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Scientists Search For Clues to Antarctic Climate
Andrevan writes "The Christian Science Monitor reports that a group of US scientists has finished a journey to the southernmost point of Antarctica. The team traversed 775 miles. They hope to reveal information on global warming and precipitation trends that began at the end of the Ice Age. According to Dr. Paul Mayewski, the expedition's leader, analysis should be finished in the next year or two."
A lot of the debate about global warming reminds me about all the Y2K talk a few years ago. Its one of those things that unless it happens no one is going to believe that its real, but if it is real and something wasnt dont about it and disaster resulted, then enough wasnt being done, but then again if something was done to prevent the disaster, then all that money and time was spent for nothing because there was nothing to worry about in the first place.
Also, the only thing that anyone involved in the science of the whole thing is that global warming will have an effect on the climate. Its anybody's guess, really. I could mean that in the sort term temperatures rise a little allowing snow to fall in places in which it used to be too cold to snow in large quantities resulting in more sun light being reflected back. Who knows? The problem as I see it is not climate change itself. The climate will change with or without our pollution. The problem it seems is our unwillingness to deal with the fact that we will face problems. Again, contingency is seen as a waste, and disaster is seen as the failure of those who were supposed to have the contingency that was so wasteful. Shit happens. Seas rise, lakes dry up, rocks fall from the sky and stars explode
"southernmost point of Antarctica"
Gee, I wonder why we don't have a special name for that point. Maybe, I dunno, South Spot? Southern Point? Bit at the Bottom? Nah, it's never catch on...
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The CBC's radio science program Quirks and Quarks interviewed one of the researchers on this topic. You can listen to the MP3 here. Other stories this week had to do with the Spider Goats, among others.
Summary: The majority of the Anarctic continent is isolated from the rest of the world when it comes to weather patterns. Most research stations aren't in the isolated part, they are in the most northerly portions of the continent. They are warming. The isolated part of Antarctica is cooling. It's basically a re-analysis of existing data that has resulted in this conclusion.
They didn't even find that old civilization seed (in gold, iirc ?) where a man & a woman are sleeping !
Guess they were unlucky.... else we could have unlimited energy !! (and also maybe a war, who knows)
(hint: french book from Rene Barjavel, 'La nuit des temps' / rough translation 'the dawn of times')
Tsuyoikoto ha taisetsu da ne, dakedo namida mo hitsuyousa (Strength is an important thing, but tears too are necessary)
"Christian Science" - Isn't that a bit like "military intelligence" and "McDonald's Restaurant"?
It's cold. Next!
But then again, I could be wrong.
I love how the scientific method has mutated into "we're hoping to find such and such, so we're going to look very hard until we do". With that methodology, you'll always find something that supports your theory.
Cthulhu for president!!!
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
If you can still keep an open mind about global warming then have a long hard look at this page. http://www.john-daly.com This guy is very sceptical about it all and puts in some solid research to back it all up. At nearly 50, I've scare's come and go like in the late 60's when it was an accepted fact that by the year 2000 we would all have 1 square metre to stand in. Having read a lot of John Daly's evidence I think global warming falls into the same category, trendy pseudo-science.
Hmmm. Way back in my BBS days I used to argue CO2 / Greenhouse Effect stuff with John. I was initially impressed with his knowledge and thought he made a good case.
However, problems arose when I started reading his book "The Greenhouse Trap" ... I noticed that he got the Stefan-Boltzman Constant (k) mixed up with Stefan's Constant (sigma) when I told him this it took me a few emails to convince him he was wrong ... and then he said well it didn't matter because he was using a ratio so the constant would cancel out (true). But I wasn't impressed with a) his lack of knowledge on something so fundamental, and b) the fact that he could not admit a mistake was made.
Then I noticed a few other things ... he argued strongly to the person in many cases where he didn't agree with someone's ideas ... any argument against his thesis by "experts" he took personally, and also would rant about scientists being corrupted by the greenies. In my opinion some of his statements were very close to libel.
Another thing about his book, in one part he argues that since there is CO2 in the air then adding any more should have no additional effect ... he seemed to not understand that opacity can be between 0 and 100%.
John used to be a greenie but was very bitter about the experience and blamed them for many woes. He told me he once had a self sufficient farm in Wales before me moved to Australia. He's a smart guy but I think he carries personal grudges into his public statements. Pity.
I finally stopped arguing with him because it got me nowhere. He has access to a lot of data and reports but he is very selective in what he references. To me the final bit of evidence that was unequivocal and "proved" global warming were the borehole temperature measurements into permafrost. John's answer was that: there is no global warming and if there is then it is due to a natural cycle. That's not exactly what he said but in more longwinded form it is the gist of his view. I leave it as an exercise for the reader to spot the logical flaw there :)
So yeah he has some interesting things to say, but remember he is VERY selective. Read more widely.
Bitter and proud of it.
Damn! Shows what happens when you don't do any physics for a decade (though I remember the actual physics but not the names). Ok. Ok. 'k' is of course Boltzman's Constant from thermodynames , and sigma is the Stefan-Boltzman constant (or sometimes referred to as Stefan's Constant I think) from EM theory as in energy_density = sigma*T^4 etc etc
Bitter and proud of it.
by definition that is the south pole
1) Go to Antarctica
2) Realise it is damn cold
3) Go home
4) Observe how much warmer the world suddenly seems