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Scientists Cut Greenland Ice Loss Estimate By Half
bonch writes "A new study on Greenland's and West Antarctica's rate of ice loss halves the estimate of ice loss. Published in the journal Nature Geoscience, the study takes into account a rebounding of the Earth's crust called glacial isostatic adjustment, a continuing rise of the crust after being smashed under the weight of the Ice Age. 'We have concluded that the Greenland and West Antarctica ice caps are melting at approximately half the speed originally predicted,' said researcher Bert Vermeeersen."
This estimate change means climate change has once again been proven wrong! Right? Right?
(Hint: No.)
No, it's just a change in one of the thousands of indicators. However that's only for the people who actually care for the science of climate change.
For the rest, this estimate will prove just about anything between the third coming of the messiah and the imminent destruction of the Earth by magnetic core spin reversal.
Some bright researchers managed to refine a previous model and come up with better and more accurate predictions. You may want to note how, contrary to some "skeptics" beliefs this wasn't suppressed or refused publication or any other such shenanigans. In the word of a famous person "When I'm proven wrong I change my opinion, what do you do ?".
science should be treated, as it was always intended, with a grain of salt.
Are we talking "grain of salt" as in "not taking it so seriously" or "understanding that some changes to scientific theory and predictions are bound to occur."
Not taking science seriously, such as thinking maybe the law of gravity won't really apply this time so you can jump off that building, or not really caring whether or not global warming is occurring is dangerous and fairly illogical. Understanding that scientific theories often change with new facts, but that those changes don't mean the whole thing is bunk, that's good.
No one claims the planet is dying. It may become quite uncomfortable for humans, though.
Actually, since the average temperature of the earth is 15 degrees celcius, and the optimum for humans (and animal life in general) is 21 degrees celcius, it will be more comfortable. Also, if history of civilization, specifically the period immediately preceding the little ice age, is considered, there will be a LOT more arable and livable land accessible to humans (Greenland, Siberia, Canada*, for one) with a 6 degree rise in temperature.
Even if, yes, a rise like this will mean moving a number of large cities. Also, the change will have winners and losers (generally the winners will be more northern or more southern, and the losers more situated around the equator, but that's at best a very inaccurate rule of thumb).
* yes, global warming will mean Canada will become a livable place, even when you're more than 10 km from the US border.
Also, we may not understand exactly what effect was responsible for creating the sahara, it appears to have been a global cooling. Perhaps (we don't know) global warming will reverse this.
> We all know that the ice is still melting (but slower than we thought).
This year we are going to see a new record low for arctic sea ice --- surpassing even the dramatic 2007 decline.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.recent.arctic.png
What's really startling is that this year, both the NE and the NW passages are completely open. This animation tells the story
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/CT/animate.arctic.color.0.html
Typically, shipping through the NE passage relies on Russian icebreakers. Judging by the satellite photos, at this point the icebreakers aren't needed
Source: cryosphere today http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/
I no longer believe you, when you say that you would be "pleased" to hear that global warming isn't that big of a deal. If that were true, why are such stories buried and alarmist stories repeated even if based on incorrect data?
About 10 years ago, I also believed in global warming, however I stopped doing so. How is such a thing possible?
1. Climate Change
I had my first doubts about global warming, when they introduced the term climate change“ which the added claim that climate change“ may not just cause warming in some regions, but may actually cause cooling in others. So all of the sudden climate change“ may cause everything: Hot, cold, stormy, dry, wet, etc.
2. The first decade of the 21st century
If the “hockeystick” were correct, we should have experienced a record-breaking hot climate in every year or at least most years between 2000 and 2010, but that just didn't happen. Some people say that 2009 was the hottest year on the record and hotter than 1998, but even if that's true it does not really support the supposed runaway warming-scenario - at all. Now when from the 10 years following 1998 9 have been cooler and one has been warmer, that may show that the climate may be a little warmer than usual (after all 1998 has been the warmest on the record and 2009 may have broken that record), but it points more to a relatively steady climate that may be little bit too hot, but not at all to some runaway climate shift.
3. Alarmism
What also disturbs me a lot is the alarmism. The warm periods, no matter when we talk about humans (medieval warm period, little ice age, etc.) or life in general were always the better periods (where “better” means of course that more life can be sustained by the earth)
So the horror-scenarios don't make that much sense and are blown way out of proportion.
4. The “experts” opinion
It is always said that the “scientific consensus” is clear about global warming. Well, science is not a popularity contest and is also not democratic. The “scientific consensus” also said that therapy and short prison sentences would reduce crime, but crime rates in the US quadrupled in the 1960s. The “scientific consensus” said that big government will reduce poverty, yet the higher the taxes are and the more incentives is given to the poor to have large families, the more poverty there is. And of course the “experts” also worried about “global cooling” in the 1970s.
The experts have a pretty bad track record, especially when it comes to politically sensitive things.
5. Socialism
Socialism has always been marketed as rule by the scientists and experts. Everybody shall lose their “bourgeous” human rights like right to property and freedom of association (freedom of association is racist anyway, right?) and submit to “expert rule” because the experts know it all and know it better than us rednecks. Well, not only have the “experts” been very often wrong, the centralized rule from above by the experts has proven to be a bigger disaster than any global warming scenario. (Yes, you read that correctly.)
Russia has always been a traditional food exporter and was turned into country where millions starve by the “experts”. And famine and widespread starvation has been the hallmark of socialism almost everywhere it has been tried: China, Cambodia, many african countries, etc.
The “experts” seem to be able to turn a fertile country into a desert not only much faster than global warming, but also repeatedly and in the real word (not just in a computer simulation). Warming may force a change of crops and maybe even a reduction in yield (that's a big “may” - far more likely is that it increases yields because warmer was usually better in the past) but there is no land on earth that cannot be utterly ruined by the advice of an “expert”.
When the “experts” want to create
So even if there's no climate change, it verifies climate change.
But if there's +5C change, then, by golly, global warming has been falsified! The results didn't match prediction.
In all seriousness, though, I think there's a real paradox in what we consider falsification and verification in science if the above two statements are both true.
Yes, there's a problem with what you consider falsification. Falsification applies to theories, not to observations.
If the temperature rises 5C, it would falsify the theory by which we model and predict global warming. However, the observation of global warming would be stronger than ever. So, we'd have to change our theories.
It's similar to how experiment falsified the Caloric theory of heat because the result did not match predictions, but did not falsify the concept of heat. Observations that did not match Newton's Law of Gravity did not "falsify" the observation that gravity exists.
On the other hand, a temperature change of 0 degrees, that would validate the theory by which we model and predict global warming. However the observation would be of no global warming for that period. It would be correct to say "there was no global warming in this ten year period". Just remember that unlike a theory or model, this would not "falsify" the previous observations of warming.
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