Clear evidence that Al Gore was right and government energy policies are having the required effect…….No?
Arctic ice returns to 1980s levels of cap cover
The Arctic ice cap has not, contrary to the predictions of climate alarmists, completely disappeared: in fact it has been growing rapidly, increasing by an entire third just in 2013 and more since. "It would suggest that sea ice is more resilient perhaps. If you get one year of cooler temperatures, we've almost wound the clock …
-
-
Tuesday 21st July 2015 13:56 GMT The Axe
No
No. It's clear evidence that Al Gore is a lying little shit and that western government energy policies don't make any difference.
Governments are increasing taxes on the poor in their countries to make the rich feel good that they are doing something, anything. But none of the actions make any difference because countries like China & India are increasing their CO2 output as developed countries shoot themselves in the foot. China won't start to cut back till 2030 and any lessening in it's annual increase in CO2 is only due to increasing efficiency as its economy booms, not due to climate control actions.
-
Tuesday 21st July 2015 14:21 GMT Hollerith 1
Re: No
Mr Axe, no government (except perhaps the Danish one) has done anything of significance at all to address climate change. I do not mean just China and India, I mean USA and Canada and Brasil and Mexico and France and so on. I see no evidence that any country's carbon footprint is being reduced in any meaningful way.
The artic ice cover is one of many indications of climate change. Every time a country or an area has a good summer or a fiendishly cold winter, it and it alone is pointed to as All the Proof You Need for whatever side you are on. The scientific opinion is based on the aggregate.
-
-
Wednesday 22nd July 2015 00:01 GMT veti
Re: No
All this is "clear evidence" of, is that Lewis Page is an accomplished troll who can reliably get The Faithful to click through and approve his articles without checking the sources.
If you could be bothered, you'd have noticed that the authors of this paper don't dispute that Arctic sea ice is in decline. What they do say is that it " may be more resilient than has been previously considered."
This is good news, but anyone who extrapolates from that to "therefore, AGW is bunk" is someone who is not even trying to pay lip service to logic, science or facts.
-
-
Wednesday 22nd July 2015 09:38 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: No
>climate scientists who study it must now bend over backwards to fit the new observations into their alarmist predictions
Wow. Go watch Chasing Ice and then try and tell me it's "alarmist".
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIZTMVNBjc4
Footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wE4ynZB0Wj0
Full doc: http://www.netflix.com/watch/70229919
-
-
Wednesday 22nd July 2015 21:28 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: No
Do you have any idea what the normal, cyclical (annual) melting/calving process looks like? From what I've seen of this footage, they were mostly just capturing that, only up close and personal this time around. (I've never actually watched the whole thing, but I will try to find time to do that soon enough.) In fact, the only thing which really bothers me here is all of that dust or dirt or whatever that seems to be so abundant. Is that normal, or something new? What causes it? Generally speaking, any darkening of the snow and ice (which may still be there even if it isn't necessarily as readily apparent as what you see in this footage) will cause an increase in the melting rate when exposed to the sun, even if all other things (temperature, amount of sunshine, etc.) stay pretty much the same.
-
Monday 27th July 2015 10:14 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: No
>Do you have any idea what the normal, cyclical (annual) melting/calving process looks like? From what I've seen of this footage, they were mostly just capturing that, only up close and personal this time around. (I've never actually watched the whole thing, but I will try to find time to do that soon enough.)
No I appreciate that the calving process is natural (and spectacular to watch) however the really interesting stuff is when he's monitored the same glacier over a long period with time lapse cameras and you can see just how much they've deflated and retreated over a comparatively short space of time. Some of that is covered in that YouTube video linked above. Anyone who downvoted it has either not bothered watching it or is in outright denial.
-
-
-
-
Wednesday 22nd July 2015 14:30 GMT Jtom
Re: No
Must NOW bend over backwards? No, that has been their position for over a decade. They are quick to say the long term temperature trend for the Arctic is warming, as they repeated here, but never, ever point out that the thirty-year temperature trend for the Antarctic is COOLING. No, no. That's...different. Doesn't mean a thing. Global warming is global, even if it isn't, because if it weren't, they couldn't blame it on Man's contribution of CO2 to the atmosphere.
-
-
Wednesday 22nd July 2015 11:24 GMT mhenriday
Re: No
On the other hand, there are alternatives to Mr Page, who has no scientific background and whose credibility with respect to these matters is nil. Those interested in the (almost) current extent of Arctic sea ice and how it compares with that seen in previous years can, for example, consult the readily available Arctic Sea Ice News and Analysis from the National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC)....
But on the other hand, what do they know, compared with the omniscient Mr Page ?...
Henri
-
Wednesday 22nd July 2015 13:46 GMT Chris Miller
@Henri
I'm sure Mr Page can defend himself, but a cursory glance at his details reveals him to hold an engineering degree from Cambridge. I don't know if that gives someone a 'scientific background' in your circles, but it does in mine. Still I suppose he must be unlikely to be a real scientist, because (as we all know) "99% of scientists" subscribe to warmist alarmism.
-
-
Wednesday 22nd July 2015 18:01 GMT kingkp
Re: No
Oh dear. Clearly another Arts student who knows nothing about science. First of all the people doing the extrapolating here are your orthodox climatologists. Based on 25 years of data they managed to predict the end of world being nigh....unfortunately had they waited 5 more years they may have realised they were measuring a fluctuation not a trend. In science you observe and collate data, then you hypothesise and formulate typically a set of rules that extend or are based upon your current collection of rules that have been verified over a considerable amount of time by many independent observers. Then you carefully calculate what this means and check the predictions against empirical data. Typically this extension to the rule set predicts something else that can also be measured and verified. There are many example of this in physics. A real science.
Now for all the intellectually challenged Art students like yourself out there here's a quick intro to the scientific method...
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OL6-x0modwY">The scientific method in one minute</a>
In orthodox climatology a bunch of idiots who should have studied English literature rather than science have take a very basic principle and extrapolated from this utter bollocks.
-
-
Friday 24th July 2015 21:10 GMT ReduceGHGs
Re: No
Gore is NOT the issue. He's been telling us what the experts have been saying for decades.
We here in the West are responsible for most of the pollution in the atmosphere and oceans. We've also benefited the most from the polluting activities. Shifting the focus to China and India is self-serving. Let's get our house cleaned up first before we point fingers at others. And with enforceable trade laws/policies our trading partners will follow suit if they want to continue trading with the world's largest consumers.
Learn more about climate change and join the efforts to force a change in course.
ExhaustingHabitability(dot)org
-
Tuesday 21st July 2015 15:31 GMT TheVogon
"Clear evidence that Al Gore was right"
At least in regards to Anthropomorphic Global Warming, that hasn't been in any credible scientific doubt for at least a decade now.
"and government energy policies are having the required effect"
If the desired policy is to put heads in the sand and pretend it isn't happening, and the required effect being larger short term corporate profits then yes.
-
Tuesday 21st July 2015 20:44 GMT Chris Miller
@TheVogon
I think you mean anthropogenic, rather than anthropomorphic. As for the "that hasn't been in any credible scientific doubt for at least a decade now", it all depends what you mean by AGW. Mankind has dumped gigatonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere over the last couple of centuries. There's no scientific doubt that doing this will tend to increase atmospheric temperatures through the greenhouse effect and associated changes. There's a great deal of scientific uncertainty about (a) how much of the temperature increase over the last couple of centuries is properly attributable to AGW; and (b) how much increase we might expect if we continue our atmospheric pollution unchecked.
-
Wednesday 22nd July 2015 11:18 GMT TheVogon
Re: @TheVogon
"anthropogenic, rather than anthropomorphic"
Yes - ooops.
"There's a great deal of scientific uncertainty about (a) how much"
True, and over what timescale - but there is no uncertainty that things are already changing due to AGW, and that the predicted results mostly are not going to be good. At a minimum the sea level rise we already know is going to happen due to AGW is going to cause massive issues even at the most conservative estimates of eventual magnitude.
-
-
-
-
-
-
Tuesday 21st July 2015 17:18 GMT psest328
Re: Good news for Polar Bears
**Mind you, ice growth proves Global Warming since it's been proven that as temperatures rise, more humidity is carried into freezing regions, and that not only results in, but aids in the creation of surface ice. That is also why seasonal geographic locations may see more snow and have that snow start falling earlier in the winter season and end later.
(There, I fixed it for you)
-
-
Wednesday 22nd July 2015 11:24 GMT kyndair
Re: Good news for Polar Bears
Scientists (at least those who have worked out how to hold a pencil) are not predicating an ice age, we are already in an ice age (which is defined as a period when there is a permanent polar ice cap on the planet). What some predicted was that we may have another glacial period (when ice builds up on land masses away from the poles). It's worth pointing out that ice ages are not the 'normal' state for planet earth so at some point it is likely that the ice age will end. The debate at the moment (at least among some) is how much human activity is altering the balance or speed of change and what can be done to make things manageable
-
-
Wednesday 22nd July 2015 00:13 GMT Alan Brown
Re: Good news for Polar Bears
"seasonal geographic locations may see more snow and have that snow start falling earlier in the winter season and end later."
Yet paradoxically have a significantly warmer average winter temperature (as is happening in Siberia). When you're that far below freezing you can go a _long_ way up and still have snow.
-
-
-
Tuesday 21st July 2015 13:48 GMT Matthew Smith
" we've almost wound the clock back A FEW YEARS on this gradual decline that's been happening over DECADES". Well thats OK then.
Meanwhile, in a bit of creative accounting, the landmass of Antartica is melting and shedding its glaciers onto the southern oceans at an ever quickening rate. Happily, this means that the loss of ice at the arctic is now balanced out, so the overall percentage of sea-ice shows no difference from 30 years ago. So no need to panic. Phew.
-
Tuesday 21st July 2015 14:07 GMT Anonymous Coward
Did El Reg get bought by Murdoch?
Yay, the ice is back, lets burn more fuels, climate change is all a lie to promote gay marriage etc. etc. etc.
First glowing reviews of Fiat 500s (Really? A hairdressers car. For IT people?)
Next you'll be telling us wind-powered generators are noisy - just like Murdoch's favourite lap-dog The Mad Abbott.
Why not just ... take a cautious approach and reduce fossil fuel use, while promoting alternative fuels? What the hell is wrong with that? It's only wind and solar, not orgone energy or luminiferous aether we're dealing with.
-
Tuesday 21st July 2015 14:15 GMT caradoc
Re: Did El Reg get bought by Murdoch?
"reduce fossil fuel use, while promoting alternative fuels? What the hell is wrong with that?"
Well, clearly fossil fuels are not doing what is claimed for them, so why reduce the use of a cheap and efficient power source and alternative fuels are producing more problems for the environment than they are supposed to be solving.
"climate change is all a lie to promote gay marriage" Not as such, but they are both part of the "Progressive" agenda.
-
-
Tuesday 21st July 2015 18:01 GMT Cynic_999
Re: Did El Reg get bought by Murdoch?
"'
Progressives' tend to believe a consensus by scientists.
"
At the risk of being accused of making a "No true scot" argument, there is real science and then there is political science. When you see a washing powder or toothpaste advert that claims that a product has been "scientifically proven" to clean whiter than any other product, that's an example of political science - the scientist (if there really was one) has produced data to support a desired conclusion. The "proven" effects of second-hand smoking, recreational drugs and much of the dietary "science" we hear about frequently is similarly skewed to support whatever the establishment or paymasters would like to be true. Real science does not change according to the fashion of the day (how's the ozone doing these days, BTW?)
Real science goes from observation to theory to proof (or at least validation), and theory is driven by data, not the other way about.
Proving a scientific theory (the last time I read about scientific method) is an inductive process that requires that the scientist make a prediction based upon the theory and then carry out an experiment or observation to see whether the prediction was correct. From what I have read about climate change, so far practically none of the predictions made by the "climate scientists" has turned out to have been accurate, and some observations have turned out to have shown the opposite of what was predicted. Therefore I cannot understand why the theory is touted as being fact - which suggests it has been all but proven. I really don't care how many scientists agree or disagree with the theory - physical laws are not made by taking a democratic vote on whether to adopt them or not.
I also know with certainty that we (Mankind) are not going to change our ways by a sufficient amount to make any significant difference whether the theory is correct or not no matter how much our governments tax us or fine us for putting our rubbish in the wrong bin. Earth's climate has been changing in cycles for many millions of years, and it is not likely to stop now. The reason for the change (and whether the reason this time around is different to the reasons for cycles over the past millions of years) is not as important as being able to ride the change unscathed. Therefore IMO all the money spent on CO2 reduction would be far better spent helping us to better survive a change in climate than on a few pathetic, half-hearted and ultimately futile attempts to stop it happening. Digging drains is more likely to avert a flood than trying to prevent the rain.
-
Wednesday 22nd July 2015 12:59 GMT Wombling_Free
Re: Did El Reg get bought by Murdoch?
" From what I have read about climate change, so far practically none of the predictions made by the "climate scientists" has turned out to have been accurate, and some observations have turned out to have shown the opposite of what was predicted."
Funny, you could change 'climate scientists' to 'respected economists' and the sentence would still make sense.
Funny also how the same "economics" (care to prove that? no, I'll wait...) is being used as the argument FOR fossil fuels. Just goes to show how selective people are with their truths.
Oddly enough, nuclear is a great option! Far, far cleaner than fossil fuels, even with the accidents.
-
-
-
This topic is closed for new posts.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
