Three papers on the Antarctic ice

There is a lot of carbon under that ice.

Potential methane reservoirs beneath Antarctica Wadham et al (2012)

Abstract: Once thought to be devoid of life, the ice-covered parts of Antarctica are now known to be a reservoir of metabolically active microbial cells and organic carbon¹. The potential for methanogenic archaea to support the degradation of organic carbon to methane beneath the ice, however, has not yet been evaluated. Large sedimentary basins containing marine sequences up to 14 kilometres thick² and an estimated 21,000 petagrams (1 Pg equals 10¹⁵ g) of organic carbon are buried beneath the Antarctic Ice Sheet. No data exist for rates of methanogenesis in sub-Antarctic marine sediments. Here we present experimental data from other subglacial environments that demonstrate the potential for overridden organic matter beneath glacial systems to produce methane. We also numerically simulate the accumulation of methane in Antarctic sedimentary basins using an established one-dimensional hydrate model³ and show that pressure/temperature conditions favour methane hydrate formation down to sediment depths of about 300 metres in West Antarctica and 700 metres in East Antarctica. Our results demonstrate the potential for methane hydrate accumulation in Antarctic sedimentary basins, where the total inventory depends on rates of organic carbon degradation and conditions at the ice-sheet bed. We calculate that the sub-Antarctic hydrate inventory could be of the same order of magnitude as that of recent estimates made for Arctic permafrost. Our findings suggest that the Antarctic Ice Sheet may be a neglected but important component of the global methane budget, with the potential to act as a positive feedback on climate warming during ice-sheet wastage.

That ice is melting faster than we thought it would.

Dynamics of the last glacial maximum Antarctic ice-sheet and its response to ocean forcing -- Fogwill et al (2012)

Abstract: Retreat of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) Antarctic ice sheet is thought to have been initiated by changes in ocean heat and eustatic sea level propagated from the Northern Hemisphere (NH) as northern ice sheets melted under rising atmospheric temperatures. The extent to which spatial variability in ice dynamics may have modulated the resultant pattern and timing of decay of the Antarctic ice sheet has so far received little attention, however, despite the growing recognition that dynamic effects account for a sizeable proportion of mass-balance changes observed in modern ice sheets. Here we use a 5-km resolution whole-continent numerical ice-sheet model to assess whether differences in the mechanisms governing ice sheet flow could account for discrepancies between geochronological studies in different parts of the continent. We first simulate the geometry and flow characteristics of an equilibrium LGM ice sheet, using pan-Antarctic terrestrial and marine geological data for constraint, then perturb the system with sea level and ocean heat flux increases to investigate ice-sheet vulnerability. Our results identify that fast-flowing glaciers in the eastern Weddell Sea, the Amundsen Sea, central Ross Sea, and in the Amery Trough respond most rapidly to ocean forcings, in agreement with empirical data. Most significantly, we find that although ocean warming and sea-level rise bring about mainly localized glacier acceleration, concomitant drawdown of ice from neighboring areas leads to widespread thinning of entire glacier catchments—a discovery that has important ramifications for the dynamic changes presently being observed in modern ice sheets.

When that ice melted previously, global carbon dioxide levels rose dramatically over only two hundred years.

Abrupt change in atmospheric CO2 during the last ice age – Ahn et al. (2012)
Abstract: “During the last glacial period atmospheric carbon dioxide and temperature in Antarctica varied in a similar fashion on millennial time scales, but previous work indicates that these changes were gradual. In a detailed analysis of one event we now find that approximately half of the CO2 increase that occurred during the 1500-year cold period between Dansgaard-Oeschger (DO) events 8 and 9 happened rapidly, over less than two centuries. This rise in CO2 was synchronous with, or slightly later than, a rapid increase of Antarctic temperature inferred from stable isotopes.”
Citation: Ahn, J., E. Brook, A. Schmittner, and K. J. Kreutz (2012), Abrupt change in atmospheric CO2 during the last ice age, Geophys. Res. Lett., doi:10.1029/2012GL053018.

Comment: This is all very new science, but these three very different papers with different subjects and different methods seem together to suggest a coherent narrative; ocean warming rapidly triggers widespread decay of the Antarctic ice sheets, which uncovers significant amount of carbon. That carbon makes its way into the atmosphere, in amounts significant enough to warm the climate further.

The Arctic permafrost feedback appears (to an outsider, like me) to be gaining widespread acceptance as a significant contributor to global warming both in the near term (the next century) and in the longer term (a few centuries.) Now we are trying to nail down the scale of the feedback. Meanwhile, we are starting to get some science that suggests a similar carbon-cycle feedback could unfold in the South, scale and speed unknown.

Hoarders, Republican edition

Given recent discussions of predilection for conspiracist ideation in climate deniers, I enjoyed the ad Redstate is offering me right now:

Seriously:

Apparently no one told them technology and the free market will grant us the magical power of instant adaptation to food shortages.

The brain of a right-winger is a scary place these days. I don't know why. Tax rates are at a sixty-year low. Restrictions on abortion and barriers to family planning are multiplying like forest mushrooms after rain. We have a president who, except for his skin color, could easily pass for an Eisenhower Republican. Yet, in spite of all that, paranoia reigns.

Maybe it's like the obesity epidemic. Fat, sugar, and leisure have always been an easy sell, because our genetic program responses powerfully to those inducements. Combined with wealth and modern marketing, the result is overconsumption and ill health.

Similarly, the brain responds powerfully to fear. Politicians and propagandists (as well as the aforementioned marketers) have long understood this, and they sell fear like Nabisco sells cookies. It's nothing new. But perhaps the development of extensive electronic ecosystems dedicated to the far right have shifted this dynamic. Now for the first time, the audience can instantly respond to the material, enabling them to feed on one another's anger and fear.

It's now painfully evident that most people subject to the relentless marketing of easy calories and labor-eliminating conveniences will consume them until they're sick with them, and beyond. Industries with no thought except to sell their hamburgers, cookies, PopTarts and sundry are contributing to a process that is killing off their customers. In ten or twenty years, we may look back on this unhealthy diet of fear the Right feeds its customers and recognize the same process unfolding; for recognition, power, and money they have sickened their customers by the excess consumption of fear, to their detriment and the detriment of our democracy.

Poll denialism

Source

People are starting to make some connections:

One of the odder little subplots of the 2012 election has been the growth of poll denialism among Republicans. As Mitt Romney's chances have grown ever dimmer, a cottage industry has sprung up on the right claiming that presidential polls suffer from liberal bias and Romney is really doing better than they say. "When the published poll shows Obama ahead by, say, 48-45," explains conservative pundit Dick Morris, "he's really probably losing by 52-48!"

Now, this is hardly in the same league as climate denialism or evolution denialism.

Or vaccine denialism or rape denialism or . . . well, you get the idea. Here in America, one of our major parties has responded to the revolution in personal communication that began with 24 hour cable news and progressed to smartphones and the blogosphere by developing an independent, self-reinforcing, weather-dominator-scale doomsday device of cognitive dissonance.

There is no unpleasant reality, the right has discovered, that cannot be shouted down by 128-bit quad-core sophistry. The latest fact to be dragged, gagged and bound, towards the conservative memory hole is Romney's dismal prospects in the upcoming elections:

congressworksforus posted a comment in On Polls and Polling · 2 days ago

I can guarantee you that the Romney campaign has access to far better polling than any polling organization that's posting public polls.
The fact they are NOT changing course simply tells me that Erick is wrong, and that the public polls are horrible this time around.
The fact that Obama has (if you pay attention) essentially given up on being re-elected (could he possibly make any more mistakes than he has the past couple of weeks) tells me that his campaign knows it is toast as well.
Turnout will favor Republicans. The GOP built a ground game after 2008 that was effective (but not overwhelmingly) in 2010, but was *incredibly* effective a few months ago in Scott Walker's recall election (he got more votes than when we was first elected!)
Believe me, Obama is not winning Ohio, nor is he winning Florida, and without either, he ain't winning. 

Yep, we'll just take your word for it, anonymous Restate commenter. Poll denialism is rich with the sort of useful idiots who feel that good old horse sense and five minutes on WUWT qualifies them to dismiss radiative physics. Chait's take here: 

This was the week that the political world discovered the burgeoning world of conservative polling denial. Just like other, better-established fields of conservative reality denial, the polling denial movement has its own levels of insanity. At the core sit the most fanatical of the denialists, like unskewedpolls.com, a popular site that offers its own twist on public opinion data, which currently has Mitt Romney leading Barack Obama by 7.8 percent nationally.

The poll denialists’ argument holds that the polls — all of them, except Rasmussen, conducted by a right-wing pundit with a terrible record of accuracy — are over-sampling Democrats, finding nearly as many of them as showed up at the polls in 2008, which they consider a high-water mark for Democrats unlikely to be repeated. Pundits have patiently explained that polls do not make assumptions about the party identification of voters but merely report what voters tell them. And the most plausible explanation for the higher number of Democrats in polls is that increasing numbers of conservatives who reliably vote Republican are identifying themselves as independents to pollsters.

So poll denialism is silly, and the conspiratorial explanation undergirding it is deranged.

Steven Taylor is on the same page:

I am astonished at the degree to which many who are rooting for Romney seem to be in total denial about the polling.  For example, the following from Katrina Trinko at NRO:

But regardless of partisan breakdown, Republicans should be wary of taking any polls as completely accurate.
“Part of the reason the Democrats won in 2008 was that when it looked as if McCain was going to lose, some Republicans stayed home,” argues McLaughlin. “So if President Obama is in a dead-even race with Mitt Romney in so many swing states, if the Democrats can convince enough Republicans they’re going to lose, it could take a one-point loss for the Democrats to a one-point win.”

Emphasis mine.
The thing that is remarkable about the above is that it not only in based in an approach that privileges preference over reality, it comes with a built-in fairy tale to explain any non-preferred results!  Using the logic above the polling can be wrong whilst predicting the actual outcome and, better yet, the wrong polling (that was actually right) wasn’t just wrong, but it caused the wrong outcome to occur!
Life would be better for all of us if we were all, regardless of partisan preferences, a tad more grounded in empirics.

Can I just say I wish the pundits and national media types would be as quick and forthright in confronting climate science denial? But of course, the difference is that most reporters don't understand climate science, while the concept of calling people up and asking them who they are going to vote for is a little easier to wrap your mind around. And again, as we saw with Todd Akin's comments, the immediate and obvious connection between the ideological worldview to the facts being denied helps people see deniers for what they are. The polls are brutally discouraging to my candidate = I deny the polls; the most scrupulous practitioner of journalistic false balance has got to be able to connect the dots on that one.

Quantifying Lewandowsky madness

A few weeks ago, a bright young man by the name of Stephan Lewandowsky came into the blogospheric eye because of a study which found a correlation between climate denial and the belief in other conspiracy theories.

Now, possibly I have a warm spot in my heart for Dr Lewandowsky, having made much the same point on a number of occasions. But Lewandowsky didn't just spot the relationship, he demonstrated the association scientifically, in a tightly argued paper, now in press.

Climate deniers were upset by this.

The result has been Lewandowsky madness, a psychological disorder characterized by obsessive preoccupation with and demonization of a single, not-yet-published paper, whose crime was to provide evidence of something that anyone who has spent five minutes perusing their comment threads knows: a lot of deniers believe other silly things too.

Climate Audit

Total posts: 12 13

Low point: Accused Lewandowsky of carrying out a “pogrom” after banning an abusive troll from his blog.

(UPDATE): More Deception in the Lewandowsky Data

Lewandowsky’s Pogrom (since renamed “Lewandowsky’s CleansingProgram)

Lewandowsky’s Fake Correlation

Trying (Unsuccessfully) to Replicate Lewandowsky

Conspiracy-Theorist Lewandowsky Tries to Manufacture Doubt

The Lewandowsky Census

Lewandowsky’s Fake Results

The SkS “Link” to the Lewandowsky Survey

Lewandowsky’s Unreported Results

Lewandowsky: study “Useless” unless authors demonstrate “data integrity”

Lewandowsky Censors Discussion of Fake Data

The Third ‘Skeptic’

Anatomy of the Lewandowsky Scam

 

Watts Up With That?

 

Total posts: 15

Low point: Confirms the scientific community’s impression of his chops by referring to Lewandowsky as  “Lewdandorky.”

McIntyre takes down Lewandowsky’s fabricated statistical claims

McIntyre on Lewandowsky’s Fake Correlation

Not quite Friday Funny

Steven Schneider’s 1992 argument against balance in science reporting

The Daily Lew – Issue 6 – drill baby, drill.

Toodle, Lew

The Daily Lew – Issue 5

The Lewandowsky participation census, re-booted

The Lewandowsky participation question

The Daily Lew – Issue 4

The Daily Lew – Issue 3

The Cook-Lewandowsky Social-Internet Link

The Daily Lew – Issue 2

The OTHER problem with the Lewandowsky paper and similar ‘skeptic’ motivation analysis: Core premise off the rails about fossil fuel industry corruption accusation

The Daily Lew

The Blackboard

Total posts: 9

Low point: In “The Five Blogs” Lucia finds out her accusations of fraud and lying are totally unfounded after Lewandowsky gets permission from his university’s ethics committee to release the information that proves he’s tell the truth. Lucia decides he should apologize to her for making her wait.

Lewandowsky’s rampant snippage.

Steve: ‘Use Hide My Ass!’ (to read SKS).

The Five Blogs

Uncertainty: Drives up expected value of costs.

Uncertainty: Let’s just call it an acquaintance!

Lewandowsky can reveal this?!

Conspiracy Theory?! Get Lewandowsky a dictionary. STAT!

Multiple IPs, Hide My Ass and the Lewandowsky survey.

Tweet your permission for Lewandowsky to ‘out’ you.

Skeptics are Conspiracy Theorists?

JoNova

Total posts:  9

Low point: N/A. Every word out of Jo Nova’s mouth is a new low for her and us.

McIntyre v Lewandowsky — Can we call in a statistician at UWA to help Lew?

Lewandowksy, Oberauer, Gignac – Is the paper bad enough to make history?

Lewandowsky gets $1.7m of taxpayer funds to denigrate people who disagree with him

Lewandowsky does “science” by taunts and attempted parody instead of answering questions

Steve McIntyre finds Lewandowsky’s paper is a “landmark of junk science”

Steve McIntyre on Lewandowsky (and Josh)

Lewandowsky hopes we meant “Conspiracy” but we mean “Incompetence”

10 conspiracy theorists makes a moon landing paper for Stephan Lewandowsky (Part II) PLUS all 40 questions

Lewandowsky – Shows “skeptics” are nutters by asking alarmists to fill out survey

Bishop Hill

Total Posts: 9

Low point: In a massive failure of self-awareness, BH justifies his obsession: “The Lewandowsky story rumbles on, demonstrating an abilitity [sic] to generate new storylines that I'm sure few of us thought it ever could have.”

Lewer and lewer

Replicating Lew

Conspiracy of one - Josh 183

More Lew

The plot thickens

Lewandowsky teeters on the brink

Lewandowsky's data

Lewandowsky's conspiracy paper goes mainstream

A total of 56 57 blog posts about one not-yet-published social sciences paper.  So far, they’ve failed to identify a single serious problem with the study. Lewandowsky himself has a PhD in clinical psychology and a resume chocked full of well-regarded research. Yet Lewandowsky madness rages on.

You might say, well, this isn't "madness," it's what the denialosphere does: they fixate on things. They fixated on the Hockey Stick, they fixated on Hansen's 1988 prediction. But this is very different. The Hockey Stick demonstrated and simultaneously provided an arresting visual image of global warming. Hansen correctly predicted the emergence of the global warming signal. This evidence is relentlessly attacked because it is important.

Lewandowsky's paper, while interesting, and as far as I can tell well done, is not in the same league. If I were a denier -- which, not to be immodest, I would be great at, given my amateur knowledge of science and significant reserves of indignation -- I would address Lewandowsky's paper like this:

"As you may know, there's a paper in publication that finds a correlation between climate skepticism and conspiracist ideation. It will be interesting to see if this holds up, but it does not surprise me. It's obvious by reading the comment threads at WUWT, Climate Audit, and elsewhere, that some of the people who are ready to challenge the IPCC narrative believe some really strange things. But this argument is about ideas and evidence, not people. Sometimes good arguments attract strange people. At the heart of the anti-slavery movement was an extremist religious sect whose members were radically pacifist, refused to swear oaths and shook like seizure victims in the middle of church services."

Maybe it's easier for people already mistrustful of society over other issues to accept the fact that, as hard as it may be to believe, a small group of climate scientist and power-hungry government officials have sold us a bill of goods. Be that as it may, it's only a distraction from the discussion we need to have; a serious discussion, like adults, about the other side's best story, not about the fringe, not the endless and pointless argument about whose loons are more loony. This interesting paper should not tempt us into that pointless shouting match."

 But what do I know, eh? I actually believe we landed on the moon.

When not to quote yourself

Revkin gives us an example:

But I’ve long recognized the complexities in ice behavior that will probably result in some ice persisting, even in summer, through that span in some places and that also guarantee the path toward largely open Arctic waters will not be smooth. This was evident to Arctic researchers as far back as 2005, as I wrote in our “Big Melt” series at that time:

Arctic researchers caution that there is something of a paradox in Arctic trends: while the long-term fate of the region may be mostly sealed, no one should presume that the recent sharp warming and seasonal ice retreats that have caught the world’s attention will continue smoothly into the future.

“The same Arctic feedbacks that are amplifying human-induced climate changes are amplifying natural variability,” explained Asgeir Sorteberg, a climate modeler at the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research in Bergen, Norway.

Indeed, experts say, there could easily be periods in the next few decades when the region cools and ice grows.

 I'm sure that cautious prediction made all sorts of sense . . . in 2005. Besides Mr. Revkin's level-headed commentary, what else did we have going for us in 2005? Fifty percent more sea ice than we have today (by area). Two hundred and fifty percent more sea ice (by volume):

August 2005, 9.2; August 2012 3.6 -- what a difference seven years makes.

 To look at it from another perspective: from 1979 to 2005 (26 years) the ice fell from 16.9 km^3 to 9.2 km^3, a decline of 46%. Andrew Revkin cautions us the road ahead may be long and winding. From 2005 to 2012, the volume of ice falls from 9.2 km^3 to 3.6 km^3: a fall, in less than one third the time of more than 60%.

The world has changed. Recycled judiciousness from half a decade ago is a bit past its sell-by date.

The permafrost carbon feedback, ctd

Field information links permafrost carbon to physical vulnerabilities of thawing

Deep soil profiles containing permafrost (Gelisols) were characterized for organic carbon (C) and total nitrogen (N) stocks to 3 m depths. Using the Community Climate System Model (CCSM4) we calculate cumulative distributions of active layer thickness (ALT) under current and future climates. The difference in cumulative ALT distributions over time was multiplied by C and N contents of soil horizons in Gelisol suborders to calculate newly thawed C and N. Thawing ranged from 147 PgC with 10 PgN by 2050 (representative concentration pathway RCP scenario 4.5) to 436 PgC with 29 PgN by 2100 (RCP 8.5). Organic horizons that thaw are vulnerable to combustion, and all horizon types are vulnerable to shifts in hydrology and decomposition. The rates and extent of such losses are unknown and can be further constrained by linking field and modelling approaches. These changes have the potential for strong additional loading to our atmosphere, water resources, and ecosystems. 

Similar general estimates as compared with this paper: 68 billion tons to 508 billion tons in 2100 versus 436 billion tons. This is estimated thawed carbon, though; it's not clear to me from the abstract if they even attempt to estimate how much of that ends up in the atmosphere. This is particularly important in the case of nitrogen, given that NO2 is a powerful greenhouse gas (with 310 times the warming potential of CO2) as well as an ozone-eating chemical.

Despite years of "auditing" science, McIntyre doesn't know what "replicate" means

Fresh off comparing blog moderating to genocide, McIntyre is back with another denialist home run:

If you find it surprising that our former minerals consultant/professional pseudoscientist has already proclaimed the failure of attempts to replicate a study that has not even been published yet, there's a catch. Mr. McIntyre doesn't know what "replicate" means.

Replicating a scientific experiment means doing it again, and seeing if you get the same results. But McIntyre, who startled observers yesterday by not knowing what a pogrom was, is equally at sea when it comes to replication. He thinks it means repeating the analysis of the results. Really:

Is Lewandowsky et al 2012 (in press) replicable? Not easily and not so far. Both Roman M and I have been working on it without success so far. Here’s a progress report (on the first part only).

Lewandowsky carried out factor analysis on three groups of questions: free markets, CO2 and conspiracy, each of which will be discussed below. He used structural equation modeling (SEM) on the other science questions (cause and consensus).

Of course people can and do question and tweak the statistical analysis of scientific results. But to call that "replication" -- that's willful ignorance. Really replication, in this case, means that you conduct your own survey and see if your results show a positive correlation between climate denial and other conspiracy theories.

Source

But of course real replication requires you to do some actual science. You might have to get up out of your chair, do some actual work, rather than endlessly carping about the choices other people made in their research. McIntyre instead chooses to pretend that science is simply playing with the data collected by others. That is basic science illiteracy from one of the "grand old men" of climate denial. I award him three and a half Goddards.