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35,000 Walrus Come Ashore In Alaska
the eric conspiracy writes "Lack of sea ice in the Arctic has forced record numbers of walrus to come ashore in Alaska. The walrus, looking for a place to rest have come ashore in Point Lay Alaska. The walrus normally rest on floating ice. "We are witnessing a slow-motion catastrophe in the Arctic," Lou Leonard, vice president for climate change at the World Wildlife Fund, said in a statement that was reported by CNN. "As this ice dwindles, the Arctic will experience some of the most dramatic changes our generation has ever witnessed. This loss will impact the annual migration of wildlife through the region, threaten the long-term health of walrus and polar bear populations, and change the lives of those who rely on the Arctic ecosystem for their way of life."
This is definitely the disasterous dastardly doings of the Eggman!
Mass haulouts of Pacific walrus and stampede deaths are not new, not due to low ice cover
http://polarbearscience.com/20...
Large haulouts of walruses -- such as the one making news at Point Lay, Alaska on the Chukchi Sea (and which happened before back in 2009) -- are not a new phenomenon for this region over the last 45 years and thus cannot be due to low sea ice levels. Nor are deaths by stampede within these herds (composed primarily of females and their young) unusual, as a brief search of the literature reveals.
Includes references, links and copies of contemporary reports.
Let's not worry about if the walruses are coming to shore because of human-caused climate change. They're coming to shore because the ice has melted. It doesn't matter to them who melted the ice, or how, they just want the ice back. And that will be humans in another degree or two.
You, and all the other "skeptics", are pretending to be engaged in a rational approach.That's not credible.
There will never be enough evidence to convince you. It's obvious from your past behavior. Every time a new piece of real world evidence shows up you have the same knee jerk reaction: ti's not enough, there's some other reason, it happened before, what about (irrelevant information here), etc.
So there is an extraordinarily large walrus event: it doesn't count. There are new high temperature records being set every year: the numbers are skewed. Vermont maple farmers are loosing their livelihood because the winters are not cold or long enough: it's just a long term cycle. Dozens (or even hundreds) of species in North America and Europe are moving their range further north every year: a common pattern isn't happening, each case is unique and unrelated.
Stop wearing the fig-leaf of "rational skeptic". You have made up your mind. No additional information will sway you. Short of a "personal extinction event", you are not going to change you position or your behavior.
Why is Snark Required?
If someone says, "oh look, it's warm out, that proves global warming," they are a warmist.
If someone says, "oh look, it's cold out, that disproves global warming," they are a denialist.
Neither side is scientific.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
They noted less sea ice, they noted the walruses, they noted AGW, and just linked A to B to C without bothering to any science in between. That is my problem.
It's probably completely bogus. The sea ice isn't far from normal for this time of year, and higher than in other recent years. It's higher than in 2005, not quite as high as 2006.
Let's not forget that parts of the Pacific coast were a little warmer than normal, too. But that doesn't imply "warming", because the majority of the U.S. was way colder than normal.
So we have: sea ice that might be just a little lower than normal in certain parts of Alaska, but pretty normal overall.
Warming or not, things are happening and everyone can see them.
What does that even mean?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Couldn't agree more. The parent poster (Karmashock) stated, " They noted less sea ice, they noted the walruses, they noted AGW, and just linked A to B to C without bothering to any science in between. That is my problem." So, Karmashock would have liked a scientific study showing how AGW led to the Walrus landing. So, when an abberation occurs, it can't be accepted as related to anything else, unless there is some "science in between". Really, it is too late for that. The abberation has already occured. Do we *now* start a study on the frequency of Walrus landings? Where is the baseline behaviour? How long should the study last? 10 years? Sure, let's study the Walruses for ten years. Maybe we can get a science award for our troubles. It reminds me of a situation in Africa, where a local doctor was fighting Ebola with some success with an AIDS drug. The doctor reasoned that Ebola and AIDS had some similar charactaristics, and that there were known antiviral drugs to treat AIDS. He tried one drug, and it didn't seem to work. He tried a second, and the mortality of his 15-20 patients dropped to 13%. A reporter interviewing him asked if he thought he should wait for some clinical studies before using the antiviral. He scoffed, and said that he was trying to save as many lives as he could. There was not time for clinical studies. When you have a disease with a 70% mortality rate, and it is infectious, you are talking about a serious threat. You need to use your brain, and take some educated guesses. AGW is a serious threat, and we don't have a set of planets on which to do double-blind experiments to satisfy Karmashock's thirst for science. We need to use our brains, and take some educated guesses. If we wait around for all the studies to come in, the situation, be it ebola or AGW, may be out of control.
Join the IParty!
Usual selective reporting from the Daily Mail - claiming a 29% rebound from an all-time record low is somehow "proof" that global warming is overblown. The link is a year old too - this year is actually the sixth lowest in the satellite record.
Worth looking at an actual trend, rather than Daily Mail headlines.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
The U.S. and Russia, with the support of groups such as Humane Society International, the Natural Resources Defence Council and the International Fund for Animal Welfare, had argued that allowing Canada to continue trading in the bears was contributing to more hunting at a time when their sea ice habitat is shrinking because of climate change. The Russians added that the Canadian trade makes it easier for poachers in Russia by allowing them to disguise their kills as legal bears from Canada.
But Canada — along with Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Fund, influential scientific bodies and other NGOs — said the Canadian hunt is sustainable and that the real threat to the bears is from climate change, not trade.
Although the world sided with Canada this time, Derocher notes support is slipping.
From http://www.macleans.ca/news/inuit-scientists-say-defeat-on-polar-bear-trade-ban-not-final/
Global Warming isn't a rational/scientific debate. If it was, the idea wouldn't have taken off as a result of Al Gore's film. That's not science, it's a popularity contest.
I'm not debating whether the science is there or not. I'm simply pointing out that the idea of Global Warming didn't take off because of the science. And Karmashock is right in saying that when in doubt (there is contradicting evidence for or against some event being caused by Global Warming) the Global Warming crowd goes nuts when people dare to question it. You need to be able to admit that not everything is caused by Global Warming.
Science is not well served by shouting down people who disagree with you. It's served by providing evidence to back up your claims and explaining why your opponent's claims are factually incorrect. Labeling people skeptics without actually proving them wrong is counterproductive.
It's served by providing evidence to back up your claims and explaining why your opponent's claims are factually incorrect
Evidence is only a few mouse clicks away, readily accessible for anybody with a decent understanding of science.
Zoologist Dr. Susan Crockford weighs in: Mass haulouts of Pacific walrus and stampede deaths are not new, not due to low ice cover - 'The attempts by WWF and others to link this event to global warming is self-serving nonsense that has nothing to do with science...this is blatant nonsense and those who support or encourage this interpretation are misinforming the public.'
Population sizes may fluctuate for a number of reasons that have little to do with the low ice levels: note these very recent incidents of large walrus herds and associated mortality events (2009, 2011 and 2014) have not coincided with the lowest levels of summer sea ice in the area, which occurred in 2007 and 2012.
Just tell her to wear a seal costume to be more easily recognized so that nobody shoots her by mistake.
Ezekiel 23:20
You seem to be confusing what you hear on the news with what the actual scientists are saying. Pointing out you confusing the media with the science isn't "questioning the orthodoxy", just pointing out you are getting your scientific information from the mass media, which is never a good idea.
Stick to the peer-reviewed papers, or to credible sources which perform actual analysis.
You just made all of that up. Those are not the three choices we have. A systematic drive to use more green technology and to cut our pollution would help, but seems strangely absent from your list. You are not helping the situation by being so intellectually dishonest.
I'm simply pointing out that the idea of Global Warming didn't take off because of the science.
What, Svante Arrhenius wasn't a scientist?
Ezekiel 23:20
You are absolutely right - it's not a scientific debate. The science is settled. We're beyond that now. The debate amongst climatologists is for accuracy, not whether AGW exists or not. We're many decades past that point. The fact that there is such an overwhelming body of evidence showing AGW exists, and yet organisations and governments deny it exists shows that there are people willing to ignore science for other reasons. As long as that happens, science can't be used to convince them otherwise, as they have already deemed it ignorable if it proves antagonistic to their desired position.
So yes, science is not well served by shouting down, but it's even less well-served by people simply ignoring it because it's telling them things they don't want to hear. Once that starts to happen, what should people do? Accept the purposeful ignoring of science as a valid position, and applause people for ignoring evidence?
The sceptics have been proven wrong time and time again - they trot out the same weak arguments which have already been debunked, and get all indignant when that's pointed out. They pretend to play the "science game" - by using the correct language and going through the motions - but they don't listen to the answers when science provides them. They're the Glenn Becks of this discussion - they're asking questions but not bothering to hear, or even interested in, the answers, and definitely not bothering to change their position when it is demonstrated to be fundamentally at odds with every shred of evidence gathered.
Of course not everything is caused by global warming, but conversely when the science shows that something is definitely affected by it, we can't point at alarmist media and claim that reflects the quality or content of the science. That is incredibly disingenuous.
Things are only evidence of a given theory or they are only valid if they confirm current theory.
This talk of double standards has another point. Talk of AGW and if it is or isn't man made, if it is or isn't happening centers around a key distraction because it is the main externality of modern man. Cast doubt on carbon as an externality then you cast doubt on every other of the plethora of externalities that we just expect nature to deal with.
So put aside AGW for a while and ponder if all the industrial products and processes we have actually produce pollution as an externality and, for how long has it been creating an impact?
How much garbage does it take for a gyre to form in both our largest oceans kilometres deep, just how much trees can we cut down - all of them? How many factory ships and by-catch does it take to empty the ocean ecosystems? All of these and thousands of other human externalities exist and every single one of them has an impact. So yeah, it may not be AGW related, however it is more than likely related to some form of human externality. My point is, does it matter which human externality it belongs to if we are so mired down with inaction and analysis-paralysis to do anything about them.
Pick *any* large scale human industrial activity and ask yourself what the impact is? You don't need science to tell you that if you burst a cyanide dam (used for gold mining) and it flows into a river - everything in its path is going to die. That if you choke rivers with fertilizers and on and on and on.
Does it matter which human externality is to blame anymore?
Here someone is going to attack me for pushing the denialist/skeptic position... because god forbid anyone question the orthodoxy
But you are pushing it and no one is attacking you because the denialist/skeptic position is politics, not science. It's forbidding anyone questioning the orthodoxy of the coal/oil industry by positioning them in an argument to render the actual science of AGW a moot point. It's genius really, a skeptic absolves them selves of any need to present proof of their argument and can deny an proof presented - no proof is possible.
And what's the point of denialist/skeptic being right? Right about what? What alternate thesis is being presented to the thousands of articles of science presented?
The oil/coal industry is an entity that has control over the media outlets that shape our opinions and has trillions of dollars for lobbying, you think you are questioning the orthodoxy however in reality, you are just towing the line. Prove to me you aren't towing the line, show me the science to back up an alternate claim.
Either do the science or disclaim your position with a statement that this is just your assumption/guess. I'm fine with people guessing. Guess all day. Don't tell me your guesses are science though.
The only claim made is that this is what was noticed in the NOAA survey of animal migration. This is a fact that contributes to science which denialist/skeptics won't accept anyway. What is your alternate claim, show me your evidence that this isn't caused by AGW, where is your evidence to support your alternate claim?
The science of AGW challenges oil and coal industry hegemony and the science was reported right here on /. even before Al Gore got up and made it trendy to talk about. I've read so much science about AGW I can't even remember just how many overwhelming arguments there are. The science is in, most people talk about their doubts about AGW and they don't even try to understand the science. The talk of double standards from denialist/skeptics is actually a double standard - what facts, based in science and research, have denialist/skeptics ever presented?
The only fact denialist/skeptics need to assess is if it's in the coal and oil industry's interest to cast enough doubt in everyone's minds to promote inaction, which is so mu
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
The same Susan Crockford who gets paid by the Heartland institute every month, and who is:
Her opinion on climate science simply does not matter.
This is true for both sides of the "Obama is a foreigner" or "Bush did 9/11" debates, too. But that doesn't change the fact that one side is consistent with reality, while the other is absurd agenda-driven fantasy.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Are you fucking kidding me?!?! The fucking story is about the behavior of walruses!!! The Zoooligist is the science expert you are looking for to put context to this story, not the climatologist!!!
Shit with these kind of stories, even the experts aren't allowed to be experts!
The attempts by WWF and others to link this event to global warming is self-serving nonsense
"this event" is the walrus beaching, which she had darn well better know about. If the WWF said your computer started overheating due to global warming, would you take their word for it because they know climate science better, or would you check your system fans and blow dust off your heat sinks, knowing what the real cause likely is since it happens regularly, albeit rarely?
I say look at giant holes of methane out-gassing in Siberia. Or the giant areas of highly acidic oceans that lack enough oxygen for fish to survive. Both of these are from us burning fossil fuels. Whether or not either of these events are considered global "warming" is up to the scientists...although "warming" is not the right word. Climate chaos from millions of years of carbon that is sequestered as oil that we're burning up in a few hundred years is a more precise term.
Nothing new does not mean not related.
Car crashes occured before drunk driving became an epidemic, yet that doesnt mean that the increase in car crashes was not affected by the increase in drunk driving.
Walrus are dependent on the ice.
When there's not enough ice, they beach.
Walrus landings have been increasing as ice decreases.
The ice is decreasing because of globl warning.
Keep trying chump.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
You don't understand. To many people, there is no calling higher, nor no scientist more knowledgeable about everything, than a climatologist.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Zoologist Dr. Susan Crockford
Quite an unfortunate name - until you consider she's financed by the Heartland Institute. Quite fitting, actually.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
Things are only evidence of a given theory or they are only valid if they confirm current theory. It seems like too many things get labeled "this is because of global warming" but if the opposite thing happened the same people don't say "this shows global warming isn't happening". Its only in one direction. So every blizzard is global warming. Every heat wave is global warming. Every hurricane is global warming. Every shift in migration patterns is global warming.
Here someone is going to attack me for pushing the denialist/skeptic position... because god forbid anyone question the orthodoxy. But that isn't my point. I am not saying AGW isn't happening. I just think we are too quick to conclude every little thing is AGW related. If you can show it to be related... scientifically... that is with evidence... sorting for cause and not correlation... then fine. But did that happen here? They noted less sea ice, they noted the walruses, they noted AGW, and just linked A to B to C without bothering to any science in between. That is my problem.
Either do the science or disclaim your position with a statement that this is just your assumption/guess. I'm fine with people guessing. Guess all day. Don't tell me your guesses are science though.
It is scientific fact that walruses cannot swim endlessly like seals, and therefore need a place to rest when moving distances.
Human observation over the last 100+ years or so, have noticed walruses taking a break from swimming by clinging or climbing onto the floating ice which is no longer there.
Other than observing this particular behavior pattern (beaching) and historical evidence (which exists), this does appear to be putting A to B with some logic and science behind it. Now we must determine why this has happened before the alarmists starting screaming.
I just think we are too quick to conclude every little thing is AGW related.
I think the blame for this lies with those who have an interest in stirring up controversy and sensationalism. I can't imagine any scientist ever saying that "this is because of global warming"; what they would way is "this supports/doesn't support global warming" - or perhaps more likely, they will ask how these observations might fit into current theories.
The general public mostly get it completely wrong, expecting that scientists want to defend their theories against anything that might go against them; in reality it is quite the opposite way. I suppose scientist will always try to see if the existing theories work well enough to explain observations, but all of them secretly hope to find something that breaks the theory: 'new science'. That's why they were a little bit disappointed at CERN when they found a Higgs boson pretty much where theory said it should be. Being right is all well and good, but new discoveries is what we live and breathe for.
Early arctic explorers reported walrus and seal colonies that stretched miles. Like the buffalo they where industrially hunted in the 19th and early 20th century. The Walrus population has rebounded since their low in the 1950s. Walrus colonies only form on islands, not ice. Now pray tell, how does ice cover in the arctic come into play? (That is a real question, after researching the subject, I can not find any clue how ice cover affects walrus populations.)
Well done! You've read the subject of the thread you're commenting in. Now read the post I replied to, which offered this rebuttal from the good Doctor herself:
That's my point. She's voicing her opinion on fields outside of her speciality (which is paleozoology and dog evolution, btw). Her opinion on this matters just as much as every other layperson's - not a jot. Couple that with her paycheques from the Heartland Institute and you see that she's not being entirely honest or professional by stepping outside her field and criticising others.
So yeah - she's not an expert in this context. In prehistoric dogs, maybe, but definitely not in matters of climate.
Or are you saying that because she's a scientist her opinion on anything at all science-related is worth the same as specialists from the precise field in question? Because that would be sheer lunacy, for obvious reasons.
Their migration and behaviour is affected by sea ice coverage, as that's where they congregate. She should know that. She should also know that sea ice is affected by climate. That's where her expertise ends. She can't call out climatologists who use climatology to understand the situation, as she's not a climatologist. She also is paid by the Heartland Institute, so she's massively biased in this discussion. She also specialised in dog evolution, not walruses or other pinnipeds, so her poking her neck out to criticise this reeks of unprofessionalism.
Then you didnt look very hard considering many of them live on floating ice in the ocean, far from land, where there are no islands. That's why they are dependent on the ice to rest, because they cannot swim constantly like other members of the seal family. When the ice disappears, their possible range shrinks as they are forced to come ashore to rest. Living on the ice is one of their evolutionary advantages, keeping them safe from predators, close to their food supply, and increasing the posible territory they can inhabit.
"The limited diving abilities of walruses brings them to depend on shallow waters (and the nearby ice floes) for reaching their food supply."
"The walrus relies on this ice while giving birth and aggregating in the reproductive period."
"Thinner pack ice over the Bering Sea has reduced the amount of resting habitat near optimal feeding grounds. This more widely separates lactating females from their calves, increasing nutritional stress for the young and lower reproductive rates."
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
The ice is increasing in some areas. Is that due to global warming?
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
The haulouts she points to were well south of the most recent haulout. Her example was in the Bering Sea, the most recent is in the Chukchi Sea. St Lawrence Island is not within the Arctic Circle. Point Lay is. Since her St Lawrence observation, ice loss has accelerated.
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They noted less sea ice, they noted the walruses, they noted AGW, and just linked A to B to C without bothering to any science in between. That is my problem.
It's probably completely bogus. The sea ice isn't far from normal for this time of year, and higher than in other recent years. It's higher than in 2005, not quite as high as 2006.
Why do you bring up all of the Arctic to tell us there must be sea ice around Alaska - there fucking isn't: http://pafc.arh.noaa.gov/ice.p...
Or, to quote TFA: "In recent years, sea ice has receded north beyond shallow continental shelf waters and into Arctic Ocean water, where depths exceed 2 miles and walrus cannot dive to the bottom."
But nooo, the walrus are just taking a hiatus on the beach because they are imagining things. When they should be swimming north a couple hundred miles.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
so by this theory, the walruses should beach when the ice is at its lowest... that is when there is the least ice? Historically that hasn't happened. Scientists have been watching the walruses and we've had years of lower ice cover with less beachings and years with higher ice cover with more beachings. I can cite evidence to that effect if you like. So you don't even have correlation much less causation.
So no... you cannot simply infer A leads to B leads to C without actually doing science in between. You can ASSUME this all you like and that is fine. But don't call it science. You didn't do any science to conclude that. No one did. There is no scientific opinion on that because no one has studied it in that way.
End of story. If you want it to be studied... then go do that. Since you probably only care about fodder for your little political cause, I doubt you'll spend any effort on the issue. The search for truth or fascination with the natural world is not something you probably share with me. You just want to score some meaningless points on an internet forum for your cause. Meaningless.
I am not your enemy. I am simply not one the koolaid drinkers and halfwits chanting along to your mantra. That does not make me wrong, evil, or ignorant.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
So we have: sea ice that might be just a little lower than normal in certain parts of Alaska, but pretty normal overall.
I suppose that depends on your definition of normal, for example it's about 2 million square kilometers below the average for 1980-2010, which hardly seems to qualify as normal. I can a reason see why you would choose an average of the lowest years on record for comparison, but it's not a very flattering reason.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
Flamebait for pointing out a massive conflict of interest in a person stepping outside their area of expertise?
You mean like the WWF being used for the quote in the summary?
OK, so you attacked the source, but I looked at the article and it points to scientific literature and shows highlighted quotes that put the current news in perspective. The OH NOES, GLOBAL WARMING knee-jerk reflex is getting old when it doesn't hold up under scrutiny, especially when temperatures have plateaued far long than any model predicted.
Try coming up with a rational counter-argument that addressed the points made instead of relying on ad hominen.
Shit with these kind of stories, even the experts aren't allowed to be experts!
Well, it turns out that she isn't an expert in animal behaviour. Her specialty is zooarchaeology which is mostly concerned with how ancient people utilized animals in their cultural and dietary practices. (Disclosure: I'm an archaeologist who works on Vancouver Island where Dr. Crockford is located (University of Victoria). We hire people like Dr. Crockford to carry out studies like this for us.)
Meanwhile, she does appear to be connected to the Heartland Institute. There are lots of references to this via Google, Bing, etc. (Example: http://www.desmogblog.com/heartland-payments-university-victoria-professor-susan-crockford-probed).
There are also examples of her denialist stance from the Heartland Institute's own website (Example: http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2012/09/17/polar-bears-successfully-adapt-climate-change-scientist-says). A search of Heartland's site finds that she's quoted or cited on several of their pages, actually (http://policybot.enginez.com/results.engz?uq=crockford).