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Antarctic Ice Is Growing, Not Melting Away, At Davis Station
schwit1 writes "A report from The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research says that Antarctic ice is growing, not melting away. Ice core drilling in the fast ice off Australia's Davis Station in East Antarctica by the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Co-Operative Research Centre shows that last year, the ice had a maximum thickness of 1.89m, its densest in 10 years. The average thickness of the ice at Davis since the 1950s is 1.67m. A paper to be published soon by the British Antarctic Survey in the journal Geophysical Research Letters is expected to confirm that over the past 30 years, the area of sea ice around the continent has expanded."
The audacity of hope.
Don't worry, they are still going to implement the carbon tax. Never let a crisis go to waste.
"It is time for science to be market-driven rather than socialist in nature."
Since IS market driven. There is a BIG BIG market for global warming and that's where the money is so climate scientists focus on global warming and not other topics or (God forbid) the heresy that is global warming denial.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
Global warming exists, but it doesn't scare me. The earth wasn't always this temperature, and if things get hotter we will just have to deal. An Ice age would scare me but not global warming, the earth was much warmer than it is now several million years ago, if it gets that warm again it doesn't mean we are all gonna die. Sure things might get hairy for a while but seriously global warming isn't that dangerous to our survival as a race. This how ever doesn't mean we should abandon working towards more energy efficient and cleaner sources of energy. This has to happen for us to progress forward as a race and while it should happen naturally I've no problem with a bunch of alarmists freaking out and spurring the desire for better sources of energy. When these alarmists start infringing upon my freedoms though I'll have a problem.
I haven't been involved in any climate research, but what matters is WHY this is hapening.
Is it, as suggested above, because water falling there as snow instead of in Australia and Texas as rain is increasing volumes? Other explanations include:
- Thermal expansion of the ice
- Ice melting lubricates glacial movement
- Ice sheets detatching allows faster glacial movement
- Lower temperatures resulting in greater freezing of seawater.
Honestly though, conceptually this isn't amazingly complex. If we see temperatures rising, as measured by reliable equipment, thats called warming. If the ice thickens as the termperatures rise, that means something interesting is happening; It doesn't mean things aren't getting warmer.
When presented with scientific data, vested interests say "Oh yeah!? Prove it!". Instead of simply suggesting that they read the science reports and papers, many have tried to find anecdotes (permafrost, ice sheet collapse, etc etc) but these things don't 'prove' global warming any more than an ice thickening disproves it.
If only the population at large had an education sufficient to allow public discussion of the data found through research, there would be a great deal more consensus on this and other issues.
Science is not subjective.
I bet a climate scientist could have gotten plenty of money from the Bush Administration for arguing that manmade CO2 wasn't causing climate change. Exxon Mobil has plenty of money for anyone who can sow doubt about the anthropogenic climate change hypothesis.
Why not more scientific criticism of the hypothesis, then?
Because scientists went into science instead of law school because they care about reality.
So from global warming we can actually expect colder winters at the poles.
Truly this is a theory that cannot be disproven.
When we thought the poles were melting, the infamous pictures of a wet polar bear on a little ice shelf were everywhere and we were told that this was the direct result of warming.
So now it seems the global warming theory can have its ice and melt it too.
Where's the logic in this? We can't complain about problems in a treaty unless we ratify it? The problems are the reason not to ratify it.
You must take into account water/air circulation in the whole system at the very least too. Or choose to take the the butterfly or shit happens explanations.
What is clear to me is that our understanding of atmospheric dynamics is so awful (and rightfully so, it's complicated), that an explanation can be cobbled together using pesudo atmospheric lingo to explain any set of data as a result of man made influence.
The truth of the matter is that we don't really know what's going on. But that doesn't stop many people from boldly claiming that "X causes Y" with undeserved confidence.
What's also unscientific about this process is the way that the GW movement latches onto emotionally appealing icons to make their case (e.g. Polar bears, Katrina)