Once Again: The Current "Super Freeze" Doesn't Mean Global Warming Is A Hoax

Once again, almost like clock work, the  "dummy brigade"  has emerged (mainly on FOX, Limbaugh) to dismiss the bitter sub-zero temperatures sending the mid-western U.S. into a deep freeze  as  part of a "natural cycle".  Thereby arguing there's really no global warming, no climate change and hey,just bundle up more for the polar vortex.  It's all a "hoax"according to these nitwits.  

A recent example of the latter was a  letter in the local press (COS Indy, Jan. 2-8, p. 4 ) by a  Mark Rozman who claimed:

“Climate change is a natural, ongoing process as evidenced by tree ring data”   etc.

But there is more than tree ring data to be factored in here.   While tree ring data is a useful proxy indicator, it still doesn’t come close to ice core analysis in ascertaining the increasing concentration of CO2 and its effect on climate. In ice core analysis the air trapped in  cylindrical ice cores (extracted from deep within the Earth)  is chemically assayed .  The gases are analyzed to quantify the  CO2  concentration, then related to the climate at the time.

One of the most prolific ice core researchers - who originally discovered (ca. 1986) that the Arctic was warming much more than the continental U.S.  -  was Prof. Gunther Weller of the Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska- Fairbanks :

Prof.  Gunther Weller (1987)

 His work and that of others has disclosed that over the past 800,000 years the CO2 concentration of  300 ppm was never crossed until after the advent of the Industrial Revolution and the burning of fossil fuels.  Further, it has been found that no Ice ages have occurred whenever the CO2 concentration exceeded 200 ppm.  This means that climate change cannot be a “natural ongoing process.´ How can it when the greatest spike in CO2 concentration (now approaching 410 ppm) occurred after the human-instigated Industrial Revolution? 

In terms of tree rings, the relevant indicator is the ratio of the C14 isotope to the C12 isotope, as disclosed by solar physicist John Eddy.    

Eddy showed (‘The New Solar Physics’; p. 17, 1978) that an anthropogenic effect could be deduced from a graph of C14:C 12 deviations over a long enough period, i.e. 2,000 years.  

Specifically, “the sharp upward spike at the modern end of the curve is  attributed to anthropogenic causes and is the mark of increased population and the industrial age.” (Op. cit.)

Eddy’s work  in concert with many others, shows clearly humans are the primary agents driving climate change. Remove the human influence from the past 250 years or so and we are not approaching 410 ppm of CO2 concentration. Not even close!

Now what about the polar vortex? What is its role in climate change- global warming?

This Arctic heat emphasis, for example,  was exposed in the January , 2016 zonal temperature map :

Data from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration showed that January was, for the entire  globe, was an extraordinary month. In particular the data showed the Arctic took the brunt of heating (see graphic) with a temperature increase more than 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit higher than the 1951 to 1980 average in this region. (This data constitutes a "zonal mean" temperature map, which shows how the temperature departures from average change based on one's latitude location on Earth.)

The finding dovetailed  with Prof. Gunther Weller's predictions (from the mid -1980s) - based on his ice core analyses- that future warming would be greatest in the Arctic.  This is  a phenomenon known as "Arctic amplification".  In papers and seminars delivered at the GI over 1985-1990 he pointed out that a much warmer Arctic also means a much more unstable polar region with more frequent intrusions ("waves")  of the polar vortex,  leading to frigid temperatures in parts of the U.S. such as we've seen the past few years.  In one seminar he described it "almost like moving the Arctic to the continental U.S."

Unpacking it further: there is generally an immense cold mass of air that sits over the Arctic.  Because of global warming, climate change the Arctic has experienced diminished sea ice, E.G.


As the sea ice mass melts there is less reflection of radiation into space and hence more rapid warming of the surface.  This diminished sea ice then results in more heat dispatched into the atmosphere. This in turn destabilizes the polar vortex - a low pressure area normally residing over the north pole. This instability then allows polar air to plunge southward into the continental U.S. .

The details leading to what we've seen the past several days (with temperatures in some locations even rivaling those in Antarctica) occurred on January 2nd.  NOAA monitors showed that part of the stratosphere had a rapid rise of 50 degrees F in just a few days.    The event split the unstable polar vortex, so that part broke off. Afterward, pockets of Arctic air migrated south causing the current deep freeze.

Let's also process that the warming onslaught is exacerbated by the rapid melting of permafrost. Vast expanses of former  Arctic permafrost have been reduced to mud, and also in the process of warming released methane - perhaps the Greenhouse gas which is most potent.  See e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2017/03/more-rapid-permafrost-melting-triggers.html
As reported by the University of Alaska -Fairbanks Arctic Research site:
In 2016, the latest year of complete records, the majority of Arctic observation sites reported the highest permafrost temperatures on record.

The takeaway is that these sub-zero super freezes we're seeing with polar vortex intrusions are likely to become more frequent in the future, not less. The deniers and climate dummies would do well to learn more about this phenomenon and why they should be fearful, not wise ass snarky, to play into the agnotology narrative.  See e.g.

Brane Space: The Pseudo-Science Agnotologists Strike Again!

brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/01/as-i-noted-in-earlier-blog-httpbrane.html

El Nino Triggering Greater Arctic Instability And Record Heat, Melting

When climate scientists - real ones, not pretenders in the employ of the fossil fuelers - worry about records for low sea ice, or rapid melting of glaciers, or new heat records - are they exaggerating? When exactly is a climate record really a record? When is melting sea ice in the Arctic (or Antarctic) a record? When is collapse of the Greenland ice sheet a record? When is the increase in sea level a record? When is the increase in global mean temperature a record?

To the denier contingent, of course, there are no such things as any climate change records, because they are convinced it's all some grand, convoluted conspiracy by government and climate scientists. To these mostly brainwashed fools climate change is just an elaborate hoax. Never mind that, as in the case of rising seas, the Vietnamese are already having to build coastline dikes and massive seawalls to fortify earthen levees against rising seas. The latter are allowing seawater to penetrate as far as 60 km inland (in the Mekong delta) ruining rice crops.(WSJ, 'Vietnam's New Tack In Climate Fight', Feb. 25, p. A9)

Clearly, it's pretty easy to be a denier when your own life and livelihood isn't adversely affected, and you can just sit in your comfy chair and make vapid armchair pronouncements- when superior minds (scientific ones) actually have the data and first hand accounts.

The accumulating data over the past seven or eight years is now consolidating the current picture of the world we inhabit and it isn't pretty. It shows we may have already entered the world of initial climate anomaly that is likely to soon become permanent. This could be interpreted as meaning we are already on the cusp of the runaway greenhouse effect.  In that case, we're not just talking about global warming but warming on 'steroids'.

 New data from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show that January was, for the entire  globe, an extraordinary month. In particular the data showed the Arctic to take the brunt of heating (see graphic) with a temperature increase more than 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit higher than the 1951 to 1980 average in this region. (This data constitutes a "zonal mean" temperature map, which shows how the temperature departures from average change based on one's latitude location on Earth.)

This Arctic heat emphasis exposed in the zonal temperature map dovetails with Prof. Gunter Weller's predictions (from the mid -1980s) - based on his ice core analyses- that future warming would be greatest in the Arctic.  This is  a phenomenon known as "Arctic amplification".

It also means we have much to fear in terms of climatic-based catastrophes. For example, a much warmer Arctic means a much more unstable polar region with more frequent intrusions of the polar vortex,  leading to frigid temperatures in parts of the U.S. but with the added potential of triggering severe, violent storms when the cold fronts spawned collide with warmer air

Let's now move on to records while we're at it. The Arctic heat anomaly has been accompanied by a new record-low level for Arctic sea ice extent during the normally ice-packed month of January, According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center more than 400,000 square miles of the region is below average  for the month. This in turn is closely tied to warmer Arctic air temperatures. According to Mark Serreze, Director of the Center:

"We've looked at the average January temperatures, and we look at what we call the 925 millibar level, about 3,000 feet up in the atmosphere. And it was, I would say, absurdly warm across the entire Arctic Ocean."

He added that the Center reports temperature anomalies at this altitude of "more than 6 degrees Celsius (13 degrees Fahrenheit) above average" for the month. Bear in mind that a 6C increase for the entire globe would be associated with the onset of the runaway greenhouse effect, as Carl Sagan first pointed out in his essay, 'Ambush, the Warming of the World' in his book, 'Billions and Billions.'


The low sea ice situation has now continued into February, as Serreze observes:
.
"We're way down. We're at a record low for this time of year right now.  When it comes to the rest of 2016 and the coming summer and fall season when ice melts across the Arctic and reaches its lowest extent, we are starting out in a deep hole."

The cause is tied to El Nino which is also an offshoot of the global warming phenomenon as S. George Philander originally showed. (Eos: Transactions of the American Geophysical Union (March 31, 1998):‘Who is El Nino?’)   Philander pointed out that exacerbated ocean temperatures are largely tied to heating effects  in El Nino years. Notably,  for the past several months these ocean temperatures have reached 3.6F higher than normal - so no surprise at the record sea ice melt.

Jennifer Francis, a climate researcher at Rutgers who focuses on the Arctic has argued that Arctic changes are changing midlatitude weather by causing wobbles in the jet stream. We've actually seen multiple instances of this over the past couple months. According to her:

"We've got this huge El Niño out there, we have the warm blob in the northeast Pacific, the cool blob in the Atlantic, and this ridiculously warm Arctic. All these things happening at the same time that have never happened before."

And ultimately, they are all tied to climate change- global warming. Look for more records to be set this spring and summer.