tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7478606652950905956.post6124679557233598371..comments2024-03-28T03:08:44.068-07:00Comments on Cliff Mass Weather Blog: The Real Signs of Human-Caused Global WarmingCliff Mass Weather Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13948649423540350788noreply@blogger.comBlogger47125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7478606652950905956.post-46224823872740102462017-11-26T14:56:54.352-08:002017-11-26T14:56:54.352-08:00I take it then Eric that my reply is satisfactory ...I take it then Eric that my reply is satisfactory for you? You seemed to be throwing down the gauntlet there..... but have since disappeared.<br /><br />OK, I will take your silence as no contest. Particularly in my observations on the authoritarian personality, the single best predictor for both support of Trump and the selective rejection of science.Bruce Kayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11070247298371179095noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7478606652950905956.post-57589953941518947382017-11-25T20:59:56.689-08:002017-11-25T20:59:56.689-08:00Hydro electric is such an obvious source. It hurt...Hydro electric is such an obvious source. It hurts to have no clear way to change the system.<br /><br />Government run and paid for dams reservoirs and plants. Could make nice parks around them for fish to get around. Camp, walk..<br /><br />Oil/ coal corps are so powerful this can't even begin to happen until every drop of cheap oil is sold.<br /><br />Will be interesting to see if our lynchpin is pulled before or after the last barrels are sold.<br /><br />Global scale is a different problem.<br /><br />Chris Machttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12385544614041904457noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7478606652950905956.post-39003451725076369912017-11-22T16:23:58.679-08:002017-11-22T16:23:58.679-08:00I haven't dodged it ever. The fact you never ...I haven't dodged it ever. The fact you never saw me commented on it is no dodge, it is you being paranoid. I personally am in favour of existing nuclear tech, warts and all, plus aggressively pursuing next generation and costs be damned. I've already said as much about hydro if that is any hint, even suggesting that BC is a potential Saudi Arabia of hydro and i bet you can imagine how that goes over with my flakier enviro nut friends.<br /><br />I don't know where you get your notions Eric but it isn't from me. Now then, yes there is no doubt action on AGW is a moral imperative based on any factual evidence unless you are a double high authoritarian personality like Donald Trump and sizeable proportions of any population, a personality type which is measured to account for a sizeable chunk of climate change denialism. There is a reason. They think of the world as a giant competition and he who dies with the most toys wins. Trump knows there is global warming he just doesn't care so long as his team is winning. Why do you think he wants to build a wall? Keep out the low wage workers? Hardly. He loves low wage workers! He and his entire team know that the choice is to team up with the rest of the world or what they want - compete to the death for whats left over. As mitigating is clearly a collaborative effort, they reject it favouring instead adaptation, the only idea that suits the competitive paradigm. Classic Darwinian survival of the fittest - thats them.<br /><br />Even if his voter base won't admit this even to themselves, their sentiment is the same. That is the ethos of the authoritarian personality, especially the ones high in social dominance orientation, like Trump. No namby pamby cooperation or helping hands for them. Winner takes all. Of course you'll never catch them telling that bedtime story to their kids but the proof is in the pudding.... that is the future they are carving out for them.<br /><br />You too Eric? You got kids do you? Do you sing them soothing songs of rugged individualism as they drift off to sleep?Bruce Kayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11070247298371179095noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7478606652950905956.post-13312086558659803732017-11-22T12:09:07.492-08:002017-11-22T12:09:07.492-08:00Time to cut the cheese, Bruce - nuclear; for or ag...Time to cut the cheese, Bruce - nuclear; for or against? You've dodged this question repeatedly over the past year. If you're against it, then please outline in specific detail how you would replace the incredible amounts of kilowatts generated by the nuclear plants still operating today. Since you claim that AGW is a moral imperative that must be dealt with immediately, then explain how that energy could be replaced in short order. Concurrently, please outline in specific detail how the burgeoning economies of third world countries such as China and India could replace their coal plants with carbon neutral energy sources. Let's see your work, all of it.Eric Blairhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09376653214948517679noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7478606652950905956.post-20202377522685615242017-11-22T07:16:51.947-08:002017-11-22T07:16:51.947-08:00Defeats the purpose don't you think Eric? Yo...Defeats the purpose don't you think Eric? You and I are needed here to contribute to the tricky risk decisions and actions required to secure the future for our following generations. We all know that earth will do just fine without us. I, like most, prefer to care about us.<br /><br />Now if I was to "off myself" I would abdicate my moral duty, by relenting meekly to the same forces that subscribe to the fantasy of rugged individualism while studiously ignoring all evidence to the contrary.<br /><br />Not much different than you abdicating your own moral duty by doubling down ever deeper into your own navel gazing illusion of rugged individualism while ignoring all evidence to the contrary...... then attempting to shift the blame for your weakness onto of all things the Sierra club! Oh don't get me wrong, they like most are only human so are not immune to mistakes but at least they get the science right and they are willing to challenge the status quo, rather than Bootlick it. What do you get right?<br /><br />I mean besides the fanciful mythology of rugged individualism?Bruce Kayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11070247298371179095noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7478606652950905956.post-5253956345081433792017-11-21T19:17:04.784-08:002017-11-21T19:17:04.784-08:00Why haven't you offed yourself yet, Bruce? Acc...Why haven't you offed yourself yet, Bruce? According to many of the environmentalists today, humans are the worst thing to happen to the earth, and should be eradicated ASAP. Do it for Mother Gaia and show us the courage of your convictions. Additionally, your projection about therapy is duly noted, as is your non - response to my comments. Eric Blairhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09376653214948517679noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7478606652950905956.post-64564880480431769032017-11-21T17:10:58.415-08:002017-11-21T17:10:58.415-08:00Cliff:
You missed one other big one- warming of th...Cliff:<br />You missed one other big one- warming of the oceans. Most of the earth is ocean and even more so because the ocean has so much more heat capacity than the land or atmosphere. The measurements are quite simple- thousands of very accurate thermometers profiling the upper 2 km and over covering most of the ocean since about 2000. These, and calibrations from these extending further back in time, clearly show warming. Eric D'Asarohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15395839424045072283noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7478606652950905956.post-31073660242711010152017-11-21T16:13:10.918-08:002017-11-21T16:13:10.918-08:00So Eric.... your tragic break up with The Sierra ...So Eric.... your tragic break up with The Sierra Club logically then led to a rejection of the consensus expert opinion on anthropogenic global warming and the risk it presents?<br /><br />Did you ever consider therapy?Bruce Kayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11070247298371179095noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7478606652950905956.post-6862193294288964612017-11-21T15:46:05.657-08:002017-11-21T15:46:05.657-08:00While I would agree that it's true that indivi...While I would agree that it's true that individual events don't provide good evidence for global warming, it seems like to me like you're conflating two different arguments here. The first is the one I just mentioned, and there are certainly media outlets who get this very wrong. But the other way around is relevant. That is, while a single event may not provide good evidence for global warming, it can be reasonably argued that global warming can affect the likelihood of a single event occurring, so one can quantify the change in likelihood (or, alternatively, the expected change in intensity) of individual events based on the known effects of global warming. So, for example, it would be wrong to suggest that an increase in droughts in the northwest is strong evidence for global warming, but it's very reasonable to say that given the warming seen so far and our understanding of its impacts, we would expect droughts to have become more frequent by X%, or more intense by Y%, and therefore that a given recent drought could be argued to have had some Z% contribution from global warming. This is what's meant by attribution, and it's the subject of study of many climate scientists. It's also what's sometimes cited in the media, albeit often in a way that's poorly described.Michael Gosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01829847179425933623noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7478606652950905956.post-62737792521057306652017-11-21T13:07:43.558-08:002017-11-21T13:07:43.558-08:00"I'll know the folks wringing their hands..."I'll know the folks wringing their hands over global warming are serious when they embrace nuclear power."<br /><br />Yep. I finally broke with groups like The Nature Conservancy, The Sierra Club and the Wilderness Society in the late 80's, after they all got on the "No Nuke" bandwagon, and would not relent until a complete moratorium was in effect on any new nuke plants. I asked their reps what their solutions were for the replacement of all of that needed energy, and they offered up the usual nostrums of solar, wind and unicorn emissions. Living in Chicago at the time, the effect was dramatic, in that many new coal plants had to come online, thereby vastly increasing the pollution in both my city and IL overall. They're still at it, having learned nothing from the past. Eric Blairhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09376653214948517679noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7478606652950905956.post-40231517030496366782017-11-21T12:45:12.467-08:002017-11-21T12:45:12.467-08:00I have learned a great deal from your blogs and wa...I have learned a great deal from your blogs and watching the weather over the years Cliff and now I wonder about the effect of 'mixing' on the overall climate. Both atmospheric mixing and oceanographic mixing seem to be very powerful components to a complex atmosphere. Do climate.models understand the potential of feedback and mixing as a type of governor to overall warming?Gpacharliehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07899629492778221889noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7478606652950905956.post-7329306643411941222017-11-21T11:12:33.150-08:002017-11-21T11:12:33.150-08:00Cliff -- Could not the discrepancy in temperature ...Cliff -- Could not the discrepancy in temperature records (many more records for heat are now being set than ones for cold, even when accounting for non-global effects like urban heat islands) also be a good fingerprint for global warming?David B.https://www.blogger.com/profile/12945730624561307494noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7478606652950905956.post-3849523790593759802017-11-21T09:15:54.020-08:002017-11-21T09:15:54.020-08:00Nice to see a sober, responsible summary of the ev...Nice to see a sober, responsible summary of the evidence, Cliff. <br /><br />The folks who tout every single extreme weather event as a tangible manifestation of the consequences of rising C02 concentrations do little more than provide unending examples of demonstrably false assertions that denialists can point to when they need a pretext for dismissing the long-term, global effects of elevated C02 concentrations.<br /><br />Ditto for the alternative-energy utopians. Civilization depends on reliable, scalable, energy sources with high power-density. Full stop. Nuclear is the one and only carbon-free power source capable of delivering such power at the scale necessary to drive meaningful reductions in C02 emissions on a timeline that can produce meaningful reductions in emissions before it's too late. <br /><br />I'll know the folks wringing their hands over global warming are serious when they embrace nuclear power. Anything else is little more than an indulgence in self-righteous grandstanding with no purpose beyond publicly validating an pathologically over-inflated and and wholly underserved sense of personal virtue.Yajhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01761418499602701174noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7478606652950905956.post-50690296975278492002017-11-21T08:56:25.436-08:002017-11-21T08:56:25.436-08:00Eric Blair - it is indeed "Orwellian" b...Eric Blair - it is indeed "Orwellian" but how does that change the risk equation? Now matter how your sensibilities of self determination are offended, the world continues to warm by the laws of physics, not the laws of human ideology. I've spent the majority of my life motivated by the ideology of "rugged individualism" but after a while, even I had to notice that everything actually physical from my dental floss to designing my house is entirely dependant on everyone else, not me.<br /><br />Of course it is a tragedy that the single most important leg on the table of democracy has been kicked out - an electorate that is informed and skilled enough to make the judgements required. This is the single most important hazard to democracy that is best illustrated by the general state of dysfunctional, unmoving intransigence in the United States, supposedly the leading beacon of democratic success, on a matter of urgent action. At the same time a totalitarian government such as China can first rapidly industrialize then just as rapidly shift gears with new knowledge, all without the direct permission or even consultation of the population. If you value democracy and individual liberty as I do, this fact is disturbingly "orwellian" but in the end you need to admit that the orwellian part is not "the State" so much as the moral failure of the electorate, which has failed to uphold its end of the bargain.. to be well informed.<br /><br />The USA (and Canada) has been fortunate that in its entire short history the status quo has never required any substantial change. Essentially, the voters have never been required to decide on anything but minor adjustments and those have been nearly always on moral impulses of justice, not technical understandings of the physical reality that puts food on the table. That is because our ecology has always been reliably stable and taken for granted. Even the noble "Prepper" gets all his stock from Walmart that is reliably open 24/7. This ignoring of our true reality free's up the average voter to engage in fantasies of "rugged individualism" where at its most primal, all a guy needs is common sense to explain anything.<br /><br />That is of course the American mythology I just described. It's existence is predicated on one major element:<br /><br />The ability to ignore all scientific evidence that that mythology is an illusion, sustained only by the absence of recognizable feedbacks. So long as no feedbacks exist, we are free to believe whatever strikes our fancy, including "rugged individualism".Bruce Kayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11070247298371179095noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7478606652950905956.post-3699761115611998162017-11-21T07:28:10.163-08:002017-11-21T07:28:10.163-08:00Kenna,
You suggest 250 species are going extinct...Kenna, <br /><br />You suggest 250 species are going extinct. Where's the bodes? Even if that was not an inflated number, none of those extinctions would be due to climate change. None, despite the claims. Loss of habitat, overhunting and invasive species explains virtually every loss. Stop hunting and I am watching the whales rebound rapidly.<br /><br /> Species extinctions on islands due to introduced predators and disease account for the great percentage of definitive extinctions. Removing non-natives has been the best use of our resources in order to save island species. Amphibian extinction has been due largely to the loss of habitat and the introduced chytrid. I have spent my career trying to restore improve habitat watersheds. As an ecologists I find it bizarre that people can think a single variable like CO2 is causing extinctions. There is absolutely no proof. I throughly examined the claim that global warming killed the Golden Toad. The journal Nature pushed that view while initially giving no space to alternative and correct explanation- the chytrid. Read the details here <br /><br />http://landscapesandcycles.net/contrasting-good-and-bad-science--disease--climate.html<br /><br />I have detailed how Parmesan falsely pushed butterfly extinctions as a climate change problem when it was landscape changes. Read <br />http://landscapesandcycles.net/American_Meterological_Society_half-truth.html<br /><br /> and <br /><br />http://landscapesandcycles.net/climate-doom--parmesan-s-butterfly-effect.html <br /><br /><br />If you believe time is running out then it is even more important that we identify the real causes of lost species. The climate change hysteria is misdirecting resources for research and restoration efforts into the real problems<br /><br />The 99% consensus is bogus political theater that has been shown many times to be inaccurate. Consensus is not evidence. Consensus is the refuge of steeple who do not want to do the heavy lifting of critical thinking themselves. The consensus argument was used against Einstein in "A hundred Authors Against Einstein". Perhaps that is enough evidence for you to disagree with Einstein?<br /><br />Those who rely on the consensus argument, clearly show that they can not argue the scientific details.Jim Steelehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02652430670493741009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7478606652950905956.post-31690749815817565932017-11-20T21:16:12.832-08:002017-11-20T21:16:12.832-08:00I'm an EE grad. If I've learned anything i...I'm an EE grad. If I've learned anything it's that social and incentive structures can tell you more about behavior than engineering. Humans are emotional animals and are incapable of making decisions without emotional attachment. There have been studies that suggest as much, when you sever emotion from every day decisions they become impossibly difficult to make. The emotional part of the brain is enforced by your belief systems, and they're extremely important for making sense of the world. It's not a flaw but a feature. It doesn't always result in irrational behavior, quite the opposite. <br /><br />When people are trying to make sense of the world, they're susceptible to the unhealthy narratives being dominated by those who control the flows of information. <br /><br />In my opinion, our society has naturally turned towards exploitation and propaganda, and it only works in that way because that's what the incentive structures that exist result in. In order for things to change the entire system has to change.<br /><br />Global warming denial seems to be just one unhealthy side effect, but the ills that created it can't be cured with logic and reasoning but are symptomatic of a much bigger societal problem that is resistant to change. It is not global warming deniers that will destroy the planet but the corporate and governmental structures that do not see reason because they are designed to extract wealth. No amount of science will transform Shell oil into a moral institution.<br /><br />Brendanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15074831076479950542noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7478606652950905956.post-29068352133447590312017-11-20T20:53:48.749-08:002017-11-20T20:53:48.749-08:00"I do believe that scientists as a group are ..."I do believe that scientists as a group are less susceptible to this kind of self-deception. Which leads me to the very controversial suggestion that only educated people should be allowed to vote." <br /><br />How perfectly Orwellian - scratch the surface of a cultist and you always see the fascist lurking within. You should talk to some of the people living in Eastern Europe when they were part of the USSR - they'd recognize this kind of State control over everyone's thoughts and lives 24/7. The Stasi would absolutely love your kind - and you wonder why many folks don't trust their proposed Overlords? <br /><br /> Eric Blairhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09376653214948517679noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7478606652950905956.post-81774689139143081232017-11-20T20:06:03.776-08:002017-11-20T20:06:03.776-08:00well like I said Jim, a truly interesting academic...well like I said Jim, a truly interesting academic problem you have there, but for those who are more interested in risk, better minds than ours have concluded otherwise and this informs what we can figure out ourselves - that the clock is ticking to organize our affairs.<br /><br />The most important element of this risk problem is not nailing down probability to a satisfying degree, it is understanding consequence and our vulnerability to it. By the time you have achieve satisfaction in your determinations of probability some 15 years from now, consequence will not be just an abstract prediction, it will be a feedback at which point any realization that perhaps we should act after all will be way, way too late. This is the primary reason an entirely new term of complexity was created to describe the climate change problem - the super wicked problem.<br /><br />Humans, despite our spectacular imagination, are little better than any dog in managing risk in the absence of feedbacks. Without direct feedbacks risk is a vague abstraction, not a visceral reality. The vague and rather boring idea of only a foot of sea level rise offers our imagination little to play with. Same with the "only" 2 degrees of warming. The feedbacks we need to confirm our more consequential climate change scenarios will be absent long into the future. Yet we do know that if our best guesses are right, mitigation needs to be enacted now due to the emissions time lag of effect.<br /><br />It is a super wicked problem largely due to the limits of human cognitive ability to competently comprehend risk in the absence of direct feedbacks. We certainly have the technology and we can handle complexity just fine when we are motivated, but without an ability to comprehend, we will never be motivated. This is why the climate scientists and ecologists and geo political strategists are so alarmed. They have the sophistication of insight that can comprehend the probabilities and consequences just fine but what they can't comprehend is why no one else does!<br />Bruce Kayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11070247298371179095noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7478606652950905956.post-15268150053792712942017-11-20T19:26:16.329-08:002017-11-20T19:26:16.329-08:00Dear Cliff,
I will have to push back on your comm...Dear Cliff,<br /><br />I will have to push back on your comment that the models show much more warming in the Arctic than the Antarctic. Just look at the predictions that you show here. They may have a little deeper red in the Arctic than Antarctic, but the fact is that they show considerable warming in the Antarctic where there has been NONE observed over the satellite record.<br /><br />But more generally, you know that the models predict a hotspot in the tropical mid-troposphere that is an important part of their proposed water vapor feedback. The problem is that the hotspot is not there. That's fatal for the models.<br /><br />Regarding the upper atmosphere, I mistakenly referenced the Thermosphere above when I meant the Exosphere, in regard to variable satellite drag. But as to x-ray and ultraviolet insolation being important at these extreme altitudes, that is not in question. It is. We have only begun to monitor the substantial variation in this insolation. Remember that the Grand Maximum in solar cycles peaked about 1960 and has been declining since. The decline accelerated after the turn of the millennium. But we have very little satellite data to show what happened to the x-ray and UV insolation, beyond considerable variation.<br /><br />As to the substantially similar warming in the early and late 20th century (and to much the same peak both times in the Arctic), the simplest explanation is natural causes (eg., ocean cycles). Yes, you can always find a more complex explanation that will fit the meager data we have, but such explanations are less credible.<br /><br />I would think that you of all people would understand that we live on a fluid planet that guarantees large excursions from average. Our oceans contain the vast majority of mobile heat on this planet, making it highly likely that we will experience a quasi-cyclical climate on many time scales. There is no need to invoke supernatural forcing, when natural variations will do just fine.<br /><br />Gordon J. Fulks, PhD (Physics)<br />Corbett, Oregon USAAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03394125157445295897noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7478606652950905956.post-20033221935155227692017-11-20T18:50:19.000-08:002017-11-20T18:50:19.000-08:00Jim, some 99% of the Scientists do not agree with ...Jim, some 99% of the Scientists do not agree with you. Also, according to new models demonstrated at the recent Geological Society of America meeting in Seattle last month, we are in the process of losing some 95% of our biodiversity by the end of this century and are currently losing something like 250 species Per Day. <br /><br />You propose that we study it for another 15 years. Well they were saying that 15 years ago and even 30 years ago. At a certain point one has to poop or get off the pot. <br /><br />We. Don't. Have. The. Time. should the 99% of the scientists be right, as they probably are. We aren't suggesting that people should respond to fear mongering. The Climate Deniers have been duped by the same PR firms that the tried to dupe us about Cigarettes, saying that they weren't sure it causes Cancers. This time the firms were hired by the Oil Companies and people bought their lies. Here - but nowhere else on the planet. <br /><br />We'll leave the fear mongering to FOX news and their gullible followers. Attacking this problem IS the most prudent thing we can do and even if Global Warming is "natural" as you suggest or "not happening" as the Climate Deniers claim, we will still benefit by moving away from non-renewable energy sources such as oil and others that have the potential to harm us like coal and nuclear, and replace these with passive solar and wind and other softer energy paths. The Wolf is at our door and we need to act now and with vigor, similar in scope to how we mobilized to defeat the Nazis in WW2. Everyone has to be involved. <br /><br />We need to think about our populations and what that alone is doing to the biosphere. Arguing against birth control is a bad thing! Climate change is only a small part of the global ecosystem collapse - witness the Great Barrier Reef. But even here things are way out of whack. Did you know that currently 70% of the biomass by weight in Puget Sound currently consists of the primitive shark-like Ratfish? This is not normal. <br /><br />Simply put, we don't have any more time for studies while people sit on their hands. Its now or never folks! Kenna Wickmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02802821050975830973noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7478606652950905956.post-67215756334970687562017-11-20T18:09:01.629-08:002017-11-20T18:09:01.629-08:00The problem is how to shake the complacency of the...The problem is how to shake the complacency of the "deniers". I just read an article in National Geographic about why people lie, including how they engage in self deception. When presented with evidence that does not fit their world-view, they are hard to convince. An experiment was run where people reluctantly accepted evidence for some fact that did not fit their world-view (I think it was to debunk "vaccines cause autism"). But when they were polled a week later, they had mostly returned to their uneducated position.<br /><br />I do believe that scientists as a group are less susceptible to this kind of self-deception. Which leads me to the very controversial suggestion that only educated people should be allowed to vote.Anselhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13835758313287462921noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7478606652950905956.post-7623757104810681062017-11-20T16:06:13.738-08:002017-11-20T16:06:13.738-08:00Cliff, Although Arctic warming is consistent with ...Cliff, Although Arctic warming is consistent with rising CO2, it can still be attributed to natural factors which is why I argue we can not gain clarity for another 15 years.<br /><br />When below freezing winds pushed insulating sea ice out into the Atlantic, it allowed the winds and the ocean to reconnect. As Shimada 2006 described even when intruding warm waters declined in the Canadian Basin, surface temperatures continued to rise because the winds continued to bring ample stored heat to the surface, heat that had likely been transported there decades ago. <br /><br />Pulses of intruding warm water are observed to circulate through the Arctic Ocean for about 15 years slowly releasing heat before exiting back to the Atlantic. And any warming of the surface ocean due to such heat releases to the surface helps induce a flow of southerly winds. This dynamic has been describe by Bengstonn 2004 to describe the 1930s warming spike. <br /><br />Thinner sea ice has been observed to melt completely in the Beaufort Sea despite lower air temperatures. Thus latent heat continues to be released as new ice forms each year and ventilating heat continues to warm the air. Typically sea ice can only survive summer melt if it survives and thickens for 5 years. Based on natural oscillations, as shifting winds reduce the export of sea ice, I would expect that once a sufficient area of 5 year old ice forms, we will witness.a step change drop in Arctic temperatures.<br /> <br />There is no clear cut way to attribute Arctic warming to anthropogenic causes, until a slow down of intruding warm Atlantic waters has ceased for at lest a decade.Jim Steelehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02652430670493741009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7478606652950905956.post-52357706092623269882017-11-20T15:56:50.399-08:002017-11-20T15:56:50.399-08:00"Your suggestion that instead we must guard a..."Your suggestion that instead we must guard against the boogie man in the future only leads to fear mongering and undue fears, misdirected resources, and the avalanche of bogus reports that every harmful weather event has been worsened by CO2."<br /><br />A thousand times this - talk about being the carpenter that sees everything as a nail, instead of a wholly different dynamic. The Boy Who Cries Wolf has been employed so many times by hucksters making a buck off of the taxpayers that it's finally been discredited. This does not come from reasonable people employing a modicum of skepticism, hence this is why we find ourselves in the current debate. <br /><br />This just came out last week, as one example of hundreds of fraudulent schemes that citizens of Oregon will be paying for for years, and for nothing. <br /><br />http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2017/11/watchdog_report_part_1_of_2_di.html<br /><br /> Eric Blairhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09376653214948517679noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7478606652950905956.post-19104085295386839842017-11-20T15:21:03.795-08:002017-11-20T15:21:03.795-08:00Says the person most likely looking down at her ha...Says the person most likely looking down at her hands reading this...Ellishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01509018683944224599noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7478606652950905956.post-49207122099100830142017-11-20T12:58:02.203-08:002017-11-20T12:58:02.203-08:00So much analysis and truth I can't even stand ...So much analysis and truth I can't even stand it! Great blog Cliff Mass. I'm not from the Northwest, but I like keep up on the weather and on global temps and climate. I use to have aspirations to be a meteorologist as a kid, but I was never any good at math or science in school. Just a deep fascination with the weather. :)Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08817344004706434806noreply@blogger.com