Global warming evidence mounts - Flurry of reports show a withering ice cap

SF Chronicle ^ | 12-22-02 | David Perlman, Science Editor

[Oldeconomybuyer]

From the tropics to the poles, evidence is growing stronger than ever that Earth's climate is warming dangerously.

In the Arctic Ocean, floating masses of sea ice are shrinking and splitting apart, and the massive Greenland ice cap melted more this past summer than ever before. Meanwhile, warming ocean temperatures are endangering coral reefs in the tropics.

[Iowa Granny]

Paging CongressCritter Billy Bob. "Please dazzle them with the facts, kind sir".

[aruanan]

From the tropics to the poles, evidence is growing stronger than ever that Earth's climate is warming dangerously.

"Dangerously". Ha ha ha. It's a funny thing that these folks never bother to look at other eras of higher global temperature in order to see the effects on human society. The effects have been good, really good.

See also, Climate of Fear: Why We Shouldn't Worry about Global Warming (content summary, PDF file).

Here's another good one from two years ago:

Polar ice cap melting?
by S. Fred Singer (Wall Street Journal August 28, 2000)

It is fashionable these days to blame most everything on manmade global warming. So it comes as no great surprise to read in the NY Times (Aug 19) that "leads" of open water in ice fields near the North Pole filled cruise passengers on a Russian icebreaker with a "sense of alarm" about impending climate disasters. Two scientist-lecturers aboard, a Harvard zoologist and an American Museum paleontologist (experts on animals and fossils but not on meteorology) were "shocked," so ABC News reports, to find "Santa's workshop underwater." What a gruesome image for frightening little kids!

I am a veteran of two Arctic expeditions with the US Navy, and I can testify that icebreakers always search for leads to make their way through the ice. After a long summer of 24-hour days it is not unusual to find open leads all over the place, especially after strong winds break up the winter ice. In the Dutch Winkler Prins Atlas of 1969 the following passage appears: - "the Northern Ice Sea is never completely frozen; 3-30 meter- thick ice floes continue moving slowly around the pole. At the North Pole the winter temperature is never lower than -35°C. Summer temperatures can rise to 10-12°C" (which is well above freezing).

But all this proves little about climate change -- or about enhanced greenhouse warming. For this purpose we use instruments: thermometers at weather stations, radiosondes carried into the atmosphere by weather balloons twice daily, and of course Earth-circling weather satellites, which sense atmospheric temperatures remotely. And all of these agree that the polar regions have not warmed appreciably in recent decades.

Climate models do call for a warming trend as levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide rise because of the burning of fossil fuels. Hence the dilemma: Whom should we believe: theoretical models of the atmosphere or the atmosphere itself? I prefer to believe in the atmosphere and the actual observations that show no current warming. If this clashes with the accepted popular wisdom and media hype, so be it. I go with published data.

The Earth did warm between about 1900 and 1940, with the climate recovering from a previous cold period that climate experts refer to as the "Little Ice Age." As a result of these changes, which have nothing to do with human influences, it is warmer now than 100 years ago. But it does have an influence on polar ice, which has been slowly thinning, as it melts from beneath. And it will continue to thin for some time to come even though the climate is no longer warming.

Weather satellites tell us that polar ice cover is shrinking --- likely a delayed effect of the pre-1940 warming. The Northeast Passage has opened up, allowing ships to sail from London to Japan along the coast of Siberia. It's all part of a natural climate cycle and need not cause concern. Recall that 1000 years ago the climate was so warm that Vikings settled Greenland and grew crops there for a few centuries. Just imagine: Santa's reindeers would have had to swim to get here from the North Pole.
####

PS No one from the National Ice Center in Suitland MD has been quoted in the press. Why? Because they would have told that it is normal to see open water in the Arctic Ocean. The features are called polynyas and are common to a greater or lesser degree, depending on the season, have been mapped now for more than ten years, and published by the Ice Center in a product called FLaP, which stands for Fractures Leads and Polynyas. [Information from a retired NOAA employee who served for several years as Leading Ice Analyst and Forecaster. For a recent research paper on polynyas in the Siberian Laptev Sea, see Eos (Transactions of Amer. Geophys. Union) 81, Aug. 8, 2000]

#####

Atmospheric physicist S Fred Singer is emeritus professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia. He earlier served as the director of the US Weather Satellite Service and as the chief scientist of the US Department of Transportation.

[Congressman Billybob]

I dealt with this precise subject in my latest column, "Junk Science - Harvard and Beyond." Among the points made is that in 35 years of the 20th century, there was COOLING, not warming. Nobody's computer model showed that.

And as for the ice packs, they come and go. They were smallest since the last Ice Age, in the era of 900 - 1.300 A.D. (when there was a shocking lack of SUVs and coal-fired electricity generating plants. That's when the Vikings colonized Greenland and Newfoundland. Greenland then was actually "green;" imagine that! Rather than 90% covered in ice as it is now. And man's activities had diddly squat to do with that warming, which was far more than anything today.

The most telling statistic, however, is to put a chart of the up-down spikes in radiation from the Sun on top of the up-down spikes in warmth in the troposhere on Earth. The matchi is almost perfect. Anyone who talks about global warming without also discussing changes in Sun radiation is committing journalistic malpractice.

Congressman Billybob

Click for latest column on UPI, "Junk Science - Harvard and Beyond" (Now up on UPI wire, and FR.)

Click for latest book, "to Restore Trust in America"

[KarlInOhio]

Ice is less dense than water, which is why it floats. The weight of the water displaced is the same as the entire piece of ice, both above and below water. When the ice melts, the volume of the water is the same as the volume of ice below the water.

If you have a glass of ice and water in which the water is up to the lip of the glass and let the ice melt, the water level will not change (assuming that the ice was freely floating).

Only by melting ice on land (largely Greenland and Antartica) would the sea level be raised.

[Oldeconomybuyer]

That's when the Vikings colonized Greenland and Newfoundland. Greenland then was actually "green;" imagine that! Rather than 90% covered in ice as it is now....

 

Green·landic (-lndk) adj.

Word History: How did a glacier-covered island get the name Greenland? In Norse legends written in the 12th century and later, it is told that Eric the Red explored the southeast and southwest coasts of Greenland in A.D. 983-986 and gave the country its name because people would be more likely to go there if it had an attractive name. Greenland was warmer in the tenth century than it is now. There were many islands teeming with birds off its western coast; the sea was excellent for fishing; and the coast of Greenland itself had many fjords where anchorage was good. At the head of the fjords there were enormous meadows full of grass, willows, junipers, birch, and wild berries. Thus Greenland actually deserved its name. Another attraction of Greenland was that Iceland and northwestern Europe, including England, had a grievous year of famine in 976, and people were hungry for food as well as land.

Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

 

Climate and weather in Iceland

Climate
Considering the northerly location of Iceland, its climate is much milder than might be expected, especially in winter. The mean annual temperature for Reykjavík is 5 C, the average January temperature being -0.4 C and July 11.2 C. The annual rainfall on the south coast is about 3000 mm, whereas in the highlands north of Vatnajökull it drops to 400 mm or less.

[catfish1957]

Also remember 1000 years ago Greenland was warm enough to support a Viking colony. 2nd point...just 20 -25 years ago, there was clamor of a impending ice age.

Truth is, a 150 year sample size is not statistically large enough to truly determine whehter global warming is a concern.

Plus, you'd be suprised how many envirowhacko's who have infiltrated the ranks of supposedly reputable research climatologist

[catfish1957]

I also have a theory too. I have noticed that during the past 30 years, offical reporting stations ahve been in more urban settings than earlier periods. The heat sink obviously of the city will obviously raise the overall temp.

[wcbtinman]

Well I'm still waiting...for the laws of physics to be pushed aside by these socialist idiot scientists.

I just bought all of the property at the 300ft above sea level line. When the oceans rise, I'll own the entire coastline of the US.(sarcasm)

[tubebender]

It marked the most abrupt change in the ocean's ice cover that scientists monitoring the region have seen in 24 years,

So what happened 24 years ago that slowed the change...

[ArGee]

...So What?...If these Greenies and Liberals are so worried about global warming...The best among us adapt and move on.

I think you've answered your own question.

The Greenies and Liberals appear to disproportionately inhabit coastal areas and they don't represent the best among us so they are unlikely to adapt and move on. They would rather force the rest of us to adapt no matter what the cost.

Shalom.

[PeaceBeWithYou]

Very similar thread debunked here -->Arctic ice cap to vanish in 80 years!

---

Take the GLOBAL WARMING TEST.

[irish guard]

C'mon you guys...you know what is coming next.....the results of the study of the ice pack over Greenland.....it will be the Big One!

Obviously this is an orchestrated thing.....I just don't get worried over it....my comments were simply to draw a reaction

[Doctor Stochastic]

Melting of the Arctic ice cap will have no effect on the sea level. It may have an effect on the sea temperature and current flow. Melting of either the Greenland or Antarctic ice caps would have a big effect on sea level.

[fastdraw1]

"Global Warming™ hype + media panic = endlessly increasing research grants"

You have nailed it. Government researchers are as tainted and as ethically scrupulous on this subject as tobacco-funded researchers were in extolling the benefits of cigarettes.

[Kay Soze]

Let Barbara Streisand drown.

[irish guard]

I know that.....it is much easier for ice to melt with the flows of warmer underwater currents that coul be shifting than to somehow affect the surface beneath Greenland or the Antarctic.....I am not worried.....unless of course this was caused by nuclear war and then who cares!

[SunkenCiv]

Greenland Ice Cap Is Melting, Raising Sea Level
Source: The Associated Press
Published: Jul 20, 2000 - 04:05 PM Author: By Paul Recer
Posted on 07/20/2000 14:37:50 PDT by Ms. AntiFeminazi
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3977712e1941.htm