Antarctic Sea Ice Coverage – Yet Another Record
Yeah, it’s late winter in the southern hemisphere. But this is IMO noteworthy nonetheless.
Recent satellite photos show that sea ice coverage near Antarctica has reached the greatest extent ever measured. The coverage area is now roughly 2x the size of Antarctica itself, and about 3x the size of Australia. (Graphic of sea ice coverage here.)
So, to what do those “esteemed, learned” climatologists attribute this condition? Well, I’m glad you asked.
They say it’s due to warmer air temperatures and ozone depletion. In other words, they’re saying global warming is causing more Antarctic sea ice.
Sheesh. IMO these guys are starting to rival ol’ “Baghdad Bob” when it comes to defending the absurd.
Of course, this is coming from the same crowd in Australia that recently got caught “adjusting” measured data in order to make it seem that global warming is occurring when the actual measured data says otherwise. So, for my money, caveat emptor is very much apropos regarding buying their claims about what’s causing the increase in sea ice.
Category: Global Warming
What would Yogi Berra say?: Hey, turn down the heat will ya?…I’m freezing in here!
Or…..”I didn’t say everything I said.” Yogi.
With regards to “global warming” or “climate change” – if dopes like us can look at the data that’s out there, the common sense conclusions is….there is no warming or change. The only change that’s happening is what POTUS promised us, “we will fundamentally change America.”
I don’t think we can quite say that, LIRight. Global warming may be happening. Or it may not. Ditto for global cooling.
In the long run, one or the other is almost certainly happening. As far back as we can find evidence the earth’s climate has been oscillating between relatively warm and relatively cool periods. The earth’s climate does NOT stay the same anywhere for very long in geological terms.
However, regardless of whether it’s global warming or global cooling, we (mankind) simply don’t know enough at this point to have a freaking clue as to what’s causing the change. Changes were occurring well before mankind first arrived on the planet. They were occurring well before mankind discovered fire or developed agriculture. They occurred well before industrialization began.
Something was causing the oscillations then, too. We don’t really know what – lots of theories, but no real theory that accurately explains what we’ve seen.
In short, we don’t have a real clue what drives the earth’s changing climate. To assert as Gospel that man’s activities are doing it – like the climate change “true believers” consistently claim – is based not on clear scientific theory backed by data, but on belief. And that seems to have led some to fudge data deliberately to protect their pet theory.
Why? Follow the money. Climate change claims have become big business. These days, in climate change “research” and related activities there’s money to be had – in gobs.
Yogi also said “It’s deja vu, all over again.”
It is like Einstein flipping a coin to decide if ‘C’ should be squared or cubed. (um…..two out of three??)
At least Baghdad Bob was funny, and he wasn’t scamming millions in grant money out of my taxes.
Hondo said: ‘we (mankind) simply don’t know enough at this point’.
Bingo! Hit the nail on the head with that one. You win the cheese and crackers six-pack, some frozen pizza, a DVD of ‘American Bandstand 1950s’ and carton of Dr. Pepper. (Sorry, no diet Dr. P.)
There are several factors at work here. The most glaring one is the ridiculous idea that we (mankind) actually have some way to control what happens on this planet.
Well, we don’t. It’s a LOT bigger than we are. Mother Nature has her own agenda to follow and we puny humans can only be aware of what she’s doing and adjust what we do, accordingly. But science is awash in deniability, which includes the denial that we are powerless in the face of Mother Nature.
Okay, fine. I can adjust. I can pay attention to the weather, track it, compare what is happening now to what used to happen, recall conversations with people in what were dry areas a decade ago now getting hit by so much rain that grazing cattle are picking up anthrax spores lying dormant in the soil where they graze.
I said those African mud cores show that the Sahara can switch from dry desert to wet, green savannah in one generation. Mud cores from Lake Ankara in Turkey are showing the same things, and those cover 600,000 years of mud core records.
So who is right? A computer model? Or a mud core that shows abrupt changes?
Screw the climate science guys. They are just glorified weather watchers sucking up tax dollars. The only thing good that comes out of their end of the weather or climate stuff is better, more accurate weather forecasting.
We have from now until around 2019 to resolve our relationship with Nature. That is what we should be looking at.
These climate change/global warming/cooling/disruption
asshat’s have been at it since the 70’s and it is sort of mind numbing how dumb people with degree’s can be.
In natural and earth science class, back in the day everybody learned or at least understood that the earth’s core, the sun and outer space are the forces controlling the weather/climate. Or, maybe I wasn’t paying attention…
Here’s some info from Conservapedia regarding this subject. Another excellent source of subject matter is Watts Up With That, too.
Excellent write up, Hondo.
As I heard on some liberal news show one time. “Global warming causes global cooling”. Nuff said.
Over the last several decades I have seen the nuclear winter scare, the global cooling crisis, global warming crisis, climate change crisis… seems like every time they start predicting weather further out than the Farmer’s Almanac (which has a better track record than an meteorologist I know of) they step on it. Note what PH2 said – the planet has a way of ignoring the predictions and healing its own ecosystem nicely. Look at the “hundred century wasteland” which was predicted for around Chernobyl – and look at how much plant and animal life is thriving there.
What’s interesting about Chernobyl is that 2 to 3 inches below the topsoil accumulation, the soil is still too radioactive to eat anything grown in it in the immediate area around the ‘blast’ zone.
Yet the moment man abandoned that entire area, wildlife moved back in and is thriving. There are catfish that are up to 8 feet long in ponds that empty into the river. I saw the video of them. They are that large becaue no one is fishing them out. Four thriving wolf packs, lots of bears, plenty of deer — all the larger animals are doing quite well, as are the smaller ones like field mice and birds.
I’ve spent a few seasons at McMurdo Station Antarctica in a completely non scientific job position.
So here’s my completely non scientific take on it all.
Instead of just pointing at satellite pictures and going “OMG SEA ICE RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!!!!”, the writers should provide a little more data to go with that article.
For instance, what were the air temps like?
How about the salinity of the water? (Salt water freezes at about 27-28F vs 32F for fresh water.)
Has there been a change in ocean/wind currents?
How about the amount of particulates in the air from forest fires/volcano’s etc? (For instance after Mt Pinatubo blew its top: “Effects on climate were an observed surface cooling in the Northern Hemisphere of up to 0.5 to 0.6°C, equivalent to a hemispheric-wide reduction in net radiation of 4 watts per square meter and a cooling of perhaps as large as -0.4°C over large parts of the Earth in 1992-93.” source http://pubs.usgs.gov/pinatubo/self/ The Atmospheric Impact of the 1991 Mount Pinatubo Eruption.
Basically, is Mother Nature just screwing with us? She must be, the platypus is a fine example of her going “watch this shit”.
If I ever go to the Sahara desert, I’m going to pack a parka.
Actually, the linked article (2nd link) touches on some of that, albeit very briefly. It says that “warming atmosphere is leading to greater sea ice coverage by changing wind patterns.”
However, best I can tell they do not provide data comparing current winds/wind patterns with prior-year data. That seems to be another assertion based on little more than, “Hey – it could happen!”
Well whichever way the climate decides to go (warmer or colder), I’m ready for it. But for preference I wouldn’t mind it cooling down a little.
Yeah, it’s about the money but I think it’s also about the power.
As in, “Hey, all you little people get the fuck off my highway and get on the bus or the train where you belong.”
There are a few graphs on the inter tubes that overlay solar activity/output and earth temperatures.
Impressive curve fit.
Yep. Google “Maunder Minimum” and “Little Ice Age”.
Look up the Medieval Warm Period, while you’re at it.
It ended abruptly at the beginning of the 14th century. Excessive precipitation prevented planting grain, and what grain was planted rotted in the ground. This went on for two years.
I see some of the same things happening now. Corn and soybeans should be ripening – turning yellow and drying out – but the rain in the cornbelt has been much higher than average this year and the normal cycle of growth and ripening has been disrupted just slightly.
Here’s a quick little test for that theory.
Put a bowl of water in a room that is 32 degrees. Turn on the heater so it blows only across the ceiling. If the water all freezes, then it is true. If the room gets hotter, then its false.
The thesis that warming-induced winds could produce additional sea ice isn’t totally “out to lunch”, Flagwaver. Convection currents can do some odd things; under some conditions, a warmer liquid will actually freeze more quickly than a somewhat colder one due to internal convection currents.
Here, the thesis seems to be that warming causes additional air to flow into the Antarctic continental landmass at high altitudes, cool, and leave the continent heading north as colder air. Although the air incoming would be warmer, the Antarctic is damned cold – so the net result could be more outflow of cold air. That in turn could at least theoretically cause more sea ice formation.
The thermodynamics get hairy, though. You’re talking about heat transport by one fluid (air) blowing across the surface of a fluid/solid mix (seawater and sea ice) with an irregular surface. As it does so, the air warms due a combination of (1) the latent heat of freezing given up via the seawater’s phase change into sea ice, (2) evaporation, and (3) simple conduction. However, the seawater/sea ice mixture remains at effectively the same temperature until it “skins over”, and even thereafter typically remains warmer than the cold air blowing over it. The effect will thus have a finite geographical limit that’s determined by how much air is moving.
My issue here is that the article above only asserts this is the cause of the increased sea ice; it doesn’t provide any supporting data. So even if the mechanism is theoretically possible, we have nothing but an assertion backing it as the cause. A alternate and IMO equally plausible reason is a slight cooling trend – which the actual raw data (as opposed to the “homogenized data” that’s been “adjusted”, apparently without adequate reason or rationale) from Australia seems to show has been going on for the past couple of decades.
Unsupported assertions don’t prove or support a damn thing. To do that, accurate data is required – not crap that’s been “adjusted” to fit someone’s pet theories.
In regard to any fudging of numbers by anyone whose grant-funding relies on it, I found this:
” “Ontogeny begets phylogeny” was someone’s guess 150 years ago. Man, particularly with an agenda, frequently guesses wrong. When the stakes are high, mankind is not adverse to distortion to control the mind and life of man. The issue is clearly power and domination.”
It’s from a discussion on the existence of God as Jesus. Link is here: http://www.zionmethodist.org/2009/10/11/%E2%80%9Contogeny-begets-phylogeny%E2%80%9D/
It makes an interesting read, but the domination of science over mythos is the core of the discussion.
In regard to increased sea ice in the Antarctic, the numbers and warm air causing it fail completely to take into account that the Thwaite glacier’s flow has increased in speed owing to the simple fact that Thwaite sits on a rift zone which has become volcanically active in the past 9 months, THUS melting the glacier underneath and making it slide faster into the sea.
Here’s a link to info on that:
http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/7488/20140610/thwaites-glacier-west-antarctica-melting-below.htm
There is also some rift zone volcanic activity going on inthe Gakkel Ridge area, which underlies the Arctic ice sheet. The Gakkel Ridge is the northernmost part of the rift that is currently splitting Iceland apart, and which is also currently experiencing a rifting volcanic event.
Like I said, Mother Nature has her own agenda, and we puny humans can’t do anything about it.
Little enthusiasm for climate summit it appears:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/09/16/obamas-lonely-climate-summit-world-leaders-are-staying-home/
Oh well bot B. Hussein 0bama, he’ll just have to mosey on back to the golf course!