Global Warming causing Cannibalism

24 09 2008

by John Goetz

OK, I know the catchy headline and picture of Hannibal Lecter got you worrying a little about that neighbor of yours who is stocking up on fava beans and chianti. But the headline is misleading, as is this one posted yesterday (September 23) at cnn.com:

Polar bears resort to cannibalism as Arctic ice shrinks

By Marsha Walton, CNN

I was looking for a good, sensational read. I really thought the article would be about the many ways in which global warming was causing cannibalism amongst polar bears in the arctic. I searched for the heart-wrenching stories about how increasing temperatures forced mom to bop pops on the head when he was not looking and toss daddy-kibble to the kids to keep them from starving to death. Instead, the story began as follows:

Summer is over in the northern hemisphere, but it’s been another chilling season for researchers who study Arctic sea ice.

“It’s definitely a bad report. We did pick up little bit from last year, but this is over 30 percent below what used to be normal,” said Walt Meier, a research scientist with the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado.

This past summer, the Arctic sea ice dwindled to its second lowest level. Arctic sea ice is usually 1 to 3 meters, or as much as 9 feet thick. It grows during autumn and winter and shrinks in the spring and summer.

Scientists have monitored sea ice conditions for about 50 years with the help of satellites. Changes in the past decade have been alarming to climate researchers and oceanographers.

“It is the second lowest on record. … If anything, it is reinforcing the long-term trend. We are still losing the ice cover at a rate of 10 percent per decade now, and that is quite an increase from five years ago,” Meier said. “We are still heading toward an ice cover that is going to melt completely in the summertime in the Arctic.”

Huh? This was not at all what I expected. Where was the blood and gore?

Then I noticed something in the upper left part of the page. Those rascals at CNN got me again! Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 74 Comments »

Categories : climate_change, ridiculae

Rubber Duckie

24 09 2008

by John Goetz

Rubber Duckie, you’re the one,
You make bathtime lots of fun,
Rubber Duckie, I’m awfully fond of you;

Woo woo be doo

From the Sydney (Australia) Morning Herald:

NASA uses rubber ducks to fight global warming

September 23, 2008 – 10:27AM

Rubber ducks are the latest weapons in the fight against global warming, according to NASA.

NASA scientists have dropped 90 of the ducks into holes in the Jakobshavn glacier – Greenland’s fastest moving glacier – in a bid to understand why glaciers speed up in the summer in their march to the sea.

The toys have been labelled [sic] “science experiment” and “reward” in three languages, and carry an email address.

The ducks, if found by someone who emails NASA about their discovery, could tell scientists how melting water moves through ice, Alberto Behar of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, said.

“It’s a beautiful place to visit. You can watch these icebergs continuously march across and fall into the ocean,” Mr Behar said.

“Right now it’s not understood what causes the glaciers themselves to surge in the summer.”

That’s where the rubber ducks come in, along with a probe about the size of a football loaded with a GPS transmitter and instruments that can tell much about the glacier’s innards.

Mr Behar said he hoped a fisherman or hunter might find a duck or the probe but so far nothing had turned up.

Perhaps the reason glaciers “speed up in the summer” is because it is warmer in the summer and ice melts faster when it is warmer and water under ice helps reduce friction, thereby improving speed?

Just guessing.


Comments : 54 Comments »

Categories : climate_change, fun_stuff, ridiculae