Newly Discovered Meltwater Streams Flow Beneath the Antarctic Ice Sheet 130
The Telegraph reports that previously undetected streams of meltwater have been observed beneath the Antarctic ice sheet. "The streams of water, some of which are 250m in height and stretch for hundreds of kilometres, could be destabilising parts of the Antarctic ice shelf immediately around them and speeding up melting, researchers said.
However, they added that it remains unclear how the localised effects of the channels will impact on the future of the floating ice sheet as a whole. The British researchers used satellite images and radar data to measure variations in the height of the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf in West Antarctica, which reveal how thick the ice is." The paper itself is paywalled, but the abstract is available online.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Scientists have discovered that Antarctica's ice shelf is made of water!
News at 11.
Re:There always has been water flow under the ice (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
the world's largest continent
Antarctica is the fifth-largest continent.
Re: (Score:1)
Is "Antarctica is the fifth-largest continent."
Is that counting europe and Asia separately or as one big one? (And what about Afric since its also joined to Asia.
So if you count EurasiAfrica as 1, North America, and South America as 2 and 3, then Antarctica is the 4th largest
(Actually doesn't that make it the smallest continent?
(Australia is the worlds largest Island, not a continent.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
The distinction is between ice caps on land vs. on the ocean. The arctic ice is already in the ocean, so melting it won't raise sea levels. But the majority of antarctic is is on land (same as Greenland), so melting that ice would raise global sea levels.
Re: (Score:1)
Yes, yes. Because the last time the entire earth has all the water as ice (snowball earth) and the last time the earth had NO ice on it at all it was those pesky humans and AGW. Wait. they didnt even exist then.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, yes. Because forest fires ravaged the earth when the dinosaurs ruled and there were no humans then, so forest fires can't be caused by humans.
Wait, humans totally can cause fires.
Re: (Score:2)
I've never heard a serious scientist proposing that the "Snowball Earth" events froze all the water on the planet. Typical scenarios under discussion propose a kilometre or so of ice floating on top of the liquid ocean. That would leave about 2.6km of water in the average part of the ocean (assuming the same volume of water as today, and the same volume of continental crust floating on mantle of the same density ; the latter ass
Re: (Score:2)
Not a chance. The nature of self-delusion is such that it becomes harder to admit the truth the more evidence you've ignored, especially when you've been vocal about it. People who have made fools of themselves by publicly speaking of international climate science conspiracies have a lot of incentive to keep believing in them. And of course there's still whatever reason - usually economic - that
Re: (Score:1)
Give me a big drill and I can fix that. We'll just let the hydraulic forces bring the water up to the top of the glaciers, freeze there, and poof, glaciers stop moving *and* more ice mass. Nothing could possibly go wrong.
Re: (Score:2)
This is an old thought experiment of mine. They say that the mass of ice is decreasing and that surface water freezes immediately, (what with it being -50 degrees and all that) .
Would it be possible therefore to do some engineering and pump relatively warm water onto the surface ice sheets and therefore act as a heat radiator. Surely you could radiate colossal amounts of extra heat this way?
The only problem I can see with this is the quantity of water you'd have to pump. The question is for me would it help
Re: (Score:2)
Re:There always has been water flow under the ice (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
uhm - Antarctic *sea ice* is growing (and that only in winter, it mostly melts away in summer), in part because Antarctic land ice is shrinking - some of it is melting, some of it is floating to sea faster than before...
So, no imminent collapse of AGW...
Re: (Score:1, Interesting)
Sounds kind of collapsey to me. But what do I know? I'm just the guy who has been making physical chemistry arguments that show that CO2 has no net effect on the heat capacity of the atmosphere for the last few years, arguing instead that what warming we saw was from increased water vapor
Re:There always has been water flow under the ice (Score:5, Informative)
15 years of no warming despite CO2 emissions continuing
Convenient use of a record high as your starting point. Care to redo your calculations with any other window? Maybe, say, a 20 year window? Or even a 10 year window? What about a 12 year window?
greatly increased Arctic Ice coverage,
[Citation needed] and [Confusing a rebound from a historic low to slightly less historic lows with an increase over average].
increasing Antarctic ice thickness
[Confusing weather with climate] and [Lack of understanding of ice formation]
increasing Antarctic sea ice coverage
[Cherry-picking specific regional ice data points] and [Mistaking surface for volume].
no observed retreat in Himalayan glaciers
[More reading needed]. See also http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v4/n3/abs/ngeo1068.html [nature.com]
I'm just the guy who has been making physical chemistry arguments that show that CO2 has no net effect on the heat capacity of the atmosphere for the last few years
... which has nothing to do with the problem of CO2 trapping IR, or with why the atmosphere is heating up.
arguing instead that what warming we saw was from increased water vapor emissions, which maintain a tight equilibria with their rate of emissions
Water vapor cannot drive long-term heating. A single cold-spell will remove water vapor from the air, which will reduce temperatures, which will remove more water from the air.... Water vapor is the result of warming, not a forcing.
thus the lost decade global growth lead to a lost decade of warming
The global economy was working in overdrive until 2000-2001, and again from 2005 to 2008. Your own data calls you a liar.
bringing AGW idiots to take because they are ignoring the real threat from CO2--ocean acidification and the collapse of already overstressed fisheries.
I'm glad you'll find that all kinds of scientists, but especially marine biologists and oceanographers would love your help in spreading message. Care to sign up maybe with an organization like NOAA or the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute?
But hey, let's all ignore physics
Says the guy who mistakes anecdotes for data, cherry-picks his time frames, misunderstands the overall and problem and thinks that he has a better understanding of physics than Physicists.
Tell you what, write a paper about your insights, and if you're right, the Nobel prize in a few areas is yours. How is that for an incentive to go show up all the AGW believers? You'll be right up there with Galileo, Kopernicus, Pasteur, and a few other up-enders of the consensus.
Is the end nigh again? (Score:5, Informative)
"newly discovered" != "new". Those streams may have been there for millions of years. They certainly were there when the continent was free of ice.
Re:Is the end nigh again? (Score:5, Insightful)
"newly discovered" != "new". Those streams may have been there for millions of years. They certainly were there when the continent was free of ice.
It's new knowledge, even if it isn't a new phenomenon (which it might be - who knows?). Kinda like ... math. Relativity (as it is). Microbes.
Even if it isn't a new development, or a new phenomenon (we don't know), we do need a baseline measurement.
Re:Is the end nigh again? (Score:4, Insightful)
Certainly. Then, and only then, will measurement of volume and rate acquire meaning. In the interim, statements like:
Now, next year (and years), when they measure those streams, if the aggregate volume is up, I'll nod in agreement when someone says "this could be a result of warming." Even more meaningful, if the trend continues upwards, we have an actual indicator. But right now we have the equivalent of "hey, here's a traffic signal" with absolutely no indication of if it's red, green, or broken.
Re:Is the end nigh again? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why does any mention of ice or antarctica have to turn into an ideological battle over the climate?
This melt water is forming at the bottom, beneat an ice sheet that's more than two and a half miles thick in places. It's completely shielded from the climate, which acts on the surface and on the ocean.
There are places in northern Europe, siberia, alaska, canada, where a few hundred feet below the surface you still find permafrost left over from the last ice age. It's so far from the surface that it apparently takes more than 10,000 years to melt.
Re:Is the end nigh again? (Score:4, Informative)
In a way it's connected with the climate change. The cold meltwater streams allow warmer seawater under the ice sheet when they meet the sea. Because the seas are warming up the calving underneath is pronounced.
Greenland has similar kind of meltwater streams, and at least some of them actually begin on the surface of the ice. Extreme Ice Survey [extremeicesurvey.org] has great material. That ice age permafrost is in danger [bbc.co.uk] of pronounced melting too.
Re: (Score:3)
That ice age permafrost is in danger [bbc.co.uk] of pronounced melting too.
I think you're confusing (near) surface permafrost in the arctic, due to the average annual temperature being below freezing, and ice age permafrost 300 ft below the surface that's there because the average conditions there over the Quaternary period has been 'covered with an ice sheet' - even if that hasn't been the case in 10,000 years. In most places, I imagine (no data available that I'm aware of), what's buried that deep will probably stay there whether it's frozen or not.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
You'll note that the phrase "Antarctica gaining Ice Mass (balance*) — and is not extraordinary compared to 800 years of data" implies an increase in overall volume of ice which is the take away - you are supposed to assume she is talking about volume. But she isn't:
DumbScientist below helpfully points out that Zwally is using Total Mass Balance, which is different to Surface Mass Balance. The SMB figure involves "precipitation, evaporation and snowdrift phy
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
Listen, here's the deal: You lost. Your narrative of catastrophic climate change due to man emitting Co2 into the atmosphere is a busted flush. Get over it.
Re:Is the end nigh again? (Score:4, Informative)
What a load of utter tripe. Antarctic ice sheet gains exceed losses
That was a workshop based on preliminary results, here's the final research paper [sciencemag.org] from the same scientist:
Note the total is -213 ± 142.
Listen, here's the deal: You lost. Your narrative of catastrophic climate change due to man emitting Co2 into the atmosphere is a busted flush.
I wish it were that easy.
Re: (Score:3)
Antarctic *sea ice* is "growing" (most of it actually melts away each summer) - Antarctic land ice is shrinking, in part because it's melting away and in part because it's more quickly flowing to the sea, where it contributes to the sea ice growth.
Sea ice growth around Antarctica is a *consequence* of global warming, not proof against it...
And the situation is profoundly different for the Antarctic then for the Arctic, due precisely to the completely different land/sea configurations at both poles...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Nobel Prizes for doing absolutely fuck all and research grants so they can pay their mortgages.
If you were a scientist, you couldn't use any grant money to pay your mortgage. If you did, it would be theft. Grant money must be spent on doing the actual research.
Re: (Score:2)
We've already lost ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Jeepers. If this is how the correct side presents a counter argument, it's no wonder the retards are taking over our great country.
Re:We've already lost ... (Score:5, Insightful)
This. God, please, someone mod that up.
You can't just assert that all Republicans are automatically wrong by virtue of being Republican, nor can you belittle those with whom you disagree by asserting some sort of rusticity implying a failure to grasp reality, if you want to effect any change in America. You have to present arguments that support your points and provide others that refute your opponents' points, and most importantly, you have to do so in a way that your audience understands and finds credible.
One of the principal points of good rhetorical training is to understand that, if you fail to convince your audience, it's not your audience's fault: it's yours. If they aren't listening, you aren't presenting your arguments in a credible fashion. If your audience is poisoned against you by those who call your data into question, you need to find a better way of demonstrating your position; try describing the methods more comprehensibly and illustrating them in vivid detail and ways that make sense to them. Use rhetoric: your opponents are, and they've apparently kicked your ass enough that half the country doesn't believe you despite the evidence you have (and that you didn't explain well enough).
The biggest mistake the left makes is assuming that the right is uneducated. They are not uneducated: don't think that the Republicans don't go to college. They are educated differently, and they often are well-educated in rhetoric, law, and business. The left gets a different education, and the scientific left dwells in clouds of numbers and graphs while the right kicks their ass on the ground amidst the plebs. They argue cases and sell products. They preach. Boy, do they preach. They know how to convince, which is why you see so many demagogues on the right (talk radio, op-eds, and TV talk shows being great examples). If anything, they're better at speaking than the left (probably why they mock Obama for his teleprompter use, or OWS members for their total failure to say anything comprehensible). Really, the right is just better at explaining, in terms that everyone can understand, what they think.
The people who automatically assume that anyone who doesn't buy a story because he is irrevocably lost or stupid -- those people are not going to win a fight no matter how much data they have. It's not enough to do research: research is a tool that an orator can use, but only one among many. Curling up into the fetal position and blaming your audience is not one of those tools.
Re: (Score:1)
When your sole definition of reality is that which can be argued well, I'd say you've stepped so far from a sane way of measuring and understanding the universe that you might as well believe you live in a Road Runner and Coyote cartoon.
let me ask you, do you think the universe cares if you can debate well?
Re:We've already lost ... (Score:5, Insightful)
No. But you're not trying to convince "the universe" to start spending out enormous quantities of money to "solve" a "problem".
You're trying to convince other people, some of whom may disagree with your position. And overtly acting or implying that they're morons tends to make it quite difficult to open their purse strings. Even in the face of potential disaster.
Remember, this is science, not math. Climate change is not as simple and straightforward a proof as "1+1=2".
As such, a modicum of eloquence is required.
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
No. But you're not trying to convince "the universe" to start spending out enormous quantities of money to "solve" a "problem".
You're trying to convince other people, some of whom may disagree with your position. And overtly acting or implying that they're morons tends to make it quite difficult to open their purse strings. Even in the face of potential disaster.
Remember, this is science, not math. Climate change is not as simple and straightforward a proof as "1+1=2".
As such, a modicum of eloquence is required.
No. Either you believe in science and the outcome of science or you don't. Regardless of "eloquence" most people, even intelligent ones, would "debate" the scientific merit of these theories at kindergarten level. "But, climate has always varied" (yeah, the stupid scientists didn't think of that did they). you can see exactly the same discussion when it comes to the "debate" on evolution vs intelligent design.
This is why the Koch brothers founded think tanks are putting so much effort into trying discredit
Re: (Score:3)
No. Because science is a composite of a number of theories.
And as much as you'd like to believe that it's a monolithic whole, it isn't.
Look at physics. Lots of different theories about what all the data means. Some general (but not universal) consensus, and a big chunk of the field wide open to interpretation and better models.
Climate science is just the same.
If you want to harangue people that they're in danger you can:
Stand on a street corner screaming "THE END IS NIGH!", as people have since time imme
Re: (Score:2)
I think you two are missing each other's point. Yes, the universe doesn't care what some particular think tanks puts out. However, a certain subgroup of the Great Apes family cares a great deal.
You can't just put out propaganda - at some point, the universe is just going to shit stomp everything. You can't just put out our best understanding of the universe - at some point, a certain subset of great apes with a lot of reptilian brain matter left over are going to have to be moved to action.
Unfortunately, to
Re: (Score:2)
Ever hear the quote "we can define our own reality"? Unfortunately such people are infesting the party mentioned and have just about taken it over, but have a bit of a way to go yet to take over the other one (not that they are not trying). Also it was never about being stupid or uneducated. It was always about being liars.
Nearly all of the science denier bullshit comes from somebody lying to gain an advantage
Re: (Score:2)
I agree 100% with that; note that the truth is not among the things the 'scientific left' deals in. Lots of FUD, lots of NIMBY, lots of "save the owls". No real answers, just obstructionism. Want to know why we're still burning coal and emitting vast amounts of CO2 for power generation? NIMBY and FUD. We could stop burning coal and start using modern fast flux reactors for power in no time if we could just get the scaremongers out of the sc
Re: (Score:1)
Really, the right is just better at explaining, in terms that everyone can understand, what they think.
You're making an interesting point, but you got this wrong: it is very rare, and when it occurs a fascinating thing to observe, that they explain what they really think.
I guess you can't be believing that they actually buy the gibberish nonsense that they sell to their audiences?
They explain what they want you to think, certainly not what they actually think - I mean, maybe some people very low on the Tea Party food chain do believe in the Tea Party ideology, but you can't accuse these people of thinking.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
And I'm sure the scientists never once thought of that possibility or looked at this before. They should be looking to random slashdot posters for their information instead!
Re: (Score:2)
Don't we have enough of confirmation bias already?
Re: (Score:2)
"newly discovered" != "new". Those streams may have been there for millions of years. They certainly were there when the continent was free of ice.
Right, but now we can see them and know if they're growing or not.
It's one more item to track on the ever-growing list of proofs.
The (actual) Surf (Score:5, Interesting)
I know, the correlation/causation comment will come up, but you would never know the water temperature unless you got in the water and feel it for yourself over 2-3 decades of actually being in the water and knowing when to get in. I wouldn't call 250metres a stream, but other noticable thing is the way the weather has changed from a smooth transition to summer where it gradually got hotter to bursts of weather change where you will suddenly get days of really warm weather in winter and then back to cold and visa versa in summer.
I regularly goes for a swim or a surf on the east coast of Australia and for the last decade years the water has been really cold during seasons where I used to notice it was pretty warm. It has altered my whole habit of surfing. I used to go into the water around September and now it's late October. I love the waves but the goolie shock is just to severe. My mates would say the same thing and often the comment 'at least we know where the ice caps are melting to' would come up.
Re:The (actual) Surf (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:The (actual) Surf (Score:5, Insightful)
I cannot find any data on the Pacific ocean near Australia, but in many places oceans are getting slightly cooler. This has nothing to do with melt water, though; there's much too little of that to have a measurable influence, especially at your latitude. Instead, it is most probably due to changing currents.
However, a very likely alternative cause for you guys feeling colder would be that you're getting older; as people get older, they feel colder quicker.
Re:The (actual) Surf (Score:4, Interesting)
However, a very likely alternative cause for you guys feeling colder would be that you're getting older; as people get older, they feel colder quicker.
Oh no doubt about that, I have to leave my walking stick at the beach so I can find my towel!!!
I cannot find any data on the Pacific ocean near Australia, but in many places oceans are getting slightly cooler. This has nothing to do with melt water, though; there's much too little of that to have a measurable influence, especially at your latitude. Instead, it is most probably due to changing currents.
I'm generally lean but have a bit of fat after winter so the icey water just strips it from you (apart from having a wettie on - which slows me down) so it seems to balance out and I want to catch as many waves as I can.
The thing is I have to swim really hard to get the waves so I'm working a lot to get them. The waves I'm after are about the same as the ones for a board as I am a pretty big guy and I get moving pretty fast. Catching them close to shore is dangerous as the waves tend to dump you on sand and I have been badly concussed from that before. Because of that I generally swim a good 100-300 meters from shore where the waves are bigger from sand banks - which you can see underwater.
When I'm out there I can feel the difference between the first metre and, when diving down, the next four or five (I'm a shark chicken - I don't want to be lunch so I keep an eye out). The water temperature is generally more stable the deeper you go but what gets me is that it is more often consistently cold all the way to the surface than not. You can feel the difference in certain patches of water as the temperature changes when you swim through them. This is the biggest change that I note (apart from seeing less penguins, seals and turtles).
Current change seems like a good point however I would then expect it to cycle between behaviours. So it could be because I'm an old bastard however there is a distinct change in the patterns of water temperature that entails the frequency and duration of warm patches of water. Whatever is happening, something is going on.
Slashdot demands recognition! (Score:1, Interesting)
Altmetrics is a new-ish bibliometic service for scholarly journal articles, including Nature, which is where this was published. Altmetrics includes mainstream media coverage as as well as social media appearance counts e.g. SciBlogs, Twitter as valid data. Physorg is mentioned but I do not see Slashdot [nature.com]. We, the Slashdot collective, demand recognition!
* Unless we are deemed insufficiently social? Anti-social? Of course not.
** Altmetrics is beta-ish, possibly open source, so my indignation is mostly insincer
Why it matters (Score:3, Insightful)
Antarctica is one of the major feedbacks [gwynnedyer.com]:
[...]
Considering we're already experiencing major extinctions I'm not sure I want to stack ecological disasters.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Before AGW, we'de been in a slow cooling phase for 5,000 years- yeah, we emerged from an ice age 12,000 years ago, but we haven't been "emerging from it since".
But let's not let *facts* get in the way of our preconceptions..
Re: (Score:2)
Re: We are emerging from an ice age (Score:2)
Markott et al 2013 - temperature reconstruction of the Holocene. ...
http://www.realclimate.org/images//Marcott.png [realclimate.org]
Yes, because car exhaust warms the earth's center. (Score:1)
Only two people in this entire comment section have successfully dodged the global warming spin hucksters to note the following:
The mean annual surface air temperature of the Antarctic interior is -57C. Surface melt refreezes rather promptly. But ice is great insulation, and geothermal energy comes up from the Earth to melt the bottom of the ice sheet. This meltwater flows in streams and rivers across the world's largest continent until it becomes the world's largest rivers, inevitably finding the sea. This should be obvious.
This has nothing to do with industrial exhaust.
So chill out. (In fact, you don't have any other choice. We're entering another ice age. Wise up. Be prepared for a really shitty snow-heavy winter.)
Re: (Score:2)
you do realize the IPCC is backpedalling furiously on their dire predictions; their latest report essentially admits the billions of euros, yen and dollars spent on climate modeling have been wasted and the prediction are rubbish.
"I think that the latest IPCC report has truly sunk to level of hilarious incoherence," said Dr. Richard Lindzen a top climate scientist at MIT. "They are proclaiming increased confidence in their models as the discrepancies between their models and observations increase."
Re: (Score:2)
Keep drinking the cool-aid, their latest report doesn't "admit" what you claim here, not by a long shot - it actually states that they're even more certain now that most of the recent warming is caused by Anthropogenic CO2. What has happened is that the right wing climate denialosphere are spinning like they've never spun before, trying to deform and cherry-pick statements from the report into what they want it to say... And you're clearly lapping it up uncritically, probably because it reinforces what you
Re: (Score:2)
no, having read the report it is clear they is huge increasing discrepancy between the dire predictions of models and reality, ,they are indeed retreating from the fantastic and sensationist agenda-driven predictions they were paid to make
How high are other rivers? (Score:2)
"The streams of water, some of which are 250m in height and stretch for hundreds of kilometres"
WTF?
Since when did we start measuring rivers' height?
Re: (Score:2)
these are above ground level; the ice cap is nearly three miles thick (4700 meters) in places!
Re:Ummmm (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, if it's increasing in surface area, but decreasing in mass, that would be a problem.
I think the concern they're trying to address is the same as one of the arctic ice concerns.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outburst_flood [wikipedia.org]
I'm not saying that it's possible, or even probable. It's just an example of what destabilized polar ice can do. There's a whole lot of mass there.
Remember, the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami [wikipedia.org] was caused by a 1,000 mile long rift shifting by 50 feet over a few minutes. If a sufficiently sized chunk (or chunks) of ice moved enough, there could be catastrophic effects for boating and coastal areas.
The long-term sea-level rise will be slow, and civilization will change around it. The short term effects of such events can be fast and catastrophic.
Re: (Score:1)
Did you really just compare arctic ice falling into the ocean with 1000 miles of the ocean floor permanently shifting?
Re:Ummmm (Score:5, Informative)
It's common knowledge that, unlike the arctic, Antarctic ice has been increasing.
As is often the case this common knowledge is actually a common misconception. While the sea ice is increasing, the land ice is shedding mass at an accelerating rate [skepticalscience.com]. Since the sea ice is already in the sea, it does not affect sea levels at all. Thawing land ice does increase sea levels, since it introduces water to the sea that used to sit on land.
Re: (Score:2)
Since the sea ice is already in the sea, it does not affect sea levels at all.
How does that follow?
If you put some ice in water and let it melt, the water level will remain the same. Even if you see ice sticking up out of the water when it floats along, the weight of it still displaces the same amount of water that the ice is made from.
This means that melting sea ice will not make the oceans rise.
Re: (Score:2)
It's common knowledge that, unlike the arctic, Antarctic ice has been increasing.
As is often the case this common knowledge is actually a common misconception. While the sea ice is increasing, the land ice is shedding mass at an accelerating rate [skepticalscience.com]. Since the sea ice is already in the sea, it does not affect sea levels at all. Thawing land ice does increase sea levels, since it introduces water to the sea that used to sit on land.
Sea ice clearly affects sea level. Take a glass of water, put in two cubes, Mark the line. Add two more ice cubes. The water will rise.
If all the ice slid off Antarctica, the sea level would rise. Calving a greater total volume of ice bergs over a given time period will cause a rise in sea levels. But the easiest way to determine the overall effect of global warming on sea levels is to measure the mass of ice that isn't floating in the ocean. It's also worth noting that the total volume of water on
Re: (Score:1)
and doubtless this Blogster has published his incredible finds that unseat what almost every climatologist in the fucking world says, right? I mean, you woujldnt just be buying into something that confirms your preexisting prejudices
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Science definitely is performed by consensus. If there's a consensus on something, that's good reason to believe it, and scientists will build on that in further work. Naturally the consensus is always subject to revision, but it's very likely to be correct. If it's incorrect, it's likely to be in interpretation rather than measurement.
What do you think the scientific consensus that opposed Galileo was? He didn't get into trouble for heliocentrism, which Copernicus had already given good arguments fo
Re: (Score:2)
A fair number of individual scientists could be running a scam. I find it incredible that virtually all the scientists in the field would run a scam, and that there wouldn't be numerous peer-reviewed articles pointing that out. Yet, we find that 98% of climate scientist agree on it. If this were to be fraudulent, I think it would be unprecedented in the history of science. If 98% of scientists in a field were seriously wrong about the data, I think that would be unprecedented in the history of science.
Re: (Score:2)
I still don't get it. You say that (a) a few fraudulent scientists are acting as a gateway to bad data, and (b) I can look at the data and see for myself. It seems to me that, if I can look at data, numerous other scientists can too. Most of these are going to be honest (since most scientists are honest), and many are going to see the opportunity to write a paper that gets them some attention.
Grants aren't really a concern here; many scientists have their salaries (many are tenured professors, for exa
Re: (Score:2)
I just looked at the sinusoidal graph you cited. It shows that ice coverage varies rather predictably by time of year. That's its main message. That doesn't disprove global warming.
It has lines in various pastel shades for the years 2005-2012. It's hard to pick anything out, since there hasn't been that much variance since 2005.
The 2013 line is near the top of the grouping, but not at the top. We've had more ice in this period.
In short, it tells us nothing about global warming. The effects are
Re: (Score:1)
(although, apart from pollution, human emissions are fairly negligible compared to the other effects going on - such as the emissions from volcanic sea vents etc).
Interesting, how about this? Apart from claws and teeth, tiger related injuries are fairly negligible compared with other effects going on.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/volcanoes-and-global-warming.htm
Do volcanoes emit more CO2 than humans?
What the science says...
Humans emit 100 times more CO2 than volcanoes.
Volcanoes emit around 0.3 billion tonnes of CO2 per year. This is about 1% of human CO2 emissions which is around 29 billion tonnes per year.
SplashMyBandit is obviously an AGW troll, even if he does r
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
What Steve Goddard "forgets" to mention is that it's actually only the Antarctic sea ice that is growing, while the land-ice there is melting away ever faster...
And the 67% more ice in 2013 compared to 2012 still puts 2013 in 6th lowest position for arctic ice-extent in the observational record, curiously together with 2007-2008-2009-2010-2011-2012) - so it is lower than *any* observed ice-extent prior to 2007... Doing better than the single worst year on record is not proof that nothing's wrong, it's just
Re: (Score:2)
Once again, a denialist conflates seasonal *sea* ice with permanent *land* ice.
Be free people.
Freedom of conscience doesn't mean freedom from consequences, as much as we'd wish it so.
Re: (Score:1)
What land is there in the Arctic?
This bit, for instance. [goo.gl]
Re:FAT CAT CLIMATE SCIENTISTS AT IT AGAIN!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
Fat cat scientists? Are you a fucking idiot? Check out the fat cats around the world - multilmillionaires, billionaires.
Bill Gates - computer scientist or businessman?
Businessman.
John Key, prime minister of New Zealand - scientist, or businessman?
Businessman.
Obama - scientist?
In fact, if you could list the scientists who are "fat cat" millioniares, I'd quite appreciate it. I'm waiting....