Antarctic ice mass accelerating according to GRACE reanalysis, Pine Island Glacier in sustained retreat

The continent of Antarctica is a land of complexity and paradox, especially when talking about climate change. It is our driest and coldest desert on the planet but locks up an enormous amount of fresh water in it's thick ice sheets. The southern ocean surrounds the continent, insulating it from warmer latitudes, but those currents also bring warmer waters from the tropics to interact with the giant ice shelves around the continent.

And of course there is the paradox of Antarctic sea ice which is recording record sea ice extent over recent years due to the complex winds, currents and dynamics of melt water.

Sea ice growth or melt does not affect sea level rise. We need to look at what the great Ice sheets are doing to determine whether they are accelerating mass loss and contributing to sea level rise.

The GRACE satellites provide us with a remote measuring tool for ice mass balance, but like all tools it comes with certain biases built in. The job of the scientist is to analyse and correct for these biases.

Study: Winds driving Record Antarctic Sea ice growth, global sea ice extent still declining

While the Arctic sea-ice has experienced a dramatic reduction, Antarctic sea ice continues to increase in extent hitting a new record in October this year. So what's going on?

The trend for a gradual increase in Antarctic Sea ice has puzzled scientists. Firstly, the gradual increase in Antarctic sea ice is far less than the amount of sea ice vanishing in the Arctic Sea. Global sea ice trend still shows a marked retreat.

But in the Antarctic working out why the sea ice trend has seen a one percent increase per decade since the 1970s has bamboozled the scientists. A new study based upon 18 years of detailed satellite ice motion measurements has put forward that it is primarily local winds pushing ice mainly north creating polyanas in the ice flows where more ice can easily form.

Climategate 2.0 a storm in a teacup while extreme weather worsens with climate change

More emails by climate scientists have been publicly released from the break-in to the University of East Anglia servers two years ago. The theft was dubbed Climategate, and although climate sceptics argued that the emails showed scientific misconduct, a total of nine separate independent investigations exonerated all the climate scientists. Climategate was all about throwing mud at climate scientists in the hope that some would stick; about sowing doubt broadly among the public in denigrating science, and in particular climate science.

The real story is the way the media sensationalised reporting of Climategate and the lack of investigative journalism in reading the stolen email excerpts in context and follow up with reporting any inaccuracies found in the peer reviewed climate science and reporting it honestly to the public. I don't remember seeing any reports of a scientific study being discredited by a review due to climategate. And the climate science since Climategate only gets stronger. The recent IPCC report on extreme weather events associated with climate change highlights a growing public concern.

The release of these emails, all appearing to be from the same theft, appears to be timed to disrupt the public perceptions of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Durban negotiations of COP17 starting in late November.

Temperature Study funded by climate sceptics confirms rate of Global Warming

'Global Warming is real' declares new scientific work from an independent group of researchers called the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Study. The research team is at least partially funded by the Koch Brothers who fund several climate denial groups. The team was setup to identify flaws in the climate science of global average temperature trends, but has confirmed the analysis undertaken by NASA, NOAA and the Hadley Centre that about 1 degree Celsius of global warming has occurred since 1950.

The study confirmed that "We are seeing substantial global warming" and subtantially eliminated arguments that heat island effects, temperature station quality, and the risk of data selection bias had more than a very modest or marginal impact on the trend for increasing global average temperatures.

Related Commentary: Nature Different method, same result: global warming is real | Climate Progress Hot Dog Bites Skeptical Man: Koch-Funded Berkeley Temperature Study Does “Confirm the Reality of Global Warming”

Engineering Professor: Install solar panels to combat Global Warming rather than paint roofs white

A Stanfoord University Professor of civil and environmental engineering has suggested that installing solar photo-voltaic panels on your house would be a better contribution to reducing global temperatures than the geo-engineering solution of painting vast numbers of urban roofs white to combat the urban heat island contribution to global warming. "There does not seem to be a benefit from investing in white roofs," said Professor Jacobson. "The most important thing is to reduce emissions of the pollutants that contribute to global warming."

Cities and urban areas release more heat to the atmosphere than rural areas - this is known as the Urban Heat Island effect. Climate skeptics have used this to argue that surface temperature data is contaminated by the location of data collection in urban areas. A new scientific study by Stanford University researchers has quantified the contribution of the heat islands on a global basis for the first time, showing that the contribution to global warming from urban heat islands is modest compared with what greenhouse gas emissions contribute.

Related: Skeptical Science: Does Urban Heat Island effect exaggerate global warming trends? | RealClimate: The Surface Temperature Record and the Urban Heat Island

The Climate Show 14

An engaging radio show from New Zealand discussing the latest on climate change. This episode discusses the latest Christchurch earthquakes, ash clouds from Volcanoes in Chile and Eritrea disrupting flights, extreme weather in the US and the impact of La Nina, massive flooding in the Mississippi, drought impacts on France's nuclear plants most of which are located next to drought affected rivers, warmest May on record for New Zealand, new UN report on black carbon and how a reduction could cut future warming, Australian climate scientists cearing up the climate debate, Summer predictions for Arctic sea ice, John Cook from Skeptical Science on John Christy's climate crocks and an interactive history of climate science and large reductions in the cost of solar panels in the USA to the point where solar may be cheaper than fossil fuels in the next few years much more.

Read more at the Climate Show website.

Major drop in solar activity will slow global warming minimally

Image: Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research

The latest buzz by global warming skeptics is the announcement of a Major drop in solar activity predicted at the American Astronomical Society’s Solar Physics Division conference. But the effect of a weakenng sun would hardly slow global warming according to modelling by climate scientists at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. Their research shows global warming may be reduced by only about 0.3 degrees Celsius by 2100 by a new period of extensive solar inactivity.

You can read the best of the climate skeptic analysis and reporting of the press release and images and further analysis on Anthony Watt's Watt's Up With That blog. There is mainstream media coverage of this in National Geographic and the Sydney Morning Herald, Science Magazine or read other climate blogs on this at Climate Denial Crock of the Week and Climate Progress.

Climate scientists rap attack on climate sceptics

Those iconaclastic young journalists of the ABC's Hungry Beast program presented this humourus comedy rap - I am a Climate Scientist - during this weeks program (No 28) broadcast on May 11. Written and performed by Dan Illic and Duncun Elms with several Australian climate scientists, including lead IPCC author Professor Roger Jones. The story was titled 'CLIMATE SCIENCE RAP- there are climate change believers and deniers, but what do the climate change scientists say?'

The song is an attack on climate sceptics who continue to deny that climate change is occurring and is being contributed to by human caused emissions. Journalist Andrew Bolt and Radio talkback compare Alan Jones get special mentions in the song.

You can read about Climate scientist rappers reveal why they did it at Graham Readfearn's Blog. You can read the lyrics, play or download from Dan Ilic's page on Soundcloud - I'm A Climate Scientist - Extended NSFW

Getup! to challenge the climate sceptic hosts dominating Talk Back Radio

Getup! is launching proceedings against climate sceptic talk back radio hosts following on from the ABC Mediawatch program on the lack of balance in the climate debate as presented by talk back radio hosts in Australia.

Jonathon Holmes of Mediawatch takes on the lack of balance in the climate change debate on Australian talk back radio dominated by climate sceptic hosts such as Greg Cary and Gary Hardgrave on 4BC, Alan Jones and Chris Smith on 2GB, Jason Morrison, David Oldfield and Michael Smith on 2UE, and Howard Sattler on 6PR.Watch the program broadcast on March 21 and read the transcript at the ABC Mediawatch: Balancing a Hot Debate including extra related material.

Climate scepticism, anthropogenic global warming and drought in south east Australia

With the release of the CSIRO report on Climate variability and change in south-eastern Australia (CSIRO: South East Australia becoming drier, Global Warming implicated) CSIRO hydrologist and lead author Dr David Post has come under criticism for comments on whether anthropogenic global warming has contributed to drought conditions in south east Australia.

Dr David Post said in a CSIRO media release on October 22 that "The research indicates that these changes can be linked to global warming, making it a likely contributor to the recent drought."

In January 2010 David Post released a report on the potential climate impacts regarding Water Yield availability in Tasmania. He was interviewed in regard to this report in the Canberra Times and was attributed with saying there was "no evidence" linking drought to climate change in eastern Australia: "At this stage, we'd prefer to say we're talking about natural variability. The science is not sufficiently advanced to say it's climate change, one way or the other. The jury is still out on that," (Canberra Times, Jan 19, 2010 - Jury still out on climate change: CSIRO.