NSIDC’s Dr. Walt Meier answers reader questions on sea ice

16 10 2008

From Steve Goddard: Thanks again to Dr. Meier from NSIDC for answering questions, and for offering to do a follow-up.

From Anthony: Responses from Dr. Meier are in italics. I’ve added a poll that you can answer after reading this. Note this poll only allows one vote per IP address. So shared IP systems at offices will only get one vote.

From Dr. Meier: Thank you to Mr. Goddard for presenting this and the previous set of questions. And thank you to Mr. Watts for providing the outlet to publish these. I don’t hope to change the opinion of every climate change skeptic who reads my responses, but hopefully I can provide some useful for information. My answers here and to the previous round of questions are my own and I am speaking for myself, not as a representative of the National Snow and Ice Data Center or the University of Colorado. Thanks to Stephanie Renfrow, Ted Scambos, Mark Serreze, and Oliver Frauenfeld of NSIDC for their input.

One thing I noticed in the comments on my previous answers was a desire for references to peer-reviewed journals. I originally chose not because I didn’t realize there might be an interest and also because a few journal articles doesn’t substantiate human-induced global warming (nor do one or a few articles refute it). It is the preponderance of evidence presented in thousands of articles that provides the foundation for the human-induced global warming theory. Nonetheless, below I provide a few selected references for those that might be interested.

There were lots of good questions from readers, and I have synthesized some of them into a few short ones here for the sake of brevity. There is no question that late-summer Arctic ice extent has declined considerably since the early 1980s, and if the current trend continues linearly – the sea ice will disappear completely at some point in the not too distant future. Most of the questions were along the lines of “how do we know the trend is non-cyclical, and how do we know what is causing it?” Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : Science, sea ice

Obama to Declare Carbon Dioxide Dangerous Pollutant

16 10 2008

http://graphics.boston.com/resize/bonzai-fba/Globe_Photo/2008/08/04/1217904489_4931/539w.jpg

In my opinion, this is lunacy – Obama’s thinking is completely off the rails now. He cites a new energy plan in August, then cripples it from the start with this sort of thinking. – Anthony

From Bloomberg News: Obama to Declare Carbon Dioxide Dangerous Pollutant

Obama to Declare Carbon Dioxide Dangerous Pollutant (Update1)

By Jim Efstathiou Jr.  Last Updated: October 16, 2008 09:50 EDT

Oct. 16 (Bloomberg) — Barack Obama will classify carbon dioxide as a dangerous pollutant that can be regulated should he win the presidential election on Nov. 4, opening the way for new rules on greenhouse gas emissions.

The Democratic senator from Illinois will tell the Environmental Protection Agency that it may use the 1990 Clean Air Act to set emissions limits on power plants and manufacturers, his energy adviser, Jason Grumet, said in an interview. President George W. Bush declined to curb CO2 emissions under the law even after the Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that the government may do so.

If elected, Obama would be the first president to group emissions blamed for global warming into a category of pollutants that includes lead and carbon monoxide. Obama’s rival in the presidential race, Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona, has not said how he would treat CO2 under the act.

Obama “would initiate those rulemakings,” Grumet said in an Oct. 6 interview in Boston. “He’s not going to insert political judgments to interrupt the recommendations of the scientific efforts.”

Placing heat-trapping pollutants in the same category as ozone may lead to caps on power-plant emissions and force utilities to use the most expensive systems to curb pollution. The move may halt construction plans on as many as half of the 130 proposed new U.S. coal plants. Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : politics