back to article Arctic summer ice cover is 31st highest ever recorded

It's that time of year when the sea ice in the Arctic shrinks to its annual minimum, and it appears that this year's figure is most probably in. It's the 31st largest minimum extent on record, as it happens, which isn't especially newsworthy as reliable records only go back 35 years. It's a lot more fashionable to report this …

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  1. Your alien overlord - fear me

    North West Passage open? Is that NASA speaking out of the side of their mouth?

    1. Sykobee

      I think Lewis is talking about his backside after eating a hot warming curry.

  2. nsld

    Popcorn ready, beanbag ready

    cue the guardianista's in 5,4,3,.........

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Popcorn ready, beanbag ready

      Yes, Lewis knows just how to push every button of the followers of the CAGW religion.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Popcorn ready, beanbag ready

        Perhaps 'Citizens Against Government Waste' is a religion, but followers of 'catastrophic anthropogenic global warming' are members of a cult.

        Just look at their propaganda which appeals to emotion and fear, not rational thought.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    This again?

    Lewis Page yesterday: You can't trust so-called records that go back a long way, nobody was there to see it!

    Lewis Page today: You can't trust records that don't go back a long way, that's hardly any time at all!

    There's no conceivable evidence that will make a difference to Page and his cheerleaders, is there?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Boffin

      Re: This again?

      Facts are optional in Pageworld. The way he phrases stuff you'd think observation in the Arctic only started recently.

      The first major effort by Europeans to study the meteorology of the Arctic was the First International Polar Year (IPY) in 1882 to 1883. Eleven nations provided support to establish twelve observing stations around the Arctic.

      Page and Orlowski are shredding the Register's credibility in several areas with their personal soap box rants.

      1. tony72

        Re: This again?

        At least Lewis doesn't reject all comments critical of his stance, he gets a little credit for that.

        1. Paul Shirley

          Re: Lewis doesn't reject all comments critical of his stance

          Have to cover the paucity of the claims with some vigorously encouraged SHOUTING.

      2. Sapient Fridge

        Re: This again?

        The denial of climate change in the face of peer reviewed science and events that are obvious to everyone puts everything that The Register publishes into doubt. Perhaps their tech articles have the same bias and lack of fact checking that their climate change articles do?

      3. Vendicar Decarian1

        Re: This again?

        I've generally stopped reading the Register because Page and Orlowski are so stupid.

        The fact that the Register keeps publishing their idiocy tells me that much of what comes from the Register can't be trusted.

    2. Ragarath

      Re: This again? @AC

      Sigh, you disagree great, stand up and be counted? Counter his argument with yours that is what gets debate going. You know different people have different views.

      Please counter that is is a statistically insignificant amount of data that we currently have? Again show me the links I need to see to view your side of the argument so I can make an informed decision.

      All you're doing here is commenting on the person, not the ideas.

      1. Little Mouse
        Headmaster

        Re: This again?

        Or maybe the persona. It would appear that there's money to be made in poking easily-offended people with a sharp stick.

        1. hplasm
          Happy

          Re: This again?

          "there's money to be made in poking easily-offended people with a sharp stick."

          Your ideas intrigue me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter. As long as it doesn't contain noisy ads."

          1. Little Mouse

            Re: This again?

            "he gets a little credit for that"

            Lewis is OK in my book. (Though I prefer his earlier fuinnier stuff about military contracts and bombs and shit)

            For those that want it, these articles always provide food for thought, and over-the-top opinions for those that don't. Lewis is a professional journo who is well aware that his audience are, for the most part, reasonably intelligent people who are capable of forming their own opinions, yet he's writing about a polarising subject where common sense all too often takes a back seat.

            It's impossible to approach this subject without some personal bias - same as with religion. And the fact that Lewis does so with such a heavy bias tells me that he's simply playing to the audience. Sure, he believes what he's saying (the personal bias), but it's the way that he's saying it that I always take to be a bit of an in-joke. And one that we are all in on.

            Except some people obviously aren't.

            1. dotdavid
              Black Helicopters

              Re: This again?

              "Sure, he believes what he's saying (the personal bias), but it's the way that he's saying it that I always take to be a bit of an in-joke"

              Wait, does this apply to all El Reg's articles?! Is the Rise of the Machines not imminent after all?! I'm shocked!

            2. TheOtherHobbes

              Re: This again?

              >It's impossible to approach this subject without some personal bias

              Yes there is. There's this thing called "science" which was invented to minimise personal bias and stop humans believing in stupid shit that causes harm to themselves and others.

              Lewis can believe whatever he likes. Anyone who knows the fact also knows he's talking bollocks and playing the selective quoting game - which is fine, if you like that kind of thing, and think species extinction is a bit of a larf, innit.

              What less fine is an online pub like The Reg - which is supposed to be about tech - aggressively pushing indefensible kooky crank positions as if they're just as informed and useful as something by (say) Trevor Pott, who actually does know what he's talking about.

              And that's not just because it's wrong - it's because it's an opportunity missed to go all the way and run anti-vaccination and lizard people conspiracy pieces as well.

              1. Sirius Lee

                Re: This again?

                Then stop whining and post up the evidence you have. Are you saying that the passages were not open 70 years ago or that they were but for some reason other then anthropogenic reasons? Are you saying that the Antarctic is not gaining ice at the moment or that it, again, it is but for another reason? Are you stating the AMO is not changing? Are you stating the much anticipated increase in global temperatures predicted by the likes of Michael Mann at the beginning of the century did occur despite the observed hiatus?

                Personally, I feel there may be an anthropogenic component to long term climate change but on a system as massive and complex as the atmosphere and oceans on Earth which change over generations, surely only a fool would be on only one side of the argument while so little significant data is in.

      2. Indolent Wretch

        Re: This again? @AC

        To counter the authors lack of any sense on this matter the simple fact that the data indicates the 4th lowest figure is in no way insignificant.

        It depends entirely on the data itself, for all I know the 3 worse figures were all only marginally worse, all in the last 5 years, and all way off the far side of the graph.

        To say it's insignificant for the reasons he is using is somewhere between stupidly lazy and f*cking dishonest.

        1. Sykobee

          Re: This again? @AC

          "for all I know the 3 worse figures were all only marginally worse, all in the last 5 years"

          This year's is basically equal 3rd off.

          2nd worst was 2007, not much difference.

          Worst was 2012. By a lot.

          AFAICS the worst 8 years all occurred in the past 8 years.

        2. GX5000

          Re: This again? @AC

          Coverage ? What was the depth ?

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: This again? @AC

        The whole point is that there is no debate to be had with the likes of Page. Every little scrap of evidence for his cause is trumpeted, every mountain against is disparaged as unreliable or corrupt.

        If you really want to see my "side of the argument" and make an informed decision you would know that there is overwhelming agreement among those that are actually "informed" what the "decision" is.

        In brief, there are no "ideas" here; so all that's left is to comment on the person.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          @AC

          Lewis doesn't need to post all the articles in the other direction, because most everyone else is busy posting them. No point in spending time writing the same stories everyone else does.

          You can argue that's wrong, that he's biased, and so forth, but either you think he's doing it because he's chasing clicks (in which case you fell into his trap) or he's trying to brainwash people into believing like he does (in which case you're wasting your time reading this article, because you're already brainwashed in the other direction)

          He may go off the deep end with some of his stuff, but it is hard to argue that the idea that headlines like "4th lowest ice extent ever" that don't point out the records in this case go back a mere 35 years, is as much propaganda in the pro-AGW direction as his articles are in the anti.'

          And that's the problem, both sides are trying to sell their goods and conveniently leave out the "inconvenient truths" that don't point in their direction. Does Lewis leave out a lot of stuff in his articles that don't support his position? Damn straight, but if you think that's not true for articles that support the opposite position, you're brainwashed rather than thinking critically.

          I used to be a pretty strong believer in the pro-AGW side until I learned more about how severely the temperature records are adjusted - and always mysteriously down in the past and up more recently. That really disturbs me, and if you are willing to overlook or dismiss that you are as close minded as those who think it is all a hoax by people who can make a buck off 'green' technologies. I badly would like to see results that are COMPLETELY unadjusted to see what they look like but they do not exist - in fact adjustments are being done on previously adjusted data which only makes the problem worse.

      4. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: This again? @AC

        Different people do have different views, but when one of those people decide to publish their views as fact, that becomes a different story.

    3. hplasm
      Meh

      Re: This again?

      "There's no conceivable evidence..."

      That seems to be the problem with all of this AGW stuff.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: This again?

        When people insist on inserting the term 'Athropogenic' before 'Global Warming' and then use that distorted terminology to discount actual measurable global warming altogether, then we begin to have a real problem on our hands ... lets stick to the science and leave media hype and conjecture out of it.

    4. Daggerchild Silver badge
      Unhappy

      Re: This again?

      This all makes me has a sad. Things I do not want in my IT news data sources: Preachers whipping up hordes of believers and sending them off to savage environmental scientists.

      When I want to check up on the latest in logical arts, I don't want it to come with free despair-in-my-species. I get *plenty* of that from the day-job.

      As a general rule, geeks don't like visiting websites that depress them. What audience demographic is the reg seeking to acquire, and lose? Is it all about page views and upvotes now? Is that what we're becoming?

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: This again?

      I think if the Northwest Passage had been as open as in recent years *at any time since the settlement of North America*, we'd know about it.

      We don't need carefully curated cave paintings from Stone Age Nova Scotia to tell us that something's up.

    6. Sirius Lee

      Re: This again?

      @F^&%in' AC. Yes, the basic point is that there is not enough reliable data to make statistically significant statements. Whether that is because the longer records are not sufficiently robust or because the robust records are not sufficiently great in number it doesn't matter. They are not yet adequate. But just in with your anonymous comment and show that the there really is no debate to be had because you have made up your mind on an emotional not factual basis.

      And while you complain you make no attempt to explain how the passages Lewis mentions could have been open 70 years ago if lower summer minimums was a new problem caused by our activities.

      I have a teenage son who, when trying to defend some indefensible action of his, rather than back down and accept his actions were indefensible tries to pick out some point of my position that might not be 100% backed by evidence and use it to nix the whole case against him. Now he is a teenager and teenagers are not known for the rigour of their thought processes. I presume you are an adult and deserve to be held to a higher standard. So why use a juvenile gambit like this?

    7. Vendicar Decarian1

      Re: This again?

      No scientific evidence will convince denialist morons like Page.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: This again?

        Attacking the messenger in this crude manner is the classic technique of a cult member.

  4. Emmeran

    The climate changes

    Climate change is a fact and always has been. On the same token making a monstrous mess just to earn a few dollars is incredibly rude behavior.

    End of day we need to clean up our act regardless.

    Oh and never buy property below the 700 year flood line.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: The climate changes

      Someone better tell all those billionaires in London that are extending their properties downwards to include diving pools, car museums, etc. Shame they can't afford to get informed advice.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: The climate changes

        Luckily someone does, they are called engineers, and lots of the lucrative dosh gets spent waterproofing and pumping, and then the government spent your tax pounds (not their pounds, they of course pay tax on Monaco sea defences) on embankments and a Thames Barrier.

        And what's the ratio of millionaire environmentalists to millionaire oil magnates. As far as I have seen there is more Russian or Arabic been spoken than Tuvaluese?

  5. Sammy Smalls

    Yeah yeah. We get it. No smoking gun. Again.

    The science is constantly being refined, but we have to work with what we have. We may also have to accept there may not be a smoking gun moment within a timeframe that allows the science to catch up and for us to not have broken things irrevocably in the mean time.

    Do you think that we can endlessly pollute (with whatever the pollutant may be, CO2 for the sake of argument) with no consequence? Is it worth taking the chance?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      with whatever the pollutant may be, CO2 for the sake of argument

      CO2 is definitely NOTa pollutant. It is a plant food and responsible for the greening of the planet including the extra greening of the Sahel.

      1. Indolent Wretch

        Water isn't a pollutant either. Let's try filling your lungs with both in turn and see how you get on.

        Definition: A pollutant is a substance or energy introduced into the "environment" that has undesired effects...

        Too much CO2 introduced into the environment and we end up like Venus.... I said that was pretty undesired.

        1. Fading

          No we won't

          There is zero chance of ending up like Venus (well until we are both engulfed by the Sun as it Red-giants as the hydrogen is depleted). The Earth is a water planet - the water exists in all three states. That buffers the temperature of the Earth - total energy with the Earth's system can only be determined when you know the ratio of vapour to liquid to solid H2O. This will adapt if there is more energy or less energy (until ice ball earth) keeping the temperature fairly stable.

          CO2 can only theoretically have an effect where there isn't any H2O - (especially with the overlap in IR absorption spectra)

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: No we won't

            Agree re Venus, but you are wrong on your basic physics. CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and you can quantitatively measure its contribution to energy balances through spectroscopy.

            It may well be that Earth has a limited range of climate, but living at either extreme of that range is likely to be uncomfortable.

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: No we won't

            ... won't turn out like Venus heh? Hope your math on that is solid. Hate to condemn an entire planet based on faulty calculations.

          3. Anonymous Coward
            Boffin

            Venus

            The whole Venus thing is interesting. It's a nice first-year physics problem to produce entirely naive estimates of what the surface temperatures of the (non-gas-giant) planets should be, just assuming that they are black bodies, and knowing the distance from the Sun, and either working out based on the solar constant or looking up the power output of the Sun.

            The answers are pretty good: you get about 278K for Earth (5.5C) which is right within a surprisingly good margin. And you can do the other non-gas-giant planets and they're OK as well (within a few percent, which is amazing considering how naive the estimation is).

            Except Venus, where you predict 328K (55C) but the actual temperature is 735K: more than twice as high (Venus is hotter than Mercury).

            Well, clearly whatever is doing that has nothing to do with water, since there's no significant water on the other planets either. So it must be something else.

            (I'm not suggesting Earth will end up like Venus!)

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        philip@lembobrothers.com

        No, in high enough concentrations it's a POISON.

        Check out Mars or Venus, for example.

        Or just go Google "asthma" and "bus depot" to find out how the NYC MTA impacted the environment in East Harlem. Take that effect to its extremes in places like downtown Bejing or even the whole planet once we're done converting all the shale oil up in Canada and other places into carbon.

        The question I always ask climate deniers when I get the chance is, "What's in it for you?" "Why are you defending these guys?"

        Easy to understand why an oil company CEO or corrupt politician would continually side with the deniers, a bit harder to comprehend when it's people who aren't on the dole. Or maybe it's just another case of massive wishful thinking.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: philip@lembobrothers.com

          "in high enough concentrations it's a POISON."

          As are water, oxygen, curry, beer....

          1. MD Rackham

            Re: philip@lembobrothers.com

            I probably dump millions of tons of curry into the atmosphere each year, at least after it's been metabolized to methane.

            Too bad methane is a worse greenhouse gas than CO2.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: philip@lembobrothers.com

          The question I always ask climate deniers when I get the chance is, "What's in it for you?" "Why are you defending these guys?"

          I think you are totally missing the point.

          Now to answer your questions: 1) The only thing in it for me is to not see my tax money poured down the drain supporting unnecessary useless projects. 2) I am not defending anybody but I will support those that demand that the climate scientists show their actual data and how they manipulated it to get the results they did and also I uphold the request that the computer models be properly validated by people outside the climate change bubble.

          As far as I know there are very few people that outright deny that the climate is changing. In fact it always does and always will. What a lot of us do question is the panic doom and gloom pronouncements made by climate scientists based on unproven computer models and homogenised faked figures. Non of these pronouncements have ever come to pass so they now talk of them happening in several hundred years time when, hopefully, everyone will have forgotten them.

          Now, in return, I ask you a question. 'Can you prove to an engineer or a physicist that climate change is going to be the end of the world, or is it a belief system?'

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: philip@lembobrothers.com

            But why do you get so uptight about your tax money going on climate change? In proportion to overall Government spending it's hardly big bucks - probably on a par with 'subsidies to billionaire football teams' or the Hose of Lord' s canteen champagne account - do you get equally riled by them?

            And do you demand the same openness in other sources of models and data with much bigger expenditures and less openness (OBR and OECD 'forecasts' for example). If not why not? You know you can get at all the climate data, and no one is stopping you running/developing/copying the climate model codes?

            And to answer your question - no, because the world will be fine. But not doing anything to avoid the consequences of climate change is likely to cost us more in the medium term than we 'save' in the short term. We are like children doing the marshmallow test (look it up) . Do we want one sweetie today, or are we far sighted enough to control our desires a bit for a better tomorrow?

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            The actual data

            So you 'support those that demand that the climate scientists show their actual data and how they manipulated it to get the results they did and also I uphold the request that the computer models be properly validated by people outside the climate change bubble.'

            Well, of course the actual data is available, as are the sources to the models and their configurations. Often they are not quite open source – UM (the Met Office model) for instance is used for NWP as well and so is not completely open source. But anyone who is interested can sign whatever license agreement is involved (which won't involve money) and can then look at it and review the code, and I'm sure they would be very happy for people to do that.

            But, somehow, climate sceptics never do, which is odd. You could be the first!

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: The actual data

              I have seen supposed raw data. I can state categorically that it has been modified. So no, you can not see the original raw data.

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: The actual data

                So, let's get this right:

                – you have seen the supposed raw data;

                – which you know has been modified secretly;

                – but the actual raw data is unavailable.

                So, well, how do you know it has been modified? And are you, really, claiming that people are modifying the data and then removing the original data and that you can prove this (without the original data being available any more, because all trace of it has been removed).

                And who is doing this? Is it the space lizards again?

      3. GrumpenKraut

        > It is a plant food...

        The movie Idiocracy was fiction, not science.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Do you think that we can endlessly pollute?

      What a strange question. CO2 is not a pollutant,.

      Its part of the life cycle of this planet.

      That you use a pejorative term like pollutant says all I need to know about your bigotry and prejudice.

      1. Sammy Smalls

        Re: Do you think that we can endlessly pollute?

        Ah, play the man if you cant play the facts Mr AC....

        Yes, CO2 is part of the life cycle of the planet. However, that doesnt mean it isn't a pollutant. Any substance that occurs in a concentration or form that adversely effects the environment into which it is introduced is a pollutant. CO2 has even been shown to adversely effect photosynthesis in concentrations that could exist atmostpherically.

        So, not pejorative really is it? Bigot? Prejudiced? Give me some facts and I'll consider them.

        Do you really think we can just pump out CO2 and everything will be just fine? Why dont you try 1% CO2 in a sealed room for a few days, and see how you feel? Maybe you already have.

  6. pjclarke

    Amundsen used a smallish fishing boat with a tiny draft,to get through he had to use routes where the water depth was < 1m, and it took him 2 winters.

    And the Manhattan was the biggest icebreaker in history, a little fact a serious and credible journalist might think worth inserting into an article about sea ice.LOL.

    Next year a luxury liner is scheduled to make the trip ...

    1. Hollerith 1

      I thought cherry-picking was against the rules

      First we can't allow scientists to use tree-rings except for tightly local information, then we can go back to one or two years over a century ago and use that to extrapolate, and in each case the weather is not changing, and certainly not due to human efforts, or the weather is changing but it's not ever going to threaten humans, or the weather is changing but that's what weather does and we really mustn't be concerned because reasons.

      The commentards then wade in at how lucrative it is to be a climate chnage scientist and that anyone not supporting their views are talking 'common sense', and anyone supporting the climate change scientific community are branding as muesli-treading lefties.

      So it seems that now is he time to stop reading any article on El Reg that has anything to do with climate. I am neither informed nor edified, nor can I join a rational debate.

    2. This post has been deleted by its author

    3. Grikath

      To counter your counter:

      Almost all "smallish fishing boats" of the day ( and even quite a few modern ones ) are shallow-draft. This may have a reason, y'know?

      And yes.. taking an icebreaker, or in the case of the pre-steam efforts: a heavily reinforced hull, through those passages is simply common sense. "Open" is not the same as "clear sailing" there, and large ( and at speed even some not-so-large..) chunks of floating ice are still good for some decent wear-and-tear on your hull if you're not careful.

      And there are luxury liners that do sail into similar waters, actually. A bit of Googling gives you a nice set of choices for the Arctic in summer.

    4. James Micallef Silver badge

      "Amundsen used a smallish fishing boat with a tiny draft,to get through he had to use routes where the water depth was < 1m"

      Huh??? colour me confused, but surely a boat with a tiny draft can use any route where water depth is >1m, not <1m. And surely a supertanker with much larger draft has to stay in deeper water and have more limited choice of route.

      That phrase would however make sense if you replaced "water depth" by "ice thickness"

      1. pjclarke

        ?? A smaller-draft boat has more route choices, so could avoid the ice. To amplify the point, a kayak is less sensitive to the presence of ice than a tanker.

        The point is, the Amundsen comparison is disingenous, the passage was declared 'fully navigable' in 2007, which it certainly was not in 1906.

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Next year a luxury liner is scheduled to make the trip ...

      Is that going to be a replay of the fate of the 'scientists' that got stuck in the ice in the Antarctic?

    6. Voland's right hand Silver badge

      That is not all

      Russia using the _WHOLE_ route to the Pacific Ocean for international trade is news and is not the common use pattern.

      Most of their arctic shipping goes as far as Tiksi, because the pattern is - deliver by an icebreaker convoy to a port at the river delta, move the cargo there to/form river barges and ship up/down one of the gigantic rivers that span the tundra to mining and industrial settlements (usually on the river) further south. The last river which is usable for commercial navigation going East is Lena which is frozen long enough in the year to require special river nuclear icebreakers.

      The part between Lena and the Chukotka peninsula is generally not in use. On top of that, it is the part where the ice tends to pile up till late summer so you really want a nuclear monster to lead the convoy and most of these are busy providing shipping to/from the big river deltas. So while Russians have had the capability to sail anywhere in the arctic for decades, they have not made use of it for commercial shipping from the far East to Europe.

  7. Ilmarinen

    Yada yada yada

    Still, in the overwhelming miasma of greenist propaganda leading up to the November Climate Jamboree, it is good to have a contrary view published.

    I will soooo laugh if unseasonable snow disrupts their Paris scare-fest

    Cue the swarm of cowardly anonymous doomsayers...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Yada yada yada

      If recognising that climate change is real makes me a doomsayer so be it.But wasn't it only 2 months ago that LP happily trumped a slight upwards blip in 2013 as evidence that new upwards trend was established? So now we see that in 2014 and 2015 sea ice extent is dropping it would only be honest for LP to accept a new downward trend.

      and remember children - it's not just extent - its volume, and quality. This year ice was thin enough that a 'medium-duty' ice breaker (not one of the big Russian nuclear powered ones) could crunch through to the North Pole.

  8. jason 7

    Hey how about...

    ...actually getting off our collective arses and cleaning up some actual pollution instead of sitting around at plush, all expenses paid conferences, arguing over climate prediction models and spreadsheets?

    You'd think people were making a lot of money out of climate change...

    Climate Change - Making it look like you are helping to protect the planet without actually having to do anything.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Hey how about...

      Hmm, a 50,000 person conference, on a major global issue. How many people went to Offshore Oil and Technology 2015 - 94,700! basically the meeting will draw fewer attendees than a B grade UK pop festival. Its the same size as 'World of Concrete 2016' - though obviously they really know how to party.

  9. Lars Silver badge
    Flame

    Just sayin'

    Lets stop polluting the air, it wasn't good for us yesterday it's not good for us today and it's no good in the future either. Should we not send all those "decision makers" or was it "job creators" to China for some time.

  10. Zog_but_not_the_first
    Boffin

    The day the earth caught fire

    I was fascinated by a recent article on the 'oic era (I forget which) when the oxygen content was much higher (~30%) allowing the development of giant insects and other diffusion controlled respirators such as arthropods.

    Evidently, the fossil record points to massive, MASSIVE, forest fires planet-wide (no surprise really). This would make it pretty 'ot at ground level but nothing to compare with the sun's impact on earth's climate. However, it would have put shedloads of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Was this accompanied by a concurrent rise in temperature through greenhouse effects?

    And yes, I'm too lazy to research it myself.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: The day the earth caught fire

      I can't speak for the particular case you're talking about, but I think there is increasing evidence that a lot of mass-extinction events have been warming-related catastrophes. In particular the Deccan Traps released a really enormous amount of greenhouse gases during their formation and there's at least some evidence that this may have contributed to the K-Pg extinction (ie the extinction of the non-avian dinosours). I think the current notion is that it was a combination between warming because of this and a big meteorite strike.

  11. Sykobee

    Hmm.

    Sea ice extent: http://iwantsomeproof.com/extimg/sie_annual_polar_graph.png and https://ads.nipr.ac.jp/vishop/data/graph/Sea_Ice_Extent_N_prev_v2_L.png

    And regarding ice volume: https://sites.google.com/site/arctischepinguin/home/piomas/grf/piomas-trnd2.png

    Lewis is so unbiased it's unfunny, but it's actually just turning the register into another disclose.tv or national enquirer type of rag.

    Luckily he is easy to disprove, but he never takes it on board. Basically, a troll. The Register should be above it.

    1. Ilmarinen

      Hmm.

      @ Sykobee

      piomas-trnd2.png - why would you want to fit an *exponential* trend to only 35 years of data (unless you were just trying to make a scary point)?

      And we know that ice comes and goes, unbidden, all by itself:

      "The Arctic ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot" - Monthly Weather Review, November 1922

      You can see data at the "Cryosphere Today" site http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/

      Doesn't look very scary to my simple engineer's eye.

  12. kryptonaut
    Boffin

    Data

    There are some nice graphs at http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/charctic-interactive-sea-ice-graph/ - click the years on the right to add/remove them from the plot. It's informative to go through the years in order, see if you can spot some kind of trend. I think I can.

    According to http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/ "the nine lowest extents in the satellite era have all occurred in the last nine years." Well, I guess it could be a statistical blip - I wonder what William of Occam would have said?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Data

      Regression toward the mean

      1. kryptonaut
        Stop

        Re: Data

        Regression toward the mean

        For that to be a viable explanation, you'd be implying that the first observation(s) were, by chance, higher than average, and that subsequent observations were lower due to being scattered around a mean which is lower than the initial observation(s).

        Look at this graph Arctic_September_sea_ice_decline.png [wikipedia/NSIDC] and ask yourself whether (a) the first few observations are outliers with the subsequent observations scattered around a lower mean value, or whether (b) there is a general trend downwards.

        If that were a graph of my bank balance then I wouldn't be thinking "ok, so I was unusually well-off in the early '80s but on the whole everything's ticking along nicely" - I'd be thinking I was living above my means, and urgently looking at ways to reduce my outgoings.

    2. jason 7

      Re: Data

      Nice graphs?

      How about some pictures of chemical filled lakes full of dead fish? Albatross young choking on plastic? People choking on smog? Land where nothing can grow? Chemical factories that should have been shut down 40 years ago? The list goes on of stuff we could be dealing with now that everyone can see is real and harming them.

      Why not concentrate on stuff that exists in our backyard and in cleaning that up we might just tackle as a side the stuff that may or may not cause global warming.

  13. Stevie

    Bah!

    Bit late in the year for the NWP to be navigable though, in it?

    Let's see how it is on Xmas Day before we celebrate Journos

    :1 Scientists:0, eh?

    1. itzman

      Re: Bah!

      No. This is the period of minimum ice extent every year.

      See https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/2015-dmi-icecover_current_new.png?w=1044

  14. scrubber
    Mushroom

    The problem with hot button topics like these ...

    ... is that in the free marketplace of ideas THERE IS NO PLACE FOR DISSENT.

    What happened to rational arguments, facts and figures and consensus? What happened to honest disagreement and the search for facts to disprove hypotheses? What happened to the scientific method?

    And what happened to carbon taxes being used to compensate those affected by climate change and/or those countries with reduced economic growth because they cannot use carbon-based fuel? Seems to me it goes to fund middle class people who are saving the world by installing solar panels on their houses and using (fossil fuel-generated) electric cars.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      What happened was consensus

      What happened? Alarmist won, they had a vote, you have to pay more, they get to decide and when they looked they couldn't find anyone more right or deserving than themselves.

  15. memory.of.a.dream

    Strange conclusions

    I see a few problems with this article.

    1. The raw arctic and antarctic sea ice data are present here

    http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/charctic-interactive-sea-ice-graph/

    a careful look over the charts shows a clear and highly accurate although not quite precise downwards trend.

    The trend for the arctic seems downwards and accelerating, the trend for the antarctic(sea ice) is somewhat upwards and steady.

    35 samples is quite sufficient to determine a trend. In biotech we often use as little as 5 samples to determine a trend within a 10% margin of error, although the trends are usually more clear then this.

    2. You mentioned the antarctic sea ice extent being larger in current years.

    this could be the cause of two things: either there is more ice in the antarctic or more ice from the antarctic mainland is flowing into the ocean (this would mean ice is melting faster and would be an indicator of the antarctic warming, not cooling)

    interestingly enough only data about the sea ice around Antarctica is available anywhere. Why isn't anyone measuring the ground ice? Or if they are, why isn't the data public?

    3. "And it's the thirty-first highest on record, which isn't that odd as there have only been reliable records for thirty-five years"

    What kind of BS is this? This is just like the guy who looses the race but says I wasn't among the last, I was in the top 31,... out of 35.

    4. "If the AMO does turn cold, it's at least possible that the arctic ice recovery seen over the last couple of years will continue."

    Recovery compared to what? the 2012 anomaly? You don't have to bee a scientist to see that that was a fluke. I see no indication of long term recovery in the data.

    I encourage anyone to look at the data and draw their own conclusions. I have a feeling that the person who wrote this didn't bother to do so.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    Northwest Passage

    Has everyone forgotten the lost expeditions in the 19thC, people died, trying to find the then non-existant NW passage?

  17. memory.of.a.dream

    Min/Max arctic ice extent in million kilometers

    year , min , max

    1979 , 7.935 , 16.588

    1980 , 7.544 , 16.295

    1981 , 6.919 , 15.666

    1982 , 7.171 , 16.293

    1983 , 7.228 , 16.325

    1984 , 6.426 , 15.784

    1985 , 6.492 , 16.105

    1986 , 7.167 , 16.127

    1987 , 6.963 , 16.281

    1988 , 7.126 , 16.274

    1989 , 6.909 , 15.701

    1990 , 6.036 , 16.177

    1991 , 6.302 , 15.601

    1992 , 7.209 , 15.558

    1993 , 6.185 , 15.987

    1994 , 6.961 , 15.724

    1995 , 6.004 , 15.335

    1996 , 7.191 , 15.426

    1997 , 6.627 , 15.634

    1998 , 6.352 , 15.999

    1999 , 5.757 , 15.582

    2000 , 5.978 , 15.439

    2001 , 6.603 , 15.671

    2002 , 5.638 , 15.571

    2003 , 6.007 , 15.595

    2004 , 5.794 , 15.216

    2005 , 5.319 , 14.952

    2006 , 5.774 , 14.683

    2007 , 4.154 , 14.765

    2008 , 4.586 , 15.288

    2009 , 5.120 , 15.136

    2010 , 4.615 , 15.264

    2011 , 4.344 , 14.667

    2012 , 3.387 , 15.289

    2013 , 5.055 , 15.167

    2014 , 5.028 , 14.964

    2015 , 4.413 , 14.536

    taken from: http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/charctic-interactive-sea-ice-graph/

    Draw your own conclusions. I know I have.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It's politics, not science.

    Facts do not matter in politics, except when politics says the passage will be open and people find themselves being rescued by the Coast Guard. Any facts or reality can be rationalised away or ignored when it comes to politics. Too bad we didn't have a discipline that could ignore politics and money and tell us what is....oh I guess that would be religion.

  19. Pat Att

    I sometimes wonder who's funding The Register

    What with Page banging on with highly biased articles about climate change, and Orlowski banging on about how copyright should apply everywhere at any time for anything and we should all pay The Man...

  20. cesium

    Always Open to Icebreakers

    The Gjoa was strengthed to withstand the pressure of the ice. The Manhattan was an ice breaker and was accompanied by coast guard ice breakers.

    The 2015 Arctic minimum extent was about the same as the 2007 and 2011 minimum extents. Wow, look at that rapid recovery.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    4, 31, 35 hut, hut, hike

    I'm not sure which way around the problem is, but if the figures are the 4th lowest on record surely that would make them the 32nd largest in a set of 35 results, not the 31st largest. Alternatively, the 31st largest figure would be the 5th lowest.

    From lowest to highest:

    HighToLowPosition,comparative,LowToHighPosition

    35,lowest,1

    34,2nd lowest,2

    33,3rd lowest,3

    32,4th lowest,4

    31,5th lowest,5

    ...

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Of no real significance?

    "Fourth lowest is of no real significance at all"

    ...unless you're one of the many arctic polar bears who are increasingly being forced to venture into human settlements to compensate for the growing difficulty in being able to get out onto the sea ice to catch seals:

    "Polar bears are not aquatic, however, and their only access to the seals is from the surface of the sea ice. Over the past 25 years, the summer sea ice melt period has lengthened, and summer sea ice cover has declined by over half a million square miles"

    http://alaska.usgs.gov/science/biology/polar_bears/pbear_sea_ice.html

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