Climate Change - What are the causes?

climate scientist wrote:
It is clear from reading this paper that IBdaMann and Into the Night have missed the point.

climate scientist wrote:That is ridiculous.

climate scientist wrote:Any such paper would not stand up to the peer-review process,

I have. I have seen scientists ejected from their institutions of study because of what they wrote. I have seen it over and over again. I have seen grant money get cut off because of what they write.

I have seen the 'peer' review process in action. Even the 'international' ones. I've seen what a sham they really are.

I have seen censorship applied by scientific journals and other media, science organizations (especially government controlled ones), and the awful price paid by a scientist that questions the global warming agenda.

I have seen this affect nation after nation. It spreads from a common source: the IPCC.

"... accumulation in the interior of the Green-
land ice sheet has increased slightly in the currently
warming climate."

Gain is gain.

What do you think the "review process" is? It's not the scientific method, which requires a falsifiable model, which is required for anything to be considered science. "Peer review" is nothing more than getting someone else's subjective opinion on a topic, which could be an unfalsifiable dogma. Will you go on record as referring to this as science?

climate scientist wrote: As I said, you clearly are missing the point.

climate scientist wrote: As I said, you clearly are missing the point.

Please enlighten me. What part of my commentary about the article are you claiming I cannot support?

climate scientist wrote:

climate scientist wrote: As I said, you clearly are missing the point.

Please enlighten me. What part of my commentary about the article are you claiming I cannot support?

This comment is responding to Into The night's post, not yours, IBdaMann.

climate scientist wrote:
It is clear from reading this paper that IBdaMann and Into the Night have missed the point.

As I said, you clearly are missing the point. "accumulation in the interior of the Greenland ice sheet has increased slightly in the currently warming climate". Accumulation rates and mass change are not the same thing!

If Greenland ice is represented by a bathtub of water, all these authors are saying is that the rate of water entering from the tap has increased slightly. They make no mention of how much water is going down the plug hole (i.e. representing the mass loss from ice sheet melt). If the water out is more than the water in, the water level will go down. In this analogy, accumulation is the rate of water in only, not the total water level in the bath.

It really looks like the authors were prohibited from expressly stating that total ice mass is increasing because they keep talking around it, hinting at it, but never committing to expressing the bottom line. It also appears that the authors were required to blame "the warming climate" for the increase in rate of ice accumulation.

Because it was such a hit with trafn and others, I'm going to repost the link to the Cliff Harris article. They apparently can only mock Cliff Harris but they can't refute his message.

Ceist wrote:Is this an example of the 'body of science' that IB keeps ranting about?

By the way, I appreciate your inclusion of my statement in your signature, but my position is "Supporting evidence has no role in science." Evidence is wonderful for falsifying falsifiable models and is meat and potatoes of the scientific method.

climate scientist wrote: IBdaMann, I disagree with your statement about the authors being prohibited from mentioning total ice mass.

climate scientist wrote: Their data is on snow accumulation, not ice mass, and hence their paper is on snow accumulation, not ice mass balance.

The growth and decay of ice sheets is driven by a balance
between accumulation of snow on the surface, primarily in
the high-elevation interiors, and the melting, runoff, evaporation,
sublimation and iceberg calving that takes place
primarily along the lower-elevation margins. The mass
balance of the Greenland ice sheet, in particular, is of
increasing importance to scientists and policymakers, as
rising air and ocean temperatures have increased the rate of
melting and the velocity of calving outlet glaciers, contributing
to a rising sea level (Lemke and others, 2007). The
net mass balance of the Greenland ice sheet has been the
subject of much recent work (e.g. Alley and others, 2007;
Rignot and others, 2008; Wouters and others, 2008; Zwally
and others, 2011). Additionally, investigators have studied
the surface mass balance, primarily accumulation, using
point measurements...

climate scientist wrote: I'm not sure why you think the authors were made to 'blame' the warming climate either.

Thus, due to a warmer atmosphere driving an increased capacity for moisture, and in common with the findings of Davis and others (2005) in East Antarctica, accumulation in the interior of the Greenland ice sheet has increased slightly in the currently warming climate.

climate scientist wrote: The Chris Harris web page that you have linked to is laughable. All he is really saying is that it snows in Greenland. We know this! He only refers to the snow accumulation, and somehow decides that therefore Greenland is gaining ice mass, even though he doesn't consider ice sheet melting at all.

Incorrect. Go back and reread. The authors specify (bold emphasis is mine indicating an unnecessary, and false, assumption on their part, about which you will inquire below).

Yet they nonetheless felt the need to stick in Global Warming "conclusions" that weren't supported by anything in the report (emphasis mine):

Thus, due to a warmer atmosphere driving an increased capacity for moisture, and in common with the findings of Davis and others (2005) in East Antarctica, accumulation in the interior of the Greenland ice sheet has increased slightly in the currently warming climate

Ergo, ice mass is accumulating because of Global Warming.

I can read English. I presume you can as well.

Go back and reread. In both Greenland and Antarctica, ice piles up and buries objects that are left there to be buried by accumulating ice. If you land an airplane on some ice, leave it there, and then a few decades later it is buried under many feet of ice, you can effectively gauge the net amount of ice that has accumulated since landing the airplane, regardless of knowing anything about the rate of input and the rate of output.

climate scientist wrote:

Incorrect. Go back and reread. The authors specify (bold emphasis is mine indicating an unnecessary, and false, assumption on their part, about which you will inquire below).

The text that you quoted is from the paper introduction. The authors are simply providing context to their study, and stating how it might be relevant to other studies. The sentence in bold is a summary from the findings of another study, which is cited. The authors are not claiming anything themselves about ice mass balance. Their results are about snow accumulation, not about ice mass balance, but the results are relevant to scientists who study ice mass balance.

Yet they nonetheless felt the need to stick in Global Warming "conclusions" that weren't supported by anything in the report (emphasis mine):

Thus, due to a warmer atmosphere driving an increased capacity for moisture, and in common with the findings of Davis and others (2005) in East Antarctica, accumulation in the interior of the Greenland ice sheet has increased slightly in the currently warming climate

Ergo, ice mass is accumulating because of Global Warming.

I can read English. I presume you can as well.

Um, no you can't! You are completely misunderstanding their use of the word accumulation! They are talking about snow accumulation in Greenland's interior. They don't quantify ice sheet melting anywhere, or quantifying the mass balance of Greenland, which would require determining whether snow accumulation exceeds ice sheet melting.

Go back and reread. In both Greenland and Antarctica, ice piles up and buries objects that are left there to be buried by accumulating ice. If you land an airplane on some ice, leave it there, and then a few decades later it is buried under many feet of ice, you can effectively gauge the net amount of ice that has accumulated since landing the airplane, regardless of knowing anything about the rate of input and the rate of output.

Like I said, it snows in Greenland and Antarctica. This snow freezes and turns to ice. This only tells you about snow and ice accumulation in the interior of Greenland/Antarctica. It tells you nothing about the total ice mass balance, and whether Greenland or Antarctica are losing or gaining mass. This is because you are only considering the inputs (i.e. the accumulation of snow), not the outputs (i.e. the melting of ice). Objects appear to 'disappear' into the snow over time because the ice underneath is melting, while new snow and ice form on top. The accumulation rate of snow tells you nothing about the total mass balance of Greenland or Antarctica.