From WOOD-TV, Grand Rapids, MI
Chief Meteorologist Bill Steffen has been a familiar face in West Michigan since 1975.MSNBC needs to read Bill’s Blog
MSNBC is running a four-part series entitled Future Earth. On their website they say you can “find out why Earth’s climate machine — the North Pole — is melting alarmingly fast. Learn about our planet’s future, and how you can stop its decline.”
First, the North Pole is not “Earth’s Climate Machine”. There is far more heat and area in the Tropics than at the North Pole.
Second, YOU can’t stop it’s decline (assuming it’s declining)! Nature is big – you personally are insignificant compared to nature. Don’t you wish you had the power to control icecaps! If you don’t mind some profanity, check out George Carlin’s take on “Saving the Planet”.
Third, MSNBC does not know “our planet’s future”. The scenario they portray in this piece is about as remote a possibility in the near future (and more than likely the very far future) as the Lions going 16-0 next season. The Antarctic icecap (which is much bigger than the Arctic icecap) has been growing. In Sept. 1979 (first year of satellite data) the Antarctic icecap was 18.4 million sq. km. In Sept. 2008, the Antarctic icecap was at 19.2 million sq. km. That’s a 30-year trend.
By comparison, Michigan is 151,586 sq. km, so that’s an increase in icecover of over five times the area of Michigan. MSNBC could instead be doing a story on the trend of cooling in Antarctica and possible falling sea levels due to ice accumulation in Antarctica. Keep in mind that if the Polar icecap (without Greenland) melted…it would hardly cause sea level to rise, because the icecap is currently displacing water in the Arctic Ocean. The Antarctic icecap is over a land continent, not floating over an ocean. Significant ice accumulation over the land of Antarctica would cause sea level to fall. The Arctic icecap did decrease significantly (yes, very significantly) from 1979 to 2007. To do a fair piece on Arctic ice…MSNBC or anyone would have to note this. However, to also be fair…they should also tell what’s been going on in the Arctic since 2007.
Please, CHECK OUT THIS GRAPH from the National Snow and Ice Data Center. Note that the current icecap has grown significantly and is now much closer to the 1979-2000 average than it is to the low level of 2007. There are meteorological reasons for this increase (PDO – Pacific Decadal Oscillation going negative, etc.) that have nothing to do with CO2. Some scientists predicted there would be no icecap this summer. It’ll actually be bigger than last summer. Al Gore predicted last year that “the icecap will be gone in five years!”. I would be willing to not only bet Al Gore but also give him 100 to one odds that there will still be a polar ice cap in 2013. One last point, MSNBC is owned by General Electric. GE is already making money off the issue with their Carbon Credit Master Card (link from “Treehugger”, no less).
Here’s CNN’s story on the new credit card. Interesting note: In the fourth quarter of 2008 as GE/NBC stock fell 30 percent, GE spent $4.26 million on lobbying — that’s $46,304 each day, including weekends, Thanksgiving and Christmas. In 2008, the company spent a grand total of $18.66 million on lobbying.” Reviewing their lobbying filings, GE’s specific lobbying issues included the “Climate Stewardship Act,” “Electric Utility Cap and Trade Act,” “Global Warming Reduction Act,” “Federal Government Greenhouse Gas Registry Act,” “Low Carbon Economy Act,” and “Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act.” Do you think this “big business” is just concerned about the environment?
Well, check out this column from the Politico, which says: “Several of the companies would gain a commercial advantage after a cap and trade was established. General Electric has an “ecoimagination” line of green appliances and equipment. Robert Stavins, a professor of business and government at Harvard University, said a cap and trade program would be fantastic for GE and other companies that sell products that consume power. He said that if energy costs go up as a result of the regulation — something he believes is likely — a wide array of products from appliances to power plants would become prematurely obsolete and need to be replaced with greener models.” That would mean big money for GE (parent company of NBC and MSNBC). Take a moment and read my previous post on polar ice…check out the graphs and charts…they speak for themselves.
ONE LAST ADD: Check out this website with pictures of submarines in open water at the North Pole. Also: The Weather Channel is now owned by NBC, so they will have a similar policy.
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I don’t think Mr. Steffen’s comments about the benefits of cap and trade legislation to GE’s bottom line go nearly far enough. Considering that a 1 GW coal fired plant would have to be replaced with 4 GW of wind turbines (to account for the different load factors) and would also have to be backed up with another GW of gas turbines for when the wind dies, plus load variation would have to be managed through a smart grid, there is a lot of hardware to be sold. Additionally, GE financial will be marketing the carbon credits in this fiasco. GE is seeing green with their ecomagination all right. It’s just not the leaves on the trees, its to dollars in our wallets.
It would be interesting to see that same ice extent plot with the full-satellite-data-period record instead of 1979-2000.
Sort of OT. I’ve just read this explanation by Barry Brooke on BraveNewClimate.com about why the Antarctic ice is expanding so it must be true isn’t it?
“This is a common source of confusion among climate change sceptics. As the world warms, the atmosphere’s ability to hold water vapour increases. Think of how humid it is in the tropics, and how dry the Arctic air is. The largest desert on Earth is the continent of Antarctica — it receives very little annual precipitation. In a warming world, more water vapour allows for more snowfall in Antarctica, which accumulates particularly in East Antarctica where the temperature never rises above freezing point. So, ice accumulates on that side of the continent. In the Antarctic Peninsula and West Antarctica, this extra accumulation of snow is more than offset by summer surface melt.
Also, as the sea warms around the continent, especially in the most northerly parts of the continent (Antarctic Peninsula) large ice shelves are eroded from beneath, and the frequency with which they break up starts to accelerate. This melting of buttressing ice shelves unplugs the land-based glaciers, and they begin to flow into the sea more rapidly. As such, there is a large net loss of ice from the western half of the continent, and a slight gain in the eastern half. More sea ice builds up around the continent because as the surface waters warm, the ocean becomes more stratified (it ‘turns over’ less readily). Less ocean heat is brought up from below. So it’s a battle between the negative effect of increased surface melt of sea ice, and the positive effect of more snowfall and decreased in melting from below, both of which reinforce sea ice formation. The result — a steady state or slight increase in the amount of floating ice around the great southern continent.
Another meteorologist goes off the reservation. And this one plays dirty as he remembers the dictum to follow the money. That’s what happens when you have people thinking for themselves. They just don’t roll over and play nice. For shame!
In the mean time, and this will probably just be a brief moment, Arctic sea ice levels continue to hold at their high levels, above those of 2003. Must have something to do with the higher than normal levels of ice still in the Bering Sea. That darn sea ice just refuses to cooperate and melt on schedule.
How can GE make money on this imaginary crisis if nature keeps on refusing to adhere to the schedule laid out by the models?
And that durn sun with its monthly sunspeck or two that lasts a few hours. If it doesn’t get with the program things could start to get mighty cold around here.
How can the brilliant Waxman and his colleagues run the country if all these things keep running out of control? It’s positively outrageous.
All I have to say is, thank you Mother Nature for smacking down all these pompous fools and their presumptive arrogance.
If you look at this graph it sure looks to me like there is one heck of a lot more ice in the Arctic today than there was this day last year. If you draw a vertical line from the end of the red line to the orange line, that is quite a bit of difference. And as there is more 2yo ice this year than last, ice this year should be more robust in the face of summer conditions, all things being equal. Of course winds could change things in a hurry but so far it looks like the second year running of increased ice in the Arctic to me.
Oklahoma’s most famous weathercaster, Gary England, has also come out
firmly against the warmists. He clearly understands the sunspot connection.
(I was very happy to see England on the side of truth; he’s a real hero
in Oklahoma, having devoted his long career to educating the public
and the media about tornado safety.)
He’s quoted here:
http://www.enidnews.com/archivesearch/local_story_101232610.html
Give Chief Meteorologist Bill Steffen an award. Well done!
MSNBC must have Henry Waxman as their chief science adviser:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/04/26/quote-of-the-week-5-waxmans-stunningly-stupid-statement/
I have never understood why some people put so much emphasis on the ice that forms in the Arctic Ocean. WUWT has had several threads on this issue and no one has offered an explanation. In all cases when the issue of an “ice free” Arctic is raised, my thought is “So what? Like a bad weed, it keeps coming back”
Latest WUWT thread: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/04/26/ice-at-the-north-pole-in-1958-not-so-thick/
Good post, and close to home.
WOOD-TV, Grand Rapids, MI
He can say it here with snow banks still visible!
AGW Falling into the cracks of the ice.
you can quote that ! lol
Don’t forget GE is making the generators for T Boone Pickens’ wind turbine farms he’s building with ‘pickens plan’. GE owns the big media lock stock and barrel. AGW is a big scam by Pickens and GE. What is funnier is Pickens is also shilling the Peak Oil scam at the same time, even though it directly contradicts the predictions of the IPCC that depend on us burning ten times more oil than the Peak Oilers say is in the ground…. the irony of all the corruption is simply delicious.
o/t One of my must-reads of the newspaper world, KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL of the WSJ, has written an interesting report on Congressman Henry Waxman, the Energy and Commerce committee chair, and the bill they are working on to save the Earth.
Strassel’s article is titled “Global Warming Overreach.” Here:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124052841876150301.html
I happen to know that George Carlin quote. Just remember: he says the planet will be fine, but WE’LL be screwed.
Just keep forwarding them the graphs from the NSIDC. The global ice is growing. We just need to hang on…and keep letting them find excuses to explain why the ice is growing…
Patience..
Swine Flu is the business of the day today. AGW will come back in 2 weeks after the Arctic 2008/2009 data comes out showing the increased ice.
“MSNBC–the North Pole — is melting alarmingly fast.”
Did MSNBC look at JAXA today…or ever? I don’t think they did and I don’t think they will.
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
2009 is behind 2008 —strong!
Anthony:
Could you take a moment and read this article in the Peninsula Clarion from Kenai/Soldatna AK http://www.peninsulaclarion.com/stories/042409/out_291156854.shtml
These guys are looking at soil berms on the SW side of lakes caused by wind driven ice pushing up lake sediments and surface soil into lee side berms. And they have had them dated to as much as 5,200 years vi C14.
They also note that they are looking at no-outlet lakes and note that water levels appear to have fallen as much as 24′.
If memory serves, the paper has a weekly article from the Kenai Nat’l Moose Range staff, so more info may be available.
Anyway, cool summers and lots of snow and rain (sort of like last summer, likely this one,) could explain a lot of their observations. Over to you.
Barry Brooke calling the Western side of Antarctica a “half” is incorrect. The large majority of the mass and increasing ice is the Eastern side of Antarctica, which is a lot bigger than a half. Looks more like three fourths.
“GE Launches Carbon Offsetting Credit Card”
Speaking of credit cards…
There is ~$5 trillion in total credit limit on all credit cards in he US. But, only ~$8 billion is on those cards. Americans aren’t so hot to max out their cards anymore. GE may not get very far off the ground with this new card—debt ain’t so pretty lately.
Also, I can see GE is trying to cash in on Global Warming too with this card.
AGW—gosh, it’s all about money, isn’t it.
GE is the new Dupont, with CO2 tag teaming Freon.
REF: http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/blackstock5.html
Interpretation: GE wants to make $$$ from the “control of CO2”. It’s not about saving the environment, planet earth, civilization, humanity, or whatever – it’s the profit motive in all it’s glory.
Nothing wrong with making a profit – but does it have to be at the expense of the US Consumer who is being (will be) legally blocked from purchasing cheaper, more reliable, fossil fuel power.
The match up between GE and Duponts tactics (see Ref) is pretty much spot on. Use the legal system to outlaw your competition, achieve monopoly prices, sh@f#t the end consumer, and lock in mega-profits for a generation.
Don’t you just love the naive environmentalists who just don’t get it.
If Barry Brooke of Bravenewclimate.com claims that the sea around Antartica is warming, where is his evidence? What about the record level of sea ice? This can’t be explained by glacier runoff. The reason there is more ice is simple, the sea is colder and freezes more readily. Is there any other explanation of the facts?
Today another SC23 sunspot , or maybe a early SC25, or possible the cycle is now broken completely. If the cycle is broken then sunspots would appear randomly, which appears to be the case.
“This is a common source of confusion among climate change sceptics. As the world warms, the atmosphere’s ability to hold water vapour increases. Think of how humid it is in the tropics, and how dry the Arctic air is. The largest desert on Earth is the continent of Antarctica”
This is a common “bait and switch” tactic used to obsfucate an issue. You first speak generally about how as “the world warms” more water vapor can be held in the air and therefore cause more preciptation. You then use this generality to explain away data of growing ice cover at a specific location pretty central to the notion that CO2 is warming the planet (being so cold and dry, CO2 should be at it’s most potent in Antarctica) Of course, nowhere in this rebuttal is an actual assertion that the continent of Antarctica has warmed and become more humid, which one would think should be a central starting premise for the argument being made. The last, best information I’ve seen (discounting the dubious graphic recently posted at NASA showing Antarctic trends in the range of plus or minus 0.2 C with errors of 2.0 to 3.0 C) indicates that ice mass of Antarctica is increasing as the continent is cooling. This certainly provides a rational basis for skepticism of global warming due to CO2 emissions.
I believe Bill’s decision to speak up was influenced in no small part by you, Anthony. Bill is an Ozzie&Harriet/Norman Rockwell type nice guy. I’m proud to see him step into the battle when it would be much easier to keep quiet.
I think Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation is in better relation with the Arctic ice extent than PDO. AMO has just switched deep cold.
Few beautiful photos to cool down for the comin’ Hot. See the post
“How Global Cooling Might Look Like…”
http://p2o2.blogspot.com/2009/04/how-global-cooling-might-look-like.html
If you found my site too slow in d/loading bigger images , please go to original sites. My networks “gained another middleman” and now I am two levels away from Inet.
Regards
Ugh…I was going to go into more detail about how I felt about this, but maybe Steffen’s writing above speaks for itself.
Essentially, with so many obviously bright and informed scholars, meteorologists, and others out there making well-written, well-informed, well-argued statements against climate alarmism, is it necessarily a good thing to draw attention to pieces like the above just because the author happens to be a respected(?) weather “personality?”
It’s just, with this being such a serious issue, and with “skeptics” or “deniers” being increasingly cast as dull-witted, uninformed, or mentally-ill, I kind of cringe sometimes when I read excessively colloquial, and much more importantly, extremely haphazard pieces like this that seem to try to present themselves as self-sufficient arguments against climate alarmism.
I dunno; maybe I’m just being too touchy, but it feels to me a little like taking part in an AGW thread on digg.com, or I’m sure elsewhere, when someone jumps in and says something like “More CO2 doesn’t warm the atmosphere [at all],” when you just want to say: “You’re not helping.”
“Keep in mind that if the Polar icecap (without Greenland) melted…it would hardly cause sea level to rise, because the icecap is currently displacing water in the Arctic Ocean. The Antarctic icecap is over a land continent, not floating over an ocean. Significant ice accumulation over the land of Antarctica would cause sea level to fall.”
The most intelligent statement (other than those by posters on this website) I have read in a very long time! Even a child knows that if your ice melts in your glass of water it does not cause the glass to suddenly overflow!
Thanks for the great website, Anthony – I’m not a scientist, but now wish I was one just so I could be lambasted for being an AGW skeptic.
Slightly OT – I’m having to run my heater tonight in Southern California…only 50 degrees F right now at midnight….I’m cold.
James Allison:
That is the exact same notion I put forward on the other thread, and it seems that it is “pseudoscience”.
Because your explanation is more detailed, I think Steven Goddard could tackle this one! To me it doesn’t seem realistic that that could be the reason but I would like to hear what the experts have to say 🙂
BTW, a new cycle 23 spot has appeared on the equator… if numbered, then cycle 23 will be 13 years old.