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Canada's forests, once huge help on greenhouse gases, now contribute to climate change
Chicago Tribune ^ | January 2, 2009 | Howard Witt

Posted on 01/02/2009 4:12:32 PM PST by decimon

VANCOUVER — As relentlessly bad as the news about global warming seems to be, with ice at the poles melting faster than scientists had predicted and world temperatures rising higher than expected, there was at least a reservoir of hope stored here in Canada's vast forests.

The country's 1.2 million square miles of trees have been dubbed the "lungs of the planet" by ecologists because they account for more than 7 percent of Earth's total forest lands. They could always be depended upon to suck in vast quantities of carbon dioxide, naturally cleansing the world of much of the harmful heat-trapping gas.

But not anymore.

(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...


TOPICS: Society
KEYWORDS: climatechange
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1 posted on 01/02/2009 4:12:32 PM PST by decimon
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To: steelyourfaith

Collapsed lung ping.


2 posted on 01/02/2009 4:13:12 PM PST by decimon
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To: decimon
"with ice at the poles melting faster than scientists had predicted"

False. See ice is as high this year as any year since 1979. They really ought to read the news.

3 posted on 01/02/2009 4:16:04 PM PST by Uncle Miltie (Most Animals protect their babies. Palestinians kill their babies.)
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To: decimon

As relentlessly bad as the news about global warming seems to be, with ice at the poles melting faster than scientists had predicted and world temperatures rising higher than expected,
What planet is this news story from? We've just finished the coldest year so far this century. Global temperatures have been trending downward since they peaked in 1998.
4 posted on 01/02/2009 4:16:29 PM PST by cc2k
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To: decimon
Not to say anything about when they catch fire and give it all back.

Does everyone know about the Fire Mapper site where they chart the fires using MODIS satellite data worldwide on a rolling basis? The agricultural burning, especially in Africa is horrific. If only people knew ... I wonder why they don't?

5 posted on 01/02/2009 4:16:56 PM PST by Tarpon (America's first principles, freedom, liberty, market economy and self-reliance will never fail.)
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To: Uncle Miltie

Sea Ice Ends Year at Same Level as 1979

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2157451/posts

http://www.dailytech.com/Article.aspx?newsid=13834


6 posted on 01/02/2009 4:17:40 PM PST by Uncle Miltie (Most Animals protect their babies. Palestinians kill their babies.)
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To: Uncle Miltie
They really ought to read the news.

Read the news? We are the news!

7 posted on 01/02/2009 4:19:08 PM PST by decimon
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To: Uncle Miltie

Rapid growth spurt leaves amount of ice at levels seen 29 years ago.

Thanks to a rapid rebound in recent months, global sea ice levels now equal those seen 29 years ago, when the year 1979 also drew to a close.

Ice levels had been tracking lower throughout much of 2008, but rapidly recovered in the last quarter. In fact, the rate of increase from September onward is the fastest rate of change on record, either upwards or downwards.

The data is being reported by the University of Illinois’s Arctic Climate Research Center, and is derived from satellite observations of the Northern and Southern hemisphere polar regions.

Each year, millions of square kilometers of sea ice melt and refreeze. However, the mean ice anomaly — defined as the seasonally-adjusted difference between the current value and the average from 1979-2000, varies much more slowly. That anomaly now stands at just under zero, a value identical to one recorded at the end of 1979, the year satellite record-keeping began.

Sea ice is floating and, unlike the massive ice sheets anchored to bedrock in Greenland and Antarctica, doesn’t affect ocean levels. However, due to its transient nature, sea ice responds much faster to changes in temperature or precipitation and is therefore a useful barometer of changing conditions.

Earlier this year, predictions were rife that the North Pole could melt entirely in 2008. Instead, the Arctic ice saw a substantial recovery. Bill Chapman, a researcher with the UIUC’s Arctic Center, tells DailyTech this was due in part to colder temperatures in the region. Chapman says wind patterns have also been weaker this year. Strong winds can slow ice formation as well as forcing ice into warmer waters where it will melt.

Why were predictions so wrong? Researchers had expected the newer sea ice, which is thinner, to be less resilient and melt easier. Instead, the thinner ice had less snow cover to insulate it from the bitterly cold air, and therefore grew much faster than expected, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

In May, concerns over disappearing sea ice led the U.S. to officially list the polar bear a threatened species, over objections from experts who claimed the animal’s numbers were increasing.


8 posted on 01/02/2009 4:19:35 PM PST by Uncle Miltie (Most Animals protect their babies. Palestinians kill their babies.)
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To: decimon; OKSooner; honolulugal; Killing Time; Beowulf; Mr. Peabody; RW_Whacko; gruffwolf; ...
Image and video hosting by TinyPic

FReepmail me to get on or off


Click on POGW graphic for full GW rundown

GREENIE WATCH

Ping me if you find one I've missed.


Relentlessly stupid press reporting ping
9 posted on 01/02/2009 4:20:30 PM PST by xcamel (The urge to save humanity is always a false front for the urge to rule it. - H. L. Mencken)
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To: decimon

“Free Republic: Debunking the MSM in under 60 seconds flat for over a decade!”


10 posted on 01/02/2009 4:20:39 PM PST by Uncle Miltie (Most Animals protect their babies. Palestinians kill their babies.)
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To: decimon
Well now, the Chicago Tribune has just run an article with two obvious lies in the first sentence? The Earth's Arctic ice cover is now what it was in 1979. And the Earth's temperature has been going DOWN for three years.

No wonder the Tribune is going bankrupt. For any news media, when they go mentally bankrupt, financial backrupty will inevitably follow.

Congressman Billybob

Latest article, "The Non-Constitutional Crisis from Illinois"

The Declaration, the Constitution, parts of the Federalist, and America's Owner's Manual, here.

11 posted on 01/02/2009 4:23:53 PM PST by Congressman Billybob (Latest book: www.AmericasOwnersManual.com)
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To: decimon

To: hwitt@tribune.com

Dear Mr. Witt:

Your article today (”Canada’s Forests...”) states:

“with ice at the poles melting faster than scientists had predicted “

Yesterday the news was:

Sea Ice Ends Year at Same Level as 1979

http://www.dailytech.com/Article.aspx?newsid=13834

You may wish to update your template to account for the factual contradiction. The poles are not melting faster than predicted. They’re now growing in spite of the predictions.

Sincerely,

(Uncle Miltie)


12 posted on 01/02/2009 4:26:38 PM PST by Uncle Miltie (Most Animals protect their babies. Palestinians kill their babies.)
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To: Congressman Billybob
No wonder the Tribune is going bankrupt.

I may have just given them more readers at FR than they have for their print edition. ;-)

13 posted on 01/02/2009 4:29:03 PM PST by decimon
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To: decimon
Bitter cold Canadian winters used to kill off much of the pine beetle population each year, naturally keeping it in check. But the milder winters of recent years have allowed the insect to proliferate.

Bullshit! Any and all sub freezing temps would have killed off most of the beetle pops. Its the Govt.'s strict regulations against logging that has caused their problem, not global warming and not the f'n beetles.........altho Yoko Ono could kill a tennis shoe.

14 posted on 01/02/2009 4:29:14 PM PST by Hot Tabasco (Today is just a little more special than yesterday.)
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To: decimon

Oh my God...they can’t grow’em up....and for God’s sake don’t cut’em down! We are all going to die!


15 posted on 01/02/2009 4:30:27 PM PST by CIDKauf (No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.)
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To: Hot Tabasco

OBTW - There’s a new bettle on the continent, imported from Russian Siberia by accident. Of course they’re proliferating. This has been going on for decades. The good reporter must not have done a Google search.


16 posted on 01/02/2009 4:31:52 PM PST by Uncle Miltie (Most Animals protect their babies. Palestinians kill their babies.)
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To: decimon
Climate Report Downgrades Ice Loss; Media Reports Opposite

"A new scientific report from the U.S. Climate Change Science Program has sharply reduced earlier estimates of global ice loss. The CCSP, which coordinates the efforts of 13 different federal climate agencies, has released updated figures estimating combined ice loss from Antarctica and Greenland at 48 cubic miles per year..." http://www.dailytech.com/Climate+Report+Downgrades+Ice+Loss+Media+Reports+Opposite/article13797.htm

________________________________________

"48 cubic miles per year", if accurate, is nothing, considering the vastness of the world's oceans

17 posted on 01/02/2009 4:33:12 PM PST by ETL (Smoking gun evidence on ALL the ObamaRat-commie connections at my newly revised FR Home/About page)
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To: Uncle Miltie
There’s a new bettle on the continent, imported from Russian Siberia by accident.

Palin's fault.

18 posted on 01/02/2009 4:33:22 PM PST by decimon
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To: Uncle Miltie

Pine Beetle is not from Russia. My mistake.


19 posted on 01/02/2009 4:37:31 PM PST by Uncle Miltie (Most Animals protect their babies. Palestinians kill their babies.)
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To: CIDKauf

While the impact has been enormous, Mangold said, the mountain pine beetle is a native insect that, along with fire, does play a role in the regeneration of lodgepole pines.

The pines have a hard cone that won’t open without a hot fire, he said. When the cones open, they dump out seed, creating a thick forest of trees of the same age. When the trees hit 80 to 90 years old, they weaken and become susceptible to the mountain pine beetle. The beetles kill the trees, creating more dry fuel for those fires, he said.

http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1480525/pine_beetles_continue_killing_spree_of_western_trees/index.html


20 posted on 01/02/2009 4:39:10 PM PST by Uncle Miltie (Most Animals protect their babies. Palestinians kill their babies.)
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