john_kidder
Senior Member
West R Lee said:Just heard on the news that after an extensive study by several South American scientists, today, on the anniversary of Al Gore's sharing of the Nobel Prize for insisting that the Polar cap could be gone in as little as 7 years, that it has actually shrunk by 1% in the last hunderd years, and that the Antarctic ice cap has enlarged by over 700,000 square miles in that same time frame. All boils down to who you believe I guess.
West
Must have been Fox News? Google, just for instance, "Larsen Ice Shelf Collapse" for a little data from Antartica (like this Arctic ice as simulated by the ESOP model (note this speaks to ice volume rather than area. Then try "Arctic Ice Decrease" for some from the North (like this NASA-funded study) Abrupt Ice Retreat Could Produce Ice-Free Arctic Summers by 2040
Honest to god, West, there is just no serious debate in the scientific community worldwide. None. A few fringers, of course, but they're rapidly gaining the same status now given to the flat-earthers. Or to those who think the earth was created from the whole cloth 6,000 years ago. The press, of course, likes to spend time reporting on whatever they can make appear controversial.
Soon, one hopes, their focus will shift to the real controversies facing us: how do we adapt to rapid and unpredictable changes in massive systems on which our lives are absolutely dependent? I live in a much-blessed part of the world, here in fabulously wealthy British Columbia, one of the most favoured places in fabulously wealthy North America. ANd we can do nothing about the fact that the pine forests of the interior of BC are nearly gone (so far, about 13% of the total area of Texas is now covered with dead trees) from an infestation of beetles directly attributable to (very slightly) warmer winters. And the scientific community, again, worldwide, again, pretty close to unanimous, is clear that that (so far) slight rise is a consequence of human activity causing a rise in greenhouse gases, which reduce the ability of the earth to radiate absorbed solar energy back to space. And that the changes are accelerating due to a number of positive feedback effects - warmer winters in the north mean reduced snow cover and earlier spring melts which means greater solar absorption in what we used to call "permafrost" which is now melting and beginning to release enormous ancient stores of methane, which is one of the most effective greenhouse gases of all. There is no serious debate about this, West.
Our grandchildren will shake their heads in disbelief and wonder that we failed to react to the abundant evidence. Just the way we do now when we think of anyone objecting to Galileo's suggestions that the earth went around the sun - how could they possibly have failed to see? And, more importantly, how could they possibly have just carried on as if nothing had changed?