Posted on 11/22/2009 10:49:04 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
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The CRU has in the past put non public data on the public side of its servers.
The previous "leak" in July 2009 turned out to have been done by the director of the CRU while fighting a FOI request by Steve McIntyre.
Maurice F. Strong, PC, CC, OM, FRSC (born April 29, 1929, in Oak Lake, Manitoba) is one of the world’s leading proponents of the United Nations' involvement in world affairs. Supporters consider him one of the world's leading environmentalists. Secretary General of both the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, which launched the world environment movement, and the 1992 Earth Summit and first Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Strong has played a critical role in globalizing the environmental movement.[1]
Yoou surely aren't implying that the second set of measurements came from the CRU ?
Probably not from CRU. I have seen one graph that shows temperature rising in the last 10 years, another showing temperatures not rising. IIRC, the second set is from satellite data? Maybe the first set is supposed to be from thermometer readings on the surface. Does that sound familiar? I'm trying to remember.
I am assuming that you are talking about satellite vs land based and ocean based readings.
That is easily explainable but raises a question we should ask.
Why when we know satellite readings are more accurate do they continue to use land and ocean based readings in their data?
Because the satellite readings are cooler.
Fraud!
All they had to do was share the BS data with someone, then they unknowingly become part of the conspiracy.
The Missing Hotspot ---The ‘Hotspot’ is crucial to the climate debate.
It is all about ...where is the observational data that correlates with the predictions from the computer Models?
That's what I wanted to know, thanks.
So do the surface temperatures (according to CRU numbers) show not only hotter temps, but also a significant rise in temps over 10 or 20 years?
And what trends, over decades, do satellite readings show, if any?
Yes, they do
Some skeptics (us) say this is because of encroachment on temperature stations by urban expansion. In other words, the heat island affect.
Here is the neat thing, you don’t even have to have a temperature monitoring station next to a city. If it is to the east of the city and the city gets larger, you have both a rain shadow due to the heat island plus the wind blows in hot air from the city into the countryside.
Land surface records have show significant increases in temperature as compared to satellite data, also the land temperature data appears to be getting worse everyday. In other words, one is reading much more consistently and the other is rising.
Now that they have satellite they should through out the land readings except for normalizing the data to match the satellite record.
The Missing Hotspot ---The ‘Hotspot’ is crucial to the climate debate.
And in the 25 page PDF document at Dave Evans website.
Where he points out that to find what the atmosphere is doing...heating up or cooling down you need to use radiosondes...satellites won't do...
The AGW crowd really don't want to share their data...
[co-crooks!
Is that a new word? ROFL! ]
Probably so, I do do that sometimes, lol.
Thanks for all the pings, have been very busy today.
Great post. Bump to the top.
Actual video is activated by Javascript so look to the right and you will see ....
Featured Videos
and below :
Taking Earth's Temperature
Click on that one...pretty basic....and not smooth .
he also gave me an acronyn of NPEOSS guess it has an aerosol sensor.,.
An Overview of the NPOESS Preparatory Project (NPP) Science Data Segment
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Over the years, numerous large and complex information systems have been created to store, process, and disseminate vast volumes of remotely-sensed Earth Science data. These existing systems can potentially be leveraged off of to process data from similar instruments, thus reducing science data processing systems development time and costs. The NPOESS Preparatory Project (NPP) provides remotely-sensed land, ocean, atmospheric, ozone, and sounder data that will serve the meteorological and global climate change scientific communities while also providing risk reduction for the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS), the U. S. Government's future low-Earth orbiting satellite system monitoring global weather and environmental conditions. One of the NPP mission segments is the Science Data Segment. The primary role of the Science Data Segment is to independently assess the quality of the NPP Environmental Data Records for accomplishing climate research. The NPP Science Data Segment achieves its goals by leveraging off of existing processing centers. In particular, ocean data product evaluation and analysis is accomplished by leveraging existing resources from the SeaWiFS project, which develops and operates an investigator-led data system that processes, calibrates, validates, archives, and distributes data received from the SeaWiFS instrument aboard the OrbView-2 observatory. Land imagery data analysis leverages MODAPS. MODAPS currently generates Level 2 through Level 4 MODIS science products for distribution to the Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs) for archival and to the MODIS science team for quality control. Ozone products will be assessed by OMIDAPS, an existing system that processes data from the OMI instrument aboard the Aura satellite to higher level science data products. Additional pieces of the project also rely on existing Earth Science data systems. This poster will provide a brief overview of the design and functionality of the NPP Science Data Segment and its unique approach to quality assessment.
What's Holding Antarctic Sea Ice Back From Melting?
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Global temperatures are increasing. Sea levels are rising. Ice sheets in many areas of the world are retreating. Yet there’s something peculiar going on in the oceans around Antarctica: even as global air and ocean temperatures march upward, the extent of the sea ice around the southern continent isn’t decreasing. In fact, it's increasing.
Sea ice at the other end of the world has been making headlines in recent years for retreating at a breakneck pace. Satellite measurements show that, on average, Arctic sea ice has decreased by four percent per decade since the late 1970s, explained Claire Parkinson, a cryospheric scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., who has been tracking the movements of the ice for 30 years. Antarctic sea ice, in contrast, has expanded northward by about 1 percent — the equivalent to 100,000 square kilometers (38,610 square miles) — per decade.
Why is there such a drastic difference in the behavior of the two poles? Scientists from Goddard and the University of Washington, Seattle, recently described three theories — ozone depletion, changing ocean dynamics, and the flooding of sea ice — for what's happening in the Southern Ocean around Antarctica.
Dwindling Ozone Levels
In the 1980s, scientists discovered that emissions of refrigerants and accelerants called chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) had depleted the ozone layer, especially over Antarctica. Ozone depletion, notorious for permitting more cancer-causing ultraviolet light to reach the surface, has a lesser known impact: It cools the stratosphere, the layer of atmosphere between 10 and 60 kilometers (6 and 37 miles) above the surface.
Since the ozone hole began developing, researchers believe the Antarctic stratosphere has cooled between 2°C and 6°C (3.6°F and 10.8°F). Such cooling changes the dynamics between the stratosphere and lower layers of the atmosphere and strengthens Antarctica's already fierce winds.
Ever since mariners first attempted to navigate the Southern Ocean, the region has been notorious for its powerful and stormy cyclonic winds during the winter. The "polar vortex" whips around the Southern Ocean and produces sustained periods of freezing temperatures unlike any other place in the world.
Since 1980, the strength of the polar vertex has intensified by about 15 percent due to ozone depletion. The loss of ozone caused atmospheric pressure to decrease over the Amundsen Sea, thereby strengthening the winds on the Ross Ice Shelf, according to NASA Goddard scientist Josefino Comiso, coauthor of a recent study that models the connection between ozone, wind speeds, and climate in the Antarctic. The changes help explain one of the paradoxes of the Antarctic: while sea ice in some areas is growing rapidly, it's retreating at a rapid pace in others.
The new model suggests that colder, stormier, and faster winds are rushing over the waters encircling Antarctic — especially the Ross Sea, where ice growth has been the most rapid. The winds create areas of open water near the coast – known as polynyas – that promote sea ice production.
At the same time, warmer air from higher pressure systems are simultaneously encroaching upon the Antarctic Peninsula, one sliver of the continent that is experiencing rapid warming.
"We see a very mixed pattern of both melting and ice growth in the Antarctic," said Thorsten Markus, head of NASA Goddard's Cryospheric Sciences Branch. "Changes in the cyclonic pattern due to the ozone hole are one of the best explanations we have."
A More Stratified Southern Ocean
Changes in ocean circulation may also play a role. Jinlun Zhang, an oceanographer at the University of Washington, has pieced together a complex computer model that helps explain why Antarctic sea ice is expanding even with signs that ocean and air temperatures are on the rise. The key is that warming temperatures can lead to more stratified ocean layers.
In the Southern Ocean, there’s a layer of cold water near the surface and a layer of warmer water below. Normally, convection causes the two layers to mix and exchange water, a process that brings heat from the lower layers to the surface layer and ultimately helps keep sea ice expansion in check. This transfer of heat is the primary reason that first-year ice in the Antarctic is much thinner than in the Arctic.
But if global air temperatures warm, the model indicates that the amount of rain and snowfall could increase, and surface waters could freshen. Since fresh water is less dense and less apt to mix with the heavier, saltier, and warmer water below, the layer at the ocean's surface could become more stratified and mix less. This, in turn, would reduce the amount of heat flowing upward, allowing surface ice to expand.
Field measurements suggest that there has been a marked freshening of some parts of the Southern Ocean. Researchers from Columbia University, New York City, have detailed a freshening in the Ross Sea, and a recent study shows that the Antarctic-Australian Bottom Water has freshened somewhat since the mid-1990s. Still, Zhang cautions that scientists can’t yet say without qualification that all of the Southern Ocean is freshening.
"Though the limited data available does suggest wide-scale freshening, we need more data to confirm this," he said. NASA’s Aquarius instrument, which will launch on Argentina's SAC-D satellite in 2010, will perform global measurements of ocean salinity and should help provide such data.
Flooded Sea Ice Turns Snow to Ice
Water-logged sea ice is the third phenomenon that may explain why sea ice in the Antarctic is increasing. The process, which scientists call "snow-to-ice conversion," occurs when the weight of accumulated snow presses down on a slab of sea ice until it's nearly submerged. When that happens, waves cause ocean water to spill on top of the ice and into the snow, forming a layer that eventually freezes and becomes "snow ice."
"You can add eight-to-ten centimeters to the thickness of sea ice each time this happens," said Markus. Though this process doesn't directly affect sea ice extent as observed over short time periods, some scientists believe it may have an impact on ice extent over the course of a full season.
Ice formed in this manner isn’t easy to distinguish without performing tests on isotopes, yet scientists believe thickening from snow ice is ubiquitous around Antarctica. Researchers have discovered it on Antarctic pack ice in all regions and during all seasons, with the most snow ice formation occurring in the Eastern Ross and Amundsen Seas. One study suggests that snow-ice constitutes as much as 38 percent of the sea ice mass in these areas. However, such numbers are difficult to pin down definitively, given the complexities of field research in the extreme conditions of the continent.
"We’ve made some progress," said Markus, "but in the next few years, I think we're going to see much more detailed measurements of the flooding of the snow-ice interface."
Related Links:
> Atmospheric Circulation Change Induced by Stratospheric Ozone Depletion and Its Role in the Recent Increase of Antarctic Sea Ice Extent
> Antarctic Sea Ice
> Arctic and Antarctic Sea Ice Marching to Different Drivers
> Sea Ice May Be on Increase in the Antarctic: A Phenomenon Due to a Lot of "Hot Air"
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