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Alaskan Glaciers Grow for First Time in 250 years


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MC - Dude, thank you so much for sharing!!! I really don't want to offend anyone, but I've always thought the whole climate change was (well, like I said, I don't want to offend anyone, so let's just say I don't buy it). As this article really illustrated well, the thing for me about it is that water freezes at 32 degrees F. Not 33, no 32.1, 32F. So if the temperature of the earth was increasing at a rate our planet couldn't handle, it seems to me that the only evidence of this would be that it would cause so much ice in the polar regions to melt that the sea level would rise, flooding coastal areas that are below sea level. The last time I went to the beach, the sea was at exactly the same level it was 20 years ago when I went. Also, I'm pretty sure that most geologists and climatologists are in agreement that the Earth was a degree warmer several hundred years ago. The Earth is pretty resiliant, short of a meteor impact or an INTENTIONAL attempt to alter the climate, there's nothing to worry about. FWIW, NASA has studied the feasability of creating a temperate atmosphere on Mars, and the amount of CO2 production required to do so is immense, far far far greater than the expected output of the worlds industry and automobiles even when the population of the Earth doubles.

 

But again, it's all good to be concious of environmental issues, I just think some folks take it to a delusional and counterproductive extreme, and often times contradict themselves. The want everyone to stop using fossil fuels, but are vehemently opposed to nuclear energy. I think environmental activists would be more productive picking up litter, at least they would actually be doing something concrete that's good for human's enjoyment and utilization of our natural resources.

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http://www.dailytech.com/Alaskan%2BGlaciers%2BGrow%2Bfor%2BFirst%2BTime%2Bin%2B250%2Byears/article13215.htm


The Alaskan glaciers have grown this year, Arctic sea ice has increased this year, some areas just had the coldest summer in several decades -- and yet the press isn't giving it any coverage. Odd.




Gotta be careful with one-off bits of evidence. I mean say we have one year, or even one decade, of reversal in the observed trends in global warning, that's not enough evidence to overthrow all the other data that point the other way.

Your quoted info is certainly interesting, bears looking into for those witht the time, etc. But it's not time to yell trumps over all the other evidence.

I don't think anyone expects global warming to occur in a straight upward ramp to disaster. It could easily be that warming occurs in an ascending sine wave pattern. It's up and down, but the question is - are the ups averaging more avg temperature gain over time than the downs are taking it away?

Again, all evidence has to be in context with all the rest of the evidence, or it misleads.

nat whilk ii

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http://www.dailytech.com/Alaskan%2BGlaciers%2BGrow%2Bfor%2BFirst%2BTime%2Bin%2B250%2Byears/article13215.htm



I've never accepted the "fight climate change" hysteria. Nature does what it does. For us to invest resources into an intentional attempt to block nature from taking its course in order to somehow "reverse" the unintentional harms we create is probably the single stupidest idea I've ever heard.


The Alaskan glaciers have grown this year, Arctic sea ice has increased this year, some areas just had the coldest summer in several decades -- and yet the press isn't giving it any coverage. Odd.


I wonder how global warming alarmists will obfuscate this one.
:)

 

They don't have to "obfuscate" anything. The fact is that when you look at overall climate change, what happens in one year, in one place, means little or nothing. That's the nature of the beast. If it's happening, it's not some universal linear step-by-step up-and-up all across the board. It's a long-term process that has to be studied across decades and centuries. It would be naive to expect that global warming means that everywhere in the world must be getting slightly warmer by the same amount every year, and in fact no scientist would argue this. It's the overall long-term trend that matters.

 

I would say that the reason the press appears not to be splashing this all over front pages everywhere is that while it is one more set of data that must be added to our study of this, by itself it proves absolutely nothing about global warming.

 

And BTW, efforts to reduce global warming have nothing at all with trying to get nature to stop doing what it does. It's about getting us to change what WE do, and thus to alter the effects of our activities on the ecosystem. Opinions will vary on whether that's good, bad, or neutral, but it's certain that it has nothing to do with changing how nature operates.

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Gotta be careful with one-off bits of evidence.



Good advice for the so-called "experts"...

They will stick to their agenda. Facts are not part of their thinking process, only what feels right. The truth will be on the back page if anywhere, the lies will be yelled from the roof tops.


I've always felt that a good size natural forest fire, or volcano puts much more crap in the air than man does.


That said, I also agree with Ken. Why should we pollute the world anymore than we have to when alternatives are becoming available. I hope I live long enough to see clean FCHV (fuel cell hydrogen vehicles) become the main mode of transportation. I've already been waiting 35 years.



Agreed 100%. Well said. :thu:

In the sciences, as with any other highly specialized body of knowledge or practice, you have approximately a 0% chance of ever holding an informed and accurate opinion without some degree of reliance on experts. Tell me your opinion of, you know, angiotensin-converting enzymes, or something.



Everyone relies on experts all the time. So?

As for the straw man, this is about climate facts. Facts. Not rhetoric. Go argue science with this guy:



Or any of the other myriad highly qualified/educated and rational experts who've studied this in a proper manner.

"Don't believe the hype!"
- Flava Flav
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As this article really illustrated well, the thing for me about it is that water freezes at 32 degrees F. Not 33, no 32.1, 32F. So if the temperature of the earth was increasing at a rate our planet couldn't handle, it seems to me that the only evidence of this would be that it would cause so much ice in the polar regions to melt that the sea level would rise, flooding coastal areas that are below sea level. The last time I went to the beach, the sea was at exactly the same level it was 20 years ago when I went.

 

Just to be sure, if you honestly feel that global warming is not occurring, this is probably not an argument you want to take. There are quite a number of islands that are in serious danger of being swallowed up by the rising of the ocean, including Tonga, Tuvalu, and other Pacific Islands. Many of the beaches here in California have gotten considerably shorter. And need I mention Bangladesh, where one million people a YEAR have been displaced by rising waters? Or New Orleans? Or Cape Henry? Or Cape Hatteras in North Carolina? I'm not making this stuff up. It's easily verifiable and, uh, Google-able.

 

Seriously...it is absolutely unquestionable that the sea levels are rising. This is extremely well-documented.

 

If you're going to argue that global warming is not occurring, this is a *really* bad tact to take. You'll want to indicate that global warming is not man-made.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

I want to point out here that I have a very open mind about this stuff. I don't think there's much doubt that there's global warming. The question to me is how much of it is man-made. We're certainly not helping matters with carbon emissions and throwing crap in the air and polluting, so my position has always been 1.) I'm not a scientist, so I listen keenly to people who are highly trained and specialized and utilize the scientific method, which is a very specific method outlined earlier in this thread by blue2blue, and 2.) it certainly would help all of us humans to seriously cut back on pollution and start conserving energy and using much cleaner fuels

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I realize I've posted this several times in this forum in the past few years. But anyway...

 

Speaking as an American now, what I would love to see our country do is develop alternative fuels. Whether this is encouraged by the government dangling "carrots" and encouraging the private sector to develop cars that have 0% emissions, are affordable, and are easily mass-produced, encouraging the private sector to develop the means, if necessary, to support these new alternative-fuel cars with an appropriate support system, etc. etc., I would love to see this done.

 

This would play to some of the strengths of our country. We have some of the most ingenious, most entrepreneurial people in the world. And we have the capability to mass-produce like few countries can. We have the ingenuity and the design know-how to be able to develop something that would have the rest of the world beating a path to our door, thinking, "Yeah, I want some of that."

 

Right now, Third World countries are beating us to the punch. In New Delhi, India, many of the cars are already outfitted with an inexpensive CNG modification which has greatly reduced the choking pollution that once existed. Brazil is cutting back on emissions quite a bit. These things make such a HUGE difference in the quality of life for its citizens. Isn't that what's important?

 

Why are these countries, with a much smaller economies, developing these things and we're not? I'm using cars as an example, but these sorts of examples could be all sorts of other things.

 

Let's play to our strengths. Let's develop and mass-produce items that make us money, help the environment, give us leadership and respect, and help humans.

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In the past thousand years as significant climate change has occured, many societies fell and/or went through irreversible change. In recorded history, fault for climate change was always laid at the feet of the "bad people" in the society and they were singled out for ridicule, persecution, and even death. The black plague and resulting "inquisition" are but one example. "If it's good enough for the priests, it's good enough for me. They're the ones with the education! "

Sometimes I think it's kind of scary how little we have really changed. We still need to assign blame and persecute.

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Wha? You are comparing religious persecution of people with an attempt to figure out if we are contributing to global warming? The fact that we are putting out a lot of gasses that contribute to greenhouse effects is not a religious position, it's a fact. The issue is how effect are they having. Clearly the ice packs have been reduced and sea levels are rising. If there's even a reasonable doubt that we are contributing to this, we should be trying to do something about it. It's not one of those things that you wait until even the biggest sceptic can doubt before you do something about it, because if it turns out to be true, then the longer we wait, the great the sacrifice required to do something about.

But, as I said above, it's ridiculous for a number of reasons not to be trying to get away from fossil fuels as fast as we reasonable can. It doesn't have to have anything to do with global warming. If all you care about is the security and sovereinty of this country or the country you live in, that's reason enough. Fossil fuels are are not going to last that much long with other large countries coming online quickly. Long before it's all gone the price is going to get ridiculous and the people who have it are going to use that to great effect against us.

So there's every reason to move forward as fast as possible. It will help us in every conceivable way.

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Wha? You are comparing religious persecution of people with an attempt to figure out if we are contributing to global warming?





Not at all. I'm comparing the responses of the "Educated Elite" and the masses to weather/climate change. It's identical to 1000 years ago.

There are bad people (SUV drivers and everyone who voted for Bush) who are responsible for our looming catostrophe. They should be penalized in some way for the fact that they aren't as "green" as me because I drive a prius and voted for Al Gore (who also happens to be an expert on global warming).

No matter how much we learn and try to control the weather and/or climate we will fail. It has always changed since the dawn of time, and it always will. What I am saying is that politicizing it is foolishness.

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It doesn't have anthing to do with controlling the weather or climate, it has to do with not contributing to a natural tendancy of the climate to go off on really bad feedback cycles due to changes in the gaseous composition of the atmosphere. It's done it before, and we are pumping a lot of known greenhouse compounds into the atmosphere which could contribute to kicking off another cycle.

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It doesn't have anthing to do with controlling the weather or climate, it has to do with not contributing to a natural tendancy of the climate to go off on really bad feedback cycles due to changes in the gaseous composition of the atmosphere. It's done it before, and we are pumping a lot of known greenhouse compounds into the atmosphere which could contribute to kicking off another cycle.



I agree with you. I remember how bad the smog and pollution was back in the 60's/70's. We passed a lot of legislation that made a huge difference as can be seen today.

The problem now is that the vast majority of the planet has no such legislation. Keep in mind that China, for a month prior to the Olympics, prohibited manufacturing and automobiles within a 100 mile radius of Bejing so the smog would clear and the media could film in sunshine.

China+India = half the planet.

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Why are these countries, with a much smaller economies, developing these things and we're not?

Part (the majority) of the blame goes to the fact that the politicians of America decided to buy the votes of the farmers and the contributions of the farming corporations by subsidising ethanol from corn, a waste if there ever was one. Not only is it a waste of money and resources, but it takes away the incentive to find other alternates that work. I can no longer find a gas station pumping gas here that doesn't have ethanol stickers (contains not more than 10% ethanol) on the pump. I can't even boycott it.

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The problem now is that the vast majority of the planet has no such legislation. Keep in mind that China, for a month prior to the Olympics, prohibited manufacturing and automobiles within a 100 mile radius of Bejing so the smog would clear and the media could film in sunshine.


China+India = half the planet.



But it's not exactly practical to put any useful pressure on them when we are the worst per-capita consumers of energy on the planet. As long as that's the case, they are going have a completely founded ground to stand on that why should they remain primitive so that we can keep being such? We are like a known coke addict preaching to people to say no to drugs.

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But it's not exactly practical to put any useful pressure on them when we are the worst per-capita consumers of energy on the planet. As long as that's the case, they are going have a completely founded ground to stand on that why should they remain primitive so that we can keep being such? We are like a known coke addict preaching to people to say no to drugs.



But we're not the worst polluters. Far from it.

I wish people could grasp two simple truths: The Market isn't the economy, and CO2 isn't the climate.

Our climate is very complex and no single person understands it completely. It is based on the sun, plate tektonics, ocean currents, atmospherics, and natural planetary change. Getting tunnel vision about one possible aspect of it only serves to obscure understanding of the overall phenomenon.

So back to my original point. We're going to use climate change to advance our agendas.

Why don't we just sacrifice some chickens and goats and throw a virgin in the volcano then move on to something else? (Like "The End Of Times" issue)

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Just to get the facts straight, Sea level has been rising since the end of the last Ice Age 10,000 years ago. It is 400 feet higher now than it was then. The rate of increase has averaged 4 feet per century. Yet in the 20th century, when we are told that "global warming" began to have a major impact on global temperature and hence on sea level, sea level rose by just 8 inches.

If all the ice in the arctic melted sea level would not be affected. Floating ice melt does not alter sea levels.

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If all the ice in the arctic melted sea level would not be affected. Floating ice melt does not alter sea levels.



True, but that's not what climatologists are concerned about. It's the Greenland and Antarctic ice that could raise the sea level by 40 feet if melted.

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I've never accepted the "fight climate change" hysteria. Nature does what it does. For us to invest resources into an intentional attempt to block nature from taking its course in order to somehow "reverse" the unintentional harms we create is probably the single stupidest idea I've ever heard.

 

You've not heard many stupid ideas then. :)

 

We are part of nature. There are, by latest estimates, 6.7 billion humans on Earth and, up until recently, most of them lived in non-industrialized nations. Those 6.7 billion humans release about 43 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere each year, and that amount is growing exponentially, expected to reach somwhere around 68 billion tons by 2030. About 1/3 to 1/2 of that total comes just from coal burning, which I think you'd agree is almost exclusively a human activity.

 

Methane is another greenhouse gas, which is about 20 times more efficient at reflecting in the infrared region and therefore at trapping solar heat inside the Earth's atmosphere. People who study such things estimate that about 20% of the methane being produced comes from domestic livestock. That's a pretty big man made change considering how effective a greenhouse gas methane is.

 

But the Earth is a pretty big place, isn't it? How can anything we do have much of an effect in all that vastness, even though there are nearly 7 billion of us?

 

The problem is that our atmosphere is very, very thin. If you travel just 7 miles straight up, you have traversed 75% of the atmosphere, mass-wise. If you travel an additional 70 miles up, you're out of the atmosphere and into space; only a few stray gas molecules will run into you from time to time. If your car could travel straight up, you could drive to space in about an hour.

 

So it's quite reasonable that releasing tens of billions of tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere each year from industrial and agricultural processes could impact the Earth's finely balanced climate - it's not a crazy notion at all.

 

The Alaskan glaciers have grown this year, Arctic sea ice has increased this year, some areas just had the coldest summer in several decades -- and yet the press isn't giving it any coverage. Odd.

 

It's pretty myopic to focus on a single year. No one is saying that the loss of permanent ice is expected to follow a perfectly straight line at all points on the earth each year. :idk:

 

A more reasonable approach from the empirical side would be to look at the dramatic changes in the Arctic, Antarctic, and glaciers over the years since the industrial revolution.

 

Starting with the Arctic, have a look at this NASA satellite photo of the Arctic ice pack, taken just last month. The faint line is the median minimum ice extension in the Arctic, the white blob is the actual ice situation a month ago. You don't need to be a trained oceanographer to see that there's a lot less ice in the Arctic at the end of summer than there used to be.

 

HERE is the change from 1979-2003, reflecting a 9% loss of ice per decade, which is now known to be low as global warming accelerates.

 

I could show you similar sat pics of glaciers receding, Canadian ice shelves falling into the ocean, the Antarctic (soon to reveal the soil and rivers trapped below the ice) melting at an unprecedented rate. Can this all be just coincidence? Maybe.

 

Your comments in your later post regarding opinions, scientific bias, etc. I find even more alarming.

 

Whereas you may like blue and I may like red, opinions about factual things aren't all created equal. No offense (as I have no idea what you do for a living or what education you might have), but it's not just a matter of having access to the information as everyone with an internet connection does these days. It's also a matter of having the education and the experience to sift through all the information and make a judgement, with a vital part of that judgement being knowing what you don't know as well as what you do.

 

So yeah, a climate scientist or an oceanographer's opinion is going to be much more valuable than yours or mine (I'm a materials scientist who was majoring in oceanography for a while).

 

The Earth's climate system is complicated. The ocean buffers everything within its ability to do so. Right now there's more CO2 sequestered in oceanic carbonates than ever before in recorded history, and some areas of the ocean are saturated - no more CO2 can be absorbed.

 

That's very serious. There are north-south long term currents that transfer heat to and from the poles that mitigate climate in Europe, for example. If that particular current stops flowing, Europe will likely enter an new Ice Age - ironically caused by global warming.

 

No ice in the Artic will mean the extinction of some species, and will have a dramatic effect on fish populations, which humanity relies on for food. The upwelling in the Arctic mixes salt and fresh water, and the current that causes it brings nutrients from the equator to the Arctic, causing the total aquatic biomass to be higher there than anywhere else in the world.

 

As for scientific bias, again I don't know what you do but I've been a scientist for more than 30 years. Would I say that all scientists are honest and that the people who give grants never push us for their preferred results? No, that happens and it is a problem. However, as others have pointed out science is self-correcting in terms of errors and bias, and in the end converges to the truth - always.

 

I also am very cynical about models.

 

I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but I read in great detail the work done to explain the collapse of the World Trade Center, this being my current area of work. The guy who headed that team I personally know, and he's as honest as anyone I've ever met.

 

However, mechanistic-empirical models are famous for giving you the expected answer, especially when the result you are modeling is off the end of the model's inference space. You can simply tweak some of the myriad inputs to get almost any result you want without any of the inputs being too unreasonable. And if what you're modeling has already happened, you might feel pretty reasoned doing that sort of tweaking. what you end up with is a scenario that might have happened, but not necessarily the one that did.

 

Too many people, even in academia (like myself), don't seem to grasp that fundamental concept.

 

Climate models are even more "iffy" than structural models, being more complicated, based on limited data, and unsuitable to testing by controlled experiment. That's why there are always a wide range of possible scenarios presented and why the numbers always have a pretty wide confidence interval.

 

Having said all that, the work done so far has clearly demonstrated a likely causative effect between human industrialization / agriculture and climate change. The exact result and timetable is unknown, but what seems clear is that each year we wait to do something puts us farther down the path to an unknowable future that may already be irreversable.

 

I wonder how global warming alarmists will obfuscate this one.
:)

 

If you consider the above "alarmist," feel free to continue your denigration. :)

 

Terry D.

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Could you please quote a source for that?



I will.

http://www.climate-skeptic.com/2007/09/antarctic-sea-i.html
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2007/09/12/record-antarctic-ice-levels-ignored-media

Note that I don't believe or disbelieve or that this indicates where my position on global warming. I just like reading various viewpoints.

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