[sparkscoffee] Re: Global Un-Warming? Antarctic Sea-Ice Reaches Record High Levels
- From: JF <lhouseparker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: sparkscoffee@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 16 Sep 2014 21:04:28 -0500
On 9/16/2014 7:43 AM, Ron Ristad wrote:
In what appears to be an awkward moment of uncomfortable fact, ABC
reports
<http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-14/record-coverage-of-antarctic-sea-ice/5742668>
satellite imagery reveals an area of about 20 million square
kilometres covered by *sea ice around the Antarctic* continent -
the *highest level of coverage since records began*. This is the
3rd year in a row that the sea ice coverage has reached a record
level - increasing at 1.5% each decade since 1979.
-RR
Awkward uncomfortable fact? The implication of the above statement is
pure BS (a distortion of the ABC report, lying by omission).
The twisting of facts and frantic outpourings of disinformation by
industry-supported climate change deniers would be comical if the
situation weren't so potentially catastrophic for all of humanity.
For example, the "ABC reports" source quoted by RR is from the
Australian network, not ABC in America, and, if you read through the
whole article, you will discover that it does not deny the findings
showing global warming, but in fact supports them and explains the
concomitant increase in Antarctic sea ice:
*(excerpt:)*
"As the area covered in sea ice expands scientists have said the ice
on the continent of Antarctica which is not over the ocean continues
to deplete. CEO of the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems CRC, Tony
Worby, said the warming atmosphere is leading to greater sea ice
coverage by changing wind patterns."
*(unquote)
*In short, Antarctic warming makes more ice slide into the sea,
temporarily making more sea ice (until it all melts) but leaving less
and less on land, which in itself will lead to more global warming
due to less reflection of incoming solar heat. For those that can't
do arithmetic, if warming is unchecked, eventually that will lead
to, among other things, very little ice in the polar regions, a big
rise in sea level, and possibly shutting off the Gulf stream which
now warms the UK and northern Europe.
A little searching will readily turn up more data, for example:
(1) http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/warming_antarctica.html
The new analysis shows that Antarctic surface temperatures
increased an average of 0.22°F (0.12°C) per decade between 1957 and
2006. That's a rise of more than 1°F (0.5°C) in the last half
century. West Antarctica warmed at a higher rate, rising 0.31°F
(0.17°C) per decade. The results, published Jan. 22 in Nature,
confirm earlier findings based on limited weather station data and
ice cores.
While some areas of East Antarctica have been cooling in recent
decades, the longer 50-year trend depicts that, on average,
temperatures are rising across the continent.
(2) http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2014-148
May 12, 2014
A new study by researchers at NASA and the University of
California, Irvine, finds a rapidly melting section of the West
Antarctic Ice Sheet appears to be in an irreversible state of
decline, with nothing to stop the glaciers in this area from melting
into the sea.
(3) http://climate.nasa.gov/key_indicators/
Charts - trends in world CO2 levels, surface temps, Arctic sea
ice, land ice (including Antarctica & Greenland ice mass changes),
sea level.
One wonders why RR ignores other opinions, like those of one of his
neighbors, Costa Rican figure José María Figueres (former president
of Costa Rica), who said at a 2012 panel at the Brookings Institution:
"Over the last four years, the Central American isthmus has endured
more than 50,000 deaths and the displacement of 10 million people,”
said moderator Kevin Casas-Zamora, a senior fellow at Brookings.
“Since the 1970s, disasters related to climate change have grown 5
percent a year. The number of hurricanes has increased five-fold, and
the number of floods has tripled. Hurricane Mitch, arguably the worst
disaster ever to hit Central America, cost $16 billion. With half the
population living in poverty, the region’s governments face an
impossible task of having to constantly rebuild their
infrastructure.Yet even though Central America contributes next to
nothing in global warming, the region suffers the brunt of its
consequences."
Of course the world's rich fossil fuel industries will be happy -
they will be able to extract more and more from newly exposed areas,
leading to more warming, make more and more money, bribe more and
more politicians and thus make their own laws, control more and more
media, put out more and more self-serving disinformation, and, even
more importantly, be able to shelter themselves in exclusive
air-conditioned gated communities for the elite, protected by their
very own bought and paid for police forces, courts, and even armies.
Where have I heard of civilizations in such straits before? One first
thinks of those led into disaster by lunatics like Stalin, Hitler,
Chairman Mao and the like, but let's face it, they were
unsophisticated amateurs.
73
John F.
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