Antarctic Sea Ice Defies Alarmist Climate Models
Climate Change Weekly #65
Eric Berger, the Houston Chronicle’s self-proclaimed ‘SciGuy,’ apparently feels threatened by skeptics reporting that Antarctic sea ice is setting records this year. When alarmists feel threatened by the facts, they do what alarmists do best: They lie about the facts.
Berger recently wrote an article claiming the record growth in Antarctic sea ice is consistent with alarmist climate models. Wrote Berger, “climate models have generally predicted that Antarctic sea ice won’t change much in the coming decades, before eventually losing mass.” Berger’s claim is wrong for two important reasons.
First, Antarctic sea ice has been steadily expanding for decades and is consistently setting new records. This is a far cry from “climate models have generally predicted that Antarctic sea ice won’t change much. ...” By definition, when alarmist climate models say Antarctic sea ice “won’t change much,” but Antarctic sea ice thereafter engages in decades-long growth culminating in new records set almost every day, the alarmist climate models are wrong.
Second, the alarmist climate models don’t even say what Berger asserts. Rather than saying “Antarctic sea ice won’t change much,” the alarmist climate models say Antarctic sea ice should currently be in prolonged and substantial decline. As scientists report in the American Meteorological Society’s peer-reviewed Journal of Climate:
We examine the annual cycle and trends in Antarctic sea ice extent (SIE) for 18 Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 5 models that were run with historical forcing for the 1850s to 2005. Many of the models have an annual SIE cycle that differs markedly from that observed over the last 30 years. The majority of models have too small a SIE at the minimum in February, while several of the models have less than two thirds of the observed SIE at the September maximum. … Most of the control runs have statistically significant trends in SIE over their full time span and all the models have a negative trend in SIE since the mid-Nineteenth Century. The negative SIE trends in most of the model runs over 1979 - 2005 are a continuation of an earlier decline, suggesting that the processes responsible for the observed increase over the last 30 years are not being simulated correctly.
The alarmist climate models say Antarctic sea ice should be shrinking. Instead, Antarctic sea ice is growing and consistently setting new records. When skeptics point out the record growth in Antarctic sea ice, alarmists creatively reinterpret what their climate models predicted and hope nobody notices.
IN THIS ISSUE
Gore presents altitude conspiracy theory … Goddard Institute uses taxpayer dollars to hide climate research… Methane ‘time bomb’ debunked … Crab populations will benefit from warming temperatures … Scandinavian summers are cooler than Medieval Warm Period
GORE PRESENTS ALTITUDE CONSPIRACY THEORY
Global warming conspiracy theorist Al Gore expanded his theories to altitude and presidential politics Wednesday night, speculating that Mitt Romney cleaned Barack Obama’s clock in this week’s presidential debate because Obama was having a difficult time adjusting to the altitude in Denver. No word yet from the Gore camp as to whether Gore will finger Big Oil for conspiring with geological forces to raise Denver to such a high altitude in preparation for Wednesday’s debate.
SOURCE: The Weekly Standard
GODDARD INSTITUTE USES TAXPAYER DOLLARS TO HIDE CLIMATE RESEARCH
Career activists in NASA’s Goddard Institute are using legal loopholes to spend taxpayer dollars on a system of computers that will be exempt from transparency and the Freedom of Information Act, reports attorney and Competitive Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow Christopher Horner. Horner reports NASA admits it has established a system “to view its emails remotely on a non-official computer, purchased with taxpayer money and used for the taxpayer’s business but access to which is being denied the government for inspection, whose use erases any trace of the records back on government servers.”
SOURCE: Watts Up With That?
METHANE ‘TIME BOMB’ DEBUNKED
The alleged methane “time bomb” is no more cause for worry than other debunked global warming scares, explain scientists at World Climate Report. While alarmists claim warming temperatures will create a catastrophic positive feedback mechanism of methane being released from previously frozen tundra and sea beds, real-world atmospheric methane concentrations are rising at a decelerating pace.
SOURCE: World Climate Report
CRAB POPULATIONS WILL BENEFIT FROM WARMING TEMPERATURES
Warming ocean temperatures will enhance the reproduction opportunities for many crabs, scientists report in the peer-reviewed Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom. The scientists studied three species of intertidal crabs and found a rise in temperature will extend the crabs’ breeding season and allow the crabs to produce additional broods.
SCANDINAVIAN SUMMERS ARE COOLER THAN MEDIEVAL WARM PERIOD
Summer temperatures in Scandinavia are cooler than those that occurred during the Medieval Warm Period and Roman Warm Period, scientists report in the peer-reviewed Global and Planetary Change. The warmth recorded during those time periods was “larger in extent and longer in duration than 20th century warmth,” the scientists report.