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Thursday, January 19, 2012

Another Bastardi Failed Prediction

This is like shooting fish in a barrel, but.... In November 2010 Joe Bastardi made a prediction about 2011 Arctic sea ice -- that it would reach a low of "5.5" Mkm2, and be back to 2005 levels:


So how did he do? Guess.

NSIDC's Arctic sea ice data is here. In 2011 the Arctic sea ice extent reached a monthly low of 4.61 Mkm2, 16% below Bastardi's prediction.

For the year 2011's average was 10.66 Mkm2 (average of the monthly averages). 2005's average was 11.11 Mkm2.

In fact, 2011's average Arctic sea ice extent was the lowest in their records (which go back to Nov 1978). It's true that the low point of 2011 was higher than the low point of 2007 (4.61 Mkm2 in Sept 2011 compared to 4.30 Mkm2 in Sept 2007), but for the year the average was the lowest.

Bastardi concluded with "The ice is coming back, will do so in forward and back steps, with forward defeating the back steps."

For more such Bastardiness, see today's WUWT, where Joe thinks CO2 can't mix in the atmosphere because it has a higher molecular weight than air.
Nor am I going to question them as to why they believe a trace gas like CO2 (needed for life on the planet) with a specific gravity of 1.5 as compared to the atmospheres 1.0, was going to mix with air in a way to affect the earth’s temperatures.
Which is, of course, pure bunk, and demonstrably false.
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5 comments:

  1. ScruffyDan12:09 AM

    If CO2 didn't mix and instead hung around close to the ground basements would be very dangerous places as the co2 would accumulate down there and displace the lighter oxygen.

    ReplyDelete
  2. William M. Connolley2:13 AM

    The CO2 bit is great, tahnks for the tip: http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2012/01/aiiee_the_stupid_it_burns.php

    ReplyDelete
  3. Dano7:06 AM

    This is a weak rehash of a denial meme from maybe a decade ago, when they were desperate to confuse by casting doubt on anything and everything they could think of. I think that past period is why you see some folks make the phrase 'well-mixed gases' prominent and frequent. Can't seem to find an example of the silliness with a quick Google.

    Best,

    D

    ReplyDelete
  4. David Appell11:23 AM

    Exactly, Dan. CO2 causes drowsiness at about 5000 ppm, and starts to get dangerous around 10000 ppm.

    Maybe our elevated CO2 level is already causing drowsiness, and that's why so few people seem to give a damn.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Steve Bloom12:17 PM

    The grain of truth upon which this crap is based is the tendency in non-turbulent conditions for a release of a sufficiently heavy gas to stick around at ground level for a while, as with the famous volcanic CO2 asphyxiation incident some years back in Cameroon.

    But of course one can stand at the bottom of Death Valley and not become even slightly short of breath due to excess CO2 (indeed the opposite, if anything, since O2 density is higher).

    ReplyDelete