Month: March 2021

Feb. 2021 Cooling Land, Warming Sea

Posted on by Ron Clutz

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With apologies to Paul Revere, this post is on the lookout for cooler weather with an eye on both the Land and the Sea.  While you will hear a lot about 2020 temperatures matching 2016 as the highest ever, that spin ignores how fast is the cooling setting in.  The UAH data analyzed below shows that warming from the last El Nino is now fully dissipated with all regions heading down.

UAH has updated their tlt (temperatures in lower troposphere) dataset for February.  Previously I have done posts on their reading of ocean air temps as a prelude to updated records from HADSST3. This month also has a separate graph of land air temps because the comparisons and contrasts are interesting as we contemplate possible cooling in coming months and years. Unusually, last month showed air over land chilled (Polar Vortex?) while oceans warmed slightly.

Note:  UAH has shifted their baseline from 1981-2010 to 1991-2020 beginning with January 2021.  In the charts below, the trends and fluctuations remain the same but the anomaly values change with the baseline reference shift.

Presently sea surface temperatures (SST) are the best available indicator of heat content gained or lost from earth’s climate system.  Enthalpy is the thermodynamic term for total heat content in a system, and humidity differences in air parcels affect enthalpy.  Measuring water temperature directly avoids distorted impressions from air measurements.  In addition, ocean covers 71% of the planet surface and thus dominates surface temperature estimates.  Eventually we will likely have reliable means of recording water temperatures at depth.

Recently, Dr. Ole Humlum reported from his research that air temperatures lag 2-3 months behind changes in SST.  He also observed that changes in CO2 atmospheric concentrations lag behind SST by 11-12 months.  This latter point is addressed in a previous post Who to Blame for Rising CO2?

After a technical enhancement to HadSST3 delayed March and April updates, May resumed a pattern of HadSST updates mid month.  For comparison we can look at lower troposphere temperatures (TLT) from UAHv6 which are now posted for February. The temperature record is derived from microwave sounding units (MSU) on board satellites like the one pictured above. Recently there was a change in UAH processing of satellite drift corrections, including dropping one platform which can no longer be corrected. The graphs below are taken from the new and current dataset.

The UAH dataset includes temperature results for air above the oceans, and thus should be most comparable to the SSTs. There is the additional feature that ocean air temps avoid Urban Heat Islands (UHI).  The graph below shows monthly anomalies for ocean temps since January 2015.

Note 2020 was warmed mainly by a spike in February in all regions, and secondarily by an October spike in NH alone. End of 2020 November and December ocean temps plummeted in NH and the Tropics. In January SH dropped sharply, pulling the Global anomaly down despite an upward bump in NH. Both SH and the Tropics are now as cold as any time in the last five years, and all regions are comparable to to 2015 prior to the 2016 El Nino event. In February the Tropics stayed cold, while both NH and SH rebounded with warming, pulling the Global anomaly up slightly.

Land Air Temperatures Tracking Downward in Seesaw Pattern

We sometimes overlook that in climate temperature records, while the oceans are measured directly with SSTs, land temps are measured only indirectly.  The land temperature records at surface stations sample air temps at 2 meters above ground.  UAH gives tlt anomalies for air over land separately from ocean air temps.  The graph updated for February is below.

Here we have fresh evidence of the greater volatility of the Land temperatures, along with an extraordinary departure by SH land.  Land temps are dominated by NH with a 2020 spike in February, followed by cooling down to July.  Then NH land warmed with a second spike in November.  Note the mid-year spikes in SH winter months.  In December all of that was wiped out. Then January showed a sharp drop in SH, but a rise in NH more than offset, pulling the Global anomaly upward. Now in February NH and the Tropics cooled further, pulling down the Global anomaly, despite slight SH land warming.  All regions are roughly comparable to early 2015, prior to the 2016 El Nino.  With NH having most of the land mass, it’s possible the February Polar Vortex event drove air temps downward last month.

The Bigger Picture UAH Global Since 1995

The chart shows monthly anomalies starting 01/1995 to present.  The average anomaly is 0.04, since this period is the same as the new baseline, lacking only the first 4 years.  1995 was chosen as an ENSO neutral year.  The graph shows the 1998 El Nino after which the mean resumed, and again after the smaller 2010 event. The 2016 El Nino matched 1998 peak and in addition NH after effects lasted longer, followed by the NH warming 2019-20, with temps now returning again to the mean.

TLTs include mixing above the oceans and probably some influence from nearby more volatile land temps.  Clearly NH and Global land temps have been dropping in a seesaw pattern, more than 1C lower than the 2016 peak.  Since the ocean has 1000 times the heat capacity as the atmosphere, that cooling is a significant driving force.  TLT measures started the recent cooling later than SSTs from HadSST3, but are now showing the same pattern.  It seems obvious that despite the three El Ninos, their warming has not persisted, and without them it would probably have cooled since 1995.  Of course, the future has not yet been written.

Arctic Ice Moment of Truth 2021

Posted on by Ron Clutz

For ice extent in the Arctic, the bar is set at 15M km2. The average peak in the last 14 years occurs on day 62 at 15.04M km2 before descending, though the average can still be above 15M at late as day 73.  Nine of the last 14 years were able to clear 15M, but recently only 2016 and 2020 ice extents cleared the bar at 15M km2; the others came up short. The actual annual peak ice extent day varied between day 59 (2016) to day 82 (2012).

The animation shows in two weeks how this year’s ice extents contracted and then regrew greater than before, coincidental with the wavy Polar Vortex (PV) first admitting warmer southern air and then keeping the cold air in.

As reported previously, most of the action was firstly in the Pacific, especially Sea of Okhotsk upper left, ice shrinking one week by 200k km2 and rapidly growing back 210k km2 ice extent the next.  Okhotsk ice is now 1.1M km2, 96% of 2020 max.  On the Atlantic side, Barents sea upper right lost 100k km2 retreating from Svalbard, then gained 120k km2 back.  Greenland Sea ice middle right lost 100k km2, and then gained 150k km2.  Barents now has 3% more ice than 2020 max, while Greenland sea ice is 85% of last year’s max.

All of this means that 2021 will be hard pressed to pass the 15M km2 threshold.  The graph below shows the situation evolving over the last two weeks anticipating the annual maximum to appear within the fortnight.

Note that Sea Ice Index (SII) went offline day 51 so the MASIE record alone shows the loss of ice extent ending day 56 and climbing up to the present.  The NH ice extent gap is at 244k km2, or 1.6%.  Since the 14 year average has already peaked, further growth will narrow the margin.  (Note that ice extent is affected also by winds piling up drift ice, as well as melting from intrusions of warmer air or water.)

Last year surpassed the average while other recent years were lower.  We shall see what this year does with only 10 days or so to make a difference.

Region 2021063 Day 063 Average 2021-Ave. 2007063 2021-2007
 (0) Northern_Hemisphere 14772617 15016830 -244214 14665491 107126
 (1) Beaufort_Sea 1070689 1070254 435 1069711 978
 (2) Chukchi_Sea 966006 964118 1888 966006 0
 (3) East_Siberian_Sea 1087120 1087134 -14 1087137 -17
 (4) Laptev_Sea 897827 897842 -15 897845 -18
 (5) Kara_Sea 935006 929650 5356 932067 2939
 (6) Barents_Sea 805710 649490 156220 626044 179666
 (7) Greenland_Sea 669651 625085 44566 616841 52809
 (8) Baffin_Bay_Gulf_of_St._Lawrence 1224508 1553901 -329393 1220513 3995
 (9) Canadian_Archipelago 854597 853148 1450 852767 1830
 (10) Hudson_Bay 1260471 1260567 -96 1256718 3753
 (11) Central_Arctic 3197627 3222365 -24738 3229824 -32197
 (12) Bering_Sea 631115 686765 -55650 660726 -29612
 (13) Baltic_Sea 65146 97873 -32727 104884 -39738
 (14) Sea_of_Okhotsk 1090295 1084593 5703 1129107 -38812

The main deficit to average is in Baffin Bay, partly offset by a surplus in Barents.  Smaller pluses and minuses are found in other regions.

Typically, Arctic ice extent loses 67 to 70% of the March maximum by mid September, before recovering the ice in building toward the next March.

What will the ice do this year?  Where will 2020 rank in the annual Arctic Ice High Jump competition?

Drift ice in Okhotsk Sea at sunrise.

For more on the Pacific basins see post Meet Bering and Okhotsk Seas

Update: Progressive New Math and Education with Jimbob

Posted on by Ron Clutz

“Say what you want about the Liberal Arts, but they have found a cure for common sense.”

JimBob weighs in on “progressive” education.


Background from Previous Post: Why Progressives Hate Math

Two recent posts (links at end) discussed the progressive attack upon classical liberal knowledge and natural law.  One includes a series of questions getting at the difference between liberal and leftest orientations on many cultural issues of the day.  A thoughtful comment educated me on the question of musical greatness by referencing a number of classical greats who were not  dead white guys.  That led me to this post concerning mathematics and racial identity groups.

When the comment appeared, I happened to be reading a substack article by John McWhorter Is it racist to expect black kids to do math for real?  Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

Yes, serious people are arguing this. Make sure they don’t infect your school district.

There is a document getting around called Dismantling Racism in Mathematics Instruction, a guide put together by a group of educators. It has a black boy on the cover.

The idea is to show us how our racial reckoning of late ought change how we expose black kids to math. I suppose the counsel is also intended for kids of other types of melanin, but this is in essence a document that could be called “Math For Black Kids.”

The latest is that state-level policy makers in Oregon are especially intrigued by this document. There is all reason to suppose that its influence will spread more widely.

And this is to be resisted, as this lovely pamphlet is teaching us that it is racist to expect black kids to master the precision of math.

To wit – its message, penned by people who consider themselves some of the most morally advanced souls in the history of the human species, is one that Strom Thurmond would have happily taken a swig of whiskey to.

Now, part of “antiracist math teaching” here is to teach about black mathematicians (the authors have this as kids “reclaiming their mathematical ancestry” – the jargon is, we must admit, beautiful) or to air facts such as that the traditional Yoruba approach to numbers (and wow, numbers in Yoruba, I note as linguist me, are indeed fierce!) use base 20. No one would object to these things, nor to the idea that we “teach students of color about the career and financial opportunities in math and STEM fields.”

But 96% of people reading this kind of thing will be thinking “Yeah, but what about the math??”

And there is nothing white supremacist in that question. The substance of a serious proposal about teaching math will be, well, teaching how to do math itself, not its history and sociology.

More to the point is that this entire document is focused on an idea that making black kids be precise is immoral.

Yes, the document pays lip service otherwise, claiming at one point to seek to “teach rich, thoughtful, complex mathematics.” And rather often, the word praxis is used. But the thrust of this pamphlet is that:

1. a focus on getting the “right” answer is “perfectionism” or “either/or thinking;”

2. the idea that teachers are teachers and students are learners is wrong;

3. to think of it as a problem that the expectations you have of students are not met is racist;

4. to teach math in a linear fashion with skills taught in sequence is racist;

5. to value “procedural fluency” – i.e. knowing how to do the fractions, long division … — over “conceptual knowledge” is racist. That is, black kids are brilliant to know what math is trying to do, to know “what it’s all about,” rather than to actually do the math, just as many of us read about what physics or astrophysics accomplishes without ever intending to master the math that led to the conclusions;

6. to require students to “show their work” is racist;

7. requiring students to raise their hand before speaking “can reinforce paternalism and powerhoarding, in addition to breaking the process of thinking, learning, and communicating.”

You may wonder if this is a cartoon but no, this is real! This is actually what this document tells us, again and again. This, folks, is the “Critical Race Theory” that so many of us are resisting, not a simple program for “social justice.” To distrust this document is not to be against social justice, but against racism.

Many will dislike the general flavor of it but, amidst so much we all have to pay attention to, may question just what we must object to specifically about Dismantling Racism in Mathematics Instruction.

There are two things. Racism and religion. Just those.

As in, first it is racism propounded as antiracism. Black kids shouldn’t expected to master the precision of math and should be celebrated for talking around it, gamely approximating its answers and saying why it can be dangerous? This is bigotry right out of Reconstruction, Tulsa, Selma, and Charlottesville.

Second, it is not science but scripture. It claims to be about teaching math while founded on shielding students from the requirement to actually do it. This is unempirical. It does so with an implication that only a moral transgressor numb to some larger point would question the contradiction. This is, as such, a religious document, telling you to accept that Jesus walked on water.

Humans may grievously sacrifice the 9-year-old, the virgin, or the widow upon the pyre in worship of a God. Too, humans may sacrifice the black kid from the work of mastering the gift of math, in favor of showing that they are enlightened enough to understand that her life may be affected by racism and that therefore ,she should be shielded from anything that is a genuine challenge.

This is not pedagogy; it is preaching.

My Comment:

In addition to the above, progressives attack math on grounds of gender equality.  You see, the majority of serious mathematicians are not only white, but male.  Here’s where progressives and their identity politics are so wrong and destructive.  In some fields of human endeavor, such as the arts or entertainment, the judgment of quality is a individual right and freedom, a matter of opinion.  People who attend to music, for example, develop a sense of excellence informed by their experiences.  Despite differing musical tastes, there are still standards that determine what will be widely appreciated as high quality.  Genres involve their own measures and disciplines by which performances are judged.  Renowned classical pianist Arthur Rubinstein commented:  “If I miss a day of practice, I can tell it in my performance.  More than a day, and the critics take note.  Skip a week, and the world knows.”

Science and especially mathematics are different because they contain elements of knowledge, not subject to opinion.  When asked how many apples you have after adding two more to the two you already have, the only answer is “four’, by the laws of mathematics.  It is not a matter of opinion.  Of course, beyond the core of scientific knowledge and logic, many questions arise and diverse theories form and are debated.  But this is about the data and facts.  Referring to identity groups of scientists is a distraction and undermines the process of finding truth.

Sports is an interesting field combining science and art.  A movie about basketball was titled after the cliche: “White Guys Can’t Jump.” There are other cliches like “Black Guys Can’t Skate.”  But those who follow a sport, like NBA players and their fans, know that it is the jumping (and associated skills) that matter, and that some white guys are also world class.  Importantly, there are rules dictating game play, and scores define winners and losers.  Talent, discipline and hard work are rewarded without appeal to victimage or racial injustice.  As McWhorter says above, overloading math (or science, or sport) with sociology and history only inflames emotions and destroys both the art and the science.

See also 21 Perversions Inflicted by Wokeness

How to Know a Liberal from a Leftist by Asking

Why Progressives Hate Math

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Two recent posts (links at end) discussed the progressive attack upon classical liberal knowledge and natural law.  One includes a series of questions getting at the difference between liberal and leftest orientations on many cultural issues of the day.  A thoughtful comment educated me on the question of musical greatness by referencing a number of classical greats who were not  dead white guys.  That led me to this post concerning mathematics and racial identity groups.

When the comment appeared, I happened to be reading a substack article by John McWhorter Is it racist to expect black kids to do math for real?  Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

Yes, serious people are arguing this. Make sure they don’t infect your school district.

There is a document getting around called Dismantling Racism in Mathematics Instruction, a guide put together by a group of educators. It has a black boy on the cover.

The idea is to show us how our racial reckoning of late ought change how we expose black kids to math. I suppose the counsel is also intended for kids of other types of melanin, but this is in essence a document that could be called “Math For Black Kids.”

The latest is that state-level policy makers in Oregon are especially intrigued by this document. There is all reason to suppose that its influence will spread more widely.

And this is to be resisted, as this lovely pamphlet is teaching us that it is racist to expect black kids to master the precision of math.

To wit – its message, penned by people who consider themselves some of the most morally advanced souls in the history of the human species, is one that Strom Thurmond would have happily taken a swig of whiskey to.

Now, part of “antiracist math teaching” here is to teach about black mathematicians (the authors have this as kids “reclaiming their mathematical ancestry” – the jargon is, we must admit, beautiful) or to air facts such as that the traditional Yoruba approach to numbers (and wow, numbers in Yoruba, I note as linguist me, are indeed fierce!) use base 20. No one would object to these things, nor to the idea that we “teach students of color about the career and financial opportunities in math and STEM fields.”

But 96% of people reading this kind of thing will be thinking “Yeah, but what about the math??”

And there is nothing white supremacist in that question. The substance of a serious proposal about teaching math will be, well, teaching how to do math itself, not its history and sociology.

More to the point is that this entire document is focused on an idea that making black kids be precise is immoral.

Yes, the document pays lip service otherwise, claiming at one point to seek to “teach rich, thoughtful, complex mathematics.” And rather often, the word praxis is used. But the thrust of this pamphlet is that:

1. a focus on getting the “right” answer is “perfectionism” or “either/or thinking;”

2. the idea that teachers are teachers and students are learners is wrong;

3. to think of it as a problem that the expectations you have of students are not met is racist;

4. to teach math in a linear fashion with skills taught in sequence is racist;

5. to value “procedural fluency” – i.e. knowing how to do the fractions, long division … — over “conceptual knowledge” is racist. That is, black kids are brilliant to know what math is trying to do, to know “what it’s all about,” rather than to actually do the math, just as many of us read about what physics or astrophysics accomplishes without ever intending to master the math that led to the conclusions;

6. to require students to “show their work” is racist;

7. requiring students to raise their hand before speaking “can reinforce paternalism and powerhoarding, in addition to breaking the process of thinking, learning, and communicating.”

You may wonder if this is a cartoon but no, this is real! This is actually what this document tells us, again and again. This, folks, is the “Critical Race Theory” that so many of us are resisting, not a simple program for “social justice.” To distrust this document is not to be against social justice, but against racism.

Many will dislike the general flavor of it but, amidst so much we all have to pay attention to, may question just what we must object to specifically about Dismantling Racism in Mathematics Instruction.

There are two things. Racism and religion. Just those.

As in, first it is racism propounded as antiracism. Black kids shouldn’t expected to master the precision of math and should be celebrated for talking around it, gamely approximating its answers and saying why it can be dangerous? This is bigotry right out of Reconstruction, Tulsa, Selma, and Charlottesville.

Second, it is not science but scripture. It claims to be about teaching math while founded on shielding students from the requirement to actually do it. This is unempirical. It does so with an implication that only a moral transgressor numb to some larger point would question the contradiction. This is, as such, a religious document, telling you to accept that Jesus walked on water.

Humans may grievously sacrifice the 9-year-old, the virgin, or the widow upon the pyre in worship of a God. Too, humans may sacrifice the black kid from the work of mastering the gift of math, in favor of showing that they are enlightened enough to understand that her life may be affected by racism and that therefore ,she should be shielded from anything that is a genuine challenge.

This is not pedagogy; it is preaching.

My Comment:

In addition to the above, progressives attack math on grounds of gender equality.  You see, the majority of serious mathematicians are not only white, but male.  Here’s where progressives and their identity politics are so wrong and destructive.  In some fields of human endeavor, such as the arts or entertainment, the judgment of quality is a individual right and freedom, a matter of opinion.  People who attend to music, for example, develop a sense of excellence informed by their experiences.  Despite differing musical tastes, there are still standards that determine what will be widely appreciated as high quality.  Genres involve their own measures and disciplines by which performances are judged.  Renowned classical pianist Arthur Rubinstein commented:  “If I miss a day of practice, I can tell it in my performance.  More than a day, and the critics take note.  Skip a week, and the world knows.”

Science and especially mathematics are different because they contain elements of knowledge, not subject to opinion.  When asked how many apples you have after adding two more to the two you already have, the only answer is “four’, by the laws of mathematics.  It is not a matter of opinion.  Of course, beyond the core of scientific knowledge and logic, many questions arise and diverse theories form and are debated.  But this is about the data and facts.  Referring to identity groups of scientists is a distraction and undermines the process of finding truth.

Sports is an interesting field combining science and art.  A movie about basketball was titled after the cliche: “White Guys Can’t Jump.” There are other cliches like “Black Guys Can’t Skate.”  But those who follow a sport, like NBA players and their fans, know that it is the jumping (and associated skills) that matter, and that some white guys are also world class.  Importantly, there are rules dictating game play, and scores define winners and losers.  Talent, discipline and hard work are rewarded without appeal to victimage or racial injustice.  As McWhorter says above, overloading math (or science, or sport) with sociology and history only inflames emotions and destroys both the art and the science.

See also 21 Perversions Inflicted by Wokeness

How to Know a Liberal from a Leftist by Asking

How to Know a Liberal from a Leftist by Asking

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Denis Prager explores how to query a friend, relative or colleague to see if they are open to discussion, or locked into a fixed ideology.  His article is Questions to Determine Whether a Friend or Relative Is a Liberal or a Leftist.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and images.

The great tragedy of our time is that liberals vote left.

Virtually every value liberals have held for a century is now held by conservatives and scorned by leftists. Therefore, America, in serious jeopardy of being lost, will be saved when people convince the liberals in their life that the left, not the conservative, is their enemy.

This process begins by establishing whether a friend or relative is a liberal or a leftist. If it turns out that he or she is a liberal, it is worth engaging in respectful dialogue on the issues of the day. If the friend or relative is a leftist, you can probably only talk about innocuous subjects such as the weather (though not about global warming) or sports (though not about players taking a knee during the national anthem). If you talk about the great issues of the day with a left-wing friend or relative, that could be the last time you talk to each other. He or she is likely to unfriend you not only on social media but also in life. Leftists generally do not dialogue; they dismiss.

Here are questions you might want to pose to friends/relatives to determine—as much for them as for you—whether they are liberal or left.

Race
  • Many universities now have all-black dormitories, and some have all-black graduation exercises. Do you support these developments?
  • The University of California has declared this statement racist: “There is only one race—the human race.” Do you agree with the University of California, or do you agree with the statement?
  • Is the goal of being “colorblind”—doing one’s best to ignore a person’s color and concentrating only on the person’s character and personality—a noble goal or a racist one?
  • Do you believe the color of a person’s skin tells you anything of importance about that person?
  • Do you agree that all white Americans are racist?
  • If your answer is yes, would you tell the millions of blacks in Africa and the Caribbean who wish to emigrate to America that they would be making a poor decision? If not, why not?
  • Is it possible for a black person to be a racist?
  • Is it racist to claim that Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed the greatest music ever composed?
  • Is the national anthem racist?
  • If your answer is yes, what would you like to put in its place?
  • The English department at the University of Pennsylvania removed its painting of William Shakespeare because he was a white European male. Do you agree with that decision?

America
  • Do you agree with The New York Times’ “1619 Project” that America was not founded in 1776 but in 1619 with the first arrival of black slaves in North America, and that the Revolutionary War was fought in order to preserve slavery?
  • Should statues of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln be taken down?
  • Has the United States, overall, made the world a better place?
  • Would America be better, worse, or the same as now if all Americans dropped their religion and became secular?
  • Has capitalism been a net-plus for America and the world?
  • Everyone would like to improve America. Some would like to, in their words, “fundamentally transform” it. Would you?
  • Could a good person have voted for Donald Trump in 2020?
  • Do you believe that CNN, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and the rest of the mainstream media are biased toward the left or try to present the news as accurately as possible?
  • Should America have full control over its borders to prevent illegal immigration?
  • There are between 11 and 30 million people in America who entered the country illegally. Should they all be put on a path to citizenship?
  • Should those who enter America illegally be called “undocumented immigrants” or “illegal immigrants”?
  • Do you believe police departments should be defunded, or at least have their budgets severely cut?
  • Should the government provide vouchers to enable parents to choose what school their child attends?
  • Which school do you believe is more likely to be attacked by a gunman: one that has a sign in front that reads, “Gun-Free Zone” or one that reads, “This School Has Armed Personnel”?

Men and Women
  • Should it be legal for a teenage girl to have her breasts surgically removed because she identifies as a male—or should there be a minimum age of 18 or 21?
  • Schoolteachers have been told to stop calling students “boys and girls” because a student might not identify as either male or female. Do you agree with this policy?
  • Should biological males who identify as females be allowed to compete against biological females in sports?
  • Is the statement, “Men give birth” science-based?
  • Do you agree with the practice of inviting a drag queen into public libraries and elementary school classrooms to conduct a “Drag Queen Story Hour”?

    Speech
  • Do you believe that free speech allows for hate speech, or should hate speech be banned?
  • If you believe hate speech should be banned, who do you believe should determine what is hate speech?

You might want to send these questions to the people in your life whose views are to the left of your own.

At best, you (and they) will realize that you have more in common than either of you previously thought. At the very least, their answers will bring you both clarity. And at worst, they will explain why there is a rift between you—and why you might want to restrict communication to weather, sports, recipes, and warm memories.

21 Perversions Inflicted by Wokeness

Posted on by Ron Clutz

The list is provided by Gad Saad in his article and video Welcome To The Abyss of Infinite Lunacy.  Psychologist and author of “The Parasitic Mind: How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense,” Gad Saad, warns that society is descending into an abyss of ultimate lunacy. Text in italics with my bolds and images.

GAD SAAD: The rate at which our society is tumbling into madness is truly bewildering.

One, it is now racist for a white person to translate the work of a black person.

Two, it is now homophobic for a straight actor to play a gay role.

Three, it is now racist for a white therapist to treat a black client.

Four, it is now racist to have advanced high school programs.

Five, it is now transphobic for biological females to reject having to compete against trans women.

Six, it is now Islamophobic to criticize any tenets of Islam.

Seven, it is now science denialism to question the ongoing COVID lockdowns.

Eight, it is now science denialism to question any tenet stemming from climate change alarmists.

Nine, it is now epistemological bigotry, yes I coined that term, to support the scientific method as the means by which you adjudicate scientific hypothesis.

Ten, it is now racist to argue that mathematics yields right and wrong answers.

Eleven, it is now racist to promote the ethos of individual dignity over collectivist identity politics.

Twelve, it is now racist to question a noble person of color, be it a famous athlete or celebrity.

Thirteen, it is now transphobic to posit that only women menstruate.

Fourteen, it is now racist to publicly proclaim your support for “wrongthink” black individuals such as Thomas Sowell or Larry Elder.

Fifteen, it is now misogynist to note that women greatly outnumber men in universities.

Sixteen, it is now sexist to publish scientific research that yields sex differences that are contrary to accepted politically correct Orthodoxy.

Seventeen, it is now racist to point to FBI murder stats broken down by inter-racial markers.

Eighteen, it is now racist to openly support national borders.

Nineteen, it is now racist to seek to curb immigration from countries whose values are anti-liberal.

Twenty, it is now racist to not decolonize philosophy and literature departments.

Twenty-one, it is now racist to request that job offers be based on the merits of an individual rather than their immutable traits.

March 1, 2021 Arctic Ice Recovers from PV Hit

Posted on by Ron Clutz

 

Update March 1, 2021 to previous post

This update is to note a dramatic effect on Okhotsk Sea ice coincidental with the Polar Vortex (PV) event that froze Texas and other midwestern US states mid-February.  When Arctic air extends so far south due to the weak and wavy vortex, warmer air replaces the icy air in Arctic regions.  In this case, the deficits to sea ice extent appeared mostly in the Sea of Okhotsk in the Pacific and Barents Sea in the Atlantic.  After a sharp drop, ice extents are again building toward the Arctic annual maximum, typically mid-March.

The animation above shows the drop and recovery in the last two weeks.  In the Pacific, the PV did little to Bering Sea ice on the lower left, ending the month up about 50k km2.  More dramatic was the PV effect in Okhotsk upper left, where 200k km2 of ice was lost in 5 days, followed by gaining it all back plus some new ice to reach a new high for the year at 95% of 2020 March maximum.  In the Atlantic Barents Sea upper right first retreats from Svalbard, before refreezing.  Middle right Greenland Sea ice is seen receding and then growing, while bottom right Baffin Bay shows a similar pattern. Barents Sea ice was higher than last year,  before losing 175k km2 during the PV, then recovering some back ending the month at 95% of March 2020 maximum.

The graph below shows the February drop and recovery.

Note both MASIE and SII showing a peak of 14.6M km2 nearing the 14-year average on day 46.  Something went wrong with SII, which has not updated its record since day 50.  MASIE has continued, showing losses down to day 56, followed by a sharp rise ending the month at 14.7M km2, a new max for the year.

Some comments from Dr. Judah Cohen Feb. 15 from his AER blog Arctic Oscillation and Polar Vortex Analysis and Forecasts  Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

I have been writing how the stratospheric PV disruption that has been so influential on our weather since mid-January has been unusual and perhaps even unique in the observational record, so I guess then it should be no surprise that it’s ending is also highly unusual. I was admittedly skeptical, but it does seem that the coupling between the stratospheric PV and the tropospheric circulation is about to come to an abrupt end.

The elevated polar cap geopotential height anomalies (PCHs) related to what I like to refer to the third and final PV disruption at the end of January/early February quickly propagates to the surface and even amplifies, peaking this past weekend. And as I have argued, it is during spikes in PCH when severe winter is most likely across the NH mid-latitudes, as demonstrated in Cohen et al. (2018).

But rather than the typical gradual influence from the stratospheric PV disruption over many weeks, maybe akin to the drip, drip, drip of a leaky faucet, the entire signal dropped all at once like an anchor. This also likely contributed to the severity of the current Arctic outbreak in the Central US that is generational and even historical in its severity. But based on the forecast the PV gave all it had all at once, and the entire troposphere-stratosphere-troposphere coupling depicted in Figure ii is about to abruptly end in the next few days.

I am hesitant to bring analogs before 2000 but the extreme cold in Texas did remind me of another winter that brought historic Arctic outbreaks including cold to Texas – January 1977. It does appear that the downward influence from the stratospheric PV to the surface came to an abrupt end at the end of January 1977 . . . Relative to normal, January 1977 was the coldest month for both Eurasia and the US when stratosphere-troposphere coupling was active. But the relative cold did persist in both the Eastern US and northern Eurasia in February post the stratosphere-troposphere coupling. By March the cold weather in the Eastern US was over but persisted for northern Eurasia.

See also No, CO2 Doesn’t Drive the Polar Vortex

Background from Previous Post

In January, most of the Arctic ocean basins are frozen over, and so the growth of ice extent slows down.  According to SII (Sea Ice Index) January on average adds 1.3M km2, and this month it was 1.4M.  (background is at Arctic Ice Year-End 2020).  The few basins that can grow ice this time of year tend to fluctuate and alternate waxing and waning, which appears as a see saw pattern in these images.

Two weeks into February Arctic ice extents are growing faster than the 14-year average, such that they are approaching the mean.  The graph below shows the ice recovery since mid-January for 2021, the 14-year average and several recent years.

The graph shows mid January a small deficit to average, then slow 2021 growth for some days before picking up the pace in the latter weeks.  Presently extents are slightly (1%) below average, close to 2019 and 2020 and higher than 2018.

February Ice Growth Despite See Saws in Atlantic and Pacific

As noted above, this time of year the Arctic adds ice on the fringes since the central basins are already frozen over.  The animation above shows Barents Sea on the right (Atlantic side) grew in the last two weeks by 175k km2 and is now 9% greater than the maximum last March.  Meanwhile on the left (Pacific side)  Bering below and Okhotsk above wax and wane over this period. Okhotsk is seen growing 210k km2 the first week, and giving half of it back the second week.  Bering waffles up and down ending sightly higher in the end.

The table below presents ice extents in the Arctic regions for day 44 (Feb. 13) compared to the 14 year average and 2018.

Region 2021044 Day 044 Average 2021-Ave. 2018044 2021-2018
 (0) Northern_Hemisphere 14546503 14678564 -132061 14140166 406337
 (1) Beaufort_Sea 1070689 1070254 435 1070445 244
 (2) Chukchi_Sea 966006 965691 315 965971 35
 (3) East_Siberian_Sea 1087120 1087134 -14 1087120 0
 (4) Laptev_Sea 897827 897842 -15 897845 -18
 (5) Kara_Sea 934988 906346 28642 874714 60274
 (6) Barents_Sea 837458 563224 274235 465024 372434
 (7) Greenland_Sea 645918 610436 35482 529094 116824
 (8) Baffin_Bay_Gulf_of_St._Lawrence 1057623 1487547 -429924 1655681 -598058
 (9) Canadian_Archipelago 854597 853146 1451 853109 1489
 (10) Hudson_Bay 1260471 1260741 -270 1260838 -367
 (11) Central_Arctic 3206263 3211892 -5630 3117143 89120
 (12) Bering_Sea 559961 674196 -114235 319927 240034
 (13) Baltic_Sea 116090 94341 21749 76404 39686
 (14) Sea_of_Okhotsk 1027249 930357 96892 911105 116144
 (15) Yellow_Sea 9235 28237 -19002 33313 -24078
 (16) Cook_Inlet 223 11137 -10914 11029 -10806

The table shows that Bering defict to average is offset by surplus in Okhotsk.  Baffin Bay show the largest deficit, mostly offset by surpluses in Barents, Kara and Greenland Sea.

The polar bears have a Valentine Day’s wish for Arctic Ice.

welovearcticicefinal

And Arctic Ice loves them back, returning every year so the bears can roam and hunt for seals.

Footnote:

Seesaw accurately describes Arctic ice in another sense:  The ice we see now is not the same ice we saw previously.  It is better to think of the Arctic as an ice blender than as an ice cap, explained in the post The Great Arctic Ice Exchange.

JimBob Strikes Again 2021

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Here’s a current selection of cartoons Madebyjimbob.  I don’t claim all of them are new, but they are new to me, and they do provide a satirical commentary on today’s cultural foibles.  Enjoy them while you can, since humor is a threat to those in power, especially when they are too insecure to tolerate dissenting points of view.  At the end is a link to a post giving examples of Soviet dissident humor.

 


See Also Soviet Jokes About Living Under Oppression