Media flogs phony ice shelf scare story

The New Australian | 25 March 2002 | Gerard Jackson

[gcruse]

 

Media flogs phony ice shelf scare story

by Gerard Jackson

TNA News with Commentary
No. 327, Monday 25 March 2002

The collapse of the Larsen B ice shelf on the Antarctic peninsular has give our scare-mongering journalists a field day, which, by pure coincidence, also provided the greens with more disinformation with which to confuse the public and intimidate politicians.

First we had Murdoch’s Australian publish story from The London Times — also a Murdoch paper claiming that the collapse provides warning of what is likely to happen to the frozen continent  if present trends in global warming continue (Huge ice shelf sinks into sea in a month by Mark Henderson, 21/3/02). The story warned of the potential release of enough water to raise the world’s sea level by 5 metres.

The Age published the Chilling truth behind the breaking Barrier (Andrew Darby, 23/302) as further evidence of global warming. Just to make sure we get the message, Mr Darby tells us that two masses of ice that broke away were larger than Greater Melbourne (7,695 square kilometres), and then stated "Climate change is to blame." In an attempt to ram up the fear meter Mr Darby reported that the temperature in the peninsular had risen by 2.5 degrees last century compared with 0.6 for the rest of the planet. He too gave us the scary line of a potential sea level rise of 5 meters.

Obviously reckoning that it should allow a good global warming scare story to go cold, The Age published another article (Science ponders the consequences of a shortened life shelf life by Gerard Wright. Quoting from a press release (this beats actually researching a story) issued by the National Snow and Ice Data Centre he tells us that the average thinning of the Antarctic glaciers " is consistent with a pattern of global warming." He also quoted from Professor MacAyeal who seemed to imply that worse was to come.

As is invariably the case, what matters is what journalists have omitted. Darby tells us that the temperature in the peninsular rose by 2.5 degrees last century. What he and the others did not say is that the Antarctic has been accumulating ice. In other words, it has been cooling. A recent article in Nature (Antarctic climate cooling and terrestrial ecosystem response, 31/1/02) written by 13 authors stated: "our spatial analysis of Antarctic meteorological data demonstrates a net cooling on the Antarctic continent between 1966 and 2000, particularly during summer and autumn. The McMurdo Dry Valleys have cooled by 0.7 °C per decade between 1986 and 2000, with similar pronounced seasonal trends."

As Peter Doran, a University of Chicago at Illinois scientist and lead author of the study, said: "... two or three years ago, when we were waiting for the big summers, we noticed that they didn’t come. We were thinking that warm summers were the norm, and we were saying, ‘It’s going to get back to normal,’ but it never did."  The study’s conclusions are striking, finding that since 1978 temperatures across the continent dropped by an average of 0.125 degrees Fahrenheit per year, or 1.2 degrees Fahrenheit per decade. How can this be when global warming theory predicts that the ice caps will warm up except for those greens who argue, when it suits them, that they will get colder. (Does this mean that the planet is getting cooler?)

So while the peninsular was warming the Antarctic was cooling. I stressed Antarctic because the peninsular is not even in the Antarctic Circle. Something else that these reporters also managed to overlook. What also needs to be stressed is that the warming of the peninsular was a local and not global phenomenon.

Now these journalists gave the impression that the break-up was rapid and even, in the case of Wright, unexpected. How did it escape the attention of these keen-eyed reporters that this break has been evident for years and fully expected? After all, this outcrop of ice was a glacier that had extended way beyond the coastline and into the ocean, extending itself further out to sea. Being a floating peninsular it was surrounded by water on four sides, including the water that flowed beneath it. No wonder scientists expected an eventual collapse. I wonder how many scientists would be prepared to gamble their reputations on a contrary view? Perhaps these journalists will find out for us?

Darby repeats the global warming figure of 0.6 degrees for the last century. It’s a pity he didn’t mention that not only did nearly all of that increase take place before 1940 but satellite and balloon measurements have not detected any global warming since 1979, which is when these measurement first began.

What is truly chilling is the contempt that these newspapers have for the truth and the well being of their readers. They simply refuse to publish stories or articles that question the views of global warming advocates. Without a doubt, the Australian media is a damn disgrace and must rank as one of the worst in the developed world.
 

[denydenydeny]

What is truly chilling is the contempt that these newspapers have for the truth and the well being of their readers. They simply refuse to publish stories or articles that question the views of global warming advocates. Without a doubt, the Australian media is a damn disgrace and must rank as one of the worst in the developed world.

The only thing I would modify about this paragraph is to substitute the term "world" for "Australian."

[Paradox]

So the truth comes out. Of course, it wont get mentioned in the mainstream press..

[RANGERAIRBORNE]

I came close to calling my local radio station this morning, when some moron called in to tell us that the sea level would rise by seventy (!) feet due to this "Antarctic warming"- not in 100 years, but in the next year or two.

The neglect of basic education in science and mathematics in this country is a disgrace.

(I was discussing "global warming" with a Greenie friend a few months ago, and he was quoting a number of seriously-flawed studies. When I suggested that there were OTHER studies to look at, he said "They are all written by Right-wing nuts". So much for the "Scientific Method"!!!! Galileo would be proud.)

[dighton]

We're all doomed.

What, don't you WANT to be doomed????

[gcruse]

The neglect of basic education in science and mathematics in this country is a disgrace.

That there should even be something called a 'liberal arts college'
while science majors are required to take humanities in regular
college and the reverse is not the case, leads to a convoluted
sentence.  Hmm.
 

[gcruse]

What, don't you WANT to be doomed????

I just don't want to die.  To that end,
I am planning to live 150 years.  So
far, so good.

[Southack]

Water expands as it freezes. That's why your pipes can burst in your home during a hard freeze.

Conversely, water contracts when it warms up and liquifies.

Now, the enviro-NAZI's want us to believe that global warming will cause the polar ice caps to melt and RAISE the level of our oceans.

But is that actually possible? Most of the ice on our two poles resides above water, not land. The only water that will add to the volume of our oceans (even if global warming were true) would have to be that from ice above ground (a miniscule amount). Even if a large portion of all polar ice was above ground instead of water, the volume that said ice melting would contribute to our oceans would be greatly offset by the contracting volume REMOVED from our oceans by the melting of ice that is above water, and that's in a scenario in which ALL ice on this planet melts away.

Ice contracts when it melts. How likely is that fact going to contribute to RAISING our sea levels?!

[N2Gems]

Try this experiment: Add fresh water ice to a pitcher of salt water and mark the water level. Wait until the ice melts and then mark the water level. I won't spoil the suspense or prejudice your experiment by giving the results.

[FreedomPoster]

Exactly. Only the significant melting of many large glaciers over land would cause any measurable rise is sea level. The antartic glaciers would be key in this. Ooops! They're expanding, as noted in this article - some of the ice pack may be breaking off, but that's because the glaciers over the Antartic land mass are expanding, pushing more ice out over the ocean, which then breaks off.

[FreedomPoster]

Don't expect to see this experiment run in middle school Earth Science classes.

[FreedomPoster]

Dohhh! /Anartic/Antarctic/

[Graewoulf]

"The Media" does it again!

[2Trievers]

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

[Graewoulf]

FYI.

[ijcr]

How right you are, the sea level will actually fall as the ice melts.However,due to the mass of water this drop would hardly be noticed.

The "Melons" (green on the outside,red on the inside) love these natural events and use them in their propaganda.

[petuniasevan]

Yup. Brought to you by the same people who scream that a 1° rise in the temperature in the polar regions will cause catastrophic melting and thawing.
Just one LEETLE problem with that premise: it supposes I'm too stupid to know that -50° + 1° = -49°, not +49°.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Ice contracts when it melts. How likely is that fact going to contribute to RAISING our sea levels?!

Archimedes principal requires that the volume of fresh water displaced by ice exactly equal the volume of the melted ice, so by that standard, you are correct. The ice resting on the earth's hard surface, even below sea level, distorts the earth's elastic shell, which floats on a sea of liquid rock (magma). As this ice moves into the sea, as ice or water, the land underneath will spring up, slightly and land else where will sink very slightly, the entire configuration seeking the lowest total potential energy.

Floating icepack near the shores forms a stopper which prevents the ice on the antartic continent and northern land masses from flowing into the oceans and buoys up the other continents.

That's how losing the antartic ice cap could "raise water levels".

That notwithstanding, globaling warming and ice shelf scares in the popular press are, IMHO, hogwash.

[reg45]

globaling warming and ice shelf scares in the popular press

Of course they are scared. All the big liberal controlled cities (eg. Washington, NYC and Boston) would be among the first submerged. Hoo Yah!

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

All the big liberal controlled cities (eg. Washington, NYC and Boston) would be among the first submerged.

Apparently you've never been to Charleston or New Orleans, which are "scarey low" for anyone who's ever been through a Hurricane. I grew up in Southern Queens where it was single digits above sea level. After Donna in 1960, the streets were flooded for a week. I've lived up around ~200 ft amsl the last 25 years and those kind of places scare me nowadays.