The first picture is the coverage provided in this sat picture of the Pennisula.
Posted on 03/27/2008 1:34:39 AM PDT by Einigkeit_Recht_Freiheit
"Block after block of ice is just tumbling and crumbling into the ocean," Ted Scambos, lead scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, said in a telephone interview.
"The shelf is not just cracking off and a piece goes drifting away, but totally shattering. These kinds of events, we don't see them very often. But we want to understand them better because these are the things that lead to a complete loss of the ice shelf," Scambos added.
Scambos said a large part of the ice shelf is now supported by only a thin strip of ice. This last "ice buttress" could collapse and about half the total ice shelf area could be lost in the next few years, Scambos added.
British Antarctic Survey scientist David Vaughan said in a statement: "This shelf is hanging by a thread."
"One corner of it that's exposed to the ocean is shattering in a pattern that we've seen in a few places over the past 10 or 15 years. In every case, we've eventually concluded that it's a result of climate warming," Scambos added.
Satellite images showing the collapse began on February 28, as a large iceberg measuring 25.5 by 1.5 miles fell away from the ice shelf's southwestern front leading to a runaway disintegration of the shelf interior, Scambos said.
A plane also was sent over the area to get photographs of the shelf as it was disintegrating, he added.
Scambos said this ice shelf has been in place for at least a few hundred years, but warm air and exposure to ocean waves are causing a breakup. In the past half century, the Antarctic Peninsula has witnessed a warming as fast as anywhere on the planet, according to scientists.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Satellite images show that a large hunk of Antarctica's Wilkins Ice Shelf has started to collapse in a fast-warming region of the continent, scientists said on Tuesday.
The area of collapse measured about 160 square miles of the Wilkins Ice Shelf, according to satellite imagery from the University of Colorado's National Snow and Ice Data Center.
The Wilkins Ice Shelf is a broad sheet of permanent floating ice that spans about 5,000 square miles (13,000 square km) and is located on the southwest Antarctic Peninsula about 1,000 miles south of South America.
"The warming that's going on in the peninsula is pretty clearly tied to greenhouse gas increases and the change that they have in the atmospheric circulation around the Antarctic," Scambos said.
With Antarctica's summer melt season coming to an end, the he said he does not expect the ice shelf to disintegrate further immediately, but come January scientists will be watching to see if it continues to fall apart.
The first picture is the coverage provided in this sat picture of the Pennisula.
“Was there ever a time when this kind of thing wasn’t happening? They talk like ice never broke off the ice shelf before the last couple of years.”
As we use to say in Nam - There it is!
Perhaps I am not paying attention to the details or we are reading different media (very likely given I am in Germany).
I see all 3 Presidential candidates supporting carbon caps, businesses investing real money in green tech and continued quashing of those who question the science of climate change. Is there a small undercurrent of dissent, perhaps. Will a few warm days this summer or a bad hurricane season destroy it? Very likely.
In terms of the economics, I respectfully agree and disagree. You are absolutely correct that our modern economy is based on producing CO2. The human production of CO2 is really negligible and a silly counter-argument. The CO2 production of our machines is not. The production, however, is based on the use of fuel sources that release stored CO2. There are fuel sources that do not do that and they are quite abundant. At present the former is cheaper than the latter but that is changing. The cheapest source of the former also happens to be in regions where people live who do not like Western values. They use the revenue from the sale of those hydrocarbons for purposes which I personally consider evil. (I realize I am ignoring coal, but coal creates other problems)
Human beings will never stop producing CO2 to maintain their living processes (although I bet I could generate some off-sets by stop eating lentils). But, we can run our economy in a low-carbon manner and still be just as rich, happy and prosperous. We might even be more secure. All that makes absolutely no difference whether Climate Change science is real or not. It only matters who makes the rules on how to deal with the cult as it now exists and exercises the huge power base it has created.
I wouldn't call them fudge factors. These are what are called finite element models. Gross oversimplification. But they break the atmosphere up into boxes and then treat each box as a point. Then they model the interactions between different points. So for each time step, each box affects the boxes around it and vice versa.
The problem is, they do not understand the physics of a lot of the atmospheric dynamics. So they have to "parameterize" the model. A parameter is a number that you multiply times something or add to something in the model. It doesn't have any particular value; so you have to set it from the known data. There's nothing inherently wrong with this approach, as long as the process of setting it from the data is done in a statistically rigorous manner.
But this is not possible for the global warming models because they need lots of parameters and they don't have much historic data to fit. What data there is is VERY noisy.
As a general rule, the more parameters you have and the more noise you have, the more data you need to fit your parameters in a proper manner. Loosely speaking, when you don't have enough data to do that, you have an "overdetermined" model. Another term we use is that the model is "overfit." There are ways of avoiding overfitting but I see none of them being talked about.
There is a further problem. Nothing about the AGW models is surprising. That is, you can do a pretty good job of fitting the warming data since 1930 with a ruler and a pencil. In other words, any model that predicts global warming will increase fits the data pretty well. The ruler and pencil is a linear equation with only two parameters. You can do a better job than that using solar activity as a predictor, again with few parameters.
As a general principle, if two models do an equally good job of fitting the data and one is simpler, you choose the simpler model--it is more likely to be robust.
A further problem. When the models don't fit the data (the cooling or at least the leveling off of temperature increases since 1998), there is no reexamination of the models by the AGW folks. They just invent new factors that are temporarily 'masking' the effects their models predict. This is exactly what the Copericans did to defend their celestial spheres models of the Solar System. Add more spheres. In effect the AGW folks add more parameters.
Another problem: these are feedback models. Such models usually are exponential--in this case they will predict huge increases in the future. But exponential models start with an effectively linear section. What the AGW folks are doing is fitting the linear section of their models to the known data and then presuming to project into the future using the exponentially increasing portion of the models. Outrageously bad science.
Finally, the only way to actually validate these models is to make a fixed prediction at one point in time that says, given the following inputs, the following will be temperature and we predict that the 95% confidence interval around that prediction is xyz. Then you monitor the model (along with simpler models) over the years. But the AGW models are a moving target. They have new models every couple of months. Even for those, they don't provide rigorous forecasts with confidence levels. But at a more fundamental level, complex models like this need to predict something surprising, something the simpler models do not predict. They need to predict them in advance and then come true. A classic example is Einsteins prediction that mass would bend light waves--something Newtonian physics did not predict. So far, we have seen nothing remotely approaching that.
PS: you explain things well!
WOW, you lead an interesting life!
Well it would once you have redefined "efficiency" to mean something other than low-cost. Thats what a carbon tax or carbon trading is. Noone will trade something (except folks buying smugness or political cover) unless it gains them money. So somewhere, somehow, you have to tax carbon to get there. It won't be called a tax but a tax it will be.
Then there's the administration problem. Once you start to ride that horse, the UN is inevitably sucked in. That makes it highly likely that the UN will end up with a permanent funding source, something I am adamantly opposed to.
My more fundamental objection is that the science behind the evils of human-released carbon is so far, really bad. We might as well have Barbie Dolls Offsets or left foot trading. All three have about the same level of support as a significant contributor to global warming. Any of them could turn out to be a major contributor. But none come close to decent scientific support.
As to the ChiComs, do you really think that, should we impose high cost energy solutions on ourself, the ChiComs would suddenly stop using coal and go to higher cost energy solutions? Their idea is that we cripple ourselves with Green nonsens and they keep using fossil fuels--that's what Kyoto and every other proposal on the books does. Our greens are right there with them. Any solution that requires China to get on board with high cost energy will require a war to impose that on them. I'm not ready to go there until I think there is a significant chance of actual coming catastrophe if we do not.
For those concerned about energy independence (and I count myself among them), the obvious solution here is to start exploiting our coal resources for mobile energy and building up nuclear. Hopefully, someday, solar and other alternatives will become competitive. But they aren't. Any proposal that has America using high-cost alternatives and the Chicoms and India using fossil fuels (which would be the effect of your suggestion) does NOT help us relative to the Chicoms.
Liberals think that history began with their birth.
Other than the fact that British scientists have shown that volcanic activity is warming the Antarctic lakes under the ice shelfs creating a general warming and thinning of the ice shelfs. Outside the area of volcanic activity Antarctic ice is thickening. Can't have it both ways if "Global" warming is the cause.
Note that thin spots in the earth crust over magma flows are now credited with creating warm ice rivers under the Greenland glaciers also.
Good series of posts. I definitely enjoyed your explanation of modelling. Learned a bit.
You made some really good points, but, on a more serious point, I am beginning to wonder what the current market price for a left foot actually would be? Would there be a different value based on size, color, gender, etc.? I would probably want to pay more for an Arab foot, but assume they would be in greater supply than say left feet from Wyoming.
I am also beginning to also imagine a secondary market and derivatives based on crutches. I think I have been living in Germany for too long.
LOL. We'll just have to set up a left-foot trading market and see how the market prices it. Just keep the UN's right or left hand out of my pocket :)
Earth has cooled since 1998 and been flat since 2002. Earth increased slightly from 1950 to 1998 and somewhat from 1975 to 1998.
Lets see.... It is still the tail end of summer down there, so melting ice is normal.
My guess is that within six months we will be hearing about how there has been an unprecedented re-formation of the ice-shelf, just as there has been up north in the Arctic this winter.
Probably a result of the actual “cooling” of deep ocean temps recorded this year.
The "cult" has been completely taken over and is being run by re-tread marxists and ex-communists like Gorbachev. Former founders of organziations like GreenPeace and the AudobonSociety have left because the leftists took them over and moved into politics rather than actual environmental science.
Trying to move them to the center from within is hopeless. Blatant refutation of their junk-science is the only answer. The US is the cleanest country on the planet that has any sizeable population. Instead of others trying to hijack our economy with Kyoto-type treaties, we should demand that other countries adopt our current environmental laws.
That would do far more to improve the environment, and level the "free-trade" playing field at the same time.
GW is nothing but a club invented to beat the US economy over the head with.
When I get home from work, I’m going to reread your reply.
But as I read your statement I’m reminded of a chapter I read some years ago in a book called “Chaos” about a guy named Lorenz and his “butterfly effect”. It seems to me that those AGW folks are about 12 decimal places less accurate than he was talking about.
I have a climate change / climate modelling related question for you:
I have read that climate records that extend back further than 4 million years are irrelevant. Naturally this is coming from the AGW camp who want to ignore that 250 million years ago CO2 levels appear to have been very high.
The basis of this argument (and it does seem plausible) is that 4 million years ago the North and South American continents combined creating a distinct Atlantic and Pacific Ocean and thus dramatically altering global weather patters and therefore the biological carbon cycle.
Then the argument goes on to say that ice core records (only 2 million years worth, but extrapolated to 4 million) do not indicate that the earth has been outside of the 180 - 280 ppm envelope in that time period. Thus to be outside of that envelope is very dangerous.
There are a lot of extrapolations and estimates in this, but the basic premise of the separation of Atlantic and Pacific and limiting back tracking to 4 million years does not seem obsurd to me.
What are your thoughts?
I'm now moving away from my expertise, so take what I say with a grain of salt. I'm a modeler, not a climatologist (of course, a lot of the AGW folks aren't climatologists either).
This particular argument is again about parameters. The AGW folks have, with this argument, just added one or more additional parameters to their models. Call it the "Two Ocean" parameter. This parameter explains away historic data that is inconsistent with the models the same way that the IPCC's "masking factors" explain away 1998-2008.
This AGW's could be right on this--I don't have the expertise to know. What I do know is that, when theories start piling more and more explanatory parameters to make the data fit them, I get mighty suspicious that something other than science is going on.
Perhaps CO2 is historically high, if you ignore the one-ocean time periods. To figure out if this is a scary thing and if we can do anything about it, we have to answer two questions with real evidence.
The questions are: (1) what does high CO2 mean? and (2) are SUV's the cause?
Number 1 that takes us back to my original point. This whole edifice depends on how much you believe the models. Maybe they are wonderful models. But we don't have any empirical evidence worth spitting at that they are, especially when compared with other, simpler models.
Number 2 is even a bigger problem for the AGW modelers. Even the AGW folks admit that mankind is only a tiny contributor to the current level of CO2 (the problem is that if you add up human injected CO2, even with typical green exaggeration, you don't get all that much). So, the argument goes, "Yes, it's only a little but feedback makes man's CO2 the critical component in pushing us past a tipping point."
That means their models are so sensitive that they can detect not just gross CO2 effects, but discern the effect of the tiny percentage change caused by mankind's contribution from the effect of all that other CO2. Not only that, they are so sensitive they can tell when the "tipping point" would be reached and that we would not reach it unless we were driving SUV's.
But the dreaded "tipping point" is just a phase change of some kind or a move in a complex system to a different strange attractor. Such changes are notoriously hard to model because they are complex and depend on the ol' butterfly wings. For example, how can we measure when a hillside of snow turns into an avalanche (there's a lot of work on this issue)? That's a "tipping point" and predicting them is really, really difficult. Hillsides of snow are simple, transparent systems compared to climate. And, we have seen avalanches over and over. We actually know that's a tipping point that exists.
So now their models are so sensitive they can tell that the man-contributed CO2 puts us over a tipping point noone has ever seen or measured. And if their models are that sensitive, why don't we see forecasts from twenty years ago tracking temperature changes accurately?
Either their models are not that sensitive (likely) and/or climate is really noisy (also likely) and/or the bottom up modeling of climate is sufficiently complex that we do not have the physics or the computers to do so yet (typical complex system).
So now we're now back to the beginning. They are asking for control of the world economy to confront a looming catastrophe. But the system they are modeling is too noisy and complex and their models too coarse for us to know if their models are any good. And the evidence of the looming catastrophe exists only in their models. In fact, the evidence of the existence of a 'tipping point,' unlike avalanches, exists only in their models.
Most of them are aware of the paucity of model validation. And that's why you hear about the "precautionary principle." Basically, that means do what Greens want until someone proves they are wrong. But now we are out of the realm of science.
We really have NO idea what the effect of changing an input into a complex system like climate will be. It's perfectly possible that mankind's CO2 is holding off an ice age. Reducing our CO2 could be catastrophic because we would reach an "ice-age tipping point." I have no evidence validating that model. But the notion that there should be some presumption in favor of what Greens want doesn't strike me as having much validity.
BTW, this tipping point stuff is actually an admission by the AGW folks that their models are exponential and that we are still in the linear section of the exponential model. In other words, temperatures are going up in a more or less straight line (the last ten years excepted) today. But when the "tipping point" hits, they'll start going up at an ever increasing rate. So the tipping point argument admits my concern that their validation techniques are only validating the LINEAR portion of their models. Thus, the fact that an exponential model caused by positive feedback is the correct model is completely unvalidated.
Thank you very much! That was perhaps one of the most intelligent, even-handed and rational overviews I have ever read on the subject.
I am going to ping pfony1 on your post beause I think he ( as opposed to she, I presume) will appreciate it too.
If you haven’t encountered him yet, you should. He is one of the sharpest FReepers I have encountered amid the echos. Of course it is more fun and educational to disagree with him.
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