Sea Ice Growing at Fastest Pace on Record
Click on the image for a larger view. The red line shows that recently sea ice has been growing rapidly in the Arctic and is now back to an average amount.
Perhaps this is connected to an earlier report of abnormal sunspot activity causing cooling
Damn weather, it's always been hard to predict. I'll think about this report next time I see some dramatic footage of an ice shelf crashing into the ocean. I suppose it's difficult for the media to organise a dramatic video of ice freezing. Nothing is proven but skepticism and openness to information which contradicts the global warming hypothesis still seems important to me.
9 comments:
Stop being such a gullible demagogue on a blog that is ostensibly about Smalltalk software. It's embarrassing.
Given your interest in the subject, surely you would also want to also mention, say, this related information:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7692963.stm
There's so much you ignore.
hi anonymous,
Thanks for the link, which does seem to authoritatively contradict the graph I posted
Nothing is proven but the data does seem to show that "temperatures have been lower in the Arctic this year than in 2007" and that there is more ice, eg. No 2008 record for Arctic sea ice . Not that too much notice should be taken of short term trends of one season.
From my limited study my hypothesis is that some human caused global warming is occurring but that the reporting by the media is unbalanced towards catastrophe theories. The complexity of the topic and the multiple factors affecting the weather ought to be acknowledged more.
The article seems balanced, showing different interpretations of the data. Interestingly the BBC article and the one you reference both talk about satellite data. Quoting from the article you reference:
"The primary instrument for measuring sea ice today is the AMSR-E microwave radiometer, an instrument package aboard NASA's AQUA satellite. AQUA was launched in 2002, as part of NASA's Earth Observing System (EOS)."
The BBC article is curious. It says that arctic ice thickness had been constant the previous 5 years, and only this year did anyone see a drop in levels. Does that mean when we saw massive chunks break off in prior years we shouldn't have been worried?
It would've been nice if they had talked with a scientist who is familiar with arctic ice patterns who could have given an explanation. One thought I had was maybe the lower thickness was due to lower humidity levels. Perhaps there's a certain amount of ice that melts/evaporates every year and there's less of a compensating factor. Just a guess.
I forget if I've told you about him before. Occasionally I've checked up on Roger Pielke Sr.'s climate science blog. He seems very sober on the subject, and he is a climate scientist. Last I read he believes that humans are causing warming, but not via. CO2. He's been pursuing an alternate theory that it has to do with our land use decisions. What I like about him is he calls out media distortion of the science when he sees it. I just checked and I didn't see anything on there about the latest reports on sea ice levels.
The Earth's climate is a very complex system with many factors interacting in ways that even people working in the field won't see or even imagine.
Playing crystal ball games doesn't help.
What helps is GOOD science. Unfortunately there has been lots of BAD science (Dr. Mann et. al.) done. Also unfortunately the media and Mr. Gore and other envirodisasterists like to paint the worst case scenarios. That doesn't help. Mass delusions about the end of the world is all I hear from people now. The spreading of mass belief stricken delusions is an interesting phenomenon in and of itself but with a complex system such as the Earth false or inaccurate beliefs about it doesn't help anyone get to good interpretations of the facts.
It's good that the BAD science doesn't get past some folks: CimateAudit.com.
As someone who lived in Edmonton in the 1970's when it was a hellish -40c for a month at a time in mid winter and -30 to -20 for many months I can say that many up in Northern Canada would welcome a warmer climate. It's not all bad.
Besides we are living with the benefits of massive global warming now as there used to be a mile of ice above my house in Vancouver not so many thousands of years ago.
So the question remains have humans created global warming? Well, certainly we've created the myths of global warming. The key questions are difficult since they require a crystal ball. Predicting the weather is notoriously difficult and yet we put stock into long term predictions. Seems reckless...
Aren't you concerned that the terraforming solutions humans come up with to "correct" the "global warming" won't make things worse? I am.
I suppose over the next 500 years we'll find out for sure what the facts are.
Oh, the Earth's temperature is either staying the same, going down or going up with the likely hood of up or down rather than staying the same. Actually the graphs that I've seen look a lot like a fractal pattern.
Unfortunately the complexity of the Earth's weather is influenced by that little wee tiny ball of fusion going nuts at the center of our orbit. Of course it can't be responsible. Nah.
Recently it was demonstrated that the Earth and Sol (the Sun) interact directly connected with frequent (ever few minutes) Magnetic Flux Transfer Events.
"Like giant, cosmic chutes between the Earth and sun, magnetic portals open up every eight minutes or so to connect our planet with its host star."
"Once the portals open, loads of high-energy particles can travel the 93 million miles (150 million km) through the conduit during its brief opening, space scientists say."
"Called a flux transfer event, or FTE, such cosmic connections not only exist but are possibly twice as common as anyone ever imagined, according to space scientists who attended the 2008 Plasma Workshop in Huntsville, Ala., last month."
"Ten years ago I was pretty sure they didn't exist, but now the evidence is incontrovertible," said David Sibeck, an astrophysicist at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland."
'Flux Transfer Event' Links Sun's, Earth's Magnetic Fields.
Certainly it's conceivable that the Sun could impart a wee bit more energy to the Earth during one or more of the FTE's. Since we didn't even know that these darn events were happening! Oh dear, an alternative theory to the worshiped Global Warming Caused by Humans... oh no... disaster that the disaster might not be caused by us...
So Earth's Sol-mate has nothing to do with it, eh?
It's a complex topic that gets even more complex with completely NEW factors like FTE's ONLY JUST BEING discovered.
Could it be that the causes of actual Earth's weather may not be so clear? Sure.
Certainly we know the causes of the Global Warming Myths - fearful people who'd rather spread fear and doom than take responsible approach to finding out.
I don't have a crystal ball to look into. I also don't trust the crystal balls of the current theorists since there is evidence that there are way too many flaws in their "models".
One point of science is not taking leaps of faith into belief stricken theories. Let's find out what is happening for real rather than what we fear is happening.
All the best,
Peter
THEMIS: Understanding Space Weather.
Hi
Weather is highly variable, as you say "Not that too much notice should be taken of short term trends of one season"
I also agree,"reporting by the media is unbalanced towards catastrophe theories"
Unfortunately the media are also biased towards conspiracy theories. We are offered two shallow alternatives by the media, either every bushfire and flood is direct evidence of global warming or there is a great swindle and "they" are conspiring to hide the truth, that global warming is a hoax.
Unfortunately, the real science is too complex to ever get public discussion.
The 30% increase in ice cover is seasonal ice. There's been a decrease in perennial ice cover. Glaciers and ice fields in Greenland, nearby islands, and the ice in the sea are melting more rapidly than any prediction of any experts.
It is an established consensus from most leading scientists in this field that the changes are caused by us and that we must make the policy decisions to take corrective action now.
Personally, the fossil fuel carbon we are now burning originated from carbon trapped around the Jurassic period .. I am not sure that I really want to be part of an experiment to see what happens if we put it all back into the atmosphere at once.
plakboek:
"It is an established consensus from most leading scientists in this field that the changes are caused by us and that we must make the policy decisions to take corrective action now"
I haven't looked at it closely since last January when I wrote a series of blogs. Some who were previously skeptical now acknowledge some human influence in global warming, eg. Lomborg. However, there is no consensus on how serious the problem is, whether the seas will rise 6cm or 6 metres in the next 100 years for instance. Lomborg argues that we have more pressing priorities. The consensus for policy change is not scientific but political, since Green opinion now accounts for the balance of political power. IMO a proper ongoing scientific discussion has not been held or led by opinion and policy makers
For an earlier better research blog see the end of the world is not coming soon
(sorry due to general business I haven't been able to respond to other comments on this thread, not sure if I will be able to in the short term but hope to get back to it in due course)
this might be of interest
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/fora/stories/2008/11/28/2412501.htm
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