NASA’s updated data appears to suggest the annual rate of global polar ice loss has actually decreased
Greenland’s Riviera – their green southwest. Will another Maunder minimum
grip the region in cages of ice again, or will bells ring in the portside squares,
as they did in the 1300’s before that cooling came, and ships sailed the fiords?
(Source: NASA)
Excerpt:
Washington Post correspondant Juliet Eilperin, in her 12-26-08 report entitled “New climate change estimates more pessimistic,” dutifully surveys the latest bleak findings of the climate change community. Her primary source is a recently released survey comissioned by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program – expanding on the findings of the 2007 4th IPPC Report on Climate Change. Apparently this “new assessment suggests that earlier projections may have underestimated the climatic shifts that could take place by 2100.” One of Eilperin’s primary examples of alarming new data is reported as follows:
“In one of the reports most worrisome findings, the agency estimates that in light of recent ice sheet melting, global sea level rise could be as much as 4 feet by 2100. The IPCC had projected a sea level rise of no more than 1.5 feet by that time, but satellite data over the past two years show the world’s major ice sheets are melting much more rapidly than previously thought. The Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets are now losing an average of 48 cubic miles of ice a year, equivalent to twice the amount of ice that exists in the Alps.”
Three years ago what NASA quantified as an alarming loss of annual ice loss from Greenland was easily demonstrated at that time to be an insignificant loss, and today NASA’s updated data appears to suggest the annual rate of global polar ice loss has actually decreased since then.
http://ecoworld.com/blog/2008/12/26/pessimistic-reporting-optimistic-data/
“Keep in mind that, during summer, albedo is very much a factor given the increased soot over the arctic these days.”
Yeah, thanks for that pointer Mike, here’s another ref I found after googling:
http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/HansenNazarenko2004.pdf
from way back (relatively speaking) in 2003. And it is something that I would believe – even though James Hansen could be Public Enemy no 1 on this website.
Seems then that renewable energy may be a good thing as soot may be a bigger villain in the piece than CO2 including to our health. That is unless we can clean up global power stations to make them soot free to the atmosphere.
david:
I doubt it. Got a cite for that?
Vanuatu and Tuvalu are only two feet above sea level. If there was any danger of their becoming inundated by a rising sea level, Al Gore would be hyperventilating in front of every camera and microphone, and the UN/IPCC would be screaming “Consensus!!” The fact that they don’t mention those islands tells you all you need to know.
On another site, they talk about the loss of corn that the US produces to feed the world. …, yet they never think that the corn could be grown further north (i.e. southern Canada)
Corn is grown in large quantities in southern Canada.
And while we think of corn as a mid-western crop, New York is the second highest corn producing US state.
David: “Why not commit to providing insurance for people who run the risk of displacement?”
When all else fails, whip out the “Precautionary Principle”.
How much are the premiums on this insurance?
Smokey is right. One of Al Gore’s many exposed errors was his claim that Tuvalu people had already been evacuated to NZ. Completely false.
King of Cool (17:27:32) :
‘Seems then that renewable energy may be a good thing as soot may be a bigger villain in the piece than CO2 including to our health. That is unless we can clean up global power stations to make them soot free to the atmosphere.’
Why not clean up cool fired power plants and remove the soot before it gets into the atmosphere? It would cost less
Soot is a real eviromental issue, not CO2
The way coal is mined is an eviromental isssue, not CO2.
The toxic gases from exhaust pipe is an evriomental issue, not CO2
If you are using CO2 as ameam to justify the end then you are no better than Enron, IGA and now we can add Mr. Madoff to the list.
40 cubic miles a year of ice?
It is estimated that 600 to 1000 cubic km of ground water is removed, and added to the hydrosphere, by human use, EVERY YEAR.
My calculation is that the use of ground water could add 1-2 mm/year to ocean level rise.
David,
Why don’t the people on those islands move uphill a little? That is what happened on Vanuatu when land subsidence made their previous home untenable. David, when my house flooded the third time I moved. It is called adaptation. Everyone does it including the people of Vanuatu. If you don’t learn what things are within your sphere of influence, you will have a very frustrating life.
ameam = a means
a 5cm increase in earth radius = a volume increase of ~25,500 cubic kilometers
4*pi*6378.137*6378.137(surface area)*.00005(5cm) = 25560.39 km^3
That equals 6240 square miles using 70% as the ocean surface area
you get 4368 cubic miles
over a century that would be 43.68 cubic miles a year
a 5cm increase in earth radius = a volume increase of ~25,500 cubic kilometers
4*pi*6378.137*6378.137(surface area)*.00005(5cm) = 25560.39 km^3
That equals 6240 cubic (correction) miles using 70% as the ocean surface area
you get 4368 cubic miles
over a century that would be 43.68 cubic miles a year
Florida was once mostly underwater, and probably will be so again sometime in the future. Sea levels rise and fall, shorelines change, erosion takes place followed by replenishment followed by erosion. Those species that adapt survive, those that don’t , don’t. It is more logical to spend time and money adapting than trying to prevent. We know how to adapt, we certainly don’t know how to prevent or, more importantly, what to prevent.
As I read hrough this thread my mind keeps going back to:
7F warmer… and it was a very prosperous time for mankind.
“If we go back really, in recorded human history, in the 13th Century, we were probably 7 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than we are now and it was a very prosperous time for mankind,” Lehr said. “If (we) go back to the Revolutionary War 300 years ago, it was very, very cold. We’ve been warming out of that cold spell from the Revolutionary War period and now we’re back into a cooling cycle.”
CNN Meteorologist: Manmade Global Warming Theory ‘Arrogant’
Network’s second meteorologist to challenge notion man can alter climate.
By Jeff Poor
david:
Already people have been displaced from small atolls in eastern PNG, Tuvala [sic] and northern Vanuatu.
People are not being ‘displaced from Tuvalu because the ocean is rising. Tuvalu is sinking (and yes, there is a difference) due to excavation on the island
Australia’s National Tidal Facility (NTF) has had a monitoring station in Tuvalu since 1993 and over the last nine years, the sea level around Tuvalu had risen an average of 0.9 millimeters per year — that’s 0.03 inches per year or a grand total of .27 inches since 1993.
http://www.skepticism.net/articles/2002/tuvalu-is-not-sinking/
http://nzclimatescience.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=14&Itemid=1
What’s happening is that the leadership of Tuvalu is jumping on the ‘Help us we’re sinking due to global warming’ bandwagon in hopes of gaining aid money from surrounding countries.
Kum
The seed companies are testing and developing new lines of corn,soybean and wheat all the time. Which ever variety does the best in field trials is what we farmers plant. A simple answer is that farmers will be planting varities that respond well to conditions in the previous 5 -7 years. Corn is a c-4 plant meaning it does best in warm weather and it responds to addotional CO2. The trend yield has been going up over the last several years because of improved farming techniques and improved varities.Monsanto is releasing new varities of soybeans with 7-10% improved yields. Better yields because of improved breeding techniques.
Weather during the growing season is the big concern. Will it be dry enought to plant the crop. Will it rain enough to grow the crop during the summer and finally will the harvest season be open to allow a timely harvest.
A simple answer crop yield is affected by the quality of the land it is grown on,Seed variety selection, Skill of the farmer and the level of inputs he is willing to use. Weather/climate is another factor.
One Missouri soybean producer is gettin soybean yields over 130 bu per acre by using improved techniques . The state average is 50 bu per acre.
Weather is just one of several factors affecting crop yields.
Smokey (18:03:30) :
Wikipedia says five meters (at the highest, I guess), and that the Maldives are lower. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuvalu
1.2 mm/year, and that rate is decreasing, IIRC.
This is amusing. One of the dings on Gore’s “Truth” by British courts is at
http://inel.wordpress.com/2007/10/15/context-context-context-ait-in-general-and-tuvalu-in-particular/
In a 2002 UN speech, the Governor General of Tuvalu claimed “Indeed our people are already migrating to escape, and are already suffering from the consequences of what world authorities on climate change have consistently been warning us. Only two weeks ago, a period when the weather was normal and calm and at low tide, unusually big waves suddenly crashed ashore and flooded most part of the capital island.”
Speaking of context-context-context, that page is actually a pro-Gore page.
At any rate, while there are evacuation plans or at least negotiations, I didn’t see anything about executed evacuations, especially not for accelerated sea level rise due to humans. It would be nice if people did a little more research before posting such claims.
david:
“Already people have been displaced from small atolls in eastern PNG, Tuvala [sic] and northern Vanuatu.”
It is disheartening to see that so many people do not have the record right about Tuvalu and Vanuatu.
Yes, there have been some problems with erosion from recent cyclones and salt water intrusion on Tuvalu. It seems that Japanese-owned pineapple plantations have extracted too much freshwater from the ground, causing an inflow of sea water and destruction of the underground freshwater reservoirs.
Also, mining has lowered the land surface levels and allowed high tides to swamp more land.
There are many scientists who are trying to provide education on the real problems on these islands, but MSM is apparently not intrested.
Here is one citation worth reading, (but others are also available):
http://www.climatechangefacts.info/ClimateChangeDocuments/NilsAxelMornerinterview.pdf
david (14:03:43) :
Already people have been displaced from small atolls in eastern PNG, Tuvala and northern Vanuatu. Can we prove these were due to sea level rise – of course not – but with 20-30cm of rise so far and atolls which are like table tops it’s certainly played a part.
One thing I’m certain of is that coral will continue compacting under pressure of human presence and use, and dissolve in sea water. The only way to protect atolls is to make sure the coral that build them stay alive to enlarge the atoll. Coral die after prolonged exposure out of sea water, so any atoll much higher than sea level was built up when seas were higher or had no human presence to compact them. If atolls are disappearing under water, that to me means there’s too much weight on the atoll, or the sea is returning to the levels that produced the top of the atoll.
You want to help those people living on the atolls? Help make them prosperous by not supporting carbon taxes and the like. Encourage cheap energy; don’t encourage expensive gas just so the “greener” alternatives become cost-effective. Then maybe they can afford to build a dike around their atoll or move elsewhere. Adaptation, not mitigation.
david:
Already people have been displaced from small atolls in eastern PNG, Tuvala [sic] and northern Vanuatu.
Of course you are refering to some of the most geologically active areas in the world. There have been many mag 6+ events in that area in the last year alone.
Vanuatu is host to some of the world’s most active volcanoes. If any of these areas slip beneath the sea level it wont be due to any perceived rise in sea level by alleged AGW.
Australia’s maligned C.S.I.R.O. has been studying sea levels in Tuvalu for many years. They are careful to only quote level rise in the last few years in their AGW propaganda. If you get the whole study back to the late eighties early nineties you will see some surprises compared to todays levels.
to David:
On the issue of being cavalier: That is not the word that was used, but it probably does capture the essence how many of my opponents would have described me through the years. They said I was too “cavalier” about Y2K, but I did not waste any resources preparing for catastrophe, and I saw too many organization waste precious investment dollars on Y2K. They said I was too “cavalier” about the stodgy Californian electric utilities, but I maintained that the “reform” in deregulation / re-regulation was a recipe for soaring prices, shortages and manipulation. They said I was too “cavalier” about WMD in Iraq, but I feared the cure might be worse than the problem. (One thing on which I was not cavalier — I feared there would be big problems stemming from excessive loans in the subprime area – though I never saw problems this huge. However, I was called a racist and a bigot for being concerned about those loans.)
We must consider unintended consequences before we take “insurance” steps, and so much of what I see in the AGW movement suggests that we would waste money, harm the common people, and damage the environment with many – if not most – of AGW proposals.
Sure is an awful lot of Coronal Hole these days:
http://www.solen.info/solar/
Scroll down 3/4 of the way to the bottom and check out the latest Active Regions for Dec 28 SOHO/MDI.
Thank you, Paminator! I used to collect old Department of Agriculture Yearbooks from the late 1800s-early 1900s as well as old farming manuals from the local used bookstores before they cost a fortune! Now that so many of the old explorers’ books are now online, I like to browse their writings and see the area through their eyes, as it were. The shrinking of the Florida citrus area, however, is something that I have personally witnessed.(Disclaimer: Okay, I haven’t personally witnessed the freezes of 1865 and 1895).
Norm:
On another site, they talk about the loss of corn that the US produces to feed the world. They talk about the over-wintering of ear worms, yet they never think that the corn could be grown further north (i.e. southern Canada) and that the wheat grown there would move further north as well, meaning no loss of corn or wheat with the potential for more year round crops in the mid-US, which means a net increase in food for the world. Something that will be drastically necessary to feed the worlds ever growing population.
Good points all. Again, living in Florida, I have to point out that the warm states are a large producer of cold-weather crops even though the temperatures are far too hot in the summer to produce anything besides varieties of cow peas and okra. It’s simple. We don’t grow them in the summer. We grow ’em in the spring, fall, and/or winter, depending on our location in Florida (or Arizona, etc.)
From the Weekly Weather and Crop Bulletin for December 23, 2008 from the USDA:
In Arizona, cotton was 85 percent harvested and alfalfa harvest continued. Arizona’s producers were harvesting multiple vegetables and cantaloupe.
Florida’s warm, dry weather allowed for land preparations in potato and watermelon fields, and harvest of vegetables to meet holiday demands. Sugarcane harvest was ongoing and citrus was in fair
to good condition statewide, as frequent irrigation was
necessary due to the lack of precipitation. Florida’s citrus harvest was ahead of the previous year, and producers were fertilizing, cleaning groves, hedging, spraying for pests, and preparing for further harvest activities.
Tuvalunacy? Also worth reading:
http://inside.org.au/tuvalunacy-or-the-real-thing/
Stern has previously provided estimates of people at risk.
How about that collective underwriting of the risks faced by even just one little country. It’s easy being a “sceptic” when there are no consequences for being wrong.
Speaking of Stern, relative risks, underwriting, and comparative loss, you might want to consider the following:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/22/global_warming_mitigation_vs_adaptation/
While we are rightly bludgeoning the media for its complicity in hoodwinking society about the ‘global warming threat,’ let us take a moment to pause and remember this:
If the public ever really comes to understand and accept, regardless of the propaganda, that AGW is a farce, we will be witness to one of the largest breaks in trust between the public and the media, and between the public and the scientific community, that we have ever seen. If they ever come to such a realization, the impact will be Watergate-like. And in all reality, given what is at stake, and how the AGW crowd has been acting (i.e., with near complete duplicity) that is exactly how it should be. But the toll will be a high one to pay. The media, for all its faults, and science, for all of its faults as well, are two publicly recognizable modern institutions. That is to say, they do not have roots, like say the Church, back into antiquity or really much before the eighteenth or nineteenth century. They form a very important part of our society today, and what the damage to them from this scandal – for scandal it is – will be is unthinkable.