Ice Sea Ice Sea – And Repeat

Models (and history) project that Nova will likely post about near record Antarctica sea ice for the next few decades at least.

Climate Scientists don’t expect Antarctic to behave the same way as the Arctic. Here’s the projection for Antarctic Sea Ice with observations well within the bounds of model projections.

Antarctic Sea Ice Projection. Source

Not only do the models not expect Antarctic Maximum Sea Ice Extent to drop away for several decades, there is also other science that indicates other factors greatly influence sea ice creation – it’s not just about temperatures as Nova wants you to believe.

Nova Cherry Picks Again

Strangely (or not given that Nova’s intent is to confuse you rather than educate you) Nova chooses a few selected years to compare against. The full set shows the maximum, whilst being close to a record, is really only remarkable for its late melt.

Antarctic Observations

Poles Apart

Joanne talks about the media only showing one side of the argument – Ironic that she only gives half the picture. If you compare the images of the Antarctic and the Arctic, it’s obvious that the slight increase in Antarctic sea ice does not make up for the dramatic loss of ice in the Arctic.

Sept. 2013. The Antarctic has increased slightly but does not make up for the massive loss in Arctic ice. That contrast in 2012 was even more stark. Source

DeJa Vu

Yes, we’ve been here before …

Arctic vs Antarctic Ice

Antarctica – Joanne Nova Scratches the Surface

psssst … Ignore the Arctic … look over here!!! Antarctic sea ice again!

See you same time next year!

Statistical Significance – The Simple One

Joanne Nova recently branched out of her comfort zone (spreading doubt) to try her hand at statistics claiming that surface temperature data since 2005 shows statistically significant cooling in 4 of 5 datasets.

Her words …

The cooling for the last eight years is statistically significant in 4 of the 5 major air temperature datasets.

Statistically significance is very rarely found on such short timeframes, so how did Nova manage to find it? Simple! She invented her own concept of statistically significance; “The easy one” as she put it.

Heatwave? Mother Nature mocks Joanne Nova

Australia had its hottest day earlier this year and it also had its hottest summer ever on record. That seems to have peeved Joanne “it’s not warming” Nova so she has a new metric for measuring global warming temperature.

Instead of measuring the whole country, she focuses on just three cities, Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. Her recent post claims the record heatwave doesn’t really matter because populated cities didn’t, according to her own set of stats, set new records for the summer months.

Hot Spot 2 – Tropospheric Warming Continues

Hotspot Found!

… by Nova. She just didn’t realise it.

Often you will hear Joanne Nova comment about the “missing hotspot” as if  this were evidence against global warming. It’s not. This has been addressed numerous times (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8).

Here we examine each of her posts (tagged as Hot Spot) and explain why they are incorrect or misleading.

Oh, that Heatwave? It could be Aliens!

Nova repeats her strawman argument that the recent heatwave is not a sign of global warming.

Climate Scientists go to pains these days to explain that you cannot attribute one weather extreme on global warming, but you will see a higher number of heatwaves as the background climate becomes hotter.

In Australia, we are now breaking hot records three times more often than cold records. It’s simply more likely for heatwave, such as the January one to occur.

Nova doesn’t get math, so instead rambles out 8 “Nova reasons” why the recent heatwave is not because of global warming.

Nova Lacks Evidence

Joanne Nova claims that Global Warming has been disproved and lists 9 “Major Flaws” – or so she says.

1. The missing heat is not in the ocean.
2. Satellites show a warmer Earth is releasing extra energy to space.
3. The models get core assumptions wrong – the hot spot is missing.
4. Clouds cool the planet as it warms.
5. The models are wrong on a local, regional, or continental scale.
6. Eight different methods suggest a climate sensitivity of 0.4°C.
7. Has CO2 warmed the planet at all in the last 50 years? It’s harder to tell than you think.
8. Even if we assume it’s warmed since 1979, and assume that it was all CO2, if so, feedbacks are zero — disaster averted.
9. It was as warm or warmer 1000 years ago. Models can’t explain that. It wasn’t CO2.  The models can’t predict past episodes of warming, so why would they predict future ones?

It’s the usual stuff from Nova, so lets take a quick look at why Nova is wrong on all nine points.

Nova’s Dryspot

Recent research by Fasullo and Trenberth (covered here by SkS) showed that climate models that do a better job at reproducing observations of humidity, are also forecasting a higher sensitivity (greater warming).

Models that better simulate humidity near the infamous hotspot that Nova harps on about, suggest that the warming will be at the higher end of current estimates.

Joanne Nova wants nothing more than to discredit the models, and finds opportunity in John Christy’s blog post. Yeah it’s not peer-reviewed science, of course, but let’s take a look anyway at Christy’s folly.

Nova’s all at sea

In another attempt to baffle her readers, Nova attempts to show how sea levels aren’t rising, much, at least in Australia, or well some parts of Australia, and only if you ignore the last 10 years.

Are we really supposed to be relaxed about Global Sea Level Rise, because four locations of Australasia, show “weak deceleration”? Well you can if you’re willing to ignore a few things:

• Sea level rise is not even; other places are experiencing greater than average rises.
• Globally, the planet is showing accelerating sea level rise.
• Greenland wasn’t melting during the past in the way it is today.
• Sea Level Rise has been at the upper end of forecasts.

What does Global Sea Level Rise look like …

6,000 boreholes – Nova’s 100 years too short

Simply put, Nova thinks the data in the HP97 graph she uses dates to 2000, when in fact it only goes to 1900; it doesn’t include the last 100 years of warming. And although the original authors have explained this, and Nova is fully aware, she chooses to ignore any science which disagrees with her own agenda and political motives.

That’s no exception in Nova’s look at the Medieval Warm Period, although she takes it ups it a notch. Not only does she incorrectly use Huang & Pollack 97 (HP97), she goes on to ignore very clear statements by the authors which explain why Nova (and others) misinterpret their HP97 results.

Lewandowsky – we’ve more data for you!

Global Warming Disproved – Has Nova Flipped?

Sure Joanne Nova has been under a bit of stress lately, with her website coming under “attack”, (presumably from the feds), but one must wonder what mindset her head is in to declare that she has Disproved Global Warming.

She claims …

The single most important fact, dominating everything else, is that the ocean heat content has barely increased since 2003 (and quite possibly decreased) counter to the simulations.

Yet the latest data from the 3,000+ buoys that form the Argo flotilla provide data to the contrary.

Source

So where does Nova get her concept that the Ocean may have slightly cooled since 2003? Well to obtain a cooling result, first you have to discard any data below 700 meters (Argo data goes to 2,000 meters), then you have to ignore recent years, and then you have to tilt your head to one side and close one of your politically-biased eyes.