Rate of ice melt shocks warming experts

[Larry]

WOW!! There's NOTHING more convincing than a cartoon map illustration (a shoddy one at that too) to PROVE global warming.

Anybody else realize that in the 6 BILLION years the Earth has been around, there's been warming in the poles that would make today's standards look like a burgeoning ice age? People realize this right?

So no doubt you'll be happy to provide us some evidence of the last time half of the entire polar ice cap disappeared over a period of four years?

And no doubt you'll also be willing to tell us, 10 years from now, the last time there was no polar ice cap at all?

[Predicto]

I miss the hole in the ozone layer. They should knock the dust off that one and trott it back out.

Why? We actually took action and solved that one.

[Predicto]

I'm not sure what you're talking about. The hole is still there.

http://ozonewatch.gsfc.nasa.gov/

Yes, but it is not growing like it was.

[Predicto]

Do you really think the growing numbers in the scientific community that are no longer afraid of being blackballed are making it up? If so, then the answer to you question is "yes."

What makes you think that these numbers are "growing" or even credible?

Other than some blog that asserts this, of course?

[Skins24]

I think what they are saying is the melting is happening way faster than it should during natural warm up cycles.

Impossible to know that for sure. We've only been keeping good records for the past 100 or so years.

[Predicto]

Impossible to know that for sure. We've only been keeping good records for the past 100 or so years.

There is no "for sure" in this kind of area, there is only "our best estimation based on the data available to us." The only way to be absolutely, 100% sure is to wait and see what happens and judge in retrospect.

[China]

Yes, but it is not growing like it was.

True, because as you said we took action.

[DGreenistheBest]

Can someone who does not believe in global warming explain to me what possible loss there is to attempting to clean up the environment and enforce cleaner standards for industry? And don't say money or jobs, that doesn't outweigh the possibility of drowning in our own homes because ocean levels have risen 25 feet. I want someone to tell me what bad will come of trying to make some environmental changes that is on the scale of the bad that would come if global warming is true and we do nothing.

[Predicto]

True, because as you said we took action.

Damn us and our foresight!

[Sarge]

http://www.weatherquestions.com/Roy-Spencer-on-global-warming.htm

[alexey]

Other than some blog that asserts this, of course?

Not just some blog... Here is that same article signed:

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=c9554887-802a-23ad-4303-68f67ebd151c

Here is some info on Marc Morano, the author:

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Marc_Morano

Marc Morano is communications director for the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. Morano commenced work with the committee under Senator James Inhofe, who was majority chairman of the committee until January 2007. In December 2006 Morano launched a blog on the committee's website that largely promotes the views of climate change sceptics.

Morano is a former journalist with Cybercast News Service (owned by the conservative Media Research Center). CNS and Morano were the first source in May 2004 of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth claims against John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election [1] and in January 2006 of similar smears against Vietnam war veteran John Murtha.

Morano was "previously known as Rush Limbaugh's 'Man in Washington,' as reporter and producer for the Rush Limbaugh Television Show, as well as a former correspondent and producer for American Investigator, the nationally syndicated TV newsmagazine." [2]

To make the long story short, they are swiftboating the global warming. :puke:

[Zguy28]

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/end.html

When one reviews all the data, both from thermometers and paleotemperature proxies, it becomes clear that the Earth has warmed significantly over the last 140 years. Global warming has occurred. Multiple paleoclimatic studies indicate that recent years, the 1990s, and the 20th century are all the warmest, on a global basis, of at least the last 1000 years. The most recent paleoclimate data reinforce this conclusion using longer records, new proxies, new statistical techniques, and a broader geographic distribution of paleo data.

There are, however, questions remaining concerning global warming. For instance, what caused the warming and what are the implications for the future? The answers to these questions are not simple.

There is considerable debate centered on the cause of 20th century climate change. Few people contest the idea that some of the recent climate changes are likely due to natural processes, such as volcanic eruptions, changes in solar luminosity, and variations generated by natural interactions between parts of the climate system (for example, oceans and the atmosphere). There were significant climate changes before humans were around and there will be non-human causes of climate change in the future.

Nevertheless, with each year, more and more climate scientists are coming to the conclusion that human activity is also causing the climate to change. First on the list of likely human influences is warming due to increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Other human activities are thought to drive climate as well. As the ice-core data show, the increase in carbon dioxide is unprecedented and well outside the range of natural variations. The recent increase matches the increase calculated from the fossil fuel emissions. There is little doubt that these gases will contribute to global warming, and here too the paleo record provides invaluable evidence regarding how much temperature change accompanied changes in carbon dioxide over the past several hundred thousand years. However, there is uncertainty about some issues. For example, these questions remain to be answered with complete confidence:

• How much warming has occurred due to anthropogenic increases in atmospheric trace-gas levels?
  
• How much warming will occur in the future?
  
• What other changes will occur with future warming?
  

Paleoclimatology offers help in answering each of these questions. Several of the paleoclimate studies reported in this web document have begun efforts to attribute past climate change to both natural and human causes, and to estimate how much of the current warming is due to humans (i.e., greenhouse warming). The best estimate is that about 50% of the observed global warming is due to greenhouse gas increases.

The paleo record also tells us how much temperature change occurred in the past when carbon dioxide levels where different. Studies show that the 100 ppm reduction in carbon dioxide during the last glacial was accompanied by a 3°C cooling in the western tropical oceans. This amount of temperature change is consistent with the change predicted by numerical climate model simulations. Changes at higher latitudes were much larger and included the growth of large ice sheets. Other studies of the glacial world show that many aspects of climate were different when carbon dioxide was reduced, including lower sea level, lower snowlines, and altered patterns of circulation. Based on these studies we can predict that other aspects of the climate in addition to temperature are likely to change with future warming.

For links to other www sites dedicated to Global Warming, please click here.

[btfoom]

...To make the long story short, they are swiftboating the global warming. :puke:

Yeah, I guess you are right :doh: :doh: :doh:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/12/071211101623.htm

But, hey, why listen to scientists when you have political 'leaders' to tell you.:laugh:

[Predicto]

Yeah, I guess you are right :doh: :doh: :doh:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/12/071211101623.htm

But, hey, why listen to scientists when you have political 'leaders' to tell you.:laugh:

Did you read any of the other stories on that page you linked?

[Siven]

Nice selective work. You realize that the statistics you quoted were from one subpopulation of polar bears, not all polar bears. From the article you cited also comes this:

Bear populations are getting hit hard by global warming. For the bears that almost entirerly live on ice, no ice = bad.

[Zguy28]

Did you read any of the other stories on that page you linked?

I'm guessing that would be a big ol' "Negative Ghostrider the pattern is full."

[Ancalagon the Black]

I have a healthy respect for skepticism in general, but I do want to ask a question of the climate-change skeptics: what evidence would it take for you to entertain the notion that global warming (a) is a reality, and ( is being caused or exacerbated by human activity?

[Predicto]

Yeah, I guess you are right :doh: :doh: :doh:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/12/071211101623.htm

But, hey, why listen to scientists when you have political 'leaders' to tell you.:laugh:

By the way, do you know who Fred Singer is? One of the authors of that study? Check Wikipedia on him, if you are interested.

Nevertheless, I welcome that study and will be interested to see what response it gets from the informed scientific community. Heck, maybe the study is right.

Many global warming deniers, however, are certain already that this particular study is correct, and will dismiss any upcoming criticism of it as politially motivated. And that is just intellectually dishonest.

[PeterMP]

Did you read any of the other stories on that page you linked?

Did he even read the story that he linked? Models have over-estimated temps in one place- the tropics, and one area of the atmosphere- the troposphere (not the surface). Surface temp estimates- they don't do a bad job of. Other parts of the planet- they don't do a bad job. In one area, they've over-estimated. It does suggest that there is an issue, but this thread is about them under-estimating the rate of ice melting in the artic so they've over-estimated in one are and under-estimated in another.

I'll also note (I deleted the post on it because I couldn't find the paper based on the quote I didn't think I could find it until I started looking at the authors), that a previous post in this thread quotes a news article that says something to the extent that this paper concluded, "Humans are not causing global warming." that is not a conclusion stated anywhere in this paper or even close to it.

[portisizzle]

Give this beat, worn out, dog **** of a thread topic a rest. PLEASE.

[pjfootballer]

I read in the paper the other day about this and they mentioned the same thing happened about 1200 A.D. Maybe it's cyclical. Kinda like the Hurricanes in the Atlantic.

[hokie4redskins]

I read in the paper the other day about this and they mentioned the same thing happened about 1200 A.D. Maybe it's cyclical. Kinda like the Hurricanes in the Atlantic.

Nah, it was all those pesky SUVs in the 13th century. Heard the dinosaurs drove them too.

[Larry]

I read in the paper the other day about this and they mentioned the same thing happened about 1200 A.D. Maybe it's cyclical. Kinda like the Hurricanes in the Atlantic.

You expect me to believe that somebody can show that the north polar ice cap, shrank to 50% of the size of it's previously smallest ever, in a period of only 5 years, 800 years ago?

You got a link to the satellite images?

[hokie4redskins]

You expect me to believe that somebody can show that the north polar ice cap, shrank to 50% of the size of it's previously smallest ever, in a period of only 5 years, 800 years ago?

You got a link to the satellite images?

There are hundreds of scientific methods that don't include satellite photos from 8 centuries ago. Ever heard of soil samples?

:doh:

Or maybe he could just DRAW the satellite images like this article did in the original post.

:laugh:

Greenland was once plush farmland for Vikings. Chicago once had a glacier a mile thick running across it. This was WAY before SUVs and satellite imagery and it's been proven. Funny thing is, you're quick to accept GW science as gospel.

We're talking 6 billion years here. Earth being warmer than it is today and going through different climate cycles doesn't seem feasible to you?

:thumbsup:

Also, anybody notice how close Iceland is to the North Pole on this "map". Isn't Iceland full of hot springs that make it almost a tropical paradise? Is what's happening beneath the Earth's crust not considered in all the "science" behind this "melting"?

[Predicto]

There are hundreds of scientific methods that don't include satellite photos from 8 centuries ago. Ever heard of soil samples?

:doh:

Or maybe he could just DRAW the satellite images like this article did in the original post.

:laugh:

Greenland was once plush farming land for Vikings. Chicago once had a glacier a mile thick running across it. This was WAY before SUVs and satellite imagery and it's been proven. Funny thing is, you're quick to accept GW science as gospel.

We're talking 6 billion years here. Earth being warmer than it is today and going through different climate cycles doesn't seem feasible to you?

:thumbsup:

Also, anybody notice how close Iceland is to the North Pole on this "map". Isn't Iceland full of hot springs that make it almost a tropical paradise? Is what's happening beneath the Earth's crust not considered in all the "science" behind this "melting"?

We all know the earth has gone through major weather cycles. Stop trying to prove a point that is not being contested.

The problem here is how FAST the current change appears to be happening, and whether or not we are causing the change to happen so FAST, and whether we are in a position to adapt to a massive FAST change in our weather.

"Haha! Chicago used to be under a glacier!" does not add to the discussion.