Slew Of Recent Published Findings Show Man’s Share Of Arctic Ice Melt Grossly Exaggerated, And Uncertain!

Half a dozen recent papers show that man’s responsibility for Arctic ice melt has in reality been grossly exaggerated and that Arctic sea ice science is fraught with far greater uncertainty than what we are often led to believe.

One paper even notes that Arctic sea ice decline could be over.

Alarmists often claim that almost all of the global warming occurring over the past 50 years is almost completely due to human activity, i.e. the burning of fossil fuels” Here they ignore the high levels of solar activity over the course of the entire 20th century and the warm phases of the oceanic cycles experienced over the past decades.

With such an obvious sloppy scientific approach, it is of course little wonder climate science is met with so much skepticism.

Arctic exaggerations and uncertainty

Two days ago Kenneth Richard posted on a number of papers that do show that man’s attributed share to Arctic warming has indeed been wildly overstated, and that estimates are fraught with great uncertainty. They also show ocean and solar cycles very much at play.


Arctic temperatures have been steady over the past decade. Image Source: Climate4you

As Kenneth wrote, the instrument-bare Arctic has been (mis)used to fudge global temperatures upwards. However other scientists have recently shown in half a dozen papers that only about 50% of the warming and sea ice losses for the Arctic region may be anthropogenic and that the rest of the warming and ice declines are attributed to natural factors.

The real figure is probably even less than 50%, which is a far cry from being completely due to man, as is often claimed.

Substantial portion “naturally driven”

According to Kenneth’s research that is based on a short review of the peer-reviewed scientific literature, there appears to be widespread agreement that a “substantial portion” of post-1979 Arctic-wide climate changes are naturally driven.

A scientific report by Indrani Roy appearing in Nature, March 2018, for example assigned about half of the blame for the Arctic melt of the past 15 years to natural factors. The paper itself implies that the estimate harbors uncertainty when it stated that 50-60% of the ice loss “is likely” caused by anthropogenic factors.

Here the anthropogenic factors also include soot, which is different from GHG effects. One could thus have an easy time arguing that the figure for CO2 greenhouse gas warming is less than 50%, even far less.

Looking back only to 1979

In another published paper by Qinghus Ding et al also appearing in Nature, the authors attributed the “recent” rapid Arctic ice melt over northeastern Canada and Greenland “around 50%” to natural variability.

Once again uncertainty is implied by the word “around”. Also the authors examine the ice conditions going back to only 1979. Surely if they looked back further, the natural factors would look even stronger.

Only “approximately” half due to man

Next a paper by Jennifer E. Kay and co-authors appearing in the Geophysical Research letters (2011) looked at Arctic sea ice going back only to 1979 and it too attributed “approximately half” of the melt to “internal variability”.

That’s a far cry from man being almost 100% responsible for the melt we often here from the media. And again, skeptical scientists would have an easy time arguing that the man-made share is significantly less. Many scientists have done so already — pointing to solar activity and powerful oceanic cycles.

Scientists playing down the huge uncertainty

It’s important to recall that datasets from the Arctic are scant at best, and have huge voids. Rough guesses are the best scientists could possibly some up with under such circumstances. Yet, too often do the authors come across as being “pretty sure” when in fact that’s impossible.

“49%” responsible

But some scientists do let the great scarcity of data interfere with their certainty. In another paper (2015) appearing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the authors found that internal variability “might be” 49% responsible for the September Arctic sea ice decline since 1979, and then stated that the sea ice trend could actually see a hiatus in the future.

49%?

A Nature paper by Quighus Ding and co-authors (2017) found: “Internal variability dominates the Arctic summer circulation trend and may be responsible for about 30–50% of the overall decline in September sea ice since 1979″.

And maybe not.

Greenland anthropogenic melt too small to be detectable

Finally Kenneth presented a 2016 paper by Thomas Haine appearing in Nature, where he found that the anthropogenic melt from the Greenland ice sheet “is still too small to be detectable”.

Willie W.H. Soon: natural factors dominate

And in a Geophysical Research Letters publication by Soon, it was found that natural factors such as solar activity greatly overpower the effects of man-emitted CO2. See chart here.

25 responses to “Slew Of Recent Published Findings Show Man’s Share Of Arctic Ice Melt Grossly Exaggerated, And Uncertain!”

  1. David Yetter

    I believe that there are also recent empirical papers showing that all the alarmist models under-estimate changes to arctic albedo as a source of melting/warming. Soot from coal buring may well be a partial anthropogenic cause for this. However, a human climate influence what could be dealt with by the Russian Duma, Indian Parliament and Chinese Politburo (or People’s Congress, if we pretend the Party isn’t the actual governing body) passing analogues of the American Clean Air act, and enforcing the relevant governments enforcing them, doesn’t fit the agenda of providing an excuse for the UN, the US Federal Government and the European Commission gaining more power by regulating energy production and usage on the plea of “combating climate change”.

  2. RAH

    The alarmists over estimated the importance of albedo. It is their excuse for focusing on sea ice extent. But when the water is exposed at either pole it is releasing warmth into the atmosphere at a place where it is easiest for that energy to get out into space.

    Thus we see on the anomaly charts all that red over the poles especially during the winter months but the ice never goes away because the actual temperature remains well below freezing even as the currents bring the warm water up. And so they lie about what is happening and why. In the end mother nature will win and they will lose. They already are.

    1. SebastianH

      But when the water is exposed at either pole it is releasing warmth into the atmosphere at a place where it is easiest for that energy to get out into space.

      Why is it easiest at the poles?

      but the ice never goes away because the actual temperature remains well below freezing even as the currents bring the warm water up

      Arctic sea ice melting isn’t about the winter months. Obviously, ice isn’t gonna melt when temperatures reach -10°C vs. -20°C. It’s about the summer months, where increasing warmth causes increasing loss of sea ice.

      And so they lie about what is happening and why. In the end mother nature will win and they will lose. They already are.

      It’s also not a fight against “mother nature”. This mother nature already made the Arctic “ice free” (= below 1 million km² ice in the summer) in past times as your skeptic friends will be happy to tell you. Only this time human emissions play a rather large role …

      1. AndyG55

        Mr zero-science returns…

        “Why is it easiest at the poles?”

        Seb is UNAWARE of atmospheric depth and cooling.. DOH !!!

        “Only this time human emissions play a rather large role “

        Rubbish… just another mindless mantra-based comment, based on unsupportable science.

        Apart from soot and ice-breakers, provide scientific evidence that human emissions have any affect on the Arctic sea ice what-so-ever.

        Certainly it can’t be CO2, can it, there is NO EVIDENCE that enhanced atmospheric CO2 warms anything, anywhere.

        If you have such evidence.. THEN PRODUCE IT…

        or stop your mindless mantra regurgitation.

        1. Yonason (from a friend's comp)

          But Andy, we “KNOW” that humans cause global warming. //sarc//
          https://i1.wp.com/www.capmag.com/images2y346y/comics/cf2006/06.06.15.HolySmokeMir-X.gif?w=1080

      2. AndyG55

        “It’s about the summer months, where increasing warmth causes “

        I suggest you look at the summer temps from DMI back to 1958.

        http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php

        …and tell us all where the increasing “summer” warmth is.

        For example, 2017 was BELOW the average for the whole of the summer.

        Stop making brain-hosed, mantra-based statements that are scientifically unsupportable and most often just plane WRONG

        1. SebastianH
          1. AndyG55

            you mean like in 1960?

            http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/plots/meanTarchive/meanT_1960.png

            Summer temps are not going anywhere , seb

            GET OVER IT !!

            No CO2 warming up there.

            Or anywhere else for that matter.

          2. SebastianH

            You should maybe look at this reconstruction (Connolly 2017) then … https://www.tandfonline.com/na101/home/literatum/publisher/tandf/journals/content/thsj20/2017/thsj20.v062.i08/02626667.2017.1324974/20170612/images/large/thsj_a_1324974_f0010_oc.jpeg

            It’s temperature based “adjustments”, so should by correlate well with Arctic temperatures. Can you make out where summer temperatures/extent is heading?

          3. AndyG55

            Using “unadjusted” temperatures

            ROFLMAO

            They looks NOTHING like unadjusted temperatures.

            Someone is being GULLIBLE again, aren’t you, seb.

            https://s19.postimg.cc/vws4z68s3/arctic_temp.png

            https://s19.postimg.cc/5ffms4j1v/iceland_8.jpg

          4. SebastianH

            It is a sea ice extent reconstruction, based on unadjusted temperatures. Maybe read the paper, your buddy Kenneth links to it all the time to support his view that somehow 1979 was an extreme …

      3. RAH

        Seb you really are clueless.

        1. The atmosphere is much deeper at the equator than the poles. The troposphere is only goes up to about 6 kilometers ASL on average at the poles while at the equator it reaches about about 20 k ASL. No I’m not going to provide a link because this is such basic fundamental science even you should be able to find the information for yourself. But the fact that you lack such basic knowledge is there for all to see.

        2. For year after year now the summer temps at the Arctic have run at or below the 1958 to 2002 mean as per DMI. I will spoon feed you the link for this information just as AndyG55 has above: http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
        But I refuse to wipe you chin.
        Click on the past years and you will see a recurring pattern over the last years. The spikes in temperature have been occurring during the winter months when there is no insolation. During the times when the sun is up the temps have remained at or below the mean.
        For the Arctic to become “virtually ice free” the red temperature line will have to remain well above the blue freezing line for a much longer period than it has been. Those temp spikes during the winter months still don’t get close to going above freezing. It will take a tremendous amount of energy during the summer months to make the Arctic “virtually ice free” and hasn’t happened.

        All the Kings Horses and All the Kings men can fill in their global temperature maps with the deepest darkest shades of red over the poles to give the impression to the ignorant that it’s burning up, but they just can’t make that ice melt when the temps remain well below freezing.

        1. SebastianH

          Seb you really are clueless.

          Great, you managed to open with an insult …

          Why is it easiest at the poles?

          The atmosphere is much deeper at the equator than the poles.

          Thanks for clarifying, I guess. You never know what skeptics mean by what they write. You could have meant that the poles lose more energy towards space than the tropics. Do you think that a one degree increase of the surface at the poles loses more energy towards space than a 1 degree increase in the tropics?

          But the fact that you lack such basic knowledge is there for all to see.

          And you end with an insult …

          I will spoon feed you the link for this information just as AndyG55 has above: http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
          But I refuse to wipe you chin.

          And another insult. Great work!

          For the Arctic to become “virtually ice free” the red temperature line will have to remain well above the blue freezing line for a much longer period than it has been.

          See reply to AndyG55’s comment. In the extreme years 2007 and 2012, the Arctic was “warm” for a longer period. I will also “not spoon feed” you any graph for the long term trend … find out for yourself.

          Those temp spikes during the winter months still don’t get close to going above freezing. […] they just can’t make that ice melt when the temps remain well below freezing.

          You can’t be thinking that the Arctic becoming “ice free” involves melting of sea ice in the winter, can you?

          1. AndyG55

            1960 was above average summer temps pretty much all year.

            Face it seb, ADMIT that you were WRONG about Arctic summer temperatures, and stop trying to worm your way out of it.

            Your FANTASY of an ice free Arctic is OVER. !!!

          2. AndyG55

            ” the Arctic was “warm” for a longer period.”

            Off you go on your summer vacation then seb

            The Arctic is NEVER “warm”

            Might have been quite pleasant for much of the first 9000 or so years of the Holocene before the descent down into the ANOMALOUS COLD of the LIA.

            You do know its only been COLDER than now for a period of some 500 years around the LIA, and you do know that the “chosen” starting point for alarmist is the COLDEST period in 100 years in the Arctic, don’t you seb?

            Do you LIKE living in a freezing cold climate?

            Do you like having fossil fuel powered heat available all winter ?? (wouldn’t want to RELY on wind an solar, would you)

            Still ONE HECK OF A LOT of sea ice up there,

            wouldn’t you agree, seb. !!!

      4. richard verney

        Everything in the natural world in which we live is far more complex than the models, and we have yet to properly understand matters and that is why Climate Scientist are always wrong. Not one prediction has yet come to pass. It might be useful to have a bit of real context.

        Given that radiation is proportional to the 4th power of temperature, most energy is radiated from the equatorial/tropical region of the planet.

        The poles play relatively little importance save that solar energy absorbed in the equatorial/tropical oceans is moved polewards, via natural oceanic currents, thus warming the polar regions of this planet, and this energy is eventually radiated away, more effectively when there is less ice.

        However, the albedo effect is exaggerated since with less sea ice there is slightly more evaporation leading to more cloudiness. The more cloudiness increases albedo and effectively cancels out the lowering of albedo which resulted from the ice loss. It is a net zero sum game. NASA is beginning to appreciate that this is a net zero sum game. See:

        https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/ArcticReflector/arctic_reflector4.php

        Although sea ice and snow cover had noticeably declined in the Arctic from 2000 to 2004, there had been no detectable change in the albedo measured at the top of the atmosphere: the proportion of light the Arctic reflected hadn’t changed.

        AND

        not only is the Arctic’s average cloud fraction on summer days large enough—on average 0.8, or 80 percent—to mask sea ice changes, but an increase in cloudiness between 2000 and 2004 further hid any impact that sea ice and snow losses might have had on the Arctic’s ability to reflect incoming light. According to the MODIS observations, cloud fraction had increased at a rate of 0.65 percent per year between 2000 and 2004. If the trend continues, it will amount to a relative increase of about 6.5 percent per decade.

        You will note that NASA are discovering that everything is cancelling out, and hence there is no need to be particularly alarmed by any recent trend in the decline of Arctic sea ice, especially as it would appear that the amount of sea ice seen today was seen before in the early part of the 20th century (see Vinnikov and the IPCC AR1). It is not unprecedented and materially it is at near historic highs for the Holocene.

        1. SebastianH

          It is not unprecedented and materially it is at near historic highs for the Holocene.

          The interesting part is the reason it is happening.

          E.g., if E.T. would abduct you tomorrow I also wouldn’t call it unprecedented since abductions happen all the time. What makes it stick out, is the fact that it was E.T. who abducted you.

          1. AndyG55

            Another childish attempt at distraction from seb. WTF is the ET nonsense.. Another MINDLESS failed analogy ?

            “The interesting part is the reason it is happening.”

            Yep, its great watching NATURAL CYCLES at work, isn’t it.

            Or do you have some unprovable, anti-science,hallucinogenic fantasy reason in mind, like CO2 or something equally daft.

            There is ZERO evidence that humans have anything to do with the current phase of the CYCLIC Arctic sea ice.

            But ZERO-EVIDENCE is your meme, isn’t it seb.

  3. Conservative vs Progressive; Who is More Accurate at Understanding a Chart – CO2 is Life

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  4. AndyG55

    Thanks to —, we KNOW there is no empirical evidence that CO2 causes atmospheric or ocean warming.

    Unless of course, humans are responsible for the AMO.

    So that leaves soot, and ice-breakers.

    Odd that the sea ice was INCREASING and Arctic temperatures were decreasing from the 1940s to the late 1970s when human industry was on a major high !!

    https://s19.postimg.cc/hcmhnqak3/Arctic-_Sea-_Ice-_Alekseev-2016-as-shown-in-_Connolly-2017.jpg

    https://s19.postimg.cc/chlq0r1cj/Arctic_Had_Crut_4.gif

    1. AndyG55

      “So that leaves soot, ……”

      It would be interesting to see how much soot comes from the Icelandic and other regional volcanoes.

      I suspect we would see some cyclic behaviour there, also.

      And its locality would mean it had far greater effect than any human based soot.

  5. BoyfromTottenham

    Current (approx) temperatures: North Pole: -18 C, South Pole -54 C. Not gonna melt today!

  6. Bitter&twisted

    I detect a movement in the force.
    It is the alarmist “scientists” rowing back from their “certainties” as their predictions continually fail.

    1. RAH

      The only thing one can be certain of is that whatever the climate and weather does the alarmists will focus on the places where the weather is unusual or at least perceived to be and blame it on human activity. It does not matter if what happens is exactly the opposite of what they have said would occur because it isn’t about science or knowledge.

      1. SebastianH

        Aren’t you describing skeptics here? Cherry picking everywhere to make a version of reality that doesn’t exist.

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