geronimo, For the funniest human quotations, I've often thought Twain, Wilde, and GB Shaw supplied enough to keep us laughing for a few centuries.

michaelhart: And Groucho, my favourite is: "The two most important things in business are honesty and integrity. If you can fake those you won't go far wrong." I guess he had our own "Trougher" in mind.

TinyCO2, I understand now why there was some hesitancy when I showed up. I get it. Chandra, it's not mental acuity I have, but rather an openness to new information presented to me in a rational way. I don't have an ax to grind with anyone, so I'm able to look at the information presented to me and evaluate from there. It's important to note that I came HERE asking questions --- no one came looking for me. If you have a cogent argument, complete with "facts and figures", I'm ready and willing to hear it. In fact, pick anything a previous poster has offered and refute it. I don't say that to throw down a gauntlet, but to show you that should you truly want to make your case, no one would stop you, provided it is done respectfully, and with plenty of documentation.

Can we just exclude from the definition of "documentation" links to Real Climate and "Skeptical Science" as we've all seen it before and know what it is?

Maestra2014, refute something? Ok. In response to your 1st question

> Where do the statistics come that this is the 4th hottest
> year on record, if global temperatures have not increased
> since 1998?

geronimo said:

> They haven't increased statistically, the fourth hottest
> year on record is a way of hiding the pause. 1998 was a
> high, all the following years have been high but not as
> high as 1998.

This is untrue. RealClimate has the rankings of the various temperature indices. All four indices show 2010 as the hottest on record. From this it is clear that your question was based upon a false premise (that temps have not increased since 1998).

In response to your 2nd question

> In your opinions, what is causing the accelerated decline
> of Arctic sea ice?

Simon Hopkinson said:

> Arctic ice extent, rather than being in any kind of "death
> spiral", seems to me to oscillate around the mean ice
> extent since satellite measurements began in 1979.

Arctic ice volume has declined by about 70% since 1979. Please refer to Tamino, towards the bottom of the main text in the link.

and geronimo said:

> I have no idea why the sea ice is declining, go check the
> Danish Meteorological Institute site for temperature
> records above 85 degrees since 1958, there hasn't been a
> noticeable increase in the Arctic.

g first implies that he thinks the ice is declining then says there is no noticable increase (which I presume is true but may not be what he meant) and then gives his definition of the Arctic as being north of 85 degrees, when the Arctic circle is at 66 degrees.

As far as your last question is concerned,

> can anyone address for me the claim that the pause in
> increasing global temps is attributable to heat being
> "swallowed up" by the ocean?

Here's part of what the ever-unreliable g says of that:

> The problem is that (a) the 3000 Argo buoys didn't see
> this heat creeping past them and (b) there has been no
> noticeable increase in ocean heat content (OHC).

The Argo buoys don't measure heat flows so (a) is nonsense. And as for (b), take a look at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Oceanographic Data Center. The graphs certainly show OHC increasing.

I dare say that the usual people will throw ad-hom attacks at RealClimate or Tamino or even NOAA to try to cast doubt upon what they say (and remember, doubt is these commenters' game; spreading doubt is the strategy, just as it has been for disinformation campaigns throughout history), but I hope you will dare to read nevertheless.

It would be nice to get some feedback from you on what you have learned and where you now stand.

Simon Hopkinson said:

> Arctic ice extent, rather than being in any kind of "death
> spiral", seems to me to oscillate around the mean ice
> extent since satellite measurements began in 1979.

Arctic ice volume has declined by about 70% since 1979. Please refer to Tamino, towards the bottom of the main text in the link.

All Tamino demonstrates is that you can use simple statistical techniques to create large, and if you squint hard enough, apparently scary numbers. He says as much, if you read carefully what he writes. But to Tamino, big and scary numbers are not just fun, they're useful.

The period since 1979 is far too short a period to use to draw long-term conclusions. To ask questions is fair enough, but to make pronouncements? No, that's unacceptable.

And it is most especially unacceptable to use terms like an "Arctic death spiral" to describe the trend in the Arctic. Can anyone who uses such terms, in spite of the actual satellite data, be a trusted source? I cannot for a moment imagine so.

And, of course, the Arctic sea ice is not a straight-forward proxy for temperature unless you accept that Antarctic sea ice also such. And if you do, you're confronted with the fact that, since satellite measurements began, GLOBALLY, sea ice is at an all-time high. So, if you want to use the Arctic as an AGW lump hammer, first you have to tell half-truths and cherry pick your hemispheric evidence, and second you have to make the leap that the changes are in fact anthropogenic.

So, Chandra, if you think you've made a compelling argument then think again. You still have a lot of work to do, including some serious house cleaning.

Until very recently 1998 was the warmest year in all of the series barring GISS. UAH and RSS still put 1998 way out in front. HadCRUT3 marginally put 1998 in front but even HadCRUT4 shows that 1997/1998 was substantial and only beaten by 2006. GISS has almost identical peaks at 1997/1998, 2002, 2006 and 2010. with 2006 being fractionally the greatest.

Why the differences? Well UAH and RSS are created from satellite measurements and after a few teething problems seem to give fairly uncomplicated results. HadCRUT and GISS are made up of a patchwork of temperature stations. No temperature station on the planet that I know of is used from the start of its data to the end. Some seem to pop into GISS for a few years and then are dropped. The reasoning is that station data is not always accurate. Fair enough, UHI and all that. Unfortunately GISS (GHCN or NOAA might also have a hand) in particular are always adjusting those stations and even the data from them years, even many decades, after those readings were taken. The result has been a curious cooling of the past and an apparent warming of the present.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/18/hansens-nasa-giss-cooling-the-past-warming-the-present/

Now, we can’t say if those adjustments are necessary… mainly because there appears to be no record of changes made or why. One of the changes is to add more Arctic temperature stations and this probably explains the difference between HadCRUT3 and 4. Unfortunately Artic stations are amongst the most adjusted.

http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2012/03/11/ghcn-temperature-adjustments-affect-40-of-the-arctic/

Sure all those changes may be the right thing to do, even those that directly contradict local weather organisations.

http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2012/01/25/how-giss-has-totally-corrupted-reykjaviks-temperatures/

I’m not claiming foul play, it’s just ‘lucky’ that all that fiddling manages to squeeze tiny amounts of warming into the global series so that people like Chandra can claim that 1998 wasn’t the high point in global warming.

My view of Arctic ice.

Consider the end of the last ice age. Ice sheets had retreated but not vanished. The Arctic basin was probably full of extremely deep ice for thousands of years, despite warm temperatures. Glaciers from the land would have continued to pump thick blocks into an already crammed space. Even then, eventually the ice on the land and the cold of winter couldn’t keep the basin full and eventually the area saw ice free summers.

From a position where the basin is ice free in the summer all the ice has to form each winter. At that thickness the ice is very mobile and the ice does not mostly melt in the Artic, it flows out of the Fram Straight and the Canadian Archipelago as and when the wind is in the right direction, which is often. This ice flow continues all year round. On a ‘good’ year the winds are favourable and some of the ice remains and gets thicker in the winter.

Every so often there was a cooling episode where for decades or hundreds of years it was cool enough for the ice to expand more than it shrank, even in a ‘bad’ year. Ice shelves grew along the Canadian Island and Greenland. The Channels become blocked and only the Fram Straight is open to mass flow and even that would have been restricted due to narrowing. Bigger and bigger blocks form that are harder to move around and shatter. Everything slows down until probably most of it is in too large a quantity to flow out of the Fram straight. Because it’s not flowing out of the Arctic it just sits there getting thicker. There’s probably a maximum based on ocean temperature and snow fall rates.

We are just exiting one of the coldest and longest periods in the last 10,000 years. Ice was probably at its maximum since the Holocene Optimum where it all melted. Glaciers were replenished. Ice shelves had grown. But once temperatures reached a certain point the Arctic started shrinking. Initially it would have been largely invisible. Who would have noticed if the Arctic ice was 5m thick or 10m? There are maps to show some of the decline in area but not the overall ‘health’ of the ice. The thinner the ice got, the easier it was for large areas to break into more mobile blocks.

http://hidethedecline.eu/pages/posts/arctic-sea-ice-data-collected-by-dmi-1893-1961-259.php

Then along came the cooling of the 50s, 60s and 70s and the melting stopped and ice started to grow again but at the end it wasn’t as robust as in say 1850 when the LIA ended.

Then the warming started, along with our satellite images of the Arctic. Thickness measurements are relatively recent but ice was probably thinning throughout the whole time, with the odd ‘good’ year when the winds kept the ice in the basin. One by one the ice shelves melted or broke off and the obstructions for ice movement declined. We are at the point where summer ice melt and continuous flow out of the Artic exceed the refreeze in the winter. From time to time we have a 'good' year.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/02/05/cryosat-shows-arctic-sea-ice-volume-up-50-from-last-year/

Whether this might continue is unknown but if temperatures remain at this level or increase, I think it’s possible we could see an ice free late summer following a few ‘bad’ years. But the ice could refreeze to this level after only a few favourable years. It might be that temperatures have to rise further before the Arctic would be regularly ice free during the summer.

Does it matter? Well polar bears aside, the main scare (aka tipping point) was that an ice free Arctic would act as a boost for warming. However 2007 saw ice levels that were decades ahead of the ice models in retreat and the subsequent years have been similar but there has been no attendant warming. Another scare theory bites the dust.

Mike, I think that 1934 number was for the US only.

Mike Jackson
Steve Goddard regularly posts comparisons between the various versions of various datasets. Also good source of old "we're all doomed" newspaper reports from the past.

Thank for your reply Chandra I'll try to address it in terms that are clear for you: the temperatures haven't increased statistically since 1998, which is why the cliscis are now backing away from "statistically significant" as having any meaning. There have been no statistically significant changes since 1998 means that the temperatures are within the bounds of natural variability and are neither increasing or decreasing. It doesn't matter whether 2010 was warmer than 1998 what matters is that over the period, smoothed annually the temperatures haven't increase statistically i.e outside the bounds of natural variability. In fact taken on a wider scale, and assuming that the proxies are reasonably correct temperatures over the last 2 millennia haven't increased outside the natural variability according the Doug Keenan. He may be right. Or wrong. If you want to know about statistical significance go to Wikipedia, there's a good explanation there for people not strong mathematically.

I do believe the sea ice is declining, if not in area then in mass because that's what the people who measure it are telling me.

Similarly the DMI are measuring temperatures above 85 degrees ( think, maybe 80, can't remember, but if you want to score some useless points look up go to google and find the site) when you look at their temperature records since 1958, they're pretty steady. So I believe one set of scientist who tell me the mass is decreasing, yet I'm expected to not believe another set of scientists who tell me the temperatures haven't risen since 1958? Is that what you want?

In any event the presence, or absence, of Arctic sea ice tells us nothing because it's well known outside climate science that the sea ice has waxed an waned over the recent past.

Bit puzzled by your assertion that the Arctic Circle is at 66 degrees, which it is, and which also means that anything above 66 degrees, like 80 degrees, is in the Arctic. Get it?

The rise in OHC is miniscule, using joules makes it look massive, and I'm not sure that anyone can measure Joules other than by proxy, but lots of them cause a very small increase in temperature too small to be measured by the Argo buoys. Which is, of course what I meant by the "heat creeping past them" i.e. the temperatures measured by the Argo buoys haven't increased. (statistically that is), but then you knew that.

I am interested in the theory that this heat will come out to bite us, and can't say I've understand the physics being used to predict this phenomenon. Notwithstanding the ocean oscillations etc. it would seem to me that the heat will dissipate itself in the ocean in accordance with the second law of thermodynamics. It's complex Chandra, but basically any body will try to get itself into thermal equilibrium, by which I mean that the exchange of photons between itself and the nearest bodies are equal. In order for the heat to leave the oceans, if it is indeed absorbed in them, then it seems to me, and I stand to be corrected (not by you Chandra, but by someone with a grasp of physics rather than a belief in their own phsyco-analysis skills) but there can be no heat to leave the oceans except when the atmosphere above them is lower in temperature. So it seems to me that the heat, when it does leave the oceans, will come out in an orderly fashion and is not cause for concern. Of course I could be wrong, but anyone can be wrong, cliscis too, when you're tryin to foretell the future behaviour of a coupled non-linear chaotic system.

So there you are Chandra (are you a relative of Millie's?) nothing very clever I'm just looking at the same evidence and asking how cliscis can believe they can foretell the future behaviour beyond what's being observed.

Steve Goddard does some great work but he's quite political (in more areas than climate) and it's best to let people get familiar with the more moderate sceptics before they explore further. A bit like looking at Climate of Doom before you try to post at Romm's Climate Progress.

he did stick to his word and bugger off for good

how odd, whenever one disappears another emerges, same tactics, sources and attitude. I bet the site logs tell a story.

I think Chandra is for real, definitely of Indian origin at least, and likely to be high caste given the tone and delivery of his emails.

On the other hand he could be from Barnsley and a cousin BBD's for all I know. Uncertainty, uncertainty where would life be without it?

HaroldW, we have the perhaps unreliable word of little-g geronimo that skeptics agree that extra CO2 causes an energy imbalance (but maybe you don't). That means they accept that heat will accumulate until that energy imbalance is gone. Unless they also think that the oceans do not accumulate the majority of that imbalance, which would be most odd given the extent of the oceans, they must concur that the accumlated heat is going largely into the oceans. In other words, increasing OHC is a given. OHC is also shown to be rising in the graphs at the NOAA link I gave you - are NOAA wrong?

Simon Hopkinson, the only person to mention a "death spiral" up to now has been you. Tamino didn't create those large numbers, they are in the data. Arctic ice volume has declined by 70% since 1979.

> The period since 1979 is far too short a period to use to
> draw long-term conclusions

You introduced that period to say that

> Arctic ice extent, rather than being in any kind of "death
> spiral", seems to me to oscillate around the mean ice
> extent since satellite measurements began in 1979.

The only "oscilation" in that period is that caused by winter freezing and summer melting. The trend in volume is down strongly.

> GLOBALLY, sea ice is at an all-time high

An "all-time" high? Er, what about the last glaciation. A bit higher, I think. Your assertion is also meaningless without saying whether you are talking of volume of extent. As Arctic volume is down so strongly, you cannot credibly mean volume. So presumably you mean sea ice extent. Does that actually mean something? Seeing as Arctic extent is at a max when Antarctic sea ice is somewhere near a minimum, and as the whole of each pole freezes in winter, it seems unlikely.

TinyCO2, Maestra2014 was asking about surface temperature measurements (I assume so, as these are the ones for which 2013 has been said to be 4th warmest etc). Hadley and GISS measure surface temps; UAH/RSS don't. Pouring doubt on temperature records is of course the bread and butter of climate science "skepticism", as is measuring trends from exceptional years and thinking your trends have any validiy.

> We are just exiting one of the coldest and longest periods
> in the last 10,000 years. Ice was probably at its maximum
> since the Holocene Optimum where it all melted. Glaciers
> were replenished...

Oh beautiful! A skeptic who doesn't believe measurements of the last 50 years but can be sure of temperatures over the last 10,000 years. You should go into writing fairytales, you have talent.

Little-g, so you know that there is an energy imbalance and that the amount of energy involved is huge; and you know, I think, that most of the resulting excess energy is absobed by the oceans; so you presumably know that the oceans are warming. Yet you think OHC is not rising. Hmm. You also know that the Arctic lies above 66 degrees north and that the Arctic ice is melting, having lost 70% by volume in 30 years. But you are confused because (eyeballing?) the air temperatures in that little part of the Arctic above 85 north measured by your DMI do not show a change. In little-g world, Arctic ice should only melt if air temps above 85 north decline. And you think I would believe that you understand anything about statistical significance or the laws of thermodynamics? Dream on!

Chandra "Oh beautiful! A skeptic who doesn't believe measurements of the last 50 years but can be sure of temperatures over the last 10,000 years. You should go into writing fairytales, you have talent."

Where did I say I didn't believe ALL the measurements of the last 50 years? I think they're vaguely right, I think it's possible to tell very cold eras from very warm but it's those tiny fractions of a degree, hammered into the thermometer record, that are extrapolated into the future I have a problem with. It's all a bit hit and miss. A computer program as complex as a climate model needs utra accurate data and let's face it, we haven't got it.