Stronger Winds Explain Puzzling Growth of Sea Ice In Antarctica 236
vinces99 writes "As NOAA announces a new record for the extent of sea ice in Antarctica, a new modeling study to be published in the Journal of Climate shows that stronger polar winds lead to an increase in Antarctic sea ice, even when Earth's overall climate is getting warmer. The study (abstract) by Jinlun Zhang, a University of Washington oceanographer, shows that stronger westerly winds swirling around the South Pole can explain 80 percent of the increase in Antarctic sea ice volume during the past three decades. The polar vortex that swirls around the South Pole is not just stronger than it was when satellite records began in the 1970s, it also shoves the sea ice together to cause ridging. Stronger winds also drive ice faster, which leads to still more deformation and ridging. This creates thicker, longer-lasting ice, while exposing surrounding water and thin ice to the blistering cold winds that cause more ice growth. A computer simulation that includes detailed interactions between wind and sea shows that thick ice — more than 6 feet deep — increased by about 1 percent per year from 1979 to 2010, while the amount of thin ice stayed fairly constant. The end result is a thicker, slightly larger ice pack that lasts longer into the summer."
OMG! It wasn't puzzling (Score:0, Informative)
It was predicted through regression to the mean.
Now ignorant people are cherry picking it as if a predicted single even undermine all other data.
For fuck sake stop this ignorant nonsense.
Re: Still Cold (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Bullshit! (Score:0, Informative)
Why can't you comprehend that it just doesn't matter. Laws related to reducing global warming are good for the environment so it does not matter a damn what the data says. It is morally and ethically right to support global warming with or without the data. You're just trying to be a jerk and hurtful by arguing the position. It's like CONservatives arguing against food stamps. It doesn't matter that it is morally wrong to take money at gun point to give to another group because the other group includes children. As long as we are feeding children, they have no right to keep more than they need.
The climate conspiracy theorists are out in force. (Score:4, Informative)
It looks rather like the "global-warming-is-man-made-sound-the-alarms" people have been cherry picking
No, this is not cherry-picking. There's not question that the earth is warming due to the enhanced greenhouse effect. The oceans are expanding [csiro.au]. The surface temperatures [nasa.gov] are increasing.
This paper looks at the response in the Antarctic Sea Ice, and has found a possible improvement to its understanding.
No cherry picking involved.
Then when the temperatures did not support their theories, it was "well global warming causes extreme weather!".
It was always suspected that global warming would increase extreme weather events because hurricane intensity is highly related to sea surface temperature when they form, and more energy in the atmosphere gives more evaporation so heavier rainfall.
But the theories are thermodynamics, fluid mechanics and optics. They are not challenged if warming is only 0.1C per decade for a decade instead of the long term trend of 0.16C per decade.
When THAT got disproven, it was "look-look-look, all the ice is melting!" Now that THAT part of the scam is getting clobbered by the earth itself, what will the GW people predict next?
The northern sea ice [washington.edu] is in steep decline. The Antarctic Ice Sheet and Greenland Ice Sheet [wiley.com] are in accelerating decline.
How on god's green earth do you manage to get to "THAT part of the scam is getting clobbered by the earth itself" for there?
Carbon dioxide is NOT a pollutant. It is stupid to treat it that way.
You've not heard of the greenhouse effect then?
Re:OMG! It wasn't puzzling (Score:4, Informative)
Hmm... I guess y'all want a more serious answer.
It looks rather like the "global-warming-is-man-made-sound-the-alarms" people have been cherry picking. First it was the higher temperatures. Then when the temperatures did not support their theories,
While the slope of temperature increase in the atmosphere is lower than it was in the 1980's and 1990's, the 2000's was still the hottest decade in the modern temperature records and 2005 & 2010 are tied for the hottest year in most of them (1998 still is hottest in HADCRUT3). The oceans are still warming and the ice is still melting. None of this is a surprise to climate scientists who realize that natural variability can overcome the forcing of greenhouse gases for a decade or more. The oceans, where over 90% of the heat of global warming goes anyway are still warming and the next time we get a moderately strong El NIno (which reduces the heat going into the ocean) you can bet we will set a new global temperature record (unless we coincidentally get a large volcanic eruption).
it was "well global warming causes extreme weather!". When THAT got disproven,
You've got a little bit of truth in this because global warming doesn't cause any kind of weather in and of itself. What is does is affect the context within which weather occurs. So for instance if the climate is warming then the high temperature events will be a little warmer and the peaks a little higher. There is more energy in the system to drive weather. There is more water vapor in the atmosphere to drive precipitation.
it was "look-look-look, all the ice is melting!" Now that THAT part of the scam is getting clobbered by the earth itself,
When you look at natural ice on the Earth it can be divided into a number of categories. The ice sheets (Greenland & Antarctica), the lesser ice fields and glaciers, the ice shelves (the tongues of glaciers floating on the sea) and sea ice in the Arctic and in the Antarctic. Of all of those kinds of ice the only one that has had a net increase is the Antarctic sea ice which is a very small portion of all of that ice. The net volume of all of the ice taken together is on a strong downward path.
The Earth is not getting warmer! (Score:0, Informative)
The data shows that after a spike in Earth's surface temperature two decades ago the temperature has stopped rising for 16 years. Even the British Meteorological Office has finally been forced to concede that the warming predicted from climate models has not occurred. Rather than confess that Global Warming is and always was based on poor science, the British Met Office now says warming has "paused" (as if they knew the future, which they clearly don't, since they've been wrong so far).
Then we have climate 'scientists' like James Hansen and Michael Mann who have been fraudulently manipulating NOAO and NASA data that didn't fit their climate warming alarmist hypothesis.
Yes, I know this information will be a big surprise for many of you. Before you call me a "loon" (or the favorite word of the anti-scientific climate alarmists, a "denier") or mod me down, I urge you to consider the science and analysis displayed here (mixed in with other articles): http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/ [wordpress.com]
As an example, check out some of these graphs:
Arctic Sea Ice up 67% this year:
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/09/14/in-praise-of-nasa/ [wordpress.com] [This graph is excellent, easy to see how the reported changes reported at the minimum exaggerate the change, good if you intend to freak people out]
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/cgi-bin/seaice-monitor.cgi?lang=e [uaf.edu]
Fraudulent scientist James Hansen's predictions vs observation:
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/09/16/hansen-forecast-0-6oc-warming-from-1997-to-2013/ [wordpress.com]
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/09/15/arctic-gains-seven-hundred-million-hockey-rinks-of-ice-since-last-year/ [wordpress.com]
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/09/14/the-specious-long-term-trend/ [wordpress.com]
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/09/14/earth-gains-a-record-amount-of-sea-ice-in-2013/ [wordpress.com]
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/09/12/monthly-ncdc-us-fraud-update/ [wordpress.com] [examples of data tampered with by climate scientists]
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/09/12/tennessee-summers-have-cooled-dramatically-since-the-1920s/ [wordpress.com]
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/09/10/arctic-ice-experts-say-the-arctic-is-past-the-point-of-no-return/ [wordpress.com]
If anyone has any questions about the graphs, or data that contradicts them then I'll be interested to hear it. I have an open mind - I'm just following the Scientific Method and going where the data leads. I hope you do too :)
The simplest explanation for the observed ice cap data, Antarctic ice growth, lack of any hurricanes in the US this August, drop in wildfires in the Continental US, many US States recording below average winter temperatures, etc etc is simply that the predicted "Global Warming" has not continued. In fact, there appears to be a very slight cooling (especially in the Southern Hemisphere). The weather has simply been going up and down as it always does on a year-to-year basis, with no real trend over the hundred year timescale.
Why does it matter? because the current meme of "Global Warming" is out of dat