Arctic Ice October 2011

Ice extent, as measured down to 15% concentration, was only slightly above 2007 levels at the end of this year's melt season.  The ice is now about as thin as in 2007, or thinner, and the age of remaining ice continues to decline.  [edit: inserted missing clause - bolded.]

The summer sea ice melt season has ended in the Arctic. Arctic sea ice extent reached its low for the year, the second lowest in the satellite record, on September 9. The minimum extent was only slightly above 2007, the record low year, even though weather conditions this year were not as conducive to ice loss as in 2007. Both the Northwest Passage and the Northern Sea Route were open for a period during September.

Hard Times For Unscientific Blogging

Pseudo-skeptic claims of Arctic ice recovery have been followed by further losses in the real world.  Evidence of global warming is accumulating to such an extent that the web's unscientific bloggers have to work really hard to find anything to write about.  Times are so hard that Anthony Watts was recently reduced to writing a very lengthy anacoluthon-style dust-speck-spotting article about how Al Gore didn't make a video in one take.  Horror of horrors!  And what are we to conclude from Watts' analysis?  The experiment portrayed is valid!

Laws of Nature and Natural Justice


What are the 'laws of nature', the natural laws which underly the thing which we perceive as natural justice?

Aristotle discussed natural justice in terms of what 'ought to be'.  His view was that if particular rules of procedure are followed then the outcome of a procedure will be just.  There is a great deal of circularity in this form of argument.  Circular arguments and arguments about what 'ought' to be are not scientific arguments.

A Brief History of Arctic Warming

Arctic Ice September 2011

My March 2011 forecasts were quite wide of the mark.  For the first part of the Arctic summer much of the western Arctic saw lower than expected temperatures.  Despite the low temperature start-off, the Arctic is about to see either the lowest ever end of season extent, or the 2nd lowest since 2007.

In June, I wrote:

Much depends on the Arctic weather, but it looks likely that the September ice minimum will be amongst the three lowest.  If the melt in July and August proceeds as it has done on average over the last decade, then the 2007 record minimum may well be beaten.

The Moon And The Telephone

In the history of the discovery of climate change and its causes, there are many pioneers whose work in relevant areas is all but forgotten.  Some of these people are not widely known.  Others are widely known, but their climate-related work tends to lie forgotten in the archives.  For example: Edison is famous as an inventor and Langley is famous as an aviation pioneer, but both men made little-known contributions to our knowledge of heat.