Posted on 05/16/2002 6:40:10 PM PDT by Excuse_My_Bellicosity
You may have heard in the news, an ice shelf (called Larsen B) on the eastern side of the Antarctic peninsula has broken up into a mosaic of smaller icebergs. Global warming was immediately blamed. As has been the case with many such claims in recent years, it is not supported by the facts.
First to have global warming, one needs warmer temperatures. Antarctica has not warmed as some have claimed. In fact, 98% of the continent is colder than it was 20 years ago. This is despite the fact that global warming theory predicts these polar regions should be 'leading the way' on the warming due to the fact that carbon dioxide is most effective at trapping heat in very cold temperatures.
This summer (when it is winter in the northern hemisphere, it is summer in the southern hemisphere), most all of Antarctica has been colder than normal by a significant amount (more than 8 °C or 14 °F according to the data provided by NCEP.
The warming claims are made based on measurements made on the peninsula that extends far out into the Pacific.You can see that even this cold summer, temperatures were slightly warmer than normal there.
This localized (Antartic peninsula) warming and the breakup of the ice are much more likely related to changes in the large-scale circulations in the Pacific in both the ocean and atmosphere (the Pacific Decadal Oscillation) or perhaps even changes in the surface wind fields caused by the colder temperatures in the interior.
As these circulations change, the currents may change affecting the ice. Ironically, as we find also in the north Polar Regions, the ice extent and/or thickness seems to vary without a major change in temperatures. In the northern Polar Regions, the ice has been observed to thicken and thin with changes in the currents that flow under the ice even as surface temperatures remain mostly steady. These currents change with long-term changes in the circulations in the ocean and air over the Atlantic (The North Atlantic Oscillation).
As you can see from the abvove Southern Hemisphere ice cover chart courtesy of the UK Hadley Center, although the ice extent is less than it was in the early 1970s, Southern Hemisphere ice extent (virtually all of it Antarctica) has steadily increased over the past 25 years. The decline in ice during the late 1970s was at the end of a 30-year period during which the PDO was predominantly in a negative mode. During the subsequent 20-year period from 1977 to 1997, when the PDO was predominantly positive, the ice increased.
It will be interesting to see if a decline in the ice begins again now that we are back in a negative PDO mode. If it does, you can be sure that global warming will be blamed even if observations continue to show no warming.
FOR MORE SEE:
Is this Record Warm Winter a Sure Sign of Global Warming?
New Findings Show Antartica Cooling and Ice Cap Expansion
Are the Ice Caps Really Melting?
Why Large Scale Changes in Both the Atlantic and Pacific May be Signalling a Climate Shift
For more information, we invite you to visit these sites:
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2002/22mar_ice.htm?list726145
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2000/ast27dec_1.htm
This article is a couple of months old, but I searched for the title and keywords and didn't find anything. This is a good article and IMHO is worth posting because it is written by a competent and qualified individual (as opposed to the shrill enviro-socialist freaks that usually flood the media on this subject). This guy does a good job of dispelling the myths.
Truth be told, it's right wing Conservative extremists who are to blame.
Besides, do you believe that former President Bush's involvement in the Carlyle Group while the ice caps melt is just coincidence?
I suspect not.
I want the ocean levels to rise, because I'll be just 200 feet from the beach...
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