@TMTisFree

Annother interesting article I just found at the same source:

Nearly All of Antarctica Is Warming - New Study Shows Steady 50-Year Rise

Antarctica is getting warmer, a new study shows. Though scientists already knew fast-collapsing ice shelves on the continent’s northerly peninsula were the result of rapid warming, evidence on the far vaster interior was unclear, and some thought the interior might actually be cooling. The new research shows temperatures are rising almost everywhere, at about the same average pace as the rest of the world, consistent with rising levels of greenhouse gases in the air. The study is the cover article in the Jan. 22 issue of the leading scientific journal Nature.

In its report last year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said that six of the world’s seven continents were getting hotter, but that Antarctica still needed more investigation. Skeptics of manmade climate change have used the idea that the interior might be cooling to argue that global warming is a myth. But the scientists now say the new research shows with a high degree of certainty that over the past 50 years, the continent as a whole has warmed nearly as fast as the rest of the world—about 1°F (.5°) on average. The western part has warmed even more rapidly over the same period—nearly 1.6°F (.85°C). The West Antarctic ice sheet is particularly susceptible to warming because much of it lies at low elevation. The size of Alaska, Texas, California and Kansas, West Antarctica alone would raise global sea levels by three to five meters if it were to melt completely.
...

Here I also would like to know how to access the study this article claims to be based on...

Last edited by Dandy on 19-Jun-2009 at 01:17 PM.
Last edited by Dandy on 19-Jun-2009 at 01:17 PM.

_________________
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Dandy
__________________________________________
If someone enjoys marching to military music, then I already despise him.
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@Dandy

Quote:

Here I also would like to know how to access the study this article claims to be based on...

The article is at Nature for a fee. Though parts of it are free such as the Supplementary info and figures and tables

Since the time of this paper there has been updates to the dataset. The updated info including the updated dataset is at link

@Dandy

Quote:

I have no idea how to access that brand-new study of todays date

Here is where the study is from : June 19 issue of the journal Science. If I may I recommend calling one of the larger Universities in your nation. They typically have subscriptions to various journals and publications. Also libraries are often connected to other libraries so if they don't have it they may be able to track down who would have it.

@BrianK

Thanks for the info.
My original intention was to get a response of TMTisFree on that...

B.T.W. - what do you think of the reports?

Last edited by Dandy on 19-Jun-2009 at 03:15 PM.

_________________
Ciao

Dandy
__________________________________________
If someone enjoys marching to military music, then I already despise him.
He got his brain accidently - the bone marrow in his back would have been sufficient for him!
(Albert Einstein)

@Dandy

Quote:

B.T.W. - what do you think of the reports?

The report is fairly new, under 1 year. Like any science there needs to be time for others to review, lay out problems, and for the group to respond accordingly. It's good to see the group have reanalyzed the study based upon corrections in the temperature data set. I wouldn't call the report fully trustable as it still needs some vetting.

One thing to note is they didn't prove or disprove global warming. Instead they demonstrated what the trend has been in the last 50 years in Antarctica. This says nothing concerning if the warming events are natural or forced. So I do turn a critical eye on anyone that runs away saying this proves GW without a doubt. I do agree that it does add another pin in that the recent history of the planet has not been a cooling trend.

IMO Antarctica still needs more weather stations in the the middle of the country, most are around the edge. The error bars definitely increase because of this. It'd be nice to get some actual data about the belly of the continent. Like any science report this is the result of the data we have in our possession.

Last edited by BrianK on 20-Jun-2009 at 03:50 AM.

@Dandy

Copyrighted material. If you want it faster, 15 $ is required. Or request a reprint from the author. Or wait until she adds it to her list of publications. In the meantime if you want to understand the problem, here is an introductory paper (PDF).

Bye,
TMTisFree

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@Dandy

About the Steig's paper, it was already discussed in Jan-Feb this year in the previous thread. In short, they used a PCA methodology to smear the slight warming of the Peninsula over the whole Antarctica (see here, here, here, here. There was also an entry at UnRealClimate, but it was quickly closed when serious issues were pointed out).

Bye,
TMTisFree

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@TMTisFree

Quote:

There was also an entry at UnRealClimate, but it was quickly closed when serious issues were pointed out

Not quite 'an' entry there were several enteries and threads. For example, Link1 , Link2 .

@BrianK

I am not interested in discussing PR and defensive posts. If they were so confident with their data and methodologies, the paper would have been sufficient to itself.

Bye,
TMTisFree

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@TMTisFree

Quote:

am not interested in discussing PR and defensive posts

This is definitely a judgement call. You view them as defensive. In my read the scientists did a fairly good job in breaking this down for laymen. Actually the RealClimate appear to be on a stand similar to yours. If the laymen were so confident with their analysis and methodologies the scientists invited them to make their own scientific study and publish a paper for critique which (if right) would in turn enrich eveyone's understanding of the planet.

I think in the thread at Real Climate we see an interesting question. If a question is brought to knowledged professionals (be it scientists, doctors, automechanics, engineers, etc. ) how much time should the specialist take breaking it down for laymen. How much time should be taken when the laymen don't want to learn from the professional. Heck I don't know if you're a parent but how much advice do you give a kid before you simply let them ignore it and take a few lumps and end up learning in a different fashion.

@BrianK

Quote:

I think in the thread at Real Climate we see an interesting question. If a question is brought to knowledged professionals (be it scientists, doctors, automechanics, engineers, etc. ) how much time should the specialist take breaking it down for laymen.

Nor can one argue with ignorance much displayed by denier advocates.

However a fairly good job of presentation has been done with the Copenhagen Synthesis report just released June 18. It can be downloaded as a pdf from here http://climatecongress.ku.dk/

Of course it is meant for politicians so is easy for laymen to understand.

Noel

@BrianK

Quote:

This is definitely a judgement call. You view them as defensive.

Yes, it is my opinion that the 4 Feb. post titled "Antarctic warming is robust" is defensive because they claimed a week before in the PR post "Warm reception to Antarctic warming story" (27 Jan.). Surely reception (as Antarctica btw) was not that warm...

Quote:

In my read the scientists did a fairly good job in breaking this down for laymen. Actually the RealClimate appear to be on a stand similar to yours.

First I am perfectly able to judge data and methodologies from a scientific paper, a comment or a website: I do not need laymen explanations, PR or defensive posts. Second, if the paper was so robust, if they were so confident, if they were real scientists in fact, they would have release the entire code for their calculations together with the processed data instead of chunks of them and let other find the remaining holes: replication of experiment is the very basis in Science. But no, they kept following their usual malpractices (the pre-cloud masked data are still unavailable amongst other). Why?

Quote:

the scientists invited them to make their own scientific study and publish a paper for critique which (if right) would in turn enrich eveyone's understanding of the planet.

Amen. The paper is being written AFAIK.

The rest is a rehash, not that well disguised, of the fallacy named 'appeal to authority': a familiar one. I am not interested discussing that further either.

Edit: added some links

Bye,
TMTisFree

Last edited by TMTisFree on 21-Jun-2009 at 10:39 AM.

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@NoelFuller

Nor one can argue with dogmatism much displayed by blind green ideologists.

However a fairly good job of scientific review has been done with the ~900 pages book "Climate Change Reconsidered" just released June 2. It can be downloaded from here (PDF 8.2MB).

Of course it is meant for everyone so is easy to understand.

Bye,
TMTisFree

_________________
The engineering approach to our non-problems: "build a better washer".
The scientific approach to our non-problems: "find a new energy source".
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@TMTisFree

Quote:

However a fairly good job of scientific review has been done with the ~900 pages book "Climate Change Reconsidered" just released June 2. It can be downloaded from here (PDF 8.2MB).

I've read the reviews. Another effusion of Heartland Institute Ideology replete with all the false data of CO2psuedoscience. All the main points it makes I recognise as lies or misrepresentation, FUD to give it its real name. I guess I read books with genuine science in them, not this kind of nonsense.

Noel

@NoelFuller

Quote:

"The most perfidious way of harming a cause consists of defending it deliberately with faulty arguments."

- Nietzsche

Quote:

"It is a pleasure to stand upon the shore, and to see ships tost upon the sea: a pleasure to stand in the window of the castle and to see the battle and the adventures thereof below: but no pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage ground of truth (a hill not to be commanded and where the air is always clear and serene), and to see the errors, and wanderings, and mists, and tempests, in the vale below."

- Francis Bacon, From Of Truth

Quote:

"The great trouble with religion – any religion – is that a religionist, having accepted certain propositions by faith, cannot thereafter judge those propositions by evidence. One may bask at the warm fire of faith or choose to live in the bleak uncertainty of reason – but one cannot have both."

- RA Heinlein

Quote:

"The triumphs of science are due to the substitution of observation and inference for authority. Every attempt to revive authority in intellectual matters is a retrograde step. And it is part of the scientific attitude that the pronouncements of science do not claim to be certain, but only to be the most probable on present evidence. One of the greatest benefits that science confers upon those who understand its spirit is that it enables them to live without the delusive support of subjective certainty."

- Bertrand Russell, The Impact of Science on Society

From some authors I appreciate. Not that I hope this will change anything, ideologically speaking...

Bye,
TMTisFree

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The engineering approach to our non-problems: "build a better washer".
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The environmentalist approach to our non-problems: "stop washing your shirts".

@NoelFuller

Thanks for the links. I haven't read this yet and it's always interesting to read recent works on how this debate is being brought forward, from all levels.

@TMTisFree

Quote:

Yes, it is my opinion that the 4 Feb. post titled "Antarctic warming is robust" is defensive

Not sure I'm following your line of reasoning here. I responded to your post about the 1 Jun article - #27 in this thread.

Quote:

Nor one can argue with dogmatism much displayed by blind green ideologists.

This is an ad hominem attack. It provides no worth in the discussion other then to display your own disdain of the opposition.

@Dandy

Quote:

Antarctica is getting warmer, a new study shows.

And there has been much play on the observation that a good deal of the East Antarctic ice sheet has been cooling very slightly. I'm sure you have also read that this cooling is attributed to the effect of the ozone hole, ozone being also a greenhouse gas and the cooling beginning with it's appearance. The models predict the slow closing of the hole over the coming century will lead to a warming trend. I notice also that the warming of west Antarctica is attributed mainly to the development of northerly winds into the area - in other parts the southerlies off the ice sheet prevail. Sea ice increases as expected.

There are some who try to claim that the warming is volcanic in origin as there are qute a few volcanoes on the margins of WAIS and one recently discovered, and active ,under the ice sheet, probably helping the motion of the glacier there slightly as it has since the last eruption 2300 years ago. When news of this was announced at the beginning of last year there was much speculation in the media and no numbers. In general sub-surface volcanic heating is very limited in area, even a full eruption has only local effect and that marginal compared to the enormous capacity of the sea and ice to soak up heat.

One denialist book published localy by a far right journalist who can't write a true word if he tries (that I've read so far), very recently represented a mainstream scientist to the effect that under-sea volcanism throughout the oceans, had a very marked effect on warming and was probably the natural cause of it, complete with supporting quote and reference to a paper. He obviously had never read that paper which was about the global cooling effect of surface volcanism such as the Mt Pinatabu eruption - an entirely different story. His book was along the same lines as the one TMTisFree referenced above.

A similar one has appeared in Australia quoting many papers out of context to support the same FUD and a local oceanographer recently put his foot in it along similar lines, claiming Quote:

It is more likely that the warming of the oceans since the Little Ice Age is a major contributor to the observed increase in CO2.

This is simply laughable and another oceanographer thought he should have known, if he was really an oceanographer, that the degree of outgassing was small compared to anthropogenic sourcing of CO2, (he put up the numbers) and that isotope analysis proved that most of the increase in CO2 apart from feedback effects, came from fossil fuel combustion.
http://hot-topic.co.nz/such-ignorance-must-not-be-allowed-to-go-uncontradicted/

All these denialist communications appearing recently seem to represent the same strategy, they claim to be re-examining climate change on a detached and scientific basis blah blah blah as you would see if you read the reviews on the net of the book referenced by TMTisFree.

All the FUD aside it appears that there are a great many numbers still to get to gain a definitive picture of Antarctica with respect to climate change. On the not so bad side (in the very long term) a recent study takes the amount of seal-level rise attributable to the melting of the WAIS to 3.3 metres, not 5 to 6 metres normally quoted. BBC story here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/8050094.stm

At present we are experiencing in NZ a series of brilliantly fine days and cold nights bathed in an airstream from Antarctica, as periodically happens, so we are frequently reminded of its proximity.

Noel

@BrianK

Quote:

Not sure I'm following your line of reasoning here. I responded to your post about the 1 Jun article - #27 in this thread.

You are confused: my #32 is a reply to your #30 which was a comment to my #29 (about my lack of interest in PR and defensive posts) in response to your #28 linking to the PR and defensive posts which was a reply to my #27 post dealing with the Steig's paper of Jan 2009. I see nowhere a 1 Jun article either from Dandy, you or Dandy.

Quote:

This is an ad hominem attack. It provides no worth in the discussion other then to display your own disdain of the opposition.

If it is no worth the discussion, why pointing to it? Or is it that your double standard avoids you to qualify equally the following Quote:

Nor can one argue with ignorance much displayed by denier advocates.

I guess the response is positive.

Bye,
TMTisFree

_________________
The engineering approach to our non-problems: "build a better washer".
The scientific approach to our non-problems: "find a new energy source".
The environmentalist approach to our non-problems: "stop washing your shirts".

@NoelFuller

It appears, given your preference to link to MSM/obscure NZ weblogs and to do ill-based comparison, you are reluctant and have not read the NIPCC report (not 'book') much after page #1 as it is essentially an up to date review of the current state of the climate research using peer-reviewed scientific papers (some conveniently escaped in the IPCC AR4 at its time and some from IPCC's lead authors themselves). Anyway Dandy is critical enough to judge by himself if the links I gave previously and the NIPCC report of peer-reviewed papers have much or less value than your non scientific weblogs: no need to do worthless arm-wavings and labellings with such words as 'FUD' and 'denier'. In any case, that Antarctica is cooling or warming and that CO² is decreasing or increasing is observations only, not causative explanations of anything.

Quote:

"Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep insights can be winnowed from deep nonsense."

- Carl Sagan

Edit: added the quote

Bye,
TMTisFree

Last edited by TMTisFree on 21-Jun-2009 at 05:50 PM.

_________________
The engineering approach to our non-problems: "build a better washer".
The scientific approach to our non-problems: "find a new energy source".
The environmentalist approach to our non-problems: "stop washing your shirts".