“Scientists have made a biological discovery in Arctic Ocean waters as dramatic and unexpected as finding a rainforest in the middle of a desert. A NASA-sponsored expedition punched through three-foot thick sea ice to find waters richer in microscopic marine plants, essential to all sea life, than any other ocean region on Earth. The finding reveals a new consequence of the Arctic’s warming climate and provides an important clue to understanding the impacts of a changing climate and environment on the Arctic Ocean and its ecology.”

“If someone had asked me before the expedition whether we would see under-ice blooms, I would have told them it was impossible,” said Kevin Arrigo of Stanford University in Stanford, Calif., leader of the ICESCAPE mission and lead author of the new study. “This discovery was a complete surprise.” (See full article here)

Perhaps these NASA scientists should research the scientific literature more carefully. If they did, they might have discovered that Arctic algal blooms are not “unprecedented” or even unusual.

For instance, we have this paper from 1996 reporting on research in 1993:

“Occurrence of an algal bloom under Arctic pack ice” by R. Gradinger, Marine Ecology Progress Series, Vol. 131.

Abstract:

“Summer melting of sea ice leads to the formation of under-ice melt ponds in Arctic seas. The biological characteristics of such a pond were studied in summer 1993. The chlorophyte Pyramimonas sp. (Prasinophyceae) formed a unialgal bloom with cell densities of 19.1 thousand cell per ml and a pigment concentration of 29.6 mg per cubic meter. A comparison with ice core data revealed differences in algal biomass and community structure. Physical data indicate that under-ice ponds are a common feature in the Arctic Ocean. Thus, communities within under-ice ponds, which have not been included in production estimates, may significantly contribute to the Arctic marine food web.”

I wonder if the Arizona Daily Star will, in a few days, report NASA’s “unprecedented” discovery just as the Star uncritically reported the last NASA “unprecedented” claim: Greenland “melting” and media hype.

H/t WUWT

See also:
The Arctic-Antarctic seesaw
Arctic ice reached record low extent in 2012 – or maybe not

Whatever the cause of the recent, sort-lived change in albedo, of greater concern is the news release itself with its hyped title and contradictory content. The ‘melting’ event was not “unprecedented.” Within the press release is this: “’Ice cores from Summit show that melting events of this type occur about once every 150 years on average. With the last one happening in 1889, this event is right on time,’” says Lora Koenig, a Goddard glaciologist and a member of the research team analyzing the satellite data.” Ice cores from another station (NEEM) showed similar melting in 1879 and 1935. It seems that the news release headline was purposely hyped to grab headlines, and so it did. This event does not bode well for NASA’s scientific reputation and shows that NASA is becoming much more political than scientific.

I’ve noticed that the term “unprecedented” is a favorite with global warming alarmists. It says much about NASA that they would write a self-contradictory press release, accompanied by a very misleading graphic, and also much about the credulous media (such as the Arizona Daily Star) which used the word “unprecedented” even though their own stories clearly showed it was not.

Below is a satellite image of Greenland from July 12, 2012. It does not appear to be melting. Also below is the temperature record for July from Summit Camp which sits atop the continental glacier at an elevation of 10,551 feet and a view from the live webcam at Summit Camp.

 See also

Greenland from 39000 feet  some photos I took of Greenland in June.

Data from NASA’s Terra satellite shows that when the climate warms, Earth’s atmosphere is apparently more efficient at releasing energy to space than models used to forecast climate change have been programmed to “believe.”

The result is climate forecasts that are warming substantially faster than the atmosphere, says Dr. Roy Spencer, a principal research scientist in the Earth System Science Center at The University of Alabama in Huntsville.

The previously unexplained differences between model-based forecasts of rapid global warming and meteorological data showing a slower rate of warming have been the source of often contentious debate and controversy for more than two decades.

“The satellite observations suggest there is much more energy lost to space during and after warming than the climate models show,” Spencer said. “There is a huge discrepancy between the data and the forecasts that is especially big over the oceans.”

Not only does the atmosphere release more energy than previously thought, it starts releasing it earlier in a warming cycle. The models forecast that the climate should continue to absorb solar energy until a warming event peaks. Instead, the satellite data shows the climate system starting to shed energy more than three months before the typical warming event reaches its peak.

These data are examined in a new paper:

Spencer, R.W.; Braswell, W.D. On the Misdiagnosis of Surface Temperature Feedbacks from Variations in Earth’s Radiant Energy Balance. Remote Sens. 2011, 3, 1603-1613.

Read the full paper here.

See also:

Your Carbon Footprint doesn’t Matter

NASA Lowers Estimate of Carbon Dioxide Warming Effect

How Mother Nature Fools Climate Scientists

Astronomers predict a major drop in solar activity, that means a cold spell

A Basic Error in Climate Models

Modern, “State-of-the-art seismological techniques applied to Apollo-era data suggest our moon has a core similar to Earth’s.”

As a result of that analysis, NASA says:

the moon possesses a solid, iron-rich inner core with a radius of nearly 150 miles and a fluid, primarily liquid-iron outer core with a radius of roughly 205 miles. Where it differs from Earth is a partially molten boundary layer around the core estimated to have a radius of nearly 300 miles. The research indicates the core contains a small percentage of light elements such as sulfur, echoing new seismology research on Earth that suggests the presence of light elements — such as sulfur and oxygen — in a layer around our own core.

The inner iron core and fluid outer core explains how the Moon developed and maintains its strong magnetic field. By analyzing how seismic signals from Moonquakes were passed through or reflected, the researchers were able to deduce the composition and location of layer interfaces within the Moon.

A primary limitation to past lunar seismic studies was the wash of “noise” caused by overlapping signals bouncing repeatedly off structures in the moon’s fractionated crust. To mitigate this challenge, …the team employed an approach called seismogram stacking, or the digital partitioning of signals. Stacking improved the signal-to-noise ratio and enabled the researchers to more clearly track the path and behavior of each unique signal as it passed through the lunar interior.

Future NASA missions will help gather more detailed data. The Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory, or GRAIL, is a NASA Discovery-class mission set to launch this year. The mission consists of twin spacecraft that will enter tandem orbits around the moon for several months to measure the gravity field in unprecedented detail. The mission also will answer longstanding questions about Earth’s moon and provide scientists a better understanding of the satellite from crust to core, revealing subsurface structures and, indirectly, its thermal history.

Tarantula Hawks Deliver The Big Sting

Edible Desert Plants – Barrel Cactus Fruit

NASA Says Earth Is Entering A Cooling Period

Creatures of the Night: Kangaroo Rat

Gulf Oil Disaster – Beneath the Waves

Cancun Climate Conference, Japan Says No To Kyoto

What happened to the Gulf oil

Geologic Setting of Icelandic Volcanoes

The Chevy Volt, just the latest expensive toy

NASA’s Mono Lake Arsenic Microbes Not Quite As Advertized

To see a complete list of stories with links visit the Quick Link Index page.

The problems with IPCC climate models, NASA says, is that they “did not allow the vegetation to increase its leaf density as a response to the physiological effects of increased CO2 and consequent changes in climate. Other assessments included these interactions but did not account for the vegetation down regulation to reduce plant’s photosynthetic activity and as such resulted in a weak vegetation negative response. When we combine these interactions in climate simulations with 2 × CO2, the associated increase in precipitation contributes primarily to increase evapotranspiration rather than surface runoff, consistent with observations, and results in an additional cooling effect not fully accounted for in previous simulations with elevated CO2.”

Reference: Bounoua, L., F. G. Hall, P. J. Sellers, A. Kumar, G. J. Collatz, C. J. Tucker, and M. L. Imhoff (2010), Quantifying the negative feedback of vegetation to greenhouse warming: A modeling approach, Geophys. Res. Lett., 37, L23701, doi:10.1029/2010GL045338.

It seems that as climate models get more sophisticated, the carbon dioxide effect gets closer to zero, which would be consistent with the geologic record.

There are many modeling estimates of the warming effect of carbon dioxide, but there is no physical evidence that human carbon dioxide emissions have a significant effect on global temperature.

For more background, see my blog Natural Climate Cycles and Your Carbon Footprint Doesn’t Matter. See also my Quick Link Index to read more articles about climate, natural history, geology, and energy.

Here is the complete NASA article:

What are the primary forcings of the Earth system?

The Sun is the primary forcing of Earth’s climate system. Sunlight warms our world. Sunlight drives atmospheric and oceanic circulation patterns. Sunlight powers the process of photosynthesis that plants need to grow. Sunlight causes convection which carries warmth and water vapor up into the sky where clouds form and bring rain. In short, the Sun drives almost every aspect of our world’s climate system and makes possible life as we know it.

Earth’s orbit around and orientation toward the Sun change over spans of many thousands of years. In turn, these changing “orbital mechanics” force climate to change because they change where and how much sunlight reaches Earth. Thus, changing Earth’s exposure to sunlight forces climate to change. According to scientists’ models of Earth’s orbit and orientation toward the Sun indicate that our world should be just beginning to enter a new period of cooling — perhaps the next ice age.

However, a new force for change has arisen: humans. After the industrial revolution, humans introduced increasing amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and changed the surface of the landscape to an extent great enough to influence climate on local and global scales. By driving up carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere (by about 30 percent), humans have increased its capacity to trap warmth near the surface.

Other important forcings of Earth’s climate system include such “variables” as clouds, airborne particulate matter, and surface brightness. Each of these varying features of Earth’s environment has the capacity to exceed the warming influence of greenhouse gases and cause our world to cool. For example, increased cloudiness would give more shade to the surface while reflecting more sunlight back to space. Increased airborne particles (or “aerosols”) would scatter and reflect more sunlight back to space, thereby cooling the surface. Major volcanic eruptions (such as that of Mt. Pinatubo in 1992) can inject so much aerosol into the atmosphere that, as it spreads around the globe, it reduces sunlight and cause Earth to cool. Likewise, increasing the surface area of highly reflective surface types, such as ice sheets, reflects greater amounts of sunlight back to space and causes Earth to cool.

Scientists are using NASA satellites to monitor all of the aforementioned forcings of Earth’s climate system to better understand how they are changing over time, and how any changes in them affect climate.

I note that other NASA pages contradict the statement above and are more alarmist. So much for consensus.

Many people thought maybe NASA would announce discovery of extraterrestrial life. But, as it turned out, NASA was talking about a study at Mono Lake, California, which showed, NASA claimed, that they had discovered a microbe that could grow using arsenic rather than phosphorus which all other known life uses. If true, even this would be a great advance, but microbial use of arsenic, itself, is not news. The 2004 paper, The microbial arsenic cycle in Mono Lake, California, goes into great detail about microbial use of arsenic. But, these microbes still use phosphorus also.

After several microbiologists analyzed the NASA paper and its methodology, they concluded that laboratory errors caused NASA scientists to think the microbes did not use phosphorus.

In fact, says Harvard microbiologist Alex Bradley, the NASA scientists unknowingly demonstrated the flaws in their own experiment. They immersed the DNA in water as they analyzed it, he points out. Arsenic compounds fall apart quickly in water, so if it really was in the microbe’s genes, it should have broken into fragments, Bradley wrote Sunday in a guest post on the blog We, Beasties. But the DNA remained in large chunks—presumably because it was made of durable phosphate. Bradley got his Ph.D. under MIT professor Roger Summons, who co-authored the 2007 weird-life report. Summons backs his former student’s critique.

But how could the bacteria be using phosphate when they weren’t getting any in the lab? That was the point of the experiment, after all. It turns out the NASA scientists were feeding the bacteria salts which they freely admit were contaminated with a tiny amount of phosphate. It’s possible, the critics argue, that the bacteria eked out a living on that scarce supply. As Bradley notes, the Sargasso Sea supports plenty of microbes while containing 300 times less phosphate than was present in the lab cultures. (Source 1, Source 2)

So NASA hyped the study, but there is nothing nefarious about this incident. It’s the way science works. Researchers think they make a discovery; they write a paper; and other scientists either do experiments to replicate the work or poke holes in it. As it stands, the claimed NASA “discovery” is simply questionable and unverified. The way NASA hyped the story, however, is not good practice. And sadly, NASA has been treating climate data the same way.

The BBC interview: http://tinyurl.com/yb9h7vd

Chris Horner, of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, filed a freedom of information request to NASA and its Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), in August 2007. Finally on Dec. 31, 2009 NASA complied with the request and released emails and other documents.

According to Horner, “The emails show the hypocrisy, dishonesty, and suspect data management and integrity of NASA, wildly spinning in defense of their enterprise. The emails show NASA making off with enormous sums of taxpayer funding doing precisely what they claim only a “skeptic” would do. The emails show NASA attempting to scrub their website of their own documents, and indeed they quietly pulled down numerous press releases grounded in the proven-wrong data. The emails show NASA claiming that their own temperature errors (which they have been caught making and in uncorrected form aggressively promoting) are merely trivial, after years of hysterically trumpeting much smaller warming anomalies.”

Horner article part 1 here: http://tinyurl.com/ylkkq76

NASA emails here: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/business/foia/GISS.html

Several stories revealed that Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has conflicts of interest because of his involvement with companies that benefit from the contention that carbon dioxide emissions pose a danger. From the U.K. Telegraph: “Although Dr. Pachauri is often presented as a scientist (he was even once described by the BBC as ‘the world’s top climate scientist’), as a former railway engineer with a PhD in economics, he has no qualifications in climate science at all. What has also almost entirely escaped attention, however, is how Dr. Pachauri has established an astonishing worldwide portfolio of business interests with bodies which have been investing billions of dollars in organisations dependent on the IPCC’s policy recommendations.”

See story: http://tinyurl.com/ydpouot

EUReferendum, a British blog, tells a tale of alleged money laundering by Pachauri:

see: http://tinyurl.com/yeertqn

India Today also has a story on Pachauri’s conflicts of interest:

see: http://tinyurl.com/yll3vr6

More data manipulation revealed:

John Coleman, founder of the Weather Channel, said in a blog on KUSI TV, San Diego, “It has been revealed that a ‘sleight of hand’ was used in the computer program that rated 2005 as ‘The Warmest Year on Record.’ Skeptical climate researchers have discovered extensive manipulation of the data within the U.S. Government’s two primary climate centers: the National Climate Data Center (NCDC) in Asheville, North Carolina, and the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) at Columbia University in New York City. These centers are being accused of creating a strong bias toward warmer temperatures through a system that dramatically trimmed the number and cherry-picked the locations of weather observation stations they use to produce the data set on which temperature record reports are based. The two investigators say the system has been distorted in other ways as well. They have documented their findings in great detail in a scientific report that has been posted online. These findings are presented as a part of my television special report “Global Warming: The Other Side” telecast Thursday night, January 14th at 9 PM here on KUSI TV.” See full blog article here: http://tinyurl.com/yhbjwd5

See the TV show here: http://tinyurl.com/y8vldjp

See the report referred to here: http://tinyurl.com/yj53lq3

We are seeing, more and more, that Congress’s proposed Cap & Trade legislation and the EPA’s proposal to regulate carbon dioxide are based on faulty data. Both campaigns should cease while the situation is being investigated.

See my previous blogs on climategate:

Climategate, the plot thickens: http://tinyurl.com/yjznje8

Climate Data, Fact or Fiction: http://tinyurl.com/yzhd8w9

More Climate Skullduggery: http://tinyurl.com/ygnz9yu

Feedback from a vested interest: http://tinyurl.com/yk26cbz

Climate industry meets reality: http://tinyurl.com/ygnawb5

Climategate Update: http://tinyurl.com/ylqefrq

Climategate: http://tinyurl.com/ykajcoc