ok, lets have another Global Warming debate

[montanaskier]

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Sea ice in the northern hemisphere has plunged to the lowest levels ever measured, US polar specialists said, adding they expect the record low to be "annihilated" by summer's end.

ADVERTISEMENT

In data posted on the Internet Thursday, William Chapman and colleagues at the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana said that sea ice in the Arctic region had plunged to new lows some 30 days before the normal point of the annual lows.

"Today, the Northern Hemisphere sea ice area broke the record for the lowest recorded ice area in recorded history," Chapman, a researcher on Arctic meteorology of the university's Department of Atmospheric Sciences, wrote Thursday in the online publication 'The Cryosphere Today.'

"The new record came a full month before the historic summer minimum typically occurs. There is still a month or more of melt likely this year. It is therefore almost certain that the previous 2005 record will be annihilated by the final 2007 annual minima closer to the end of this summer."

The drop in sea ice this year is more geographically sweeping than in previous low years, the scientists said.

In earlier low years, big drops in the level of sea ice were confined to specific areas, such as the North Atlantic, the Bering Sea, the Beaufort Sea, or other locales.

"The character of 2007's sea ice melt is unique in that it is dramatic and covers the entire Arctic sector. Atlantic, Pacific and even the central Arctic sectors are showing large negative sea ice area anomalies," they said.

[Jer]

Why haven't you died from full-blown AIDS yet???

[rideit]

I blame sledneckripper.

[KQ]

Lake Superior changes puzzle scientists

MARQUETTE, Michigan (AP) -- Deep enough to hold the combined water in all the other Great Lakes and with a surface area as large as South Carolina, Lake Superior's size has lent it an aura of invulnerability.

But the mighty Superior is losing water and getting warmer, worrying those who live near its shores, scientists and companies that rely on the lake for business.

The changes to the lake could be signs of climate change, although scientists aren't sure.

Superior's level is at its lowest point in eight decades and will set a record this fall if, as expected, it dips three more inches. Meanwhile, the average water temperature has surged 4.5 degrees since 1979, significantly above the 2.7-degree rise in the region's air temperature during the same period.

That's no small deal for a freshwater sea that was created from glacial melt as the Ice Age ended and remains chilly in all seasons.

A weather buoy on the western side recently recorded an "amazing" 75 degrees, "as warm a surface temperature as we've ever seen in this lake," said Jay Austin, assistant professor at the University of Minnesota at Duluth's Large Lakes Observatory.

Water levels also have receded on the other Great Lakes since the late 1990s. But the suddenness and severity of Superior's changes worry many in the region. Shorelines are dozens of yards wider than usual, giving sunbathers wider beaches but also exposing mucky bottomlands and rotting vegetation.

On a recent day, Dan Arsenault, a 32-year-old lifelong resident of Sault Ste. Marie in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, watched his two young daughters play in mud on the southeastern coast where water was waist deep only a few years ago. A floatation rope that previously designated the swimming area now rests on moist ground.

"This is the lowest I've ever seen it," said Arsenault.

Superior still has a lot of water. Its average depth is 483 feet and it reaches 1,332 feet at the deepest point. Erie, the shallowest Great Lake, is 210 feet at its deepest and averages only 62 feet. Lake Michigan averages 279 feet and is 925 feet at its deepest.

Yet along Superior's shores, boats can't reach many mooring sites and marina operators are begging the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to dredge shallow harbors. Ferry service between Grand Portage, Minnesota, and Isle Royale National Park was scaled back because one of the company's boats couldn't dock.

Sally Zabelka has turned away boaters wanting to dock at Chippewa Landing marina in the eastern Upper Peninsula, where not long ago 27-foot vessels easily made their way up the channel from the lake's Brimley Bay. "In essence, our dock is useless this year," she said.

Another worry: As the bay heats up, the perch, walleye and smallmouth bass that have lured anglers to her campground and tackle shop are migrating to cooler waters in the open lake.

Low water has cost the shipping industry millions of dollars. Vessels are carrying lighter loads of iron ore and coal to avoid running aground in shallow channels.

Puffing on a pipe in a Grand Marais pub, retiree Ted Sietsema voiced a suspicion not uncommon in the villages along Superior's southern shoreline: The government is diverting the water to places with more people and political influence -- along Lakes Huron and Michigan and even the Sun Belt, via the Mississippi River.

"Don't give me that global warming stuff," Sietsema said. "That water is going west. That big aquifer out there is empty but they can still water the desert. It's got to be coming from somewhere."

That theory doesn't hold water, said Scott Thieme, hydraulics and hydrology chief with the Corps of Engineers district office in Detroit. Water does exit Lake Superior through locks, power plants and gates on the St. Marys River, but in amounts strictly regulated under a 1909 pact with Canada.

The actual forces at work, while mysterious, are not the stuff of spy novels, he said.

Precipitation has tapered off across the upper Great Lakes since the 1970s and is nearly 6 inches below normal in the Superior watershed the past year. Water evaporation rates are up sharply because mild winters have shrunk the winter ice cap -- just as climate change computer models predict for the next half-century.

Yet those models also envision more precipitation as global warming sets in, said Brent Lofgren, a physical scientist with the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory in Ann Arbor. Instead there's drought, suggesting other factors.

Cynthia Sellinger, the lab's deputy director, said she suspects a contributing factor could be residual effects of El Nino, the warming of equatorial Pacific waters that produced warmer winters in the late 1990s, just as the lakes began receding.

Austin, the Minnesota-Duluth professor, said he's concerned about the effects the warmer water could have.

"It's just not clear what the ultimate result will be as we turn the knob up," he said. "It could be great for fisheries or fisheries could crash."

[Mofro261]

"Today, the Northern Hemisphere sea ice area broke the record for the lowest recorded ice area in recorded history," said Chapman, a researcher tyring to sound like a broken record.

Good thing it didn't break one of those unrecorded records.

[Jer]

Warmer Superior = later near shore freeze = more intense lake-effect snowfall = happier Mt.Bohemia skiers.

[smitchell333]

[Jer]

So Dave's got his head in the sand - better than up his ass.

[Blurred]

A 2006 study by Danish researchers from Aarhus University found that “Greenland’s glaciers have been shrinking for the past century, suggesting that the ice melt is not a recent phenomenon caused by global warming.” Glaciologist Jacob Clement Yde explained that the study was “the most comprehensive ever conducted on the movements of Greenland’s glaciers, according to an August 21, 2006 article in Agence France-Presse. “Seventy percent of the glaciers have been shrinking regularly since the end of the 1880’s,” Yde explained. (80% of man-made CO2 emissions occurred after 1940). Niels Tvis Knudsen of Aarhus University co-authored the paper.

[Trackhead]

Global warming is losing it's validity as a political argument every day.

[smitchell333]

So Dave's got his head in the sand - better than up his ass.

[MeatPuppet]

“Seventy percent of the glaciers have been shrinking regularly since the end of the 1880’s,” Yde explained. (80% of man-made CO2 emissions occurred after 1940).

There is an article in the July-August American Scientist about the Kibo ice cap on Mt Kilimanjaro.

The ice cap has been referred to as a "poster child" of global warming. Before and after pictures of the ice cap were featured in Gore's movie. The only problem(which Gore failed to mention) is that from 1880(when the first survey of the ice cap was completed) until 2000, 66% of the shrinkage occurred before 1953, and that the shrinkage carries all the earmarks of having been caused by solar radiation and not a warming of the surrounding air.

I guess that little truth was too inconvenient to mention.

[Trackhead]

There is an article in the July-August American Scientist about the Kibo ice cap on Mt Kilimanjaro.

The ice cap has been referred to as a "poster child" of global warming. Before and after pictures of the ice cap were featured in Gore's movie. The only problem(which Gore failed to mention) is that from 1880(when the first survey of the ice cap was completed) until 2000, 66% of the shrinkage occurred before 1953, and that the shrinkage carries all the earmarks of having been caused by solar radiation and not a warming of the surrounding air.

I guess that little truth was too inconvenient to mention.

Al Gore rhymes with Michael Moore.

[skieurmalade]

I was just working on a Discovery program called "expedition alaska" all about the effects of global warming on the arctic and sub-arctic... they are right now off to scuba dive in a methane-releasing lake, the methane being released beneath water right now as the permafrost melts could mean SEVERE consequences...

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/...mment-opinions
a quote from an LA TIMES article (link posted above)


Much of the Siberian sub-Arctic region, an area the size of France and Germany combined, is a vast, frozen peat bog. Before the most recent Ice Age, the area was mostly grassland, teeming with wildlife. The coming of the glaciers entombed the organic matter below the permafrost, where it has remained ever since. Although the surface of Siberia is largely barren, there is as much organic matter buried underneath the permafrost as there is in all of the world's tropical rain forests.

Now the permafrost is thawing on land and along the seabeds. If it occurs in the presence of oxygen on land, the decomposing of organic matter leads to the production of CO2. If the permafrost thaws along lake shelves, in the absence of oxygen, the decomposing matter releases methane. Methane is the most potent of the greenhouse gases, with a greenhouse effect 23 times that of CO2.




The disco scientists were saying apocalyptic is the new buzz on this one... not really gonna matter if it's a political debate or not anymore... WE KNOW CO2 emissions are bad... it's fucking stupid to keep saying what is or isn't causing it because it's here and we should do all we can to slow it down.

[AH]

This whole debate and it's BS political agenda is starting to piss me off.. We need to get our priorities straight! (I'm serious: watch this little TEDtalk and you'll understand why!)

[DisArray]

WE KNOW CO2 emissions are bad... it's fucking stupid to keep saying what is or isn't causing it because it's here and we should do all we can to slow it down.

Then STOP breathing you selfish fuck!

[rideit]

Disarray, respectfully...as an alias, your words have no weight.
PLEASE post your blather as (whoever you are), and folks might respond intelligently.
Aren't you sick of asshats responding to your posts idiotically?
Well, YOU can stop that.
(and that IS what you want, no?)

See above.

[Jer]

it's fucking stupid to keep saying what is or isn't causing it because it's here and we should do all we can to slow it down.

So - what if humans aren't "what is" causing it? What should we do then? Blow up the sun? Or maybe we should all just run around frantically waving our arms in the air - maybe that will cool the atmosphere enough.

Y'know what's "fucking stupid"? - being a fucking herd animal and blindly following every new thing that comes down the line. Try thinking for yourself instead of relyingon the Discovery Channel to do it for you.

Another thing I love about Al's movie are the multiple shots of glaciers falling into the ocean. I'm no glacial hydrologist, but don't glaciers "calve" because they're growing? Oh well - it's looks really dramatic and fools dipshit hysterical herd animals. And sells tickets.

[Crass3000]

It's interesting how nobody talks about how the Antarctic ice sheet has been growing in the past decades. Seems weird, or convenient, that this information is never talked about.

http://www.space.com/scienceastronom...ic_020822.html

[Plakespear]

Just curious, how many of you who still doubt that global warming is at least being significantly accelerated by human technology have any serious education in science. While I will be the first to admit that I don't have any besides the classes I took in high school and college (which were amongst the "Rocks for Jocks" variety, and I only took them to fulfil the basic science requirement for graduation.)

That being said, I am convinced that the current climate change is greatly effected by human activity. While climate and weather patterns involve complex systems well beyond the full understanding of my brain, I don't think it takes a Ph.D to realize that if you severely alter these systems, there will be significant consequenses. Industry has increased the amount of CO2, and at the same time deforetation has removed thousands of kM2 of trees and other plantlife that helps to remove excess CO2 from the atmosphere. This is certainly causing climate patterns to be altered in ways that would not happen without human interference.

[montanaskier]

Climate change is affected by humans. To think any other way is ridiculous. The argument should not be how much do we cause climate change or how much is natural. We should all just realize that as humans we are a wasteful, earth damaging bunch in most things we do. We should simply recycle, drive less, waste less, REPRODUCE LESS, because it is the smart thing to do. Being a responsible citizen of this big rock we live on should simply be what we do. Herd animals as Douche...I mean Jer said, is right. The whole climate change debate is a perfect example of what we as Americans do. We politicize every thing so that NOTHING ever happens. Herd animals indeed.

[Jer]

Climate change is affected by humans. To think any other way is ridiculous.

Jesus Christ is the son of God. To think any other way is ridiculous.

Allah is the only God. Those who think otherwise must be destroyed. To think any other way is ridiculous.

"To think any other way is ridiculous" is a catchphrase for fanaticism.

So far I've seen about as much proof that Jesus is the son of God as I've seen that mankind is a significant contributor to GLOBAL WARMING!!!. The similarities are that that both Christianity and GLOBAL WARMING!!! have a huge following of sheep who won't listen to reason or contrary arguements because they have "faith" that their way is the way. Both religions are also literal money/power making machines. Jesus freaks see the Virgin Mary in a burnt piece of toast - GLOBAL WARMING!!! freaks see that it's pretty hot out today and are convinced the world is comming to an end. Whenever there's a tornado/mass murder/earthquake/plane crash/etc, the Jesus freaks see it as a sign that everyone's gotta see the light of God and start going to church. Whever it's hot out/cold out/too rainy/too dry/too windy/too still the GLOBAL WARMING!!! freaks see it as a sign of recent man-made and thus reversible GLOBAL WARMING!!! and everybody must buy carbon credits and go to the LiveEarth concert.

I'm all for reducing pollution, deforestation, waste, and trying to convince people that breeding like locusts isn't a good thing, but I'm not quite ready to surrender blindly to the fanatical hysterical religion that GLOBAL WARMING!!! has become.

[Jer]

Just curious, how many of you who still doubt that global warming is at least being significantly accelerated by human technology have any serious education in science. While I will be the first to admit that I don't have any besides the classes I took in high school and college (which were amongst the "Rocks for Jocks" variety, and I only took them to fulfil the basic science requirement for graduation.)

Same as you - Meteorology 101 and such.

I don't think it takes a Ph.D to come to the conclusion that GLOBAL WARMING!!! is the devine Truth or a complete bullshit scam. Hell - even the guys with Ph.Ds can't agree. (Oh, I know - all those "scientists" who don't fall into line are corporate toadies)

[montanaskier]

I am not saying to surrender or to act like we will all die in a heap of molten hot melting earth tomorrow. People do overreact and underreact...it's what we do. Over dramatization is used to get the attention of the general public. The VAST majority of America lives in places where they NEVER come in contact with wild places as long as they live. They have no idea what impact they are having on the overall big picture. So if making things out to be bigger and more dramatic than maybe they are makes those people take notice and begin to make minor changes then I for one can put off the annoyance of it all.

[Jer]

So if making things out to be bigger and more dramatic than maybe they are makes those people take notice and begin to make minor changes then I for one can put off the annoyance of it all.

I've said this a bunch of times before - I'm not a "the end justifies the means" type of guy.

Why the hell am I debating this in a civil manner? Didn't you post this shit on Ski/Snowboard?

You're a bed-wetting loser. I know your Mom told you you're special, but get over yourself. And seek treatment for the AIDS - there's new stuff comming out every day.