Interestingly...
Satellite imagery shows something entirely different. So maybe that particular shelf is not melting or melting much slower, the surface area of Antarctic ice has been diminishing.
Antarctic ice shelves not melting at all, new field data show
Twenty-year-old models which have suggested serious ice loss in the eastern Antarctic have been compared with reality for the first time - and found to be wrong, so much so that it now appears that no ice is being lost at all. "Previous ocean models ... have predicted temperatures and melt rates that are too high, suggesting a …
-
-
-
Monday 25th June 2012 09:50 GMT imanidiot
Re: Interestingly...
Holy selective evidence use, Batman!
You might want to read the WHOLE story. From you own source: http://nsidc.org/icelights/2012/01/11/sea-ice-down-under-antarctic-ice-and-climate/
Yes the EXTENT of sea ice in the Antarctic has increased. However! The ice shelf has lost a lot of stability and IS changing in where it grows, how thick it gets and when it falls apart again.
Ignoring the current changes in global climate is not a good thing. Being ignorant is a bad excuse, wilfully using data out of context to support your own goal is downright stupid.
-
Monday 25th June 2012 10:39 GMT Mad Mike
Re: Interestingly...
Not sure that he is being selective. The comment was simply that the extent of Antarctic ice has increased. He hasn't denied that there are still changes in where etc. It's only selective when you quote part of a report to support your comment and neglect to mention another part that does not support you. This is not the case here. The fact the report says other things as well, was not relevant to the point being discussed.
-
-
-
Monday 25th June 2012 07:37 GMT Doug Bostrom
Better to read the complete press release. Fimbul is one of many ice shelves;
Release:
http://www.agu.org/news/press/pr_archives/2012/2012-31.shtml
Other ice shelves:
http://ess.uci.edu/researchgrp/velicogna/files/increasing_rates_of_ice_mass_loss_from_the_greenland__and_antarctic_ice_sheets_revealed_by_grace.pdf
Lewis knows this and now hopefully some other people do.
-
-
-
-
-
-
Monday 25th June 2012 12:47 GMT Spanners
Because
The **AVERAGE** temperature of the planet is rising. Some areas will rise more than this, some the same, some less and some may even fall. If the average temperature in Little Widdlington in Essex and Cowfart Nebraska go up, this will not disprove what the vast majority of scientists are currently agreed on.
Despite idiots saying mockingly "the science is in", it isn't. The final results are never in. Scientific opinion changes with time. These changes are based on information. Huge amounts of money from rich people and large polluting companies they own does not provide any information that will make any difference. This money does, however, show what lengths sompe people are prepared to go to to shaft future generations so they can maintain their current profits.
-
Monday 25th June 2012 13:24 GMT GitMeMyShootinIrons
Re: Because
"Despite idiots saying mockingly "the science is in", it isn't. The final results are never in. Scientific opinion changes with time. These changes are based on information. Huge amounts of money from rich people and large polluting companies they own does not provide any information that will make any difference. This money does, however, show what lengths sompe people are prepared to go to to shaft future generations so they can maintain their current profits."
Agreed. And this works both ways, with, as you say, 'large polluting companies' on one side, while there are also interested parties milking lots of (usually) state/charitable funding on biased mis-quoting reports for the sake of opposing vested interests trying to peddle the latest (expensive) snake-oil solution to global warming.
The Global Warming argument has been so muddied by loud voices on BOTH sides that nothing moves forward either way, only those exploiting the argument for financial (or personal reputation) gain actually win. Rome burns (in a carbon neutral fashion), while Nero fiddles (with his publicist).
The 'truth' is usually written by the one with the loudest voice, regardless of how accurate the 'truth' actually is. To terribly misquote an evil dictator of German origin - 'Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it'.
-
Monday 25th June 2012 18:28 GMT Charles Manning
To be scientific, warming and temperature rises are not the same
Warming, in the context of a body with ice, liquid and gaseous forms of water around, means the increase in energy. It does not directly mean increasing temperature.
Start with a pot of ice + water on a stove. You are adding heat, but the temperature change is marginal. Stop adding heat and it soon returns to melting point of water. What is happening is that the melting of ice soaks up heat. Temperature changes only happen on the fringes.
Average temperatures mean nothing. particularly when only very few measurements are being taken around ice and many are being taken around heat bubbles like cities.
That is one reason why the CRU models just don't stack up. Their code directly attempts to model temperature changes. If they modelled heat instead then they would be a lot more scientific.
-
-
-
Monday 25th June 2012 08:06 GMT Pete 2
There's the problem - right there
> Twenty-year-old models which have suggested serious ice loss in the eastern Antarctic
Now if they'd used proper scientists instead of people who wander around on catwalks, maybe they'd have got some better data.
And to say that an Elephant Seal is better at doing climate surveys makes you wonder why we're spending so much money on obviously under-qualified scientists, too.
-
Monday 25th June 2012 08:39 GMT Anonymous Coward
Is this more proof we do not understand our climate enough to actually make predictions?
I personally do not believe a word out of the mouths of climate experts, on either side of the argument!
And while I personally think we must be affecting the climate, I suspect the sun has more to do with it than we do....
Anyway if its too hot, lets launch a sun shade, if its too cold, lets launch a sun reflector, its not like its beyond our technological know how, its just funding (which will be 10x the real cost if NASA do it of course!)
-
Monday 25th June 2012 08:58 GMT Michael 31
Personally...
I believe all kinds of things, but they don't matter because as a scientist I have to cope with reality of things.
1. Antarctica is warming, but warming from -60 °C to -57°C (for instance) doesn't have much visible effect.
2. You are right to be sceptical, but the data is available for you to examine yourself.
3. Solar out has not changed significantly in the roughly 40 years for which we have half decent records. However we are putting 30 billion tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere every year. This is around 5% of the amount which is already there. The observed effect on the climate is broadly in line with what we would expect.
4. Sunshades and and reflectors are fantasy. Dead crops, and dead people are the frightening possibility.
5. The world has many problems. Life is hard. Climate change is one of those problems and we should address it.
Get real
-
Monday 25th June 2012 16:11 GMT iansn
Re: Personally...
So can we please have a list of things that we must do? Not to include taxing people. If you do X (like build a million windmills) what is the effect on the CO2 in the atmosphere. Producing them makes CO2 and the power they produce generates CO2 in the consumption phase. What will the overall effect be? It will slow down the production of CO2 but it wont reduce the amount of atmospheric CO2 by one 0.00000000000001 of a %. As long as we are here on earth it will continue to rise as our population continues to rise and the third world want the same life as we have.
How about you start to look for the things that will improve life and plan for 'change' as I have never seen a plan for change from 'greens' that is positive, ie lets make plans to farm y where we used to farm b. The plan for change only ever involves taxing and foisting windmills on us.
here's something to think about - let everyone generate their own electricity via solar power, as soon as we do the government will invent a tax for that, as they will lose revenue, they encourage it first then tax it when the take up is critical. Nothing is done for the environment, its all about tax.
So if we get real, can we have a proper balanced 'manifesto' that says how we can manage change, not just shouting that we're all gonna die.
-
Monday 25th June 2012 18:40 GMT Charles Manning
Believe?
"I believe..." Leave the Bible at home. Show me.
1) Antarctica is warming. Perhaps, but show me. And one or two sensors is not enough.
2) "the data is available". No it is not. Here in NZ I tried to get raw data, but it was not available. All public data had been "normalised" or "corrected" by the same people that employed Jim Salinger, an IPCC author. Other data sets available world wide have also been filtered.
2') The available data span is too short to be usable.
3) While we put 5% CO2 into the atmophere, nature puts even more in. Our CO2 output is only a fraction of the carbon cycle.
4) Even if warming is happening, this does not necessarily mean dead crops. Many areas of the world would benefit from a few extra degrees.
5. "Life is hard". Not as hard as it was 100, 50, or even 10 years ago. Perhaps that is the real problem. As life gets easier we start to stir up problems where they don't exist.
-
-
-
Monday 25th June 2012 08:40 GMT The Axe
Dont' trust any scientists
When scientists in a national organisation (National Academy of Sciences in the US) says that the sea level on the western cost of the US will rise by a foot in 20 years when over the last 160 years it's risen by 8" then you know that there is some seriously dodgy science going on. You want a hockey stick, go look at the graphic that shows what the 1' rise would look like over at WattsUpWithThat. The NAS say that the sea level could rise by 1m when you take into account a drop in ground level due to a major earthquake. A quake that hasn't done that mcuh change to ground levels in any history.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/06/23/the-national-academy-of-sciences-loses-the-plot/
-
Monday 25th June 2012 10:37 GMT Joe Gurman
Re: Dont' trust any scientists
Another post by a bright bulb who'd rather only read what he already beeves instead of the original report, which predicted rises in the range of 4 to 30 cm, not 30 cm as the most probably value. Does the most probable value represent an acceleration? Yes. That much of an acceleration? No.
-
Monday 25th June 2012 10:50 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Dont' trust any scientists
'A quake that hasn't done that mcuh change to ground levels in any history.'
You're quite right - apart from (OTTOMH) the Chile 'quake of 1961 (2m), the Cascadia 'quake of 1700 (1.5m), Owens Valley in 1872 (4.5m), Hebgen Lake, Montana in 1956 (6.7m) - an intraplate earthquake at that....
-
-
-
Monday 25th June 2012 12:24 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Whaddya expect
Cool. I'll start writing another one right now, shall I "The worlds ending", " The world's not ending", it's all the same, and requires absolutely minimal qualifications and/or skill.
I'm a bit worried though. Won't all those other academics in the pay of the Fossil Industry give my "world's end propaganda" proposal bad reviews? And all the rest on the same Doooooom! bandwagon as me will want also to reject it because they want theirs funded instead.
Hmm. Maybe I should try to get the funding council to fund me on the basis of a sound scientific proposal instead? That probably won't annoy either camp of extremists, and, well, after all I _am_ a scientist, and not some sort of webforum troll.
Wait! Wait! What's the payscale for a webtroll?
-
-
Monday 25th June 2012 08:43 GMT Michael 31
Epic Fail
Lewis
You are at it >again<!
1. You are correct, the Antaractic Ice Sheet looks pretty stable. And that is really good news., thank you for passing it on. That is because the Antarctic - by virtue of being surrounded by sea and circumpolar atmospheric and oceanic currents - is massively isolated from the weather and climate systems that transport heat from the equator to the poles.
2. But even there there are signs of warming on the Antarctic peninsula - the bit that reaches northward towards South America. There two gigantic ice shelves disintegrated in a matter of >hours<. Curiously they were also the size of New Jersey. You didn't mention that.
3. But you are looking in the wrong place. The ARCTIC has seen astonishing ice loss and depending on what one believes we can expect the North Pole to be ice free in summer either by the end of the century - worrying - or the end of the decade - terrifying - but hopefully not true.
4. Your contrarian articles about this stuff are as barmy as the articles you mock about 'saving the planet by slimming'. You are like a man standing with your back to your own burning home and commenting 'Well the houses across the street look excellent in this eerie yellow glow.
Get rational: We really do have something to be concerned about.
Sincerely
Michael
-
Monday 25th June 2012 10:41 GMT vandenbudenmayer
Re: Epic Fail
You want rational? CO2 is a harmless trace gas in our atmosphere currently at a level of around 0.04% by volume. You think it's rational that the earth's radiated heat absorbed by this minute amount of gas would lead to 'something to be concerned about'? The only thing to be concerned about here is your sanity, sir. You can spew all the massaged and abused 'data' you want, but facts are facts. Just look at satellite based measurements of sea level rise, which is about the only thing that says anything meaningful in this entire farce: 3mm per year. So yeah, seems the earth is warming a bit. No idea why. Perhaps CO2 has a little to do with it. Perhaps it's just the earth coming out of the little ice age. Who cares? You think that 3mm per year is a problem? Get rid of your car(s) then, abandon your heated home, stop shopping at Tesco's, sell your computer(s), and go live off the grid. Ciao. Nice to have met you, you lunatic.
-
Monday 25th June 2012 11:13 GMT Michael 31
Re: Epic Fail
Water vapour is only a trace gas (~1%) but it warms the Earth by 31 °C!
CO2 is indeed a trace gas in the atmosphere and its effect is less strong than water. But its effect on radiative transfer is very clear. It warms the Earth. It is responsible for around 2 °C of greenhouse warming. This was well understood a century ago, and in fact was the subject of classroom songs for primary children in the 1050s.
Regarding indicators of Climate Change, you are right to be sceptical of sea level data. It is very very difficult to detect. Similarly with the air temperature above the land surface of the Earth, but there the signal is much clearer. If you would like signs of dramatic changes - look at the arctic - at the places where a small warming causes a phase change from ice/water.
Sincerely
Michael
-
Monday 25th June 2012 11:53 GMT vandenbudenmayer
Re: Epic Fail
Water vapour content of the atmosphere can be as much as 4%. That's 100 times the amount of CO2 dear Michael.
And neither water vapour nor CO2 warm the earth at all. The earth is warmed by the sun, which in turn warms the atmosphere, so your triumphant statement '...it warms the Earth by 31 °C!' is blatant nonsense.
And no one disputes that CO2 contributes to the temperature of the lower parts of the atmosphere. It's the size of the increase in temperature caused by additional CO2 that we disagree on. We both know that it's not a linear relationship, but a logarithmic one. Perhaps it causes a degree centigrade of warming for each doubling, but probably less due to negative feedbacks if you ask me. You will disagree, and that's fine. The proof will be in the pudding!
I wasn't around in 1050, so I can't comment on your classroom songs. Surprised you can remember that far back.
Perhaps you have a slab of concrete in front of your Neanderthal-shaped head, but how you could think I was sceptical of sea level data is beyond me. And regarding your dramatical changing arctic, perhaps you should go live there? Should be nice and warm there soon if your 'signals' are correct.
Keep using those divining rods Michael. There must be water here!!
-
Monday 25th June 2012 12:56 GMT Michael 31
Re: Epic Fail
It is the water the vapour that warms the Earth by the additional 31 °C. Without the water vapour, this warming would not take place. Without water vapour the radiative transfer that stabilises the surface temperature would equilibrate at around -18°C. So although the Sun provides the flow of energy, it is fair to say that it is the water vapour which warms the surface of the Earth.
Water vapour can indeed be even more than 4%. But on average it isn't.
The venerable Lewis Page on these pages reported only recently research that estimated that doubling CO2 would 'only' cause warming of 2-ish °C. It could be that low, or it coudl be bigger. If we are lucky, it might be less. But 2 °C per doubling is a big change, because it looks like we will more than double CO2.
I meant 1950 , not 1050. Sorry.
You seem very angry about something. I know the Global Warming situation is alarming but you should consider seeking help for your anger problem
M
-
Monday 25th June 2012 13:05 GMT vandenbudenmayer
Re: Epic Fail
Michael 31: It is the water the vapour that warms the Earth by the additional 31 °C. Without the water vapour, this warming would not take place.
No dear Michael. The water vapour does NOT warm the earth. The earth warms the water vapour. Do you not see that? Why don't you go to the Sahara and find out what an environment without much water vapour is like?? Hint: it's very warm during the day! Another hint: it can be very cold during the night!
Is the dawn of understanding upon you yet? Or do I need to break it down further?
-
Monday 25th June 2012 13:45 GMT imanidiot
Re: Epic Fail
@vandenbudenmayer
PLEASE, PLEASE read up on how the earth atmosphere works and what is claimed water vapour does before you start spouting crap from other "climate ""scientists"" ".
Water vapour DOES warm the earth. Not the lower atmospheric boundry layer, but slightly further up. Even in the sahara. Because there might not be much vapour IN THE SOIL, there's quite a bit of vapour in the air over there. (Thus why mist-catchers and the likes can get water from the mist that hangs there every morning).
The heat absorbed by the water in the atmosphere is only a fraction of what is absorbed by the earth directly. The water vapour however traps heat that would otherwise be radiated out into space as black body radiation inside the atmosphere, bouncing it around more and causing more of the energy to be absorbed in the atmosphere and the earth. (Infra-red).
@Can't remember who. 2 degrees Celsius temp rise ISN'T unusual in the history of the earth. Even the rate of change isn't unusual. The CIRCUMSTANCES however are. In the past they were easily explained by atmospheric conditions and gas-concentrations caused by natural processes. This is currently not entirely the case. There's an " unknown factor" causing temp rise and climate change that can't currently be explained by any natural process. Thus the conclusion HAS to be that it's something caused by mankind.
-
Monday 25th June 2012 14:10 GMT Oolons
Re: Epic Fail
I think iamanidiot you are wasting your time, vandenbudenmayer and bthrower are more likely to spend their two brain cells working out a good way of taking the piss out of your handle than reading your post. They are in a dogmatic entrenched position which is why the comparison to creationists was a good one - no amount of reasoning will get through. The difference between them and the scientists they deride (cf vandenbudenmayer telling post in response to discovering the person he is arguing with is probably an order of magnitude more qualified than himself) is that if in 20 years time the ice sheets are still there the scientists will be busy working out why the models and predictions were wrong and fielding nutters who say its all a fake. Of course if things go as we suspect and the ice sheets are gone our two trolls will be hanging onto their beliefs as being *right* and never changing your mind is the primary goal of their existence.
-
Monday 25th June 2012 14:42 GMT vandenbudenmayer
Re: Epic Fail
Ooions: ...if in 20 years time the ice sheets are still there the scientists will be busy working out why the models and predictions were wrong and fielding nutters who say its all a fake.
Are you seriously saying that there might be a chance that 'the ice sheets' will be gone in 20 years?? Oh noes!
Do you even have a clue about how long it would take for the Greenland ice sheet to completely vanish for instance? Even if temperatures there would spike by another 3 degrees? 20 years, you reckon? Really? Try 1,000 years.
-
-
Monday 25th June 2012 14:29 GMT vandenbudenmayer
Re: Epic Fail
imanidiot: Water vapour DOES warm the earth. Not the lower atmospheric boundry layer, but slightly further up. Even in the sahara.
I'm talking about the earth. The EARTH. You know, that solid sphere under your feet? Are you being deliberately obtuse? The solid sphere warms the atmosphere above it. Not the other way round. Jesus Christ. Can you not read?
-
Monday 25th June 2012 15:22 GMT btrower
Re: Epic Fail
Re: There's an " unknown factor" causing temp rise and climate change that can't currently be explained by any natural process. Thus the conclusion HAS to be that it's something caused by mankind.
Whew! You sum up the Climate Alarm argument very nicely there. I invite people to examine the above and think it through. The argument is wrong on its face. That is, as my old Biology Professor would say, a matter of knowledge, not opinion.
Here's the math:
X[What I Don't Know] + Y[What I Do Know] = Z[Something Else I Know]
X = Z-Y
[What I Don't Know] = [Something Else I Know] - [What I Do Know]
X = MAN
[What I Don't Know] = [Something I Believe]
That is how a climate scientist solves for X. It is essentially, I cannot know what I don't know, therefore, I know CO2 is bad.
Everyone is welcome to their beliefs. I just object when they 'believe' that I have to give them money to pursue those beliefs.
-
-
-
-
-
Monday 25th June 2012 12:37 GMT btrower
Re: Epic Fail
Re:Water vapour is only a trace gas (~1%) but it warms the Earth by 31 °C!
Your fervent belief in this will not cause it to become true. This is just another climate howler that makes anyone with an undergrad math/science degree wonder how those guys ever got a degree.
I disagree with the people who told you that, but more importantly, so does the physical universe, which we can inspect using ... 'science'. Either I am wrong or they are wrong. If you *really* care to know, you will have to do more digging than to accept the word of someone whose living depends upon 'Climate Change' being important.
Try this: Look up the provenance of the argument. Then, look up the facts that have actually been demonstrated. Then, do the math. Uh, ... Never mind.
Here's the punchline from the text below:
"The modelers then ‘correct’ their error by botching a “33 degrees Centigrade whatchamacallit” they term the greenhouse gas effect.""
From: http://www.slayingtheskydragon.com/en/blog/202-two-top-climate-professors-openly-trash-greenhouse-gas-theory
"No Peer-reviewed Science to Prove Greenhouse ‘Blanket Effect’
But it gets worse - just scratch that surface a little more and you’ll find that there is also not a single peer-reviewed paper substantiating the existence of so-called GHE 'back radiation' heating (a term absent from textbooks on thermodynamics).
One of the endless disagreements is about the incoming solar radiation and whether it can be 'trapped' by carbon dioxide (CO2) to form a gaseous atmospheric 'blanket effect.’
But as Mexico’s Professor Nasif Nahle has experimentally demonstrated, “the warming effect in a real greenhouse is not due to longwave infrared radiation trapped inside the greenhouse, but to the blockage of convective heat transfer with the surroundings…”
Postma and Nahle rigorously applied the science from the book, Slaying the Sky Dragon. They were then able to further expose the critical flaw whereby reliance is placed on a plane-parallel model in which the ground and atmosphere are treated as “planes” that are “parallel” to each other.
Postma shows that the incoming solar flux is wrongly divided by a factor of “4” so as to average the Solar energy over the entire planet as a chilly twilight. In effect, climate science turns our watery revolving globe into a flat, ice covered disk by utterly discarding the warming and cooling process of day and night. So which side in this debate are now the real “flat earthers?”
In other words, climatologists model Earth as a desolate flat disk planet where Sunshine is perpetually freezing cold and liquid water and vapor are impossible. The modelers then ‘correct’ their error by botching a “33 degrees Centigrade whatchamacallit” they term the greenhouse gas effect."
-
-
-
This topic is closed for new posts.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
