about a month back that this was all but debunked.

(though admittedly you might not have taken it in ‘cause at the time you were too busy singing "naanaanaana I can’t hear you", with your fingers firmly plugged in your ears)

So I'll show it too you again:
“For a century, schoolchildren have been taught that the massive ocean current known as the Gulf Stream carries warm water from the tropical Atlantic Ocean to northwestern Europe…It might be time to retire that tidy story… those effects are not as clear as conventional wisdom might suggest
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=new-simulations-question-gulf-stream-role-tempering-europes-winters

PS: You might want to check out this opportunity (talk about perfect match!):
http://www.simplyhired.com.au/a/jobs/list/q-used+car+sales/l-sydney,+nsw

BTW, we were talking about Arctic sea-ice melting. How much sea level rise do you think will occur if all the sea-ice melts?

mhaze: I presume you are joking? But then again may you are not....

"mhaze: I presume you are joking? But then again may you are not...."

Very cryptic Robert. Care to elaborate?

SPQR,

I wasn't trying to prove anything specifically.

It was the fact that the article was nine years old that I found compelling. Some scientists seemed to be projecting more severe winters in Europe, etc...which appears to be playing out in recent years. It was titled "A Chilling Possibility", after all. And I think it's reasonable to imagine that those currents could be disturbed, not necessarily shut down altogether.

I thought it was interesting.

There are minor ice ages and major ice ages.
They are brought about by the precession of the elliptical shape of the
earths orbit around the sun, the precession of the poles and the seasons.
This results in six minor ice ages and then a major ice age.
I have forgotten what the time between minor ice ages is but the whole
thing has a name like Malenkov as it was a Russian that worked it out
from memory.

I will guess and say it is about 10,000 years between minor ice ages so
it would be about 70,000 years between major ice ages.
The article I read was that we are about to enter the next minor ice
age so it might be a good idea to burn as much fossil fuel as possible. Ha !

"mhaze: I presume you are joking? But then again may "be" you are not...."

Very cryptic Robert. Care to elaborate?
Posted by mhaze, Saturday, 6 April 2013 9:19:47 AM
I did leave out the word "be".
I refer to your question about how much sea levels will rise with arctic ice melt, ring any bells?

Poirot,

You really can't get past the idea that any current warming must be man-made can you?
OK, so when there was higher temps in the earlier Holocene, the sea levels were higher. So what? If the warming is natural, there's really bugger all we can do to prevent it so we'd just have to adapt to the higher levels.

Its not a question of saying "it's all happened before, so no probs.....". But it is a question of saying it happened before we started burning fossil fuels, was therefore natural and is probably natural now. So recognise that there may be problems with the warming and stop blowing money on fruitless efforts to stop it and start spending money on mitigation. that is if you believe the warming will continue, which I don't.

BTW, we were talking about Arctic sea-ice melting. How much sea level rise do you think will occur if all the sea-ice melts?

Let me try and summarise again. We've had 1 deg warming in the last century. Its been good. A further 1 deg will be better. But whether we get it or not is entirely out of our hands. We can no more control the weather than we can control the solar cycles (which are of coarse linked!!). So, if the warming continues, enjoy the benefits and mitigate the detriments. Saying that the last time we had this level of temperature, some things were bad and therefore we need to 'do something', completely misses the point.
Posted by mhaze, Friday, 5 April 2013 3:54:31 PM

Poirot the gulf stream has not diminished, so the current cold has nothing to do with that paper you referenced. Have you ever heard of sunspots? Now there's a theory.

It, like most of the so called science from the warmists is just another of their "MAY BE, PERHASPS" bits of bumf they regularly put out to cover the fact they have absolutely no evidence to support their fraud.

Please let us know if ever you find something, written by any of these con men, that does not have could, perhaps etc liberally sprinkled throughout it. That might be worth reading. Meanwhile, hope enjoy the fairy tales.

Yes, Hasbeen.....those con men are still at it.

(Apparently all those tens of thousands of atmospheric physicists, oceanographers, glaciologists, paleogeologists, etc have set up a giant fraud LOL)

(I think this time they've struck up a deal with the sunspots to fool the people)

They can't fool you though can they.

You've got "the Maths" - (and the conspiracy theories!)

Bazz,

"I have forgotten what the time between minor ice ages is but the whole thing has a name like Malenkov as it was a Russian that worked it out from memory."

The man's name was Milankovitch. He was Serbian. His theory is called the Milankovitch cycle and tries to match climate changes with the various eccentricities in the celestial movements. But its just a theory and has lots of problems since it doesn't marry well with known starts and stops of ice ages.

Nonetheless, the maths behind the theory were very clever (he did it during WW1) and, I gather, most astronomers think his theory is at least part of the answer. Marrying Svensmark's ideas with the Milankovitch cycles may, it seems, help to iron out some of the problems with the theory.

Robert,

I knew what you were referring to but still none the wiser as to why you think I'm joking. Seems like a simple enough question...what sealevel effect does the melting if the Arctic ice have?

I knew what you were referring to but still none the wiser as to why you think I'm joking. Seems like a simple enough question...what sealevel effect does the melting if the Arctic ice have?

If the polar ice caps melted, how much would the oceans rise?
At the other end of the world, the North Pole, the ice is not nearly as thick as at the South Pole. The ice floats on the Arctic Ocean. If it melted sea levels would not be affected.
http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/earth/geophysics/question473.htm

I would give up arguing/debating if I were you and I am pleased to say I am not.

Just out of interest, here's some info on the Arctic Oscillation and the recent chill in the Northern Hemisphere:

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=80804

Arctic sea ice melt causing sea level rises?

Archimedes showed a long time ago that melting ice in water cannot displace a greater volume therefore it cannot cause sea level rises.

Put a glass full of ice and water in a glass next to your bed and when you wake up in the morning the level will be exactly the same.

Try telling us that the glass overflowed. Where we you lot educated?

Well actually I was just trying to educate mhaze, who asked the question. It just goes to show how much intelligence a denialist really has.

Mhaze, thanks for the information. I thought it was accepted as the
cause of ice ages.
Must have been a major task before computers.

Some people make noises about the Antarctic melts.
No one has suggested that the earth temperature will rise 20 to 40 deg C.

"Well actually I was just trying to educate mhaze,"

Yes, because I clearly didn't know the answer. My question was rhetorical, trying to get those who constantly fret over the arctic melt to think about the consequences or lack thereof of such a melt.
Clearly I'll have to simplify my rhetoric in the future.

"I would give up arguing/debating if I were you and I am pleased to say I am not."
Wow, quite a tantrum. Don't be so shy, tell us what you really think.

I will explain it in very simple terms. When the Arctic ice melts there will be a large area of water where before you had ice. The ice is white and reflects sunlight. The water is dark and does not reflect sunlight. This means that the sea will heat up more than if it was covered in ice. The heat from the sea will gradually spread to all the oceans and also radiate heat to the air. This will cause what is called positive feedback. This not a good thing to have when we have a gradually rising average world temperature.
I think that will do for the first lesson

mhaze,

Hope you don't mind if I put this here.

I was doing some reading, mainly interested in the amount of CO2 we've accumulated in the atmosphere, and came upon a stage in the Jurassic period called the Toarcian, where CO2 levels were elevated (possible through volcanic outgassing of methane)...anyhooo, the upshot was that all that was followed by ocean anoxia and mass extinctions.

So none of this is going to affect us here and now, but is interesting in the notion of climate in the future being as we're projected to warm by perhaps 2 or 3 degrees C.

So I was trawling around looking for something on the Toarcian that could be absorbed by my layman's brain, and surprisingly I came across this recent post http://www.skepticalscience.com/jurassic-global-warming.html (I know it's from Skeptical Science, but it really does address my interest)

So it seems that the greatest danger for the long-term may be a sudden outgassing of methane - not particularly likely just from warming in the near-term as even with permafrost thawing, the release is fairly slow, yet pertinent to global warming in general.http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/06/methane-game-upgrade/

Fascinating

Just wanted to add that to my way of thinking, the human induced release of CO2 could be construed on a geologic time-scale as a "sudden outgassing".

Poirot, you'd be right that it's a sudden outgassing in geologic terms. It's probably in those terms an 'instant outgassing'. Of course, whether that matters depends on the extent to which CO2 has any effect on climate...

Robert LePage, I've not done any reading on what the loss of Arctic ice might do, so this is shooting from the hip. But here's my thoughts. Firstly, the suggestion is the loss of summer ice. As far as I know, we are a long way from losing winter ice. Still, given there is really only sunlight there in summer I guess that's neither here nor there. Next, the area covered by Arctic ice... I dunno, but is it very big in relative terms? And given that the angle of incidence of the sun's rays at the north pole is pretty shallow, even in winter, you'll be getting a pretty small amount of heat to absorb into those oceans I'd imagine. The sun's rays will be attenuated a lot by the actual amount of atmosphere it has to traverse to strike the surface and once it does, it'll be at a very shallow angle. How absorbent is sea water at those angles?

So, weak sunshine striking dark water at a shallow angle over a relatively small area. Is it really likely to heat the rest of the world's oceans, especially when you note that the currents tend to bring warm water there in the first place?

I don't know - I'm just examining your claims. Got some figures to back that?

Duhhh...

"And given that the angle of incidence of the sun's rays at the north pole is pretty shallow, even in winter"

Should read, of course, as "And given that the angle of incidence of the sun's rays at the north pole is pretty shallow, even in summer"

Graeme M,

"...whether that matters depends on the extent to which CO2 has any effect on climate..."

http://www.academia.edu/1026105/The_significance_of_an_Early_Jurassic_Toarcian_carbon-isotope_excursion_in_Haida_Gwaii_Queen_Charlotte_Islands_British_Columbia_Canada

The above is beyond my limited knowledge for the most part, but I can glean some information...

"...Outgassing of volcanogenic CO2 from this eruption stated a prolonged period of global warming...that subsequently destabilised and released -5000Gt of methane hydrate from continental shelf sediments..."

Now before anybody jumps down my throat and accuses me of forecasting near-term catastrophe, I'm merely pointing out possible scenarios and processes over the "longer term" regarding climate.

Thanks for the lesson Robert. You're so good to me.

Just a few things you might like to amplify on in the next lesson. Are there only positive feedbacks from the melting? For example, if (and its a BIG if) the ocean temps rise at any measurable rate due to this far off Arctic melt, wouldn't that lead to more evaporation? Wouldn't that lead to more cloud? Wouldn't those cloud do the same job as the sea ice in reflecting the sunlight? Maybe they'd do a better job? Maybe they'd be like a negative feedback or don't such things exist in your version of the global climate system? Quite complex isn't it? Much more complex than the knee-jerk "melting is bad".

Oh, and if this arctic melt heats the oceans in summer, then wouldn't the winter re-icing re-extract that heat?

Oh, and talking of negative feedbacks, if the oceans were to heat somewhat due to the melting ice, would that lead to more evaporation and precipitation over the Antarctic where the snow would be sequestrated. Maybe that's why the loss of ice in the arctic is being offset by the gaining of ice in the Antarctic?

Wow this really is very complex. I can see your going to have to give me lots more lessons.

Of coarse, its very difficult to be definitive about clouds since, as Freeman Dyson said recently, the climate models are hopelessly bad a modeling them. My theory is that, since they are almost certainly negative feedback items, most of the consensus aren't interested in studying them.

But you already knew that, I'm sure.

mhaze,

"...Wouldn't those cloud do the same job as the sea ice in reflecting the sunlight?. Maybe they'd do a better job?..."

Yeah, unless they happen to be very thin low-lying clouds which let the sun through, but trap the heat near the surface.....which is what may have happened to Greenland last year.

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2013/20130403_greenlandicemelt.html

Climate is such a complicated doohickey.

But pumping CO2 at the rate we are into the atmosphere is like setting the table for the Mad Hatter's Tea Party...(lets hope the invitations go astray:)

Poirot,

Yes its very true that clouds can be both positive and negative feeedback mediums due to all sorts of things like their height, thickness and/or colour. What is very poorly known is the extent of this and what conditions cause them to be one and not the other.

Increasingly, science is coming to realise that clouds are a much more important element in the climate than the models allow. Apparently the next IPCC report will accept that we know very little about these feedbacks, their extent and even their overall sign ie negative feedbacks may outweigh positive.

In the past, models treated clouds as a static item in the climate and didn't allow for the possibility that they change as temperatures change. But as the models have improved their handling of clouds (and this is only a small improvement) we have found that the predictions of warming has declined. So, as the models better handle clouds, they predict less warming.

" pumping CO2 at the rate we are into the atmosphere is like setting the table for the Mad Hatter's Tea Party.."

Previously, you mentioned a disaster that occurred in the Jurassic. At that time CO2 were at around 2500ppm. We are now at 400ppm and have centuries before we get anywhere near those levels. Since we started pumping all that CO2 in around 1850 we've increased the CO2 levels from 280ppm to 390ppm in a century and a half. We MIGHT get to 560ppm by 2100 but its doubtful. Think of it like this. Say you had 10000 smarties in a jar of which 3 are blue and the rest red. In 160yrs we've changed one of those red smarties to a blue one.

The amount of CO2 we are putting out is only of potential concern if the feedbacks are strongly positive. And we don't even know if they are positive at all.

Time to chill...if you'll forgive the expression.

MHaze,
<<Since we started pumping all that CO2 in around 1850 we've increased the CO2 levels from 280ppm to 390ppm in a century and a half. We MIGHT get to 560ppm by 2100 but its doubtful. Think of it like this. Say you had 10000 smarties in a jar of which 3 are blue and the rest red. In 160yrs we've changed one of those red smarties to a blue one.>>

LOL

They don’t like to hear such common-sense approaches. Besides the warmists are colour blind they can only see the blue ones.

Here's an epoch more similar to our own.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pliocene_climate

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pliocene_megabiome.png

The more I read, the more I realise just how complex are the systems (astronomical, geological, biological, meteorological, etc) which drive climate on the planet....(actually now wishing I was a geologist :)

Btw, SPQR, which colour "smartie" are you?

"the more I realise just how complex are the systems "

Yep, we have things like the wobble of the earth's axis, the elongated orbit around the sun, the 22 year solar cycle, the travel of the solar system through the galaxy, the volume of gamma rays passing through our part of the cosmos, the strength of the solar winds, the mystery of cloud formation, the strength of the earth's magnetic shield and so on, all having some effect on the long and short term climate.

And there's puny man thinking that all this is negated by increasing the amount of one gas in the atmosphere from 0.03% to 0.04%.

Apart from all the science around the whole issue, the sheer absurdity of that claim is why I've never really bought the story.

Dear Poirot,

And the rest of the world keeps marching on.

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Making-a-difference/Change-Agent/2013/0403/How-Ontario-is-putting-an-end-to-coal-burning-power-plants?nav=88-csm_category-storyList

Well, I hope you’re happy Poirot!

Now you’ve got Csteele doing it –cherry picking that is.
Look at this: << And the rest of the world keeps marching on>>

Since when does one (questionable) example become << the rest of the world>>?
And there’s another fudge/omission from his little citation:
“In Ontario, power generated from nuclear is 56 percent of the total”

Do you anticipate your Green allies allowing Oz to do anything like that any time soon?

Well it's your loss Poirot. At the end of the year when the OLO academy awards are up, it will be the name Cecil Steele on the cherry picker of the year Oscar and not Hercule Poirot!

csteele,

That's interesting...

On the other hand, another province, Alberta, hosts the single most polluting industrial site on the planet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athabasca_oil_sands

And the Canadian government in general appears to be gung-ho against any mitigation of AGW.

.........

SPQR,

I assume you'll be donning your "SBQR" persona to provide the entertainment for the OLO academy awards (we could do with a touch of burlesque around here:)