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On normal maps of Antarctica it's hard to see where the (rock) mountains are. I made a script for that 15 years ago, and it's still there.

You missed the ones mentioned in the article, because they're under the ice.

forgot to add links:
http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/bas_research/our_research/az/bedmap2/index.php which was linked from the BBC article.

Ugh. I should have linked this. There's newer data now, but you can see the "impact crater is gone".

http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/met/READER/temp_html/maat.html go there and tell me that there is no missing data. Truly you have been drinking the kool-aid and have succumbed to the church of climatology if you can see no missing data. This is not uncommon, and if (as I stated earlier) you looked at the other stations, you will see even more missing data points.

LOOK before you speak

HERE IS YOUR FUCKING RAW DATA (because you are unvilling to search it for yourself -- and call yourself a skeptic...):

ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ghcn/v2 [noaa.gov]
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ushcn/v2/monthly/ [noaa.gov]
http://dss.ucar.edu/datasets/ds570.0/ [ucar.edu]
http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/met/READER [antarctica.ac.uk]
http://eca.knmi.nl/ [eca.knmi.nl]
http://www.zamg.ac.at/histalp/content/view/35/1 [zamg.ac.at]
http://daac.gsfc.nasa.gov/atdd [nasa.gov]
http://mirador.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/mirador/presentNavigation.pl?tree=project&project=SORCE [nasa.gov]
http://amsu.cira.colostate.edu/ [colostate.edu]
http://www.pol.ac.uk/ntslf/data.html [pol.ac.uk]
http://www.geo.unizh.ch/wgms/dataexp.html [unizh.ch]
http://www.marine.csiro.au/~ttchen/argo/gmap.htm [csiro.au]
http://icoads.noaa.gov/ [noaa.gov]

YOU IDIOT!
Here you are, PLENTY of RAW datasets:

ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ghcn/v2
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ushcn/v2/monthly/
http://dss.ucar.edu/datasets/ds570.0/
http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/met/READER
http://eca.knmi.nl/
http://www.zamg.ac.at/histalp/content/view/35/1
http://daac.gsfc.nasa.gov/atdd
http://mirador.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/mirador/presentNavigation.pl?tree=project&project=SORCE
http://amsu.cira.colostate.edu/
http://www.pol.ac.uk/ntslf/data.html
http://www.geo.unizh.ch/wgms/dataexp.html
http://www.marine.csiro.au/~ttchen/argo/gmap.htm
http://icoads.noaa.gov/

Let me repeat:
YOU IDIOT

They've also refused to disclose their raw data, or even a list of what data they used.

Let's pick on GISTEMP since they've open-sourced their analysis code. From their site:

The current analysis uses surface air temperatures measurements from the following data sets: the unadjusted data of the Global Historical Climatology Network (Peterson and Vose, 1997 and 1998), United States Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) data, and SCAR (Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research) data from Antarctic stations.

Links to these data sources are provided in the documentation of their freely available analysis software:

Basic data set: GHCN - ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ghcn/v2
                                              v2.mean.Z (data file)
                                              v2.temperature.inv.Z (station information file)

For US: USHCN - ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ushcn/v2/monthly
                                              9641C_200907_F52.avg.gz
                                              ushcn-v2-stations.txt

For Antarctica: SCAR - http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/met/READER/surface/stationpt.html
                                              http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/met/READER/temperature.html
                                              http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/met/READER/aws/awspt.html

For Hohenpeissenberg - http://members.lycos.nl/ErrenWijlens/co2/t_hohenpeissenberg_200306.txt
                                              complete record for this rural station
                                              (thanks to Hans Erren who reported it to GISS on July 16, 2003)

They've gone as far as ignoring FOIA requests to the point where NASA will soon be facing litigation.

The FOIA requests do not request data or data sources. CEI is asking for documentation, such as memos or e-mail, of discussions related to several topics including RealClimate.org and the error McIntyre discovered. Read it in their own words.

They can open-source all the algorithms they want, but without showing their data, it's completely useless.

Now that you have the data as well, we look forward to your analysis.

They've also refused to disclose their raw data, or even a list of what data they used.

Let's pick on GISTEMP since they've open-sourced their analysis code. From their site:

The current analysis uses surface air temperatures measurements from the following data sets: the unadjusted data of the Global Historical Climatology Network (Peterson and Vose, 1997 and 1998), United States Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) data, and SCAR (Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research) data from Antarctic stations.

Links to these data sources are provided in the documentation of their freely available analysis software:

Basic data set: GHCN - ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ghcn/v2
                                              v2.mean.Z (data file)
                                              v2.temperature.inv.Z (station information file)

For US: USHCN - ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ushcn/v2/monthly
                                              9641C_200907_F52.avg.gz
                                              ushcn-v2-stations.txt

For Antarctica: SCAR - http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/met/READER/surface/stationpt.html
                                              http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/met/READER/temperature.html
                                              http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/met/READER/aws/awspt.html

For Hohenpeissenberg - http://members.lycos.nl/ErrenWijlens/co2/t_hohenpeissenberg_200306.txt
                                              complete record for this rural station
                                              (thanks to Hans Erren who reported it to GISS on July 16, 2003)

They've gone as far as ignoring FOIA requests to the point where NASA will soon be facing litigation.

The FOIA requests do not request data or data sources. CEI is asking for documentation, such as memos or e-mail, of discussions related to several topics including RealClimate.org and the error McIntyre discovered. Read it in their own words.

They can open-source all the algorithms they want, but without showing their data, it's completely useless.

Now that you have the data as well, we look forward to your analysis.

They've also refused to disclose their raw data, or even a list of what data they used.

Let's pick on GISTEMP since they've open-sourced their analysis code. From their site:

The current analysis uses surface air temperatures measurements from the following data sets: the unadjusted data of the Global Historical Climatology Network (Peterson and Vose, 1997 and 1998), United States Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) data, and SCAR (Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research) data from Antarctic stations.

Links to these data sources are provided in the documentation of their freely available analysis software:

Basic data set: GHCN - ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ghcn/v2
                                              v2.mean.Z (data file)
                                              v2.temperature.inv.Z (station information file)

For US: USHCN - ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ushcn/v2/monthly
                                              9641C_200907_F52.avg.gz
                                              ushcn-v2-stations.txt

For Antarctica: SCAR - http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/met/READER/surface/stationpt.html
                                              http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/met/READER/temperature.html
                                              http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/met/READER/aws/awspt.html

For Hohenpeissenberg - http://members.lycos.nl/ErrenWijlens/co2/t_hohenpeissenberg_200306.txt
                                              complete record for this rural station
                                              (thanks to Hans Erren who reported it to GISS on July 16, 2003)

They've gone as far as ignoring FOIA requests to the point where NASA will soon be facing litigation.

The FOIA requests do not request data or data sources. CEI is asking for documentation, such as memos or e-mail, of discussions related to several topics including RealClimate.org and the error McIntyre discovered. Read it in their own words.

They can open-source all the algorithms they want, but without showing their data, it's completely useless.

Now that you have the data as well, we look forward to your analysis.

• GHCN v.2 (Global Historical Climate Network: weather station records from around the world, temperature and precipitation)
• USHCN US. Historical Climate Network (v.1 and v.2)
• Antarctic weather stations
• European weather stations (ECA)
• Satellite feeds (AMSU, SORCE (Solar irradiance), NASA A-train)
• Tide Gauges (Proudman Oceanographic Lab)
• World Glacier Monitoring Service
• Argo float data
• International Comprehensive Ocean/Atmosphere Data Set (ICOADS) (Oceanic in situ observations)
• AERONET Aerosol information

You can follow the original link to realclimate.org to find many other links to data sources. I have posted the data sources above only because many critics of AGW won't even bother with realclimate.org as they are thought to be part of the conspiracy. The data exists and is public as is the source code.

Your source thinks evolution is science and gives interviews to Rush Limbaugh. He also participated in a movie that:

• Misrepresents the views of interviewed scientists.
• Claims that anthropogenic global warming is a giant conspiracy to oppress Africa.
• Relies heavily on the well-debunked theory that solar activity can account for present-day warming and blatantly misrepresents data to support that view.
• Mislabels the axis of a graph, presenting data up to the early 80s as data up to 2000, because showing the actual data going that far would contradict its claims.
• Says that volcanoes produce more CO2 than man.
• Parrots the oft-repeated claim that scientists are just in it for the money. All of them, every single one. It's a giant conspiracy and nobody involved has come out and said anything.
• Is made by an immature, childish asshole.

And is in general laden with half-truths and outright lies.

Forgive me if I'm a tad bit skeptical.

There is scientific evidence to suggest that as the climate is (naturally) warming, more CO2 is being released from the seas - if anything, this particular research has been covered up in favour of the politically-motivated idea that man *must* be the cause of Global Warming.

Wow. You couldn't be more wrong. Any scientist anywhere will tell you that the ocean is a carbon sink - absorbing CO2. Only after the Ocean gets warmer does it release CO2.

The point is that the Ocean wouldn't being emitting CO2 if it wasn't absorbing so much of it from man made sources in the first place. As you mention An Inconvient Truth, its this absorbtion that is wrecking havok among coral reefs and creating huge storms.

In essence, man-made CO2 is partly absorbed by the ocean, heating it and making it acidic, and then released back into the atmosphere with whatever CO2 wasn't absorbed. It is still man-made CO2, it just went through the ocean first.

Al Gore, while he mentioned a number of previous Ice Ages, noted that the CO2 levels directly related to temperature, and that at no time in 650,000 years did CO2 levels ever go higher than 300 ppmv (parts per million by volume). The historical high is 280 ppmv.

In 1960, there was a concentration of 315 ppmv. Today we sit at 385 ppmv. There is no projection that it will slow down or decrease, but rather increase much more. By 2010 we expect to break 400 ppmv. But who needs words when you have a graph?

Oh, and whenever these articles get opened up for discussion, why is the fact that ice is getting thicker in many areas of the North and South pole conveniently overlooked?

Where's those facts? I dare you to link them. But you wont, because they don't exist.

The only dispute is over the "average ice density" in the Arctic, but no one disputes the reduction of ice of the caps, or Arctic Shrinkage. The before and after pictures are shocking.

As for Antarctica, both NASA and the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) disagree with you.

Politically, there is a strong case for promoting MMGW which would stop the development of the Third World, thus ensuring that Third World imports into rich countries remain cheap, thus keeping the populations of the rich countries fat, dumb & happy. And because the Third World countries remain poor, more people live in poverty and die younger from diseases that are curable. In actuality, MMGW is an *anti-Green* viewpoint.

I personally love this part. A conspiracy theory that portrays Big Business and the Rich as the minds behind global warming. Yes, they are the ones who will profit by stopping the development of third world countries.

Yes, its not like Big Business would want to maximize their profit margin by cutting out as much environmental regulation as possible and decrease overheads so they exploit countries better. And its not like they have been buying scientists and congressmen trying to lobby against global warming at all by calling it a hoax! No, those were other people...

Do you listen to yourself?

As for developed countries and population, they tend to limit themselves without regulation; the U.S. average family now has 1.9 children as compared to a generation ago where they average was 4 to 5 kids.

Please, read a book or accredited source, not just typical zealous conservative rhetoric.

Actually the big news in the actual cryosphere science science community has been the break-up of the Wilkins Ice Shelf, which is in the... Antarctic.

Because CFCs help the breakdown of O3 into O2, but do not themselves get broken down in the reaction. They can persist in the upper atmosphere for fifty or more years. That's why the ozone hole has not suddenly repaired itself - because there are still plenty of CFCs around where they shouldn't be.

Seriously, I've been reading about this issue since the British Antarctic Survey said "hey guys, we've got a problem".

"The discovery by the British Antarctic Survey of the Antarctic ozone hole provided an early warning of the dangerous thinning of the ozone layer worldwide, and spurred international efforts to curb the production of CFCs. The provisions of the Montreal Protocol of 1987 on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer have been revised and strengthened and are being followed by virtually all UN Member states. There is a reasonable prospect that the Antarctic ozone hole will permanently repair itself, but not until around 2070." http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/about_antarctica/geography/ozone.php

If you don't like wikipedia, here's NASA: "The ozone layer protects us from the Sun's harmful ultraviolet radiation and is vital to life on Earth. Depletion of this protective layer can be harmful to the health of humans, plants and animals. Human-produced pollutants called chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) emitted into the atmosphere are the main cause of ozone loss. Scientists first discovered dramatic depletions in the ozone layer in 1985. Although recent initiatives by governments around the world have stopped the production of CFCs, damaging chemicals still persist in the upper atmosphere." http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/arctic_air.html

And for those of you who don't know, TGGWS is just BS. Start to finish, pure crap. Just about every scientist in it has said that they were misrepresented, the director is known for being a fabricator. It's the "Dinosaurs lived with adam and eve" version of science. Utter shit. And you are below contempt for spreading it. See:

http://flet.org/node/20
http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/about_bas/news/news_story.php?id=178
http://folk.uio.no/nathan/web/statement.html
http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/news.asp?id=6089
http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,2119695,00.html
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/climate_change/article2368999.ece

and TONS of others. The data are misrepresented, words taken out of context etc etc. Wall to wall shit from someone with a vested interest in spreading FUD. I know some of you still don't think global climate change happens, and some of you think the earth is flat too, but the HUGE SCIENTIFIC CONSENSUS is that the climate is changing, to some degree it's man made and we need to do something about it.

Oh? Really? Well, here are some responses then.

From New analysis counters claims that solar activity is linked to global warming:

The data shows that even though the sun's activity has been decreasing since 1985, global temperatures have continued to rise at an accelerating rate.

The solar hypothesis was championed publicly in March by the controversial Channel 4 documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle. [...] "The temperature record is simply not consistent with any of the solar forcings that people are talking about," said lead author Mike Lockwood at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire.

"They changed direction in 1985, the climate did not ... [the temperature] increase should be slowing down but in fact it is speeding up." [...] Nir Shaviv, an astrophysicist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a proponent of the solar hypothesis, has tried to rescue the idea by invoking a time lag between changes in the sun and its effect on the Earth's climate. But Prof Lockwood dismissed this as "disingenuous".

"Nobody has invoked that kind of lag before. It's only been invoked now as a way out," he said. Even if the lag were 50 years then he believes we would begin to see the rise in global temperatures slowing down.

When asked to comment on this later finding, the show's producer, Martin Durkin, refused.

A statement from the British Antarctic Survey says:

Much of the programme was based around a diagram, shown several times, that purported to be world temperature for the last 120 years. This showed a curve, labelled "NASA", extending to the year 2003. The curve was produced by NASA nearly twenty years ago. Although it showed data only until 1987, it had been stretched and relabelled to suggest it showed the temperature record to 2003. The resulting distortion excludes the significant warming that has occurred since 1987. Other figures similarly misrepresented the current state of knowledge, especially as regards the influence of the Sun on climate, and the strength of the recent climate warming

Further evidence is presented here that the show intentionally mislabelled and distorted data. In addition to the "NASA" distortion above (which the producer admitted was "a fluff") there are others:

Other graphs used in the film contained known errors, notably the graph of sunspot activity. Mr Durkin used data on solar cycle lengths which were first published in 1991 despite a corrected version being available - but again the corrected version would not have supported his argument. Mr Durkin also used a schematic graph of temperatures over the past 1,000 years that was at least 16 years old, which gave the impression that today's temperatures are cooler than during the medieval warm period. If he had used a more recent, and widely available, composite graph it would have shown average temperatures far exceed the past 1,000 years.

The 1991 data comes from Friis-Christensen who has tried, several times, to prove the solar theory, but each time the theories have been debunked. For example, the journal Eos noted that Friis-Christensen's 1991 theories were based on "incorrect handling of the physical data". Later work seems to suffer from the same problems. Regardless, Friis-Christensen released a statement noting his concerns with usage of data, stating:

We have concerns regarding the use of a graph featured in the documentary titled 'Temp & Solar Activity 400 Years'. Firstly, we ha

"As I made clear, both in the
preliminary discussions, and in the interview itself, I believe that
global warming is a very serious threat that needs equally serious
discussion and no one seeing this film could possibly deduce that.

What we now have is an out-and-out propaganda piece, in which
there is not even a gesture toward balance or explanation of why
many of the extended inferences drawn in the film are not widely
accepted by the scientific community. There are so many examples,
it's hard to know where to begin, so I will cite only one:
a speaker asserts, as is true, that carbon dioxide is only
a small fraction of the atmospheric mass. The viewer is left to
infer that means it couldn't really matter. But even a beginning
meteorology student could tell you that the relative masses of gases
are irrelevant to their effects on radiative balance. A director
not intending to produce pure propaganda would have tried to eliminate that
piece of disinformation.

An example where my own discussion was grossly distorted by context:
I am shown explaining that a warming ocean could expel more
carbon dioxide than it absorbs -- thus exacerbating the greenhouse
gas buildup in the atmosphere and hence worrisome. It
was used in the film, through its context, to imply
that CO2 is all natural, coming from the ocean, and that
therefore the human element is irrelevant. This use of my remarks, which
are literally what I said, comes close to fraud."

Quote from article about the disappearing island:
      "An annual 3.14 mm rise in sea level at Sunderbans due to climate change is eating away 12 islands on the delta, says a study by a group of scientists from Jadavpur University." http://in.news.yahoo.com/061030/48/68wfx.html

Also, there has been an estimated 18.5cm rise in sea level over the last 100 years. That would yield an average of 1-2mm/yr, though satellite data is showing a slightly higher rise of 3mm/yr.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level_rise
http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/Key_Topics/IceSheet_Se aLevel/index.html
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImage s/images.php3?img_id=17300

Where in the world did you find 34mm/yr? Someone would have to be out of their mind to actually publish that! At over an inch/yr, substantial parts of our continents would have gone under water in the last century. You're talking about an 8 *FOOT* rise over the last century at 34mm/yr, rather than the actual measured increases that an order of magnitude smaller, and then some.

Terminal Island sank because the area is geologically unstable. We may have helped it by releasing some of the contained liquid acting as bedrock, but it wasn't due to the ocean becoming deeper.

However, contrary to the pretty pictures and unfounded claims in parent's reference, the Antarctica Ice sheet is growing smaller. Not only have we witnessed the collapse of the Larsen B ice shelf, but rivers of meltwater are draining the Antarctic ice. Indeed, NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) shows declines in the ice pack in both Antarctica and Greenland. Add to this the study I cited earlier which shows even greater declines in mountain glaciers across the globe and the pattern becomes hard to refute.

No, it's actually fairly easy to refute... From the Washington Post article you reference:

Oregon state climatologist George Taylor noted that sea ice in some areas of Antarctica is expanding and part of the region is getting colder, despite computer models that would predict otherwise.

The ice pack decline and the collapse of the Larsen B ice shelf occurs in an area less then 4% of the total continent land area. The remaining 96% of the continent has had a stable climate for about 40 years. Also 99% of the continent remains so cold that melting simply does not occur. http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/About_Antarctica/FAQs/ faq_02.html "Losing mass at a significant rate" is sensationalist journalism at best..

Read your own cite.

"Finally, Joughin says that two nearby West Antarctic glaciers are thinning rapidly, so the trend cannot be extended across the continent."

A regional trend does not disprove a global trend.

http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/News_and_Information/P ress_Releases/story.php?id=292
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4315968. stm

Try looking at the whole picture rather than cherry picking and denying reality.

The Brits have been plodding around Antarctica for a while: their earliest ozone measurements date to 1957.

http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/Key_Topics/The_Ozone_H ole/

Their data revealed typical seasonal patterns for about 20 years, then some disturbing changes. In 1985, the Antarctic ozone hole was reported.

The link above shows an interesting chart, showing a steep drop in atmospheric ozone over the Haley station after about 1977.

The reason why Antarctica hasn't been colonized has little to do with the climate: it has everything to do with economics and politics. Antarctica is politically disputed; several nations claim a chunk of it (or, in the case of the US and Russia, reserve the right to claim a chunk of it), and these claims overlap a lot. The Antarctic Treaty of 1959 deferred those claims, and the Protocol on Environmental Protection banned the only for-profit activity (other than tourism) you might conceivably conduct in Antarctica - mining. There is also the problem that most of Antarctica is covered with several kilometres of a material with low economic value - water (well, sort of; fresh water is valuable in large quantities but it would cost far more to ship it to where it's needed than it would be to simply desalinate seawater).

If something of sufficient economic value is found, people will go to some pretty inhospitable places to get it, from Alaska (for oil, or earlier gold) to the jungles of Papua New Guinea for copper.

Oxygen, water, light metals, and aggregate material like concrete.

Now you're completely out of your chair. The cost of maintaining it would absolutely dwarf any possible financial benefit. You know that the Moon has no atmosphere, right? No atmosphere? Have you got that? A base there cannot sustain itself; it needs continual supplies from Earth, not least of all food. That means regular supply trips, which have to deal with full Earth gravity, every little bit, for the whole time we maintain the base. The only reasons to go to the Moon or establish a base there are strictly scientific in nature. Economically, it's a big fat negative.

Carbon, Nitrogen, Phosphorus, etc are very hard to come by on the Moon. Technology like computer chips would also probably be lifted from Earth. But a lot of stuff we would need, we can get on site.

Heck, even inland Antarctica, which is *way* less hostile an environment than the moon, is economically-speaking a completely worthless destination. The Moon is even worse. (So, for that matter, is Mars.)

Anarctica is economically off limits due to treaty. It has oil, minerals, fish resources, and fresh water that might otherwise be exploited (the oil and fish probably would). Obviously, the Moon and Mars don't come close to having the relatively friendly environment of Anarctica, but they aren't "completely worthless".

...would Linux CDs be a good substitute for the penguins? and would the ARI lawyers substitute their suits for giant North Face jackets?

Somehow I think people would be sued in Mars or the ISS before that though. I wouldn't move to a world so cold. (I'd compare the preceding to a Mudvayne song but I'd get sued. I think.)

This is my last rejected submission on climate change - posted anonymously to avoid karma-whornig accusations.

New evidence of climate change unprecedented in human history seems to arrive almost every day. Two new studies have added more data to the mountain of evidence supporting the anthropogenic climate change hypothesis. A UN Environmental Program report shows that the world faces a 'staggering threat', with the Arctic already being severely affected, with thawing of much of the sea ice and the Greenland icecap predicted.

The extinction of polar bears and seals seems likely. Worse, the decrease is salinity will affect the thermohaline pump that drives the North Atlantic drift, potentially stopping the Gulf Stream and reducing Europe to an icy wilderness. But it's not all bad news - the reduced ice cover will open new areas for gas and oil extraction!

Meanwhile, at the other end of the planet, Nature reports that the respected British Antarctic Survey has shown that loss of sea ice has causedAntarctic Krill populations to crash; this is the probable cause of crashing populations of various species, including the Gentoo penguin. (BAS press release here.) Sceptical readers may be interested to note that the US government now accepts that human CO2 emissions are causing climate change.

This is my last rejected submission on climate change - posted anonymously to avoid karma-whornig accusations.

New evidence of climate change unprecedented in human history seems to arrive almost every day. Two new studies have added more data to the mountain of evidence supporting the anthropogenic climate change hypothesis. A UN Environmental Program report shows that the world faces a 'staggering threat', with the Arctic already being severely affected, with thawing of much of the sea ice and the Greenland icecap predicted.

The extinction of polar bears and seals seems likely. Worse, the decrease is salinity will affect the thermohaline pump that drives the North Atlantic drift, potentially stopping the Gulf Stream and reducing Europe to an icy wilderness. But it's not all bad news - the reduced ice cover will open new areas for gas and oil extraction!

Meanwhile, at the other end of the planet, Nature reports that the respected British Antarctic Survey has shown that loss of sea ice has causedAntarctic Krill populations to crash; this is the probable cause of crashing populations of various species, including the Gentoo penguin. (BAS press release here.) Sceptical readers may be interested to note that the US government now accepts that human CO2 emissions are causing climate change.

It's summer now at the Antarctic. According to this website the temperature should be somewhere around the quite comfortable -40C. The extreme -90C temperature is reached only during the winter (June-Aug).

Hate to disappoint you, but Antarctica has been cooling for years:

Like you said: "That cycle was discovered a long time ago during the IGY. The "Ozone Hole" over the Antarctic was larger in the mid-50's than it is today."

The earliest year with data is 1956.

1956 321 DU

1957 330 DU

http://www.faqs.org/faqs/ozone-depletion/antarctic /

As was pointed out in the topic, this year is looking rather better than recent history, starting the month at 150 DU:

http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/met/jds/ozone/images/z oz0405.JPG

(Historic data is the average of 1957-72)

"you pick your data carefully and you can justify any theory you want."

Some theories are clearly unjustified when we look at all of the data. Like, for example: "The "Ozone Hole" over the Antarctic was larger in the mid-50's than it is today."

It would be interesting to discuss why October, as then we could discuss the way that CFCs cause the ozone hole. Discussing the centuries before 1956, the first year with ozone data from Halley Bay, Antarctica, without data, is pointless. As for data between 1982 and 2004, feel free to educate yourself and us.

Oh, and one more thing. There are no ice core records of ozone as there are no glaciers in the stratosphere. If that changes, let us know.

You are missing something. The Antarctic treaty encourages scientific research activities in Antarctica. There is not a single word in that treaty that even momentarily suggests that it would be an awful thing if the research was not expressly about Antarctica itself.

The later Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty, established in 1991, goes into more detail about Antarctica's status as a nature preserve, "dedicated to peace and science." It specifically bans mining and similar activities, and makes clear that all activities in Antarctica must be compatible with scientific research and environmental research in particular.

But it definitely does not ban non-scientific activities, like tourism, as long as their environmental impact is addresses correctly. And it certainly doesn't ban astronomy (an awful, polluting activity, astronomy! Shudder!).

Ideally the answer would be "Wherever I can do the best work", but we're all human.

Should've been pointing to here: Images for download

With all due respect, I don't think Mars needs property rights. If the purpose of reaching mars is scientific, then I believe Antarctica provides a realistic way of achieving our goals without property rights.

Since 1959 (through a cold war) Antarctica has been the model for the suspension of territorial and property rights. Perhaps the idea of keeping science as the paramount priority there would also enable something like the Antarctic treaty to work on Mars -- even while the population on Mars builds the diverse infrastructure needed to sustain life there...

1. Nothing contained in the present Treaty shall be interpreted as:

(a) a renunciation by any Contracting Party of previously asserted rights of or claims to territorial sovereignty in Antarctica;

What about this, fuckwit?

Ever remember the Ozone hole craze? This was supposed to be uneviatable end of
the word and no measure should have been able to fix it in hundred s of years. So
where is the hole?

It's doing quite well, fuckwit. Just because it's not anymore fashionable to write about and you in your amazing ignorance would prefer to pretend it's not there doesn't mean it's any less of a threat.