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Shrinking Waves May Save Antarctic Sea Ice

sciencehabit (1205606) writes "It's a nagging thorn in the side of climatologists: Even though the world is warming, the average area of the sea ice around Antarctica is increasing. Climate models haven't explained this seeming contradiction to anyone's satisfaction—and climate change deniers tout that failure early and often. But a new paper suggests a possible explanation: Variability in the heights of ocean waves pounding into the sea ice may help control its advance and retreat."

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  1. Re:"and climate change deniers tout that" by tmosley · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What if you just refuse to see the reasoning that lead them there?

    Creationism would be a reasonable position if there were significant evidence of a creator (there isn't). AGW "denial" would be reasonable if there were an argument that the amount of CO2 we have put and are putting into the atmosphere won't cause a feedback loop.

    And there is, if you would put pen to paper and make the calculations yourself, assuming you understand a little physical chemistry. CO2 has a very thin IR spectrum chart that integrates to a very low number, meaning it is shit at absorbing heat. Water vapor has a gigantic broad "peak" that swamps most other signals to the point that you can't even tell when other stuff is present with highly sophisticated equipment that only looks at the IR spectrum.

    Of note, the other product of combustion is water vapor. Irrigation forces more water vapor into the air. Paving forces more water vapor into the air. Even the cooling towers of nuclear power plants force more water vapor into the air. These things happen on a continuous basis, so the world is on average more humid by perhaps 1% than it was 100 years ago. Which would be more than enough to account for ALL observed warming.

    What are the implications for this? It means that most of the wild scenarios dreamed up by the AGW people that lead to mass death and starvation or extinction are unlikely. CO2 stays in the atmosphere for hundreds of years on average, where water vapor falls out in a few days. This tight equilibrium means that we can self correct easily, as economic deterioration due to climate change will decrease the amount of water vapor we push into the air by a mechanism of tearing up unused roads (seen in recently in Detroit), reducing combustion, less irrigation, etc.

    But by all means, paint everyone who doesn't blindly agree with the god "Science" (rather than following the scientific method) with the same brush. It's not like your nonsensical belief will change physics in your "favor". One can only hope that those of you who continue to cling to AGW theory are rightfully marginalized, and removed from your priest-like positions in government, as those guys can and do do REAL damage based off of bad theory.