Those darn pesky satellites!

[Elevenator]

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

Take note this is NOT a blog for "sheeple". It is the official website for the National Sea Ice Data Center. A friend of mine (Ph.D. Meterorology) pointed this out to me yesterday.

If this article makes your head hurt....go ---------> here for relief.

[Wildkat]

So are you trying to say that there really is NO global warming?

Did I miss the point? It IS still early and I'm prone to mistakes...

man! it's a good thing MAXIMAN isn't around to read this... He'd have a field day...

[Elevenator]

Oh no Katy. It is irrefutable geologic fact the earth has been warming now for roughly 20,000 years. Climate change is as old as the earth itself (4.5 billion). The question is the cause.

If you have the answer pray tell divulge the information so the mysteries of the universe can be unlocked.

[Wildkat]

Why the answer to that question is of course...

natural gas... as long as we don't fluff the covers... we'll be fine...

[Elevenator]

natural gas... as long as we don't fluff the covers... we'll be fine...

Yeah.............right.

[Wildkat]

What? You doubt this?




Okay... how about... temps vary... cycle... There have already been periods of intense heat and intense cold... Why shouldn't there be again?

Do I think humans help in this process? I suppose it's possible... lots of politicians providing plenty of hot air...

Now ask me if I think we're poisoning our environment... and my answer might be different...

[Pat Kelly]

I wonder if they were panicking about global warming 20,000 years ago when the ice sheet in France got to less than 2 miles thick?

[Crazcnuk]

If you go back several hundred million years, the trend has been global cooling.


These minor shifts, over 20-30,000 years are nothing.

[Toolmaker Tim]

Climate Change

If you have spare time, read "Catastrophe" by David Keys. It describes a global weather changing event that is repeatable. In a nutshell it describes how a large volcanic eruption changed the climate in 525 AD, and how it affected the direction of history.

[Elevenator]

I suppose it's possible... lots of politicians providing plenty of hot air...

Now ask me if I think we're poisoning our environment... and my answer might be different...

No doubt. man should be doing everything reasonable to minmize pollution. However if CO2 is pollution we are all in deep s.... because everytime we exhale... you get it.

Hey I got an idea! If we could build a wind farm on the mall in DC the hot air coming off the hill would power the eastern seaboard for as long as we kept electing blowhards to congress. And prospects of the recurring are very bright!

[Elevenator]

If you have spare time, read "Catastrophe" by David Keys. It describes a global weather changing event that is repeatable. In a nutshell it describes how a large volcanic eruption changed the climate in 525 AD, and how it affected the direction of history.

Indeed ... this has been a recurring phenomenon through out earths long and well established history.

There have only been three...possibly four major ice ages in the past 550 million years. Of that period these ice ages consumed maybe 50 million years. The remaining 500 million years there was no polar ice....none...zilch...nada. It is quite normal for the earth's climate to be balmy...very balmy. This is plainly observed by a huge body of evidence located a mere 700 miles from the north pole...the Fossil Forest of Axel Hieberg Island. At 85 degrees north latitude there is ancient remnant of a subtropical forest that dates back to the mid Tertiary...roughly 45 million YBP. ths fossil forest is an ecosystem similar to that found in the SE USA. We have even found the remains of a champosaur in the stratum...champosaurus was similar to a crocodile. Just an FYI here...there's no such thing as an "ice gator".

The latest Ice Age began about 2 million years ago...you should remember this from Junior High School. It is commonly referred to as the Great Ice Age. The Pleistocene technically ended about 15 or 20,000 years ago whenthe ice retreated from the plains deep into present day Canada. At that time Manhattan was covered in 300 meters of ice!

Most geoscientists recognize now that the ice age is far from over. We are still in it. The ice has simply gone into remission. We are currently in a glacial hiatus known as an interglacial period. And yes the earth warms up during interglaciation.

In the past 2 million years there were approximately 2 dozen of these interglacials where the ice would retreat from south to north as far as 1000 km. They would last anywhere from 10,000 to upwards of 50,000 years. But then ultimately glaciation would again return with a vengance and the permanent ice would transgress southward.

Many geoscientists including myself believe this hiatus we are currently living in may be nearing a close. If this turns out to be the case we are ... geological speaking...just a few days away from a disasterously cold shift in weather and subsequent climate....the likes of which the earth has not seen in 20 thousand years.

You had better pray to the geo-gods that this global warming (ie interglaciation) stays around awhile. It is not a matter of "IF" but "when" the earth cycles back into glaciation. And when it does the people of this planet will be in dire straits.

Chin up though...we could be skiing in TEXAS!

[trbig]

Chin up though...we could be skiing in TEXAS!

Yeah.. in all those mountains they have. Cross country skiing sucks. lol.

[DiverRay]

Kat said:

man! it's a good thing MAXIMAN isn't around to read this... He'd have a field day...

Well, I DID get an email from a person named Cody about this very subject yesterday. As Maximan is/was a "rockhead", Think he may know???

[Crazcnuk]

If you think about it, the ultimate trend is cooling. After a few billion years, this planet should be a big cold rock.

The only thing that keeps us warm, at all, is the balance between the solar radiation (sun) and the geothermal energy being released as the planet shrinks.

Earth is a big ball of molten rock with a very thin shell around it. As it cools it shrinks, thus causing tectonic plate shifts, and mountain range growth. Along with new mountains comes new volcanoes as well.

In the short term the weather can be affected by CO2, but nature makes far more of it than we do. The effect does not CHANGE the weather, just intensifies it.

Many major global changes have occured over the hundreds of millions of years, that we know a little about.

Meteor strikes, Volcanic activity, CO2 from the oceans, etc all contribute to 'slight' weather changes that cover thousands of years.

In the long term, all the heat will eventually go out into space and stay there. In the meantime long term changes come from our orbit decaying around the sun, geothermal losses, changes in the core temperature after shifts in planet size (shrinking) etc.

It's only our own swollen ego that makes us believe we have much to do with it at all.

[81xsproject]

In recent news, the vertibrae of a huge boa was found that has thrown another wrench into the gears. It seems that a reptile of that size would not have been able to survive at temperatures as low as what scientists THOUGHT the tropical max temp could be. It was previously thought that the tropics could only get so hot. Check it out