[CRoss]

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25348657-401,00.html

ICE is expanding in much of Antarctica, contrary to the widespread public belief that global warming is melting the continental ice cap.

The results of ice-core drilling and sea ice monitoring indicate there is no large-scale melting of ice over most of Antarctica, although experts are concerned at ice losses on the continent's western coast.

Antarctica has 90 per cent of the Earth's ice and 80 per cent of its fresh water, The Australian reports. Extensive melting of Antarctic ice sheets would be required to raise sea levels substantially, and ice is melting in parts of west Antarctica. The destabilisation of the Wilkins ice shelf generated international headlines this month. ...

 

[syadasti]

Its nice that you read articles Fox News links to (Fox "SciTech" story of the day) but that does not change the much larger body of scientific evidence that says otherwise. The poles are warming faster than most climate models predicted, not slower.

 

[CRoss]

I guess the article is completely fiction because Fox news linked to it. Sorry for wasting your time. I now know that only reports from NPR are completely true

 

[gsweet]

i'll make a point here:
antarctica is the largest desert in the world. what defines a desert? lack of precipitation. now how could inland ice sheets grow? yup, precipitation...the kind of thing we wouldn't expect in a desert. so yea, a shifting climate is once again observable despite the media's best efforts.

and with respect to warming, the failing of ice shelves on the continents western coast illustrates the change at the margins of antarctica. however, the increase in precipitation inland may have something to do with warming as well: warmer air carries more moisture, resulting in more precipitation (something we don't expect in inland antarctica).

 

[CRoss]

The climate is changing, how much is human related is debatable. The last 100 years is nothing on the life of the planet. How many major changes has the global climate gone through in the last 4 billion years? We would be ignorant to think the world would not go through a change at some point during humans time here.

 

[syadasti]

You really have no idea what you are talking about if you are posting stories like this as if they mean anything. In the future post publications from recognized professional journals. Popular media holds as much water in a scientific setting as citing Wikipedia. You fail at science.

Many climate models have under predicting the current trend and various proxy records are in agreement showing significant abnormal warming not in the last 100 years but the last 1200 years. They looked at tree rings, ice cores, fossils, and other proxy climate records at 14 sites worldwide and found that the current warming phase has lasted longer and affected a broader area than any other such period in the last 1,200 years. Its funny that people grasp at straws for so long even after the foundation is rock solid. Popular media is not science - the chatter there means nothing in the scientific world.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/311/5762/841

 

[CRoss]

Who says what it means?

I do find it interesting that the region is growing on one side and shrinking on the other.

 

[stevew]

i am now using my cock as a recovery strap......

true story.

 

[kidwoo]

The last 100 years is nothing on the life of the planet.

Which is why no one claiming climate change uses only the last 100 years.


You obviously understand this subject so you tell me how to get prehistoric weather data. Because that's what people look at.

 

[CRoss]

There really is no exact way to gather prehistoric weather data. We can look at many things and get an idea but subtle changes are much harder to find evidence of. Growing and shrinking ice sheets leave some evidence but finding somewhere this evidence is still around and we are able to date is very hard.

People claiming climate change do talk about much longer time spans than 100 years. Those who only talk about global warming talk 100 years or less.

 

[ohio]

There really is no exact way to gather prehistoric weather data. We can look at many things and get an idea but subtle changes are much harder to find evidence of. Growing and shrinking ice sheets leave some evidence but finding somewhere this evidence is still around and we are able to date is very hard.

People claiming climate change do talk about much longer time spans than 100 years. Those who only talk about global warming talk 100 years or less.

Now you're just making **** up. Please don't type anything more until you've had a chance to actually read up on the subject.

 

[syadasti]

There are plenty of easily accessible proxy climate records as I mentioned above - tree rings, ice cores, fossils, stalagmites, and others which are well accepted as reliable.

 

[CRoss]

The proxy climate records are not that accurate past 2000 years. Also climate models are not very accurate past 2000 years due to the lack of evidence showing solar emissions and actual volcanic activity.

 

[syadasti]

As Ohio said come back when you understand what you are talking about as before you were saying global warming people only talk about "100 years or less"

 

[Straya]

The proxy climate records are not that accurate past 2000 years.

Mate, that is simply not correct. Using Oxygen isotope analysis of things such as Ice cores accurate previous global temp records as old as 750 000 years have been determined.

See here for a good explanation.

 

[CRoss]

As I said people who talk about climate change talk about longer time spans, about 2000 years. This is what the temperature sensitive proxys give us. Kidwoo asked where to get prehistoric data and I pointed out when it comes to temperature you can really only find out if it was warm, hot, or cold. Anything more subtle than that is very difficult to find enough specific evidence.

In my experience people(tree huggers) who talk about global warming only want to talk about the past 100 years or so. They usually do not want to talk about anything before man really became modernized. They think the only reason the globe is warming is a result from the modernization of man.

I am not convinced that the warming we are seeing is all human caused. We might have contributed to it but to think everything would have stayed exactly the same is not right.

I did not make this clear enough in my first few posts. I should have made this division I have seen see more clear.

With your first post and the record of this forum being very left wing the tree hugger view is the first place I went.

 

[CRoss]

The ice cores only provide site specific data. They are not very helpful in full global climate records.

From the article you linked to.

Though ice cores have proven to be one of the most valuable climate records to date, they only provide direct evidence about temperature and rainfall where ice still exists, though they hint at global conditions.

 

[Straya]

Ok Fair enough.

Look the historical records that I mentioned shows that the planets temperature has been see sawing back and forth for millenia. Its the way it has always been and as such 'global warming' is a perfectly natural phenomina.

However, when you look at these long term records (eg the 750 000 year stuff) you get a pretty good picture of how long these temperature changes have taken to occur. Usually a very very long time. So when modern records show that the current warming that the planet is experiencing is happening in a dramatically shorter time period than any previous climatic variations then alarm bells start ringing.

This is the reason that us tree huggers are going on so muct about the last 100 years or so. The fact that the earths temperature is rising isn't really the issue, its the sheer speed at which this is occuring that is the issue here and lets us know that this period of warming isn't as natural as other similar events.

 

[Straya]

The ice cores only provide site specific data. They are not very helpful in full global climate records.

Sure but you can collect ice cores from a fair few places on earth. Do it enough times in enough places and you get a pretty good idea what was going on.

 

[syadasti]

With your first post and the record of this forum being very left wing the tree hugger view is the first place I went.

Popular media stories have little to do with the consensus the body of studies in scientific circles and there are metastudies available. People who have little grasp of what is and is not valid research think there is great strife when only popular media reflects that, not peer reviewed professional publications. Valid science is based in facts, not politics and flashy headlines. Nobody brought up focusing only the last 100 years, tree hugging, or politics except you. Unless you are a recognized expert in the field (non-related science degrees do not count) my or your own personal opinion does not hold any value period even if its printed in the mainstream media.

 

[kidwoo]

There really is no exact way to gather prehistoric weather data.

Really?

REALLY?

REALLY?

REALLY!!!!?????


When you say stupid things like this, do you honestly think you're actually informing anyone of anything? Because the dumbasses you like to parrot as of late don't.

 

[Toshi]

in case anyone was actually paying attention to the content of the OP the issue of antarctic ice has been addressed in spades in the fallout from george will's hilariously inaccurate column:

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/expers-big-flaw-in-wills-ice-assertions/

 

[MikeD]

Really?

REALLY?

REALLY?

REALLY!!!!?????


When you say stupid things like this, do you honestly think you're actually informing anyone of anything? Because the dumbasses you like to parrot as of late don't.

Seriously. There's no shortage of now-unfrozen caveman weathermen to ask...which is itself an indication of the warming trend.