September 20, 2008

Polar Ice: 101

I don’t know about anyone else but I’m sick and tired (mostly tired) of reading the same stories about “global warming” and how it’s melting the polar ice caps. Case in point…

from The New York Times today…

TO the relief of climate scientists around the world, it appears that the polar ice cap hasn’t shrunk as much this summer as it did last summer.

The ice cap usually reaches its smallest extent around now, and although the total area of ice in September fluctuates from year to year, in the last two decades it has generally declined, probably because of carbon-driven global warming. Last year, the ice cap shrank at a record-breaking pace; at its minimum it was almost 39 percent smaller than the average from 1979 to 2000. This year it’s down about 33 percent.

I don’t know about anyone else but I’m not interested in probably. What a bunch of sloppy reporting? The word “probably” indicates that what follows is the author’s opinion. I just want the report, not the opinion.

In a story from July 3rd of this year in the Register (the UK. No. I’m not making that up), Steven Goddard writes a piece about how wrong the so-called “global warming” evidence is as it relates to the melting polar ice caps. Here’s a sample

Satellite records have been kept for polar sea ice over the last thirty years by the University Of Illinois. In 2007 2008, two very different records were set. The Arctic broke the previous record for the least sea ice area ever recorded, while the Antarctic broke the record for the most sea ice area ever recorded. Summed up over the entire earth, polar ice has remained constant. As seen below, there has been no net gain or loss of polar sea ice since records began.

ice_change_large.jpg

Last week, Dr James Hansen from NASA spoke about how CO2 is affecting the polar ice caps.

“We see a tipping point occurring right before our eyes… The Arctic is the first tipping point and it’s occurring exactly the way we said it would,” he said.

Well, not exactly.

Hansen is only telling half the story. In the 1980s the same Dr Hansen wrote a paper titled Climate Sensitivity to Increasing Greenhouse Gases [pdf], in which he explained how CO2 causes “polar amplification.” He predicted nearly symmetrical warming at both poles. As shown in Figure 2-2 from the article, Hansen calculated that both the Arctic and Antarctic would warm by 5-6 degrees Centigrade. His predictions were largely incorrect, as most of Antarctica has cooled and sea ice has rapidly expanded. The evidence does not support the theory.

Do yourself a big favor. Read the whole thing. If you are one of those folks who believe that man made “Global Warming” is real then please read the many articles that explain why it doesn’t exist.

Please don’t believe everything you read, even on this website.

Do you trust less than 2,000 scientists or over 32,000?

32,000 + scientists believe that man made “Global Warming” is a big bunch of crap.

I believe THOSE guys.