Global Myths - My Son's Sixth-Grade Speech

[Nono]

Of course, one couldn't expect the press to pick up on that little bit of truth..

No, of course not, given that it's owned by an army of long-haired, nervous-nelly eco-freaks who are making money hand over fist by alarming the gullible public. Oh, and their advertisers too, let's not forget. Yeah, makes perfect sense.

But I think you're mistaking disagreement over the cause of a warming climate with disagreement over the warming itself -- because there ain't hardly none these days. It is warming and they can prove it. I live in a mountainous area and we watch the glaciers shrink from one year to the next. That just for example.

It's true that at present it's impossible to prove to everyone's satisfaction that this warming is being caused by human activity and not by other processes.

So it's like I've said: "Sure they found a shadow on my chest X-ray, but not until I have the biopsy report in my hand will I even consider smoking less than three packs a day. Ain't an effin Chicken Little after all." And you'll doubtless remain in denial until you have the water lapping up around your tootsies.

[glenn_w_l]

So climatologists aren't gardeners. Who cares? A greenhouse is intended to keep air warm and humid, regardless of outside conditions. That's close enough for me

What have climatologists and gardeners got to do with the mechanism of heating in a greenhouse? And could you please clarify what it is that is close enough for you?

I doubt that the big bang went bang, either, since there was no air to transmit sound. Shall we toss out the theory?

No, you just need to rename it ‘the big bang that wasn’t really a big bang’. (By the way, I’m all for tossing out the big bang theory, but for reasons that have no relevance to this thread)

--"Tim Barnett and David Pierce of Scripps Institution used a combination of computer models and real-world "observed" data to capture signals of the penetration of greenhouse gas-influenced warming in the oceans."--

My apologies…it did get mentioned once in this thousand word document.
So let me get this straight… 361,000,000 sq km of ocean surface has become warmer to a depth of 700m (that’s 252,700,000 cubic km of water) because of the miniscule increase in CO2 concentration in the atmosphere since the beginning of the industrial revolution?
My mind simply boggles that anyone could accept this.

You assume a lot

I didn’t assume enough.
The USGS gives more realistic and quantitative data on the Earth’s natural CO2 output….
http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/Hazards/Wh...as/volgas.html

Scientists have calculated that volcanoes emit between about 130-230 million tonnes (145-255 million tons) of CO2 into the atmosphere every year. (Gerlach, 1999, 1992).

Making the conservative assumption that this rate has been constant throughout history, this means that from 625,500,000,000,000,000 to 1,147,500,000,000,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide has been released into the atmosphere by volcanic activity. But did this prevent the ‘Ice Age’, where large areas of the Earth were covered with ice to a depth of thousands of meters?

--"Natural sources of sulphur dioxide include release from volcanoes, biological decay and forest fires. Actual amounts released from natural sources in the world are difficult to quantify. In 1983 the United Nations Environment Programme estimated a figure of between 80 million and 288 million tonnes of sulphur oxides per year."--

The USGS says…

Globally, large explosive eruptions that inject a tremendous volume of sulfur aerosols into the stratosphere can lead to lower surface temperatures and promote depletion of the Earth's ozone layer.

Note: The effect of sulfur aerosols is to LOWER surface temperatures.

I've found no mention of CO2 being released by volcanoes.

And you seriously want me to believe that

I've been following the pros and cons of global warming on these boards for about 10 years now.

[Pale RIder]

No, of course not, given that it's owned by an army of long-haired, nervous-nelly eco-freaks who are making money hand over fist by alarming the gullible public. Oh, and their advertisers too, let's not forget. Yeah, makes perfect sense.

But I think you're mistaking disagreement over the cause of a warming climate with disagreement over the warming itself -- because there ain't hardly none these days. It is warming and they can prove it. I live in a mountainous area and we watch the glaciers shrink from one year to the next. That just for example.

It's true that at present it's impossible to prove to everyone's satisfaction that this warming is being caused by human activity and not by other processes.

So it's like I've said: "Sure they found a shadow on my chest X-ray, but not until I have the biopsy report in my hand will I even consider smoking less than three packs a day. Ain't an effin Chicken Little after all." And you'll doubtless remain in denial until you have the water lapping up around your tootsies.

I don't dispute that there is warming...In fact, I am quite sure that the earth is warming. I can state this with some certainty because for the bulk of earth history, it has been so warm that there was no ice at all at one or both of the poles. Warm and cool are the natural cycles of the earth...and warm is more prevalent than cool. In fact, the cool period that we are in now has lasted quite a bit longer than average.

If we were beings that lived for ages, we would be waiting for the first touch of spring after a particularly long winter.

Glaciers expand and contract...again, natural cycles. I can show you glacier scrubs in Texas...who do you blame for the retreat of the glaciers that made those? The fact is, that over half of the glaciers on the earth today are advancing..some at an alarming rate. (maybe we should switch back to ice age warnings) The retreat of some glaciers is natural and in no way suggests human causes.

Proving global warming is akin to proving that spring follows winter...it has always done it, so one can predict with relative certainty that it is going to continue to do it...but since warming is a natural cycle of the earth, you may as well attempt to make spring follow summer as attempt to stave off the natural warming of the earth... If you feel like you need to do "something" put the energy into planning how we will survive the next natural warming cycle...

[Nono]

We agree that some degree of climate change is built into the system and that there is much we have yet to learn about the way that system works.

However, the climate is warming with increasing rapidity in just the period we've been converting carbon bigtime. Coincidence? Really I'm tempted to think not.

To return to my analogy, people have always contracted lung cancer too. That's also part of nature. But we now understand a strong connection between it and the use of nicotine, which has grown explosively in fairly recent times. Would you tell your kids "Hey, go ahead and smoke. Cancer is part of nature." ?

We also now understand a strong connection between temperature and the composition of the atmosphere. And we know that our activity is changing that composition in a way that sure isn't going to cool things down (a major change in global thermohaline circulation notwithstanding).

So it seems to me reckless (and reminiscent of the tobacco companies) to go around saying "Don't be silly. Prove it."

As for glaciers, yes I've heard of a few in southern Argentina that are advancing. Possibly this has to do with increased local precipitation.
But everywhere else -- and this includes, dramatically, the ice sheets in the Arctic and the Antarctic -- they're melting. That means what it means.

[Sasha]

It seems we still have a lively debate on this issue, sounds like a good reason so spend billions studying the issue some more

[Pale RIder]

As for glaciers, yes I've heard of a few in southern Argentina that are advancing. Possibly this has to do with increased local precipitation.
But everywhere else -- and this includes, dramatically, the ice sheets in the Arctic and the Antarctic -- they're melting. That means what it means.

Nono..perhaps you should do just a bit of research before you make such blatantly untrue statements...

Here are some glacier facts for you to digest:

Here's a (partial) list of the specific glaciers that are growing: (easy enough to verify these FACTS)

NORWAY
Ã…lfotbreen Glacier
Briksdalsbreen Glacier
Nigardsbreen Glacier
Hardangerjøkulen Glacier
Hansebreen Glacier
Jostefonn Glacier
Engabreen glacier (The Engabreen glacier
is the second largest glacier in Norway. It is a
part (a glacial tongue) of the Svartisen glacier,
which has steadily increased in mass since the
1960s when heavier winter precipitation set in.)


Norway's glaciers growing at record pace. The face of the Briksdal glacier, an off-shoot of the largest glacier in Norway and mainland Europe, is growing by an average 7.2 inches (18 centimeters) per day. (From the Norwegian daily Bergens Tidende.) See http://www.sepp.org/controv/afp.html

CANADA
Helm Glacier
Place Glacier

ECUADOR
Antizana 15 Alpha Glacier

SWITZERLAND
Silvretta Glacier

KIRGHIZTAN
Abramov Glacier

RUSSIA
Maali Glacier (This glacier is surging. See below)


GREENLAND
Greenland glacier advancing 7.2 miles per year! The BBC recently ran a documentary, The Big Chill, saying that we could be on the verge of an ice age. Britain could be heading towards an Alaskan-type climate within a decade, say scientists, because the Gulf Stream is being gradually cut off. The Gulf Stream keeps temperatures unusually high for such a northerly latitude. One of Greenland"s largest glaciers has already doubled its rate of advance, moving forward at the rate of 12 kilometers (7.2 miles) per year. To see a transcript of the documentary, go to

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon...illtrans.shtml

NEW ZEALAND
Photos show that all 48 glaciers in the Southern Alps have grown during the past year. The growth is at the head of the glaciers, high in the mountains, where they gained more ice than they lost. Noticeable growth should be seen at the foot of the Fox and Franz Josef glaciers within two to three years.(27 May 2003)


SOUTH AMERICA
- Moreno Glacier (the largest glacier in Patagonia)
- Pio XI Glacier (the largest glacier in the southern hemisphere)


UNITED STATES
- Colorado - Washington (Mount St. Helens, Mt. Rainier* and Mt. Shuckson)
- California - Montana - Alaska (Mt. McKinley and Hubbard).

New Glacier Forming on Mount St. Helens. During the last twenty years, snow and ice have accumulated behind the lava dome at Mount St. Helens (Washington State) to depths of up to 600 feet. According to Charles Anderson Jr. and Dr. Mark Vining of the Glaciospeleological Survey (IGS), the weight of the snow is compressing the lower layers into dense, crystalline glacier ice.

http://www.glaciercaves.com/html/anewgl_1.HTM

Mount St. Helens glacier (Crater Glacier) growing 50 feet per year. September 20, 2004 - Located inside the volcanic crater formed during its 1980 eruption, America"s youngest glacier is also its fastest growing glacier. Scientists estimate that the thickness of the glacier has increased by nearly 50 feet per year. Not only is it growing thicker, it has been advancing as much as 135 feet per year. "Today" says a brochure published by the US Forest Service, "the snow and ice in the crater is equal in volume to all of the pre-eruption glaciers on Mount St. Helens combined." Why is no one bothering to tell us about this?

The Greenland Ice Sheet is growing thicker.
So is the Antarctic Ice Sheet. According to a report in Science (Jan 2002), new measurements show that the ice in parts of Antarctica is thickening. One week earlier, an article in Nature reported that Antarctica's harsh desert valleys - long considered a bellwether for global climate change - have grown noticeably cooler since the mid-1980s.

Contrary to previous reports, Arctic ice did not thin during the 1990s, say researchers at the Department of Oceanography at GÃteborg University in GÃteborg, Sweden.

http://www.envirotruth.org/images/ice-in-90s.pdf

Antarctic glaciers surging. Masses of Antarctic ice have been moving twice as fast as usual, say researchers in a recent article in Science. Five of the six glacial tributaries that fed the Larsen Ice Shelf have entered "active surging phases." It is clear, they said, that the Boydell, Sjogren, Edgeworth, Bombardier and Drygalski glaciers are all surging. Mar 9, 2003. The Seattle Times.

Russian glaciers surging. On September 20, 2002, a huge 22-million ton piece of the gigantic Maili Glacier broke loose and crashed down a steep gorge into the village of Kami killing more than 150 people and injuring hundreds more.

The 500-foot wall of ice had been growing for six years. The Maili Glacier is just one of several glaciers in the North Caucasus Mountains that have been EXPANDING at an alarming rate. Other towns in the region have been partially buried by these advancing walls of ice.

Antarctic growing colder. Although the Antarctic Peninsula-a thin sliver of land that juts above the Antarctic Circle-has been warming, temperatures in the vast empty spaces of East Antarctica have been falling for decades. (Time, "Cracking the Ice, 3 Feb 2003)

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...411420.00.html

Greenland growing colder. Studies of historical meteorological data show that temperatures in this northern polar region have been falling. Over the last 40 or 50 years there has been "statistically significant cooling, particularly in south-western coastal Greenland. Sea-surface temperatures in the Labrador Sea also fell. The studies were made by Dr. Edward Hanna, from the University of Plymouth, UK, and Dr. John Cappelen, of the Danish Meteorological Institute, and presented in the Journal of Geophysical Review Letters. BBC News. 11 March 2003.

http://news.bbc.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2840137.stm

Russia abandons Ice Station Vostok. Mar 4, 2003. For the first time ever, Russia is forced to abandon its base at Vostok. Due to heavier than usual pack ice, supply ships have been unable to reach their usual docking berths, leaving them unable to deliver fuel and supplies.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2818025.stm

Geologists Unexpectedly Find 100 Glaciers in Colorado (This article appeared in the Hawaii Tribune Herald on 7 Oct 2001, by Joseph B. Verrengia. AP-NY-10-04-01)

Geologists exploring Colorado's Rocky Mountain Park say they discovered more than 100 additional glaciers here in a single summer, said Verrengia.

Officials previously believed the park, which is 60 miles northwest of Denver, included 20 permanent ice and snow features, including six named glaciers. The new survey, conducted by geologist Jonathan Achuff, shows there are as many as 120 features.

"Comparisons with historical photos suggest that at least some of the glaciers are expanding," say park officials. "Subtle climate changes may be helping the formation of glaciers or at least reducing their retreat."

"Glaciers are barometers of climate change," researchers said. "The survey results here contradict global warming trends. While precipitation hasn't changed much, temperatures have been slightly cooler in the past several years."

``We're not running quite in synch with global warming here,'' park spokeswoman Judy Visty said.

Alaska's Hubbard Glacier surging. Yakutat, Alaska. July 15, 2002. Bulldozing a gravel moraine in front of it, the Hubbard Glacier is advancing so rapidly that has nearly cut off Russell Fiord from Disenchantment Bay. The resulting ice and gravel dam is cutting off the supply of salt water, turning Russell Fiord into Russell Lake, endangering the small fishing village of Yakutat.

Russell "Lake" is now rising at the rate of six inches a day as freshwater from snowmelt and rainfall continues pouring in. Once the lake level rises to about 130 feet, it will begin spilling over into the nearby Situk River basin, flooding the usually tranquil stream. This would all but destroy the world-class salmon and steelhead fishing in the area, and devastate Yakutat's economy.

The Hubbard Glacier, 73 miles long and 6 miles wide at the face, is the largest tidewater glacier in North America. See :

http://www.usgs.gov/public/press/pub...s/pr1597m.html

For real time water level readings at Russell Lake, see

http://waterdata.usgs.gov/ak/nwis/uv...agency_cd=USGS

Ice dam collapses, creating second largest glacial flood in historic times.

http://www.usgs.gov/public/press/pub...s/pr1638m.html

continued...

[Pale RIder]

...cointinued...

Satellites show overall increases in Antarctic Sea Ice Cover Around Antarctica. Claire Parkinson of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center found that sea ice seasons have lengthened by at least one day per year over an area of 2.16 million square miles (about 3/4 of the size of the continental United States). This is roughly twice as large as the area where sea ice seasons have shortened by at least one day per year.

Sea ice now covers the area for three weeks longer per year than it did 21 years ago. Annals of Glaciology, Aug 22, 2002 See also

http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/20...uthseaice.html

Melting glacier 'false alarm.' Aug 22, 2002. News Telegraph. Pictures claiming to show how man-made global warming has caused Arctic glaciers to retreat are at best misleading, says leading glaciologist.

The pictures, which compared the size of a glacier on Svalbard in 1918 with its size in 2002, included the warning that global warming caused by man-made greenhouse gases was causing Arctic glaciers to melt.

Those assertions are misleading at best, says Professor Ole Humlum, a leading Norwegian glaciologist. "That glacier had already disappeared in the early 1920s," says Humlum. "[It disappeared] as a result of a perfectly natural rise in temperature that had nothing to do with man-made global warming." See

http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/mai...17/wglac17.xml

Extreme cold over South Pole reveals global warming models are wrong. Auckland (AFP) Sep 10, 2002. A discovery that it is much colder over the South Pole than believed has exposed a major flaw in the computer models used to predict global warming.

Scientists based at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station have found that it is 36 to 54 degrees Fahrenheit (20 to 30 degrees C) colder than computer models showed.

The findings, by Chester Gardner, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Illinois, Weilin Pan, a doctoral student at Illinois, and Ray Roble of the US National Center for Atmospheric Research, published their findings in the American Geophysical Union Letters. See

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/02091....wq287cho.html

The facts simply don't support your claims Nono..

[Starboy]

Then there is this:

National Snow and Ice Data Center

Sure does look like a lot of glaciers and ice sheets are just melting away.

Starboy

[fushigi]

In fact, according to Vice-President Al Gore, cows farting are just as dangerous an impact on earth as humans. As humorous as that may sound, taxpayers spent millions and millions of dollars to fund the study that found that out.

Wrong. He never said that. Methane, or CH4, gases represent 19% of greenhouse gases, and the majority of that gas is emitted by cows. Gore may have claimed that cow emissions are part of the problem, but he never claimed that they were "just as dangerous". However, they are significant enough that they warrant research, even "millions and millions of dollars" of research, since the results of climate change could cost hundreds and hundreds of billions per year to manage.

I shudder to think of the people who mistake your insoucient, easily-digested claims for facts.

[Pale RIder]

Then there is this:

National Snow and Ice Data Center

Sure does look like a lot of glaciers and ice sheets are just melting away.

Starboy

Yeah..45% of them..but the other 55% are advancing...so what is your point? Who do you blame for the retreat of the glaciers that once covered North America all the way down to Texas...glaciers come and glaciers go...it is natural...

[Starboy]

Yeah..45% of them..but the other 55% are advancing...so what is your point? Who do you blame for the retreat of the glaciers that once covered North America all the way down to Texas...glaciers come and glaciers go...it is natural...

What other 55% percent are advancing? Are these glaciers advancing on all sides or only on one side as was originally found with the Greenland glacier? Also twenty years ago almost no glaciers were rapidly retreating. The fact that 45% of them are now rapidly retreating should be very alarming. Are you going to hold out until it is 100% percent? Is that the kind of person you are? Your house is not on fire until every bit of it is aflame?

Starboy

[Pale RIder]

What other 55% percent are advancing? Are these glaciers advancing on all sides or only on one side as was originally found with the Greenland glacier? Also twenty years ago almost no glaciers were rapidly retreating. The fact that 45% of them are now rapidly retreating should be very alarming. Are you going to hold out until it is 100% percent? Is that the kind of person you are? Your house is not on fire until every bit of it is aflame?

Starboy

Actually, I am the sort of person that looks at history, to see if this sort of thing has happened before prior to running out of my house in my skivvies screaming that the sky is about to fall. Perhaps we should all panic because the glaciers that once covered half the globe have retreated...

The earth is going to warm up...in fact, it is going to warm up to the point that no ice exists at all at either of the poles...the bulk of earth history has been just that warm...we are as powerless to have any effect on that cycle (either speeding it up, or slowing it down) as we would be to stop an earthquake, or a volcano, or a tsunami...the best we can to is figure out how we are to survive the coming long summer...