Arctic ice refuses to melt as ordered

Originally Posted by Clippo:
PS to my previous post :-
If my answer wasn't technical enough for you, you might like to vist this site:-

SOTC: Sea Ice

(Got some good graphs too!) :-)

Clippo,

You haven't answered my simple question.

You don't need to give me a load of technical waffle to answer it.

I asked what circumstances with regard to the ice caps meting/freezing would dictate evidence for or against the argument that they are melting or not.

I don't want a load of technical jargon - just answer this basic question please.

For example, what about the claim in the article "A comparison of these maps (derived from NSIDC data) below shows that Arctic ice extent was 30 per cent greater on August 11, 2008 than it was on the August 12, 2007. (2008 is a leap year, so the dates are offset by one.)"

You constantly dismiss scientific claims like this with your unscientific conspiracy theories (based on no evidence that I can see), but if it IS true(which I don't expect you to admit) then WOULD that be evidence against AGW ?

If not then what would be evidence for or against AGW with respect to the melting of the icecaps ?

Answer the question please.....

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Originally Posted by youcanhandlethetruth:
Well at least many can comprehend a sentence, which is more than we can say for you :-)

Evidently comprehension, spelling, grammar, and punctuation are also areas of weakness.

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Why do you say that ? Pray do tell.....

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Originally Posted by youcanhandlethetruth:
For example, what about the claim in the article "A comparison of these maps (derived from NSIDC data) below shows that Arctic ice extent was 30 per cent greater on August 11, 2008 than it was on the August 12, 2007. (2008 is a leap year, so the dates are offset by one.)"

You constantly dismiss scientific claims like this....

Is it a scientific claim? Is Steven Goddard a scientist?
Counting pixels to arrive at a conclusion, when neither scale nor meaning of the colour gradation is expressly stated, seems to be a qualitative approach rather than a strictly quantitative one where there would, or should, have been rigorous attention to detail.

Let's assume that Goddard's pixel count is correct and that his conclusion is also correct - that there is more sea ice in the north polar region now than there was a year ago.

That's in one season in one year in one location.
It can't be construed as global.

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Clippo, as a 'contrarian'/global warming denier, I visited your two links.

I have to say I was less than impressed with the answer as to why there is more Arctic ice this year than last - which your source readily concedes by the way:

QUOTE

Question: If Arctic sea ice is declining, why does the data show that this year has more ice than previous years?

Answer: For details concerning why summer of 2008 is shaping up differently than previous summers, please see our ongoing analysis updates.

A more general question might be, if sea ice is declining, how can it be that a single day or month decades ago could actually have had less ice than the same day or month in recent years? For more accurate results, scientists avoid comparing a historical single day or month (for example, May 1980) with a recent single day or month (for example, May 2008). Comparing longer trends and averages is more appropriate because natural variability, or natural shifts in the climate system, cause changes from one day or month to the next. Scientists remove the influence of this noise in a data record by gathering many points of data over a longer time period to understand the statistical significance of trends. This is true not just in studying sea ice, but also in many areas of scientific study.

As an analogy, consider statistics from sports. One game during a winning season when the home football team lost badly wouldn’t be indicative of their season as a whole. And comparing that one bad game years ago with a really good game this year, when the team managed to win 28-0 during a terrible losing season, wouldn’t be a fair comparison, either. However, plotting all of the games on a line graph would give an accurate indication of how the team did that year. And taking the scores and plotting them over several decades, would indicate whether the team has a significant trend over its history.

UNQUOTE

Comparing a gain of thousands of square miles of ice in 2008 as against 2007 with Derby County having beaten Manchester United 28-0 last season certainly doesn't do it for me.

Can't your side, given that you brand us global warming sceptics as heretics, find better arguments than that?!

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

P.S. The world has been getting warmer over the last 50 years, but only through natural cycles and flucuations since the end of the Ice Age

P.P.S. According to this extract from a Wikipedia article, the polar bear population of the world has at least doubled [10,000 to 20,000] or possibly quintupled [5,000 to 25,000] during the past 30 years -exposing another global warming lie:

QUOTE

Controversy over species protection

Warnings about the future of the polar bear are often contrasted with the fact that worldwide population estimates have increased over the past 50 years and are relatively stable today. [93][105] Some estimates of the global population are around 5,000–10,000 in the early 1970s; [106] other estimates were 20,000–40,000 during the 1980s. [26][36] Current estimates put the global population at between 20,000 and 25,000. [5]

UNQUOTE

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Originally Posted by Besoeker:
Is it a scientific claim?

Compared to the unproven scientific claim that the earth is waming due to man made c02 emmisions(which account for less than 10% of all c02 emmsions) yes.

But actually it is not a scientific claim at all(see below)

Out of interest is man made global warming a scientific claim ?

Originally Posted by Besoeker:
Is Steven Goddard a scientist?

I don't know, though he seems to have a fair understanding of science. Having said that, it depends what you mean by scientist.

If a 4 year old boy makes the scientific claim that 2+2 = 4 does that mean that the scientific claim is untrue becasue he is not a scientist ?

We hear on the news that the polar bears are in danger of the ice caps melting, despite the fact that polar bears are the best swimming mammals there are on the planet.

So additionally, if a scientist in the mainstream makes a claim, it does not necessarily mean that his scientific claim is necessary true, that he is not necessarily lying through his teeth, and that the gullible public will not necessarily believe it because he is a (supposedly) respectable scientist.

Originally Posted by Besoeker:
Counting pixels to arrive at a conclusion, when neither scale nor meaning of the colour gradation is expressly stated, seems to be a qualitative approach rather than a strictly quantitative one where there would, or should, have been rigorous attention to detail. Let's assume that Goddard's pixel count is correct and that his conclusion is also correct - that there is more sea ice in the north polar region now than there was a year ago.
That's in one season in one year in one location.
It can't be construed as global.

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Hence the reason why I have asked Clippo to accurately define what is acceptable and what isn't.

Clippo loves to trash personalities and counter-evidence without his own evidence, yet is not so forthcoming in defining what the true parameters for acceptance/unacceptance actually are.

Clippo simply resorts to saying "No that's wrong, look at this instead" when the whole point of these articles is to criticize the articles to which Clippo is pointing back to. Ironic really.

To be clear though - it is not Steven Goddard making the claim that it is global - in fact it is the global warming fraternity who are making the claim that man made global warming exists.
Obviously Mr Goddard was presenting evidence in opposition to the claim that the arctic ice-caps were melting.

So he is simply responding to claims made by others.

By the way, when I asked you what you were referring to, I was referring to your claim: "Evidently comprehension, spelling, grammar, and punctuation are also areas of weakness." and like Clippo, you've conveniently dodged the question (or have failed to comprehend it again :-))

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Global warming does exist but we are technically still in an Ice Age as we have polar ice caps which through out history have not always been there.

Anyway what is the point of looking at ice sheet areas year on year. Ridiculous taking such a short term view on things and then trying to form a decent argument. Even 30 years is hardly worthwhile.

Can someone who knows more about this than me answer 2 questions:

1) When the north pole moves into the middle of Siberia, will that mean that there will the ice at the "current" North Pole "move" as well?

2) If all the ice melts now due to global warming, is Britain going to get hotter or colder? The North Atlantic Drift will be diluted with fresh water and stop keeping us nice and warm so we might end up with permafrost. Or is the atmospheric temperature going to mean we are going to have a sub-Saharan climate?

Oh and one last thing - if all this ice melts due to an increased global temperature, won't that in turn result in a huge increase in evapotranspiration? (obviously not from the ice melting but as a result of GW - sorry for going off topic)

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