Transition Complete.

The Arctic is not the same ice pack as it was decades ago, we have now arrived at a state where the ice pack is mainly first year ice. 

Heatland F**k Up Big Style.

This whole Heartland posters furore bores me. Like the rest of the thrashings of the denialist zombies it's all rather passe. That hasn't stopped me reading other blogs about it. But the best summary I've read so far is from my 'blogroll'. I recommend taking a couple of minutes to read Lazarus: Hitler Liked Dogs. Do You? Basically Heartland have dropped a clanger, even drawing flak from Ross McItrick, Lazarus has some graphics that put things in context.

For those puzzled by the Thatcher billboard mock up over there - Yes Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thacher, with a background in research chemistry, was one of the first world leaders to really grasp what the climate scientists were saying. She spoke at the Second World Climate Conference, and instituted the Hadley Centre. During that opening she addressed Dr Houghton, head of the IPCC:

Your Report confirms that greenhouse gases are increasing substantially as a result of Man's activities; that this will warm the Earth's surface, with serious consequences for us all, and that these consequences are capable of prediction. We want to predict them more accurately and that is why we are opening this Centre today.
Source.

Just goes to prove, people can have right wing viewpoints without losing touch with evidence and reason.

CO2 Causes Arctic Sea Ice Loss.

The reason I've not been blogging much recently is because I've been spending time in discussion threads, mainly at RealClimate and Neven's Sea Ice Blog. However news posted at Neven's a recent paper offers the opportunity to make a blog post, and an apology. The paper concerned is "Observations reveal external driver for Arctic sea-ice retreat" by Notz & Marotzke, as usual there's a copy to the actual paper at the end of this post.