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Published online 30 April 2008 | Nature | doi:10.1038/453015c
News in Brief
Warming Antarctic waters begin to cool
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Yes indeed, God has a sense of humor! Why else would He tweak solar cycle #24 and expose the fraudulent committee of climate fortune-tellers that predicted global warming? Too bad. - Oliver K. Manuel, www.omatumr.com
What do you think about Steve Rintoul's research, measuring ocean currents between Australia and Antarctica? He reports a drop in ocean salinity, suggesting ice around Antarctica is melting more rapidly. From ABC News: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/04/17/2219659.htm
I think Steve needed funding for his continuing research. No salinity change, no need for further monitoring, no need for Steve Rintoul. How could Antarctica possibly be melting when the average temp is well below freezing? We have to use critical thinking when dealing with an issue of such magnitude. The earth is now cooling, the pdo has shifted phase, the climate pessimists are being exposed.
Nathan Stone is correct that the air temperature is too cold to cause melting over most of the surface of Antarctica. However, in many locations around Antarctica, ice flows off the continent into the ocean. Where the water temperature is warmer than the local freezing point, the ice will melt (the freezing point depends on pressure, hence on the thickness of the floating ice). For every 0.1C increase in water temperature, the basal melt rate increases by about 1 m/yr (Rignot and Jacobs, Science, 2002). In some locations (eg Pine Island Glacier), the ocean is several degrees warmer than the freezing point at the base of the floating ice and the melt rate is rapid.
Steve, I presume you have taken into account the impact of volcanism in the area and of the more recent discovery of another previously undiscovered underwater volcano ? http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080120160720.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/05/040527235943.htm
It seems to me the whole argument over Climate Change has gotten a bit off course. It has veered from being a scientific debate, based on facts and logical hypothesis into a battle of belief systems. It is like arguing the existence of some form of god when it is really impossible to prove 100% either way until he/she comes knocking one day. Or maybe it is more like cigarette smoking. We know the things that we release into the environment are bad in much the same way that taking cigarette smoke into our bodies is bad. Yet we love our habit as individuals and our energy driven society as a group. Tobacco companies and oil companies spend large amounts of money to convince us that smoking is either not harmful or worth the risk. Oil and coal companies are now doing the same thing. Both industries have been proven to be slanting the "evidence" in their favor. Environmentalists tell us that the only real solution is to quit polluting the Earth and the same is true of cigarettes (the only sure way to avoid smoking related illness is to quit smoking). The oil and tobacco companies tell us just a while longer won't hurt anything. How long? We really aren't sure and that is the argument at hand.Can we go on for another year or twenty years before the damage is done to an extent that a cure is no longer available? As individuals it doesn't really matter much in the grand scheme of things I suppose but as a planet it does. I prefer to err on the side of caution.
There is a lot of debate on what is happening in Antarctica, but from what I've read, I believe the continent is gaining ice mass overall. Anarctica is a vast region and the fact that the minute percentage of ice which contacts the ocean is melting at a rate different than what was measured before is no cause for concern. People who believe the earth was in some steady state condition before man came along and ruined it all are way out of touch with the natural world. Have we affected climate? Undoubtedly. Being the adventurous type myself, I wish Steve could get me some type of grant to tag along, sounds like a great trip. I travel around the country a lot with my business and the vast majority of people I deal with who are concerned over climate change are people who live in large urban areas where man's impact is visible all around, and the people are generally out of touch with the natural world. The idea that all climate optimists are funded by big oil and coal is simply bull. The energy companies give much more money to environmental groups than they do any group which takes a 'contrarian' position on global warming (now being subtly changed to 'climate change' since there is no current warming). We've already started to see the damaged that dictated energy policy can do in the form of higher food prices, but we aint seen nothin yet. Just wait till we get dependent on biofuels and have a couple of bad years in agriculture here in the US and we are going to know famine like we couldn't imagine now. Think the rainforest was being cleared at an alarming rate in the 90's? You aint seen nothin yet. People who are pushing biofuels are digging our graves for us, and a mass grave for the earth's wildlife. Anyone who is a mechanical engineer and farm boy like myself knows the truth about biofuels. (Now if I had 1000 acres of prime corn land in Iowa, I'd probably feel differently.) "It seems to me the whole argument over Climate Change has gotten a bit off course. It has veered from being a scientific debate, based on facts and logical hypothesis into a battle of belief systems." I agree 100%. For example the hockey stick temp graph, which has been proven to be baloney. It seems that some people have the idea that man and fossil fuels are bad and should be done away with, and if it takes scaring the public with fantasy doomsday scenarios to get it done, then so be it. Also, I can imagine that if the government was handing out money to fund engineering studies, and I was operating on one, when the grant was up, I'd certainly be saying 'we need more funding for more engineering research'!!
"I prefer to err on the side of caution." Me too! http://cumulativemodel.blogspot.com/2008/03/uncertainty-considering-what-we-dont.html
Nathan Stone writes above that the “hocky stick temp graph . . . has been proven to be baloney.†Ah -- of course -- now we know the true meaning of the _Nature_ headline, “[National] Academy Affirms Hockey-Stick Graph†(441(2006):1032-1033). For a rational treatment of the hockey-stick graph -- which is, pace Mr. Stone, perfectly valid within the bounds of its inevitable uncertainties -- see the IPCC’s 2007 Assessment Report, Chapter 6, section 6 (pp. 466-483): <http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter6.pdf>. (The famous baloney, which is merely an aggregate of a wide variety of proxy temperature records, appears as Fig. 6.10, p. 467.) There is a line, admittedly very fuzzy, beyond which “skepticism†becomes intellectual dysfunction. Given the evidence discussed by the IPCC, refusal to admit that the world is _probably_ warmer now than at any time in the last 1.3 kyr or more is, it seems to me, well past that line.
For those of you who "prefer to err on the side of caution" I challenge you to call for increasing CO2 emissions. Be consistent and ward off impending "global cooling". Then get on your pogo stick and hop to the store for a loaf of bread...cause the hockey stick is 100% baloney!
There is a wide variety of observation now being provided by the scientific community which is heartening for the survival hope of the future generations such as the ipcc and the alfred weigner reports. One ,while the scientific fraternity's assessmenents would be based on observations - it is motivating to know that the danger has given the human race more time to recoup and continue the tirade on the carbon emissions..but it should not be deemed as a further opportunity to abuse the nature...or let go of the pressure on the political systems. Two, the observations on the receding arctic,the water under the green land area which is lubricating the entire ice block and may trigger movements which will push up water levels cannot be wished away. The CO2 pile up must stop. Search for alternative energy sources must continue while promoting peaceful Nuclear energy usage,windmill,hydrower etc There are still very many areas in the tropical area which due to denuding of forests are facing acute absence of potable water and summer heat is not less than 40 degree which till last year was shortlived due to intervening and periodic rains leading to next understanding that the monsoons would also be equally harsh and flood prone areas influenced by the himalayan glacier system. It would be interesting to notice the movement and the intensity of the rains/droughts this year. Mankind has forgotten in the overwhelming consumerism culture arriving out of its living standards and purchasing power that it also generates lots plastic, carbon emissions, clogged fresh water streams and polluted rivers,extinct species of flaura and fauna, and flooded metropolis- that the day of reckoning can well be within an individual's lifetime. The individual wealth and/or the national GDP will be washed away so drastically that the purpose of oil industry and smoke spewing thermal( coal) based industries of generating wealth will have no meaning. The above report looks local and not global- If the data collection is done from other and equally critical predetermined locations- it would have better anchor in claiming that the earth has decided to stay a little longer with homo sapiens or the entire race packs its bag and leave the solar system by 2050 The agony will continue to rest with the scientific community...as they would always know and fathom the truth better even while a very large mass of population which is still unaware on the lurking danger and they are happily and peacefully cutting the forests, political systems still not addressing or taking meaningful actions.