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Greenland Ice Sheet Not Covered In Soot

An anonymous reader writes with word of a a new study of the Greenland ice sheet led by Dartmouth adjunct assistant professor Chris Polashenski, which maintains that the darkening sensed there by satellites is not caused by dust and soot deposited by forest fires and industry, but rather by the slow degradation of the sensors on the satellites themselves. [Polashenski] and his colleagues analyzed dozens of snow-pit samples from the 2012-2014 snowfalls across northern Greenland and compared them with samples from earlier years. The results showed no significant change in the quantity of black carbon deposited for the past 60 years or the quantity and mineralogical makeup of dust compared to the last 12,000 years, meaning that deposition of these light absorbing impurities is not a primary cause of reflectivity reduction or surface melting in the dry snow zone. Algae growth, which darkens ice, also was ruled out as a factor. Instead, the findings suggest the apparent decline in the dry snow zone's reflectivity is being caused by uncorrected degradation of sensors in NASA's aging MODIS satellites and that the declining trend will likely disappear when new measurements are reprocessed.

3 of 119 comments (clear)

  1. so this is how.... by ganjadude · · Score: 2, Funny

    this is how they will explain away the other post from earlier stating that ice is growing. Blame the sensors!

    --
    have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
  2. "99%"of the scientists were non-existant by Trachman · · Score: 4, Funny

    Do you expect Retractions? There will be none. Part of the reasons is because those "99% of the scientists were non-existing from the beginning.

    What you witnessed is a classical social manipulation, human tendency to conform and to be part of the group. If television tells you that "99% of the scientists" believe that Global warming is real, then you will probably accept additional carbon taxes easier.

    The problem is that most of the scientists do agree that humanity is changing the earth. You no longer need to be a scientists to see that. For example, in Europe there are no more large populations of bears, tauruses, wolves and wild horses. These animals became extinct before industrial revolution. Last mammothes on Earth died when humans already knew how to write. Heck, some of the rhinoceros will probably be extinct this decade.

    However most of discussions were about a) bankrupting US coal industry and closing coal factories (while China opens new coal electric plant almost every week) and b) imposing additional taxes on the taxpayers of industrialized nations.

  3. Re:Global warming has been changed to Climate Chan by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    Do you know WHY the ice in one part of Antarctica is expanding? It's because fresh water from the ice melting on the land is flowing in to the ocean. It has a higher freezing point, so it forms ice more easily.

    You've made the common reactionary fallacy that one (albeit wrong) argument against something discredits all the many ones that back it.