NASA Animation Shows Arctic Sea Ice Approaching Normal Levels

By on April 8, 2010 in News 12

This video seems looks like good news to me.  However, it’s far from conclusive evidence of a “climate change myth.”

From the Examiner:

A curious thing has happened over the 2009 - 2010 winter season – Arctic sea ice has rebounded to near normal levels. Long pointed to as a sign of the impact of global warming, the extent of sea ice had been shrinking in recent years.

According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), the maximum extent for Arctic sea ice was reached on March 31st. This is the latest date maximum extent has been reached since 1979 when satellites began measuring the Arctic Ice.

Read more at the Examiner]

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  • Andrew

    So how's the Gulf Stream doing?

    • Virgendelavacas

      For that matter, how's the Antarctic doing?

      And what about the fact that last year was was the hottest on record?

      There was all sorts of extreme winter weather going one in the northern hemisphere, so it makes sense to me that to get that much ice and snow dumped on it would make it grow a lot. Meanwhile, however, our buddies down in Australia and other southern countries were having a fuck of a time with insane heat waves.

      We'll see what happens when summer hits the northern hemisphere again. I'm betting the scales will tip in the other direction.

      • FergalR

        Q: “For that matter, how's the Antarctic doing? “

        A: The Antarctic is pretty much bang on normal right now, although it has had record high ice extents in the last few years: http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/…

        Q: “And what about the fact that last year was was the hottest on record? “

        A: No it wasn't.

        Perhaps our buddies down in Australia are having insane heat waves because their country is pretty much fucking uninhabitable without ingenious hunter/gatherer techniques or modern technology?

        You're a terrible gambler, to be betting on a subject you are so abjectly ignorant of.

        Anthropogenic Global Warming is a confidence trick.

        • 5by5

          FergalR: “The Antarctic is pretty much bang on normal right now.”

          Actually…. no.

          The European Space Agency’s Envisat satellite recently recorded a collision between a 60-mile long section of the Mertz Glacier that was hanging out over the ocean, and the 50-mile long, 25-mile wide “C-28″ iceberg, off East Antarctica.

          Problem is (thanks in no small part to man’s insessant CO2 production warming things up), these two bergs have done drifted themselves into the polynya. This is a moving path of dense water that is responsible for creating much of the oceanic circulation which both regulates global climate temperatures, and produces the planktonic microalgae that is the base of the entire food chain in the world’s oceans.

          If the polynya continues to be disrupted, it could further deprive local marine life of oxygen (there are already huge “dead zones” where fish just die off if they accidentally swim into the region), and can shut down or significantly slow the oceanic conveyor, wreaking havoc on the weather. And this is only one contributing factor to the weird weather.

          As for worldwide temps, again, you're wrong.

          The trick is not to look at one year or another, but the overarching trend throughout a NUMBER of years, and when scientists compare the data between normal cycles and the trend lines sine the beginning of the industrial age, it shows a CLEAR departure from the norm, pointing directly to anthropomorphic causes for the shift.

          Since you've apparently been digesting fiction on this topic and mistaking it for reality, how about you read a rebuttal to the fiction from actual scientists who don't cherry-pick their data to make convenient political propaganda on behalf of the oil companies?

          Try this on for size — a counter argument to the climate change denier, and rightwing wackjob, fiction writer Michael Crighton:

          http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_an…

          And this:

          http://rst.gsfc.nasa.gov/Sect16/Sect16_2.html

          What cracks me up with folks like yourself is that you can't suss out how the wicked drought they're having in India right now, and the gargantuan Dune-like sandstorms they're having in China directly relate to why things are colder here in the US. Water is evaporating there, rising up into the upper atmosphere, traveling around the Earth, condensing, and dropping on your ignorant head when it hits a cold front.

          http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/201…

          This is my favorite part of that: “In fact, the U.S. Global Change Research Program actually predicted more violent storms in the Northeast in its 2009 report assessing the likely impact of climate change on the United States.”

          http://www.globalchange.gov/publications/report…

          Part of people's problem with understanding this is that they still think in mechanistic Cartesian terms. The Earth isn't a machine with discrete parts. It's a complex SYSTEM of interrelationships, where a volcano on the other side of the Earth erupting can cause a famine on the other side of the planet.

          And since you are playing with the potential health and welfare of the entire SPECIES, one would think you'd have the wisdom to default to THE PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE for the sake of others at least, but then people who listen to the Limpball's/Hannity Napkin's/Herr Beck's of the world for their “sciencey” info, are not exactly known for their rationality or compassion.

          What's also interesting is that in your link below, you essentially contradict yourself. The scientists are telling you that they HAVEN'T found evidence of LONG-TERM cooling due to a slowdown of the conveyor, but they DO have short-term fluctuations — like those that would be caused by said icebergs melting and snapping off of Antarctica.

          Short-term fluctuations that….. help cause things like the cold snap the U.S. has been experiencing!

          Of course that does nothing to change the OVERARCHING WARMING TREND. Indeed the warming trend is the reason why said icebergs are floating about in the first damn place, instead of staying welded to Antarctica.

          • FergalR

            Jebus Crisp, you're completely brainwashed.

            A 60 mile wide/long/whatever iceberg is absolutely insignificant. If it weren't for satellites we wouldn't even know about it. The Antarctic is normal. Arctic ice decreased in 2007, but at the same time Southern Hemisphere ice increased – look at the chart again. The scale is in millions of square kilometers – your two icebergs are nothing. There was almost no change in global ice. Same shit, different day. No significant change whatsoever. Zip. Three million years ago the Arctic was ice-free. Explain that in regard to evil humanity, Einstein.

            There's always been dead zones in the oceans, look: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/86092… if a fish is stupid enough to swim into one then good effing riddance, Darwinism at work.

            I'm not wrong about global temps, microbrain up there said last year was the warmest on record; it wasn't – 1998 was. That was 12 years ago. Where's your precious fucking Global Warming?!

            Droughts in India? Get the fuck out of here, really? That must be a first!! Sandstorms in China? Holy shit!!! How unprecedented, what with the fucking Gobi effing desert there and all!!! They've had gigantic sandstorms ever year in China since the invention of fucking writing. Every year. The Sahara was lush savanna 15,000 years ago, did SUVs cause that desertification?

            And you manage to convince yourself that Global Warming causes snowstorms? You're delusional. The cold Northern hemisphere Winter was caused by the extreme negative Arctic Oscillation – which climatologists completely failed to predict, although we're paying them billions to convince us that they know what'll happen 100 years hence. It's a cycle – look: http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/… the dawn of the space age coincided with above average ice, it went into decline for a couple of decades, now it's on its way back up. It's a cycle. No trend whatsoever, unless your agenda forces you to consider only the upswing of the sine-wave.

            In no way did I contradict myself in regard to the Gulf stream. It was asked how it was doing and scientists have discovered that it's the same as ever. What part of this are you having difficulty with?

            You then accuse me of thinking “in mechanistic Cartesian terms”? You're the one who believes that carbon dioxide is the main driver of climate. Moron. Your imaginary warming trend – which doesn't exist – is not causing icebergs to break off Antarctica. If they hadn't been breaking off Antarctica since it refroze 25 million years ago (possibly, or not, due to – in your words – “anthropomorphic causes”) the entire fucking planet would be covered in ice. How well would the entire species cope with that?

            The man who invented the term “precautionary principle” – the polymath Peter Taylor – says Global Warming is total bullshit.

            Your continued Holocaust-victim-insulting use of the word “denier” in relation to your bullshit beliefs means that you are total shitebag.

            Since you're a big fan of capital letters, maybe this summation of the state of Earth's climate will float your boat: SITUATION NORMAL; ALL FUCKED UP.

          • Andrew

            Wow, nice flood of ad hominem there. You're obviously completely unbiased. And to think, I actually took your cherry-picked evidence seriously.

          • FergalR

            Ad hominem? Against someone who likens me to those who downplay the Holocaust? There's no evidence of Dangerous Anthropogenic Global Warming, Climate Change, or whatever the fuck they're calling it these days via carbon dioxide whatsoever. Honestly. There is zero evidence of it. Those who believe in it are indoctrinated menaces who'll have us all paying taxes to the World Bank for breathing if they aren't stopped.

          • Andrew

            Oh please, spare me your whining. “Denial” has been a long standing psychological term, and it was you who linked it to the holocaust–I assume in order to play the victim while verbally abusing others. You started calling him names before he ever said anything about you.

            Zero evidence? I'd take you seriously if you said the evidence was conflicting or inconclusive. But none at all? Bullshit.

            As for your hyperbolic World Bank persecution fantasy (which I suppose I need to point out doesn't mean the World Bank isn't an active threat, just not for the reasons you say it is), if paying taxes is the worst form of oppression you ever face you'll be one of the luckiest people in the world.

    • FergalR
  • 5by5

    FergalR: “Jebus Crisp, you're completely brainwashed. A 60 mile wide/long/whatever iceberg is absolutely insignificant.”

    And by Toutatis, you're incapable of reading comprehension, as I pointed out precisely WHY it's significant — because it's drifted into the polynya.

    More evidence of just how wrong the climate change DENIERS (and while I wasn't particularly using it in the context you raised out of a lame attempt at false outrage manufacturing, yes, climate change denial is as stupid as holocaust denial — because you exhibit the same refusal to acknowledge well-documented evidence that proves the existence of the problem) are:

    http://www.physorg.com/news189257699.html

    Huh. A “big freeze” triggered by ice sheet melt caused by warming. Funny that.

    Oh and PS 90% of all Austrian glaciers shrank in 2009:

    http://www.physorg.com/news190029017.html

    But clearly, since one out of the 96 glaciers in question grew by a couple centimeters, we can simply ignore the preponderance of evidence that shows OVERALL shrinkage by as much as 40 meters in the majority of glaciers there.

    See, that's basically what your side is working with. It's a bit like saying, “The buffalo herd is stampeding North, but since one animal decided to run in the other direction, clearly, if we wish to have a successful hunt, we must go South.” And then your tribe starves to death, because they followed your dumb ass.

    This quote was hilarious too:

    FergalR: “The cold Northern hemisphere Winter was caused by the extreme negative Arctic Oscillation – which climatologists completely failed to predict.”

    Except that I pointed you directly to the U.S. Global Change Research Program report that predicted precisely this bad winter.

    So to sum up, work on your reading comprehension skills first, then we'll move on to the study of science.

  • Anonymous

    Stop arguing and calmly wait for the end of the world as we knew it….

  • GoodDoktorBad

    Stop arguing and calmly wait for the end of the world as we knew it….