Wow, time to break out those magical fairy cloud ships right away, kids are swimming in the ocean!
Moonbeam, Mardeth, dmcowen674, Lemon law, shira and all anthropogenic global warming alarmists posting on P&N...
It is time to test your religious faith!
Start your analysis with a confirmation that something is really happening and then try exploring hypotheses to try to figure out why. I am not a scientist, but at least I know what the scientific method is - you seem to completely ignore this process while regurgitating propaganda while castigating anyone who see things differently. Naughty naughty!
Let's take the time to dissect this AP article written by Charles J. Hanley.
Did he
really write that story from Tuktoyaktuck in the Canadian Northwest Territories?
The author is an interesting character because he got a Pulitzer Prize for writing about American atrocities at Nogun Ri during the Korean War. Trouble is, he wasn't there and the article was based on false information, information which Hanley apparently knew at the time he published.
Kind of an old story but the reaction of those who were there, American and Korean, should raise the concern about "journalists" of this type and why it is so important to start examining who is writing about what and why.
If you are curious about the controversy, and it really has nothing to do with the current enviro story other than calling into question the guy's character, and would care to find out a bit more about the author's failures to tell the truth for the sake of sensationalism, you can start here -
The Media and Nogun Ri
Some quotes from others on this guy's writing include,
Because Hanely is a professional atrocity mongerer who thrives in the shadows of vagueness and ignorance and knows what the Pulitzer Committee likes. Just about every 13 months, Hanley retreads the same old No Gun Ri story as a shocking ?new? revelation all over again.
Journalism requires more than the ability to write a clear sentence. It requires the persistence to find the relevant facts and the integrity to report them. Hanley is the sort of hack who puts his entire profession in a bad light because he refuses to do those things.
Anyway, let's break down the article.
Isn't this story just full of anecdotal information? That makes the story seem real doesn't it? I mean if I can have dinner with three climate scientists and all three believe there is no anthropogenic climate change and you guys discount that over and over again in the course of this thread, then why should we give any validity to some Eskimo kids jumping into the water?
I spent time in Anchorage and was amazed at how warm it can get there, until I found out that warm ocean currents can go that far north and affect coastal climates. Ocean currents shift around, maybe not as fast the wind, but regularly and broadly. You may be freezing in the waters off Cape Cod one day and it will be like ice water the next because the Gulf Stream moves out a few miles.
Let's let the kids enjoy their swim and move on to another point.
Fact: Arctic ice levels reduced in 2007, but they didn't in 2008 and are now reducing in 2009 but according to the article only to the beginning of July and strangely, now they are not again.
Is this a trend or an anomaly?
You first have to establish a pattern or trend over a fixed time period to be able to evaluate anomaly from cycle from trend. Don't get caught up with extrapolation of short term trends (weekly in this article!!!) into long term effect and don't assume that a trend will continue indefinitely - ie it was 20 degrees hotter today than it was yesterday in DC and it will be twenty degrees hotter tomorrow than it was today - Eureka! We are going to be having the streets of DC turning into lava flows by the end of August!!!
The article is full of "creative" and amazingly poor writing -
The Arctic Ocean has given up tens of thousands more square miles (square kilometers) of ice on Sunday in a relentless summer of melt, with scientists watching through satellite eyes for a possible record low polar ice cap.
Well, they might also be looking for a possible record high polar ice cap! Observation is not conclusion, despite Hanley's hyperbole.
There was a melt off of "tens of thousands more square miles" on Sunday, a relentless summer of melt? Cmon, the construction of this is pure nonsense, probably deliberate nonsense again as Hanley might just be seeking more sensationalism to get paid to write more stories -
"more"? More than Saturday, more than last year? More than when?
Ice sheets can be measured in surface area or volume. He seems to imply surface area, so what was the actual volume? Was it one inch thick or one mile thick - it makes a difference. All on Sunday? Wow, it must have like today, REALLY hot!
And it has been "relentless." Hahaha! Anthropomorphic ice melt!
Gruben, 89, patriarch of a local contracting business (and cited by the author as an expert ice sheet observer, at least what he can see from his front porch) believes the ice is 40 miles closer than it was some 40 years ago. I might want to have a beer with this guy but I'd rather see if we can get some old satellite photos up for a time sequence study as to where the shift of coastal ice occurs, especially in the Beaufort Sea which tends to have a lot of ice floes moving about when it isn't frozen over.
Here are two shots of the area in question from 2005 and 2006. I haven't got the time to check out others but to me it looks like 2005 had more ice melt than 2006. Isn't it supposed to be the opposite, what with global warming, or is that global cooling?
Sea Ice in the Beaufort Sea - NASA Earth Oservatory
Better yet, here is a whole bunch of data on sea ice all over, as cited in the article -
Sea Ice Index - National Snow and Ice Data Center
More on the accuracy of the Center's figures later, but let's accept them for the moment to keep truckin' on.
I don't have time to get into all of the data, I will leave it up to you to start your education on your own, but just looking at one data point is often misleading.
One bit of good news on the ice front is that it looks as if sea ice in the Arctic will not shrink to a new record low this summer, after 2007 marked the smallest amount since satellite records began in the 1970s (and probably a lot longer than that). Ice shrinks to its annual low in September before freezing out again: so far the ice is still
far bigger than in 2007 at the same time although it is also far smaller than the 1979-2000 average, according to the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center.
What about ice that melts anyway? Isn't the water going to flood us so that we need to start building our Noah type arks
right away? Like we are passing all that legislation
right away? Because there is this HUGE global warming crisis right now, right away, ya know?
Now, don't look behind the curtain or you might actually find you will learn something!
Did you know that,
Sea level has fluctuated by an order of
100 meters over the last 18,000 years [Michener et al., Ecological Applications, 1997].
Ice floating on the sea
doesn?t really contribute to raising sea levels ? it?s effectively part of the water already.
Anyway, measuring sea level is almost impossible at the tiny little millimeter scale these ice melts induce.
Did you know the Earth?s crust is actually rising in many places due to the subsidence of the last Ice Age over 20,000 years ago, it is called glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA). This produces
falling sea levels in many places, such as Stockholm where the fall is over 5 mm/year. Most credible experts agree that a minimum of 50 years of accurate data would be required to establish any change in sea levels, and there is no such data.
For a counterpoint to the crux of Hanley's story, check this out -
Report of thinning arctic ice is deceiving
"When looking at arctic ice reports, the most important thing to remember is that we have only been studying the arctic since the end of 1978. That's only three decades, which is a small data set to truly identify a trend for long-term climate. We must look closely at the reports themselves, such as the most recent one from NASA/JPL. The analysis does take time, but that could also mean old data is shown, ignoring current trends. Also, many of these ice reports are released in the summer, when it is 'expected' to be hot, and ice in the arctic is at its lowest point all year. So, global warming or climate change aside, the time of year can be misleading.
The latest report from NASA on arctic sea ice states that between 2004 and 2008 (see the comparison images and scale in the slide show below), the ice has shrunk by 57%, comparing it to the size of Lake Michigan. NASA scientist Jay Zwally says global warming is to blame. The image here does show a region of
increased ice thickness in that same time frame, but this is not mentioned.
Most coverage of this report fails to state that just this winter the National Snow and Ice Data Center had to come clean that its remote sensors were failing. It had underestimated ice about the size of California:
The problem arose from a malfunction of the satellite sensor we use for our daily sea ice products. Upon further investigation, we discovered that starting around early January, an error known as sensor drift caused a slowly growing underestimation of Arctic sea ice extent. The underestimation reached approximately 500,000 square kilometers (193,000 square miles) by mid-February. Sensor drift, although infrequent, does occasionally occur and it is one of the things that we account for during quality control measures prior to archiving the data.
So, does the NASA report include the bad, missing data? The latest data for June does show a dramatic ice retreat during 2006 and 2007, but a recovery has been seen since then. This recovery is much more significant! Last year, the return of sea ice in the arctic satellite analysis from the University of Illinois Arctic Climate Research Center showed there was no cause for concern.
Sea ice levels rebounded at near record levels and, in fact, returned to levels not seen in almost 30 years.
Why is there so much confusion with the data? Is it just spin by one side or both? The charts below do show a trend of reduced ice on average since we have been measuring it, but it also shows that there has been a little rebound. Actually, there has been a few rebounds in the past, which shows that there are other forces at play than just the rise of CO2.
The past two winters have shown a dramatic
rebuilding of the arctic sea ice. Of course that will be 'thin' ice because it is new ice. Some of it will melt in the summer, but it does indicate a changing tend. I would focus more on this upcoming winter to see if ice continues to rebuild. That would be good news to focus on, and it should be reported. However, I don't see that happening.
In the perspective of this scientist and many others... 30 years of ice measurements do
not represent climate! It is like plotting the high temperatures for a week and using that for the trend of the century. The climate models have indicated that more CO2 will increase the ice melt, but they do not show any stability or recovery. So, do you think the positive aspects are being covered up like Carlin's EPA report, or just ignored?"
Sea ice is found in the Arctic and one other place. Guess where else?
Wait for it.
Wait for it.
Can you guess where?
The Antarctic! It has even
more sea ice that the Great White North, and guess what else? That part of the world is actually
gaining ice! Year after year. Check the averaging graphs at the National Snow and Ice Data Center. Who woulda thought?
If you have an interest in the scary, scary statements by our friend, the Great, Great Senator from the Great State of Massachusetts John Kerry, former candidate for President and another one of our friends for scarifying climate change -
In July, 2009 Senate Foreign Relations Committee convenor Senator John F Kerry of Massachusetts stated:
We are here today to discuss a grave and growing threat to global stability, human security, and America?s national security. As you will hear from all of today?s witnesses, the threat of catastrophic climate change is not an academic concern for the future.
It is already upon us, and its effects are being felt worldwide, right now. Earlier this year, a 25-mile wide ice bridge connecting the Wilkins Shelf to the Antarctic landmass shattered, disconnecting the Shelf from the Antarctic continent. In four years, the Arctic is projected to experience its first ice-free summer ? not in 2030, but in 2013. The threat is real and fast approaching.
Here is a response 30 July 2009 -
The Wilkins Ice Shelf Breakup: Natural Processes or Climate Alarmism?
Given the exposure of the western Antarctica Peninsula, the dynamics of ice shelf break-up, the paucity of direct observations, and the short period of satellite imagery (around 30 years), the observation record is too short to assume that the partial Wilkins Ice Shelf break-up is anything but a natural process ? there is no direct evidence that AGW was involved.
The head of Australia's Antarctic Division's glaciology program reported that: "Sea ice losses in West Antarctica over the past 30 years have been more than offset by increases in the Ross Sea region, just one sector of East Antarctica."
With the recent scoping studies for the proposed 5th Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report due out in 2014 suggesting a downplaying of the role of anthropogenic carbon dioxide as a significant driver of (catastrophic) climate change it is time that scientists can speak and publish freely without suffering ad hominem attacks (or threats to funding) and that the media (and blog sites) report their findings honestly and accurately. This is very important for the citizenry is not always able to differentiate between science and advocacy, the implications of which, as regards policy development in term of climate change mitigation, are likely to have a profound effect on society.
Authored by Ian Read, researcher, author and geographer with a special interest in climatology and vegetation. He has written over twelve books including The Bush: A Guide to the Vegetated Landscapes of Australia, and Australia: The Continent of Extremes ? Our Geographical Records.
I couldn't agree more.
But, what about that lonely polar bear that "swam close to Ocean Watch on its way out to sea."
"Concerning the fate of polar bears, a cursory examination that goes not further than Wikipedia provides evidence of their hearty ability to adapt and survive. Polar bear fossils dated to be over 100,000 years old have been found.
This means polar bears survived the previous Pleistocene warm period with average temperatures higher than those forecast in climate change models. As such, the levels of summertime Arctic sea ice must have been much lower than now.
As it is, polar bears (Ursus maritimus) may be descended from Kodiak brown bears (Ursus arctos middendorffi) by adapting to the cold climate during prior glacial periods.
Perhaps more distressing than the crack and splash of massive ice shelves are the photos of stranded adult and infant polar bears that appeared in the mainstream media.
Perhaps moved by these images, the Bush administration listed the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in 2008. It also oversaw changes in the implementation of the ESA to limit the adverse consequences.
Listing them as a threatened species was
not based on an actual decline in the polar bear population. As it is, polar bear global numbers
doubled from an estimated 8,000 ? 10,000 in the period 1965-70 to between 20,000 and 25,000 today.
Instead, the listing was
speculation from computer models that continued global warming might reduce the future amount of Arctic summer ice, making it harder for them to find seals, their primary food source.
Even if climate change is shrinking Arctic ice packs, CO2 emissions may not be the main cause. For example, a 2007 NASA study concluded that changing wind patterns compressed sea ice and moved it into the Transpolar Drift Stream that took the ice to lower latitudes where it melted.
This report suggests that reducing greenhouse gases would not halt the process of melting sea ice and weakens a dubious linkage between global warming, sea ice and polar bears.
Listings under the ESA empower various U.S. government agencies to control economic development. For example, protecting polar bears might block extraction of up to 40 billion barrels of oil above the Arctic circle, as estimated in a 2008 study by the U.S. Geological Survey.
It could also force limits on carbon dioxide emissions, the byproduct of fossil fuel combustion that supposedly causes warming that shrinks the ice and thus harms the bears.
Since this could lead to restrictions on economic activities that rely on conventional energy sources, overall production would be curtailed and fewer jobs would be available.
In the end, erroneous or exaggerated claims about the causes and effects of climate change undermine credible concerns about the natural environment.
More troubling is that such false claims are used to support political actions that undermine the human environment by reducing economic activity and living standards."
Christopher Lingle is a research scholar at the Centre for Civil Society in New Delhi and visiting professor of economics at Universidad Francisco Marroquin in Guatemala.
I'll stop here as I believe I have adequately addressed this article and it is time for me to sign off until later!
I hope you enjoyed reading this response as much as I enjoyed writing it and learning more about the
realities of climate change issues.
Don't believe everything you read in the papers. Dig deep and you will gain the knowledge that leads to true wisdom, grasshoppers...
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