Meanwhile... Is the Globe Cooling?

Off Topic Politics and World Issues
21

[quote]JamFly wrote:
Vegita wrote:
I believe it has to do with solar cycles. Apparently over the past 15-20 years or something, the sun has had a very active solar surface. After these decade plus long hot periods the sun goes through a period of almost no activity on the surface, which results in a solar sytem that is cooling.

This is only one aspect of it though Though world temperatures overall have cooled slightly over the past year or two, there may have been sufficient icecap melt so that the oceans effectively absorb just enough more energy to continue to melt the ice caps.

Think of a black Garbage bag out in the sun next to a white one. The black one absorbs all the energy, while the white one reflects it back into space.

When there is sufficient Ice cover on the poles, energy from the sun is bounced back into space, thus regulating the climate. When there is water not ice up there, the water absorbs much more solar energy, and thus warms the water temperature around the globe.

This causes bigger storms to blow and more energy gets transferred from the oceans into the air, thus increasing air temperatures as well.

Or something along those lines.

V

If there has been ice cap melt why have sea levels not risen?[/quote]

Because Ice takes up more volume than liquid and 80% of the ice caps are under the sea level. So even though there is some new water being added to the ocean, it is given room by the difference in the ice/water ratio for volume.

V

22

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
The last time I read a report on the actual amount of ice at the poles was last April (yes it’s been a while), and there was more ice in that month than any other April since they started recording.[/quote]

Your information is not correct. 2007 summer had the lowest ice cap size in recorded history.

http://www.pewclimate.org/impacts/icecap

Also 2006 winter had the smallest Max ice cap size, which is how big the ice cap gets over the dark winter months. The Ice caps grow and shrink every year in correspondence with summer and winter sunlight levels.

The ice caps are always either melting or growing, so people who say that they are melting are just usually dumb, or being misleading while technically telling the truth. But however, the overall impact has been less ice cap coverage, even though the temperatures are going back down.

Again, Darkl water absorbs more energy than white snow, thus sucking in more energy than white snow would even if it were a few degrees warmer.

V

23

While Parliament debates global warming bill, snow blankets London. This is London’s first October snow since 1922. I love irony.

24

There’s nothing ironic in that at all. A colder UK climate is one of the predicted consequences of the polar ice caps melting.

25

[quote]ninearms wrote:
There’s nothing ironic in that at all. A colder UK climate is one of the predicted consequences of the polar ice caps melting.[/quote]

  1. I just have to ask: if the UK was warming, would you take that as evidence against global warming?

  2. If you’re referring to the gulf stream effect, I thought even the most ardent global warmists didn’t believe in this anymore? And even if they still do, AFAIK the eventual outcome of this effect is a massive global cooling and entry into an ice age for northern europe.

  3. Also, you might remember all the uproar about how Brits were replanting fruit trees, orchards, grapes/vineyards - species not seen in the UK since Chaucer’s time. This, it was argued, was part of the global warming trend. Now, it’s not?

  4. btw, I said “ironic.” I didn’t say snow in London was evidence of anything - and don’t think it is.

26

[quote]ninearms wrote:
There’s nothing ironic in that at all. A colder UK climate is one of the predicted consequences of the polar ice caps melting.[/quote]

All climate change is a predicted consequence of global warming. That is the beauty of the scam.

27

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
ninearms wrote:
There’s nothing ironic in that at all. A colder UK climate is one of the predicted consequences of the polar ice caps melting.

All climate change is a predicted consequence of global warming. That is the beauty of the scam.[/quote]

LOL! Exactly.

28

The first thing these stupid climatologists need to understand is that there is no possible way to interpret a meaningful average temperature because there is always a variance.

Ice either melts, stays the same, or grows. Water evaporates and either remains water or freezes into some variant of ice. If it becomes ice it either melts or remains part of the glacial systems.

There is all this talk about how many more degrees the temperature needs to increase to cause ice caps to melt but the one piece of information that seems to always be neglected is that there is a time factor. The amounts of ice that would need to melt to do any damage needs to be huge and this takes time. Temperatures would need to remain above freezing for many years to do this or it would need to increase a very significant amount. Even in summer seasons it does not get hot enough, long enough to completely melt glaciers.

Any temperature below freezing will stop ice melting and would statistically add back to the amount of ice in the system provided there is some precipitation.

Statistically there is more likelihood to have glaciers than not to have them because water can evaporate, freeze and collect faster than it will melt and merge back with the oceans. This is not to say that it is impossible for all the ice in the world to melt completely at once it is just to say that we probably have nothing to worry about.

29

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
The last time I read a report on the actual amount of ice at the poles was last April (yes it’s been a while), and there was more ice in that month than any other April since they started recording.[/quote]

I’m interested to learn about your sources, can you provide a reference to the article?

The Guardian reported that winter sea ice thinned dramatically. (Big decline in depth of Arctic winter sea ice | Polar regions | The Guardian)

From the article:

Vicky Pope, the Met Office’s leading adviser to the government on climate change, warned: “There’s clearly a decline over the last 30 years and we can detect a human signal in that, but the change in the last couple of years could be due to natural fluctuations in the weather.”

Other references:

Rapid ice retreat threatens Arctic interior - pp83 - 84

Hannah Hoag

The rapid decline of sea ice could accelerate inland warming over the Arctic region, radically transforming the landscape. Hannah Hoag reports.

Published online: 26 June 2008; doi:10.1038/climate.2008.63

Standing on the brink

Mark C. Serreze & Julienne C. Stroeve

Despite some recovery of the Arctic summer sea ice this year, the signs suggest the transition to a seasonally ice-free Arctic Ocean is underway.

Published online: 09 October 2008; doi:10.1038/climate.2008.108

The last two are from refereed journals.

30

[quote]Journeyman wrote:
DoubleDuce wrote:
The last time I read a report on the actual amount of ice at the poles was last April (yes it’s been a while), and there was more ice in that month than any other April since they started recording.

I’m interested to learn about your sources, can you provide a reference to the article?

The Guardian reported that winter sea ice thinned dramatically. (Big decline in depth of Arctic winter sea ice | Polar regions | The Guardian)

From the article:

Vicky Pope, the Met Office’s leading adviser to the government on climate change, warned: “There’s clearly a decline over the last 30 years and we can detect a human signal in that, but the change in the last couple of years could be due to natural fluctuations in the weather.”

Other references:

Rapid ice retreat threatens Arctic interior - pp83 - 84

Hannah Hoag

The rapid decline of sea ice could accelerate inland warming over the Arctic region, radically transforming the landscape. Hannah Hoag reports.

Published online: 26 June 2008; doi:10.1038/climate.2008.63

Standing on the brink

Mark C. Serreze & Julienne C. Stroeve

Despite some recovery of the Arctic summer sea ice this year, the signs suggest the transition to a seasonally ice-free Arctic Ocean is underway.

Published online: 09 October 2008; doi:10.1038/climate.2008.108

The last two are from refereed journals.

[/quote]

who cares? why even argue sea ice or even climate change? It will be colder and it will be warmer.

The question is weather (intentional) or not the science says that man is significantly altering the climate. If you think you can answer that question the next question is whether or not this is a bad thing and how bad. A few degrees warmer in an ice age may not be a bad thing.

Do global warming kooks think that earth has seen it’s last ice age?

31

[quote]dhickey wrote:
Journeyman wrote:
DoubleDuce wrote:
The last time I read a report on the actual amount of ice at the poles was last April (yes it’s been a while), and there was more ice in that month than any other April since they started recording.

I’m interested to learn about your sources, can you provide a reference to the article?

The Guardian reported that winter sea ice thinned dramatically. (Big decline in depth of Arctic winter sea ice | Polar regions | The Guardian)

From the article:

Vicky Pope, the Met Office’s leading adviser to the government on climate change, warned: “There’s clearly a decline over the last 30 years and we can detect a human signal in that, but the change in the last couple of years could be due to natural fluctuations in the weather.”

Other references:

Rapid ice retreat threatens Arctic interior - pp83 - 84

Hannah Hoag

The rapid decline of sea ice could accelerate inland warming over the Arctic region, radically transforming the landscape. Hannah Hoag reports.

Published online: 26 June 2008; doi:10.1038/climate.2008.63

Standing on the brink

Mark C. Serreze & Julienne C. Stroeve

Despite some recovery of the Arctic summer sea ice this year, the signs suggest the transition to a seasonally ice-free Arctic Ocean is underway.

Published online: 09 October 2008; doi:10.1038/climate.2008.108

The last two are from refereed journals.

who cares? why even argue sea ice or even climate change? It will be colder and it will be warmer.

The question is weather (intentional) or not the science says that man is significantly altering the climate. If you think you can answer that question the next question is whether or not this is a bad thing and how bad. A few degrees warmer in an ice age may not be a bad thing.

Do global warming kooks think that earth has seen it’s last ice age?[/quote]

I wonder what the people in the Maldives think…

32

[quote]Gambit_Lost wrote:
dhickey wrote:
Journeyman wrote:
DoubleDuce wrote:
The last time I read a report on the actual amount of ice at the poles was last April (yes it’s been a while), and there was more ice in that month than any other April since they started recording.

I’m interested to learn about your sources, can you provide a reference to the article?

The Guardian reported that winter sea ice thinned dramatically. (Big decline in depth of Arctic winter sea ice | Polar regions | The Guardian)

From the article:

Vicky Pope, the Met Office’s leading adviser to the government on climate change, warned: “There’s clearly a decline over the last 30 years and we can detect a human signal in that, but the change in the last couple of years could be due to natural fluctuations in the weather.”

Other references:

Rapid ice retreat threatens Arctic interior - pp83 - 84

Hannah Hoag

The rapid decline of sea ice could accelerate inland warming over the Arctic region, radically transforming the landscape. Hannah Hoag reports.

Published online: 26 June 2008; doi:10.1038/climate.2008.63

Standing on the brink

Mark C. Serreze & Julienne C. Stroeve

Despite some recovery of the Arctic summer sea ice this year, the signs suggest the transition to a seasonally ice-free Arctic Ocean is underway.

Published online: 09 October 2008; doi:10.1038/climate.2008.108

The last two are from refereed journals.

who cares? why even argue sea ice or even climate change? It will be colder and it will be warmer.

The question is weather (intentional) or not the science says that man is significantly altering the climate. If you think you can answer that question the next question is whether or not this is a bad thing and how bad. A few degrees warmer in an ice age may not be a bad thing.

Do global warming kooks think that earth has seen it’s last ice age?

I wonder what the people in the Maldives think…[/quote]

Care to expand?

33

[quote]Gambit_Lost wrote:

I wonder what the people in the Maldives think…[/quote]

I wonder what people on Greenland think.

34

[quote]dhickey wrote:

I wonder what the people in the Maldives think…

Care to expand?[/quote]

The Maldives is an island nation in the Indian Ocean. The highest land has an elevation of 2.4 meters. The 2004 tsunami actually submerged most of the nation for a few minutes. They have build a sea wall to protect the capitol city. If sea level rises, they have to abandon the nation or build sea walls.

They don’t have the luxury of denying global warming, so they have been paying to build sea walls.

35

[quote]JamFly wrote:
'THERE is very important climatic change going on right now, and it’s not merely something of academic interest. It is something that, if it continues, will affect the whole human occupation of the earth - like a billion people starving. The effects are already showing up in a rather drastic way."

That apocalyptic warning was conveyed in an article in Fortune magazine in 1974, on the alarming phenomenon of global cooling and an imminent new Ice Age, The American Institute of Physics subsequently awarded the magazine a Science Writing Award. So much for expert and media opinion on climate change.[/quote]

From the article in question …
Bryson is convinced that man’s activities have been
playing an increasingly significant part in temperature ups and downs.
In agreement with many other climatologists, he believes that a
substantial increase in carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil
fuels contributed to the earlier warming trend. Through what’s called
the “greenhouse effect,” carbon-dioxide molecules are transparent to
sunlight but not very transparent to heat emitted from the earth. Thus
they trap and rein force the solar heating effect.

36

[quote]Journeyman wrote:
dhickey wrote:

I wonder what the people in the Maldives think…

Care to expand?

The Maldives is an island nation in the Indian Ocean. The highest land has an elevation of 2.4 meters. The 2004 tsunami actually submerged most of the nation for a few minutes. They have build a sea wall to protect the capitol city. If sea level rises, they have to abandon the nation or build sea walls.

They don’t have the luxury of denying global warming, so they have been paying to build sea walls.[/quote]

Shit, the Vikings were smart enough to move out of Greenland when the globe started cooling.

37

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Shit, the Vikings were smart enough to move out of Greenland when the globe started cooling.[/quote]

Not really. Their end was rather grim (The Fate of Greenland's Vikings - Archaeology Magazine Archive). Many died of disease, starvation and raids.

38

[quote]Journeyman wrote:
They don’t have the luxury of denying global warming, so they have been paying to build sea walls.[/quote]

Just because water levels rise does not mean there is global warming. It is possible that glacial water once melted will not return to those glaciers in a frozen state even if temperatures remain significantly cold in those glacial regions. There are two other necessary factors that need to present themselves – evaporation and precipitation. Evaporation is a certainty in temperatures above freezing but precipitation is not. Regions that were once lush and green have become deserts and vice versa and is independent of temperature.

The essential feature of nature is change. We either adapt or perish. No one has the luxury of denying any change, period.

39

Not to worry. He is coming. Remember what he said, “This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.”

40

[quote]dhickey wrote:
Journeyman wrote:
DoubleDuce wrote:
The last time I read a report on the actual amount of ice at the poles was last April (yes it’s been a while), and there was more ice in that month than any other April since they started recording.

I’m interested to learn about your sources, can you provide a reference to the article?

The Guardian reported that winter sea ice thinned dramatically. (Big decline in depth of Arctic winter sea ice | Polar regions | The Guardian)

From the article:

Vicky Pope, the Met Office’s leading adviser to the government on climate change, warned: “There’s clearly a decline over the last 30 years and we can detect a human signal in that, but the change in the last couple of years could be due to natural fluctuations in the weather.”

Other references:

Rapid ice retreat threatens Arctic interior - pp83 - 84

Hannah Hoag

The rapid decline of sea ice could accelerate inland warming over the Arctic region, radically transforming the landscape. Hannah Hoag reports.

Published online: 26 June 2008; doi:10.1038/climate.2008.63

Standing on the brink

Mark C. Serreze & Julienne C. Stroeve

Despite some recovery of the Arctic summer sea ice this year, the signs suggest the transition to a seasonally ice-free Arctic Ocean is underway.

Published online: 09 October 2008; doi:10.1038/climate.2008.108

The last two are from refereed journals.

who cares? why even argue sea ice or even climate change? It will be colder and it will be warmer.

The question is weather (intentional) or not the science says that man is significantly altering the climate. If you think you can answer that question the next question is whether or not this is a bad thing and how bad. A few degrees warmer in an ice age may not be a bad thing.

Do global warming kooks think that earth has seen it’s last ice age?[/quote]

Nice to see a reasonable response that accurately addresses the scenario.

Has anyone else noticed that “global warming” has distracted a lot of us from considering the much more simple and scientifically understood concept of “pollution”. Remember pollution?

When someone defends their massive “carbon footprint” by pointing to the knotty science of global warming, they often forget that burning fuels releases toxins in the air - you know, good old-fashioned pollution. Hang out in Beijing for a while and see what I mean. That shit ain’t good.