Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Wilkins Ice Shelf Continues Break-up, Even During Winter

Satellite images reveal the Wilkins Ice Shelf in Antarctica has experienced further break-up with an area of about 160 square kilometers breaking off during May 30 -31, 2008. ESA’s Envisat satellite captured the event. This is the first ever-documented episode to occur during the Antarctic winter. The animation here, comprised of images acquired by Envisat’s Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) between May 30 and June 9, highlights the rapidly dwindling strip of ice that is protecting thousands of kilometers of the ice shelf from further break-up.

Wilkins Ice Shelf, a broad plate of floating ice south of South America on the Antarctic Peninsula, is connected to two islands, Charcot and Latady. In February 2008, an area of about 400 square km broke off from the ice shelf, narrowing the connection down to a 6 km strip; this latest event in May has further reduced the strip to just 2.7 km.

According to Dr. Matthias Braun from the Center for Remote Sensing of Land Surfaces, Bonn University, and Dr. Angelika Humbert from the Institute of Geophysics, Münster University, who have been investigating the dynamics of Wilkins Ice Shelf for months, this break-up has not yet finished.

“The remaining plate has an arched fracture at its narrowest position, making it very likely that the connection will break completely in the coming days,” Braun and Humbert said.
Long-term satellite monitoring over Antarctica is important because it provides authoritative evidence of trends and allows scientists to make predictions. Ice shelves on the Antarctic Peninsula are important indicators for on-going climate change because they are sandwiched by extraordinarily raising surface air temperatures and a warming ocean.

The Antarctic Peninsula has experienced extraordinary warming in the past 50 years of 2.5°C, Braun and Humbert explained. In the past 20 years, seven ice shelves along the peninsula have retreated or disintegrated, including the most spectacular break-up of the Larsen B Ice Shelf in 2002, which Envisat captured within days of its launch.

News Source: ESA

51 Replies to “Wilkins Ice Shelf Continues Break-up, Even During Winter”

  3. I wonder how many ice shelves broke off during the last time the planet came out of a cooling trend. And how quickly they did. Nobody knows for sure..

  5. That didn’t take long… I made that comment because of a previous article.. 🙂

  7. reply to dmedici

    First it was “There is no global warming”. Then the results matched predictions. Now its “There is no man-made global warming”.

    Detractors are like the Creationists, there is no amount or quality of data that will convince them they are wrong, yet they need NO DATA to convince them they are right. Oh, and btw, there’s millions to be made by polluters – is that a factor in there retoric – NAW.

  8. Joe,

    Thought this was a FORUM FOR IDEAS. So creationists don’t matter in your world. I Guess you are playing GOD. Thanks for dismissing all creationists and lumping them together. All creationists are idiots. That’s really scientific and intellectual of you.

  9. Myself personally, I’m not a detractor.. nor a Creationist. I’m a skeptic. I believe that when one wants to find an answer, science is the best way to go.
    Many firmly believe that we are the cause of accelerating global warming. That could be true, but I think its also possible that it isn’t true. Or even that the warming trend will continue (if it hasn’t already stopped, stabilized or reversed)… The fact that there isn’t incontrovertible evidence or consensus (regardless of how passionately one believes either way), makes me a skeptic. Science always come through eventually… Always has.. We’ll see.
    I’m staying on the fence for now..

  10. The global warming issue boils down to Scientists seeing something odd happening and reporting that they don’t understand it. It could be something, it could be nothing.
    Meanwhile, folks who don’t like the current crop of politicians are using these issues to grind their own partisan ax.

    Overreacting without a clear understanding could be disastrous for our species. Making clear, unclouded, observations is far more vital than winning someones election for them.

    I’d say we reserve the space here for proper science rather than political opportunism.

  11. David

    Thought this was a FORUM FOR IDEAS. So creationists don’t matter in your world. I Guess you are playing GOD. Thanks for dismissing all creationists and lumping them together. All creationists are idiots. That’s really scientific and intellectual of you.

    This is a forum for facts, not unsubstantiated ideas. This type of discussion that focuses on creative theological interpretation serves as nothing more than a distraction from real discussion on solving a very real problem that needs solving.

    Scientists are talking about a problem that needs to be solved.

    Creationists are talking about how people are going to hell for even discussing the problem (and if you don’t believe me, you might want to look up the the topics of discussion that the likes of Pat Robertson and the folks affiliated with the Discovery Institute have brought up).

    Guess which group I’m going to judge to be more rational and intelligent? Hint: it won’t be the ones bringing up medieval counter-arguments to interpretations of modern observations.

  12. Dave –

    For the sake of argument:

    ” Scientists are talking about a problem that needs to be solved.”

    My question to you (God lovers and Creationists aside): Are you sure that the “global warming” thing is really a problem? What if it is natural? Should we try to solve the “problem”?

  13. If we can prevent an ecological disaster, natural or not, we should.
    The problem is most current solutions call for global sacrifices. Just having the wealthy nations dish out alot of money wont do. Certain facilities will have to be shut down, some practices will have to be stopped.

    When your in the situation of telling a nation to stop using coal plants (for example), and they refuse, someone will have to be sent in to forcibly shut these operations down.
    Knowing what can happen at that point, I think we better have a very accurate climate model to base our arguments on.

  14. I see… But it is my understanding that when we are in a warming trend, life flourishes. Take the tropical zones, for example. They have half of the life on the planet. Are you saying (if this warming trend continues) that you want to keep us in this stage of our current ice age (which we are currently in, I might add)?
    There are 6 billion plus people on this planet right now… We either need more vegetation to feed them, or we need a plague (or worse, dare I say) to kill some of us off.
    “…. prevent an ecological disaster…”?.. I don’t understand..
    If our species is to survive, we need to think less about the changes in climate (it will happen with or without us) and more about adaption..
    Why is it that some people think that all living things on this planet have the right to live instinctively.. except us?
    Because we are smarter and know better, right?
    We can’t run away from our instincts.. Regardless of how intelligent we think we are.. It’s hardwired.
    Anyway.. if there is in fact a warming trend really going on (natural or man-made), even if it is caused by humans…., it’s still natural..
    I’ll wait and see..

  15. Al Gore went down there and took a piss and the ice shelf broke off.

    So what? Ice breaks off from Antarctica all the time. Get a grip.

  16. Al Hall

    My question to you (God lovers and Creationists aside): Are you sure that the “global warming” thing is really a problem? What if it is natural? Should we try to solve the “problem”?

    Yes. Even if it is “natural”, as you suppose (which current modern theory supposes it is not), the fact that regardless of the initial cause, we’ll need to deal with this. I would guess that it would be fine to argue the devil’s argument from the confines of your comfortable armchair when all the droughts and inclimate weather happens outside your immediate region on this Earth.

    What would happen if, say, corn suddenly become too expensive for the everyman to purchase?

    Whoops, that’s already happening.

    I see… But it is my understanding that when we are in a warming trend, life flourishes.

    Except for those pesky continent-wide deserts that keep popping up in such scenarios.

    They have half of the life on the planet. Are you saying (if this warming trend continues) that you want to keep us in this stage of our current ice age (which we are currently in, I might add)?

    Wow, we’re in an Ice Age? That explains all the disintegrating glaciers in both the Arctic and the Antarctic (cited in the very article you’re posting a response to).

    Buddy, we’ve been out of an Ice Age for roughly 8,000-12,000 years or so now (give or take). I’m not sure where you get your facts from, but to say you got it out from a Cracker Jack box would be an insult to Cracker Jack boxes everywhere.

    There are 6 billion plus people on this planet right now… We either need more vegetation to feed them, or we need a plague (or worse, dare I say) to kill some of us off. “…. prevent an ecological disaster…”?.. I don’t understand..

    That is because you choose not to understand, and that is something I cannot help you with. The Sahara Desert expands on a daily basis and people in Africa are starving by the hundreds of thousands. Rice is becoming more expensive by the year, and that has HUGE consequences. By the way, did I mention corn?

    If our species is to survive, we need to think less about the changes in climate (it will happen with or without us) and more about adaption..

    Never mind the millions that will die that will result over the long term. We could feed them, but hey, why let so-called common sense get in the way? We need survival of the fittest because that is the “natural” way!

    Why is it that some people think that all living things on this planet have the right to live instinctively.. except us? Because we are smarter and know better, right?

    Yes, we do. Your opinion of the potential of the Human race depresses me.

    Because we are smarter and know better, right?
    We can’t run away from our instincts.. Regardless of how intelligent we think we are.. It’s hardwired.

    This is the most wrong statement I’ve heard in my life. It’s not that I haven’t heard it before, it’s just that every time I hear it, I can’t help but this it’s still more wrong than anything I’ve heard before. Period.

    Anyway.. if there is in fact a warming trend really going on (natural or man-made), even if it is caused by humans…., it’s still natural..

    Sharks, Jellyfish, cosmic rays, and black holes are also all natural. Yet they still can (and will) kill.

    I’ll wait and see..

    I would have posted a reply to this, but in doing so, I’d end up inadvertently invoking Godwin’s law.

    So, I will suffice to say “Good day, sir.” This will be the last I mention this topic again in this forum unless someone can provide meaningful insight on this. I’ve wasted enough time on blathering on about this thread.

  17. Wow… That is quite a book that you wrote….
    I can only imagine how long it would have been if I said I was a “denier’… I’m damned if I do and I’m damned if I don’t….. You people (from both sides) need to take a step back and breathe.. We’ll get it sorted out.. One way or another…. We will.. So relax, okay?
    Thanks for ‘promising’ not to slam me again, though.. I appreciate it.. 🙂

  18. Sorry.. I think I was mistaken… It wouldn’t have mattered if I was a denier… You think that skeptics and deniers are the same thing, right?.. Too stupid to know the ‘truth’;… Right?

  21. ENVIRONMENT: Southern Ocean Nears CO2 Saturation Point
    http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=37774
    The Southern Ocean has been absorbing less CO2 from the atmosphere since 1981, even though levels have increased 40 percent due to burning of fossil fuels. Oceans absorb half of all human carbon emissions, but the Southern Ocean is taking up less and less and is reaching its saturation point, reported an international research team in the journal Science.

    This is the first evidence of the long-feared positive feedbacks that could rapidly accelerate the rate of climate change, pushing impacts to the extreme end of the scale.
    “With the Southern Ocean reaching its saturation point, more CO2 will stay in our atmosphere,” Le Quere said in a statement.

    Oceans Found to Absorb Half of All Man-Made Carbon Dioxide

    http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/07/0715_040715_oceancarbon.html

    Around half of all carbon dioxide produced by humans since the industrial revolution has dissolved into the world’s oceans—with adverse effects for marine life—according to two new studies.

  22. I’m with you, David… Keep it coming… let’s prove it… One way or another…
    The fact that we don’t have 4 billion years of accurate data doesn’t help….. but we shouldn’t stop trying… Let’s resolve this so we can move on…

  23. Another Nancy Atkinson piece of work. If Universe Today is going to continue to mislead without competent opposing views, I’m out of here. Start a Global Warming Paranoia blog and leave this one alone.

  24. Actually, Ian is worse…. Nancy hasn’t got to that level yet.. Don’t leave yet.. Without skeptics, everybody will believe the same view and think there isn’t another… Stick to your guns….! 🙂

  25. Sorry again… I should have said “Ian WAS worse”…Not “is”…. I think somewhere down the road is was discovered that this global warming thing became more about politics than science… and the debates got a little too heated. I’m sure that Nancy has recognized that over the past couple of days..

  26. Of course this 2% of Antartic is warming, but what about the other 98% that’s cooling? Do we see ice breakups in this other 98% of the continent?

  27. Ian has gotten MUCH better, he seemed to realize that the number of climate realists outweighed the number of climate alarmist that frequent this board.

    It’s a science board, so it makes sense that more people would be well informed here. All anyone has to do it look at the science and see for themselves…

    James

  29. 12000 years ago Canada was under a mile of ice. Obviously it’s gotten warmer since then and still is. The ice is now thinner. The temperature is warmer. How can it be a surprise that the ice is melting faster?

  31. Oh, please, Nancy. No opinions in the article?

    First of all, your own biases concerning global warming are well demonstrated by the fact that every article you post here even remotely tangential to the subject of climate is pro-global warming. Did you write about the 31,000 scientists (including nearly 4,000 involved directly in climate research) who signed a petition disagreeing with the entire concept of man-made climate change? Funny I didn’t see it here, and it was also ignored by the entire mainstream media who also are true believers.

    Secondly, the clear implication of the whole article is that the breaking off of the shelf is caused by global warming. As others have noted here, the ice shelves calve all the time. Snow and ice build up over time and eventually the weight and pressure will break them off regardless of the “climate”. Where are the articles documenting the “fact” that the ice cover in Antartic has been increasing for some time now?

    We won’t see such things here because they cause cognitive dissonance in the belief systems of the algore acolytes. This is the same practice used by the loony fundamentalists to “disprove” evolution – twist every factoid to bolster their theory and simply disregard the rest.

    I’ll tell you what – I’ll agree to your draconian takeover of the world economy in order to fight this so-called “global warming”, if you will agree to be personally responsible for all the suffering and poverty that the “solution” causes if it turns out in ten or twenty years of further research that it was all a mistake.

    Deal?

  32. Agreed with geo, this article is full of opinions. Tell me if I’m wrong, but Winter doesn’t start down there for another week, so even the headline has an opinion, which is incorrect, to sensationalize your article. Is the average temperature lower a week before winter or a week after?

  34. And Colbert is in real life just as far left as John Stewrt, and is playing a fake conservative on his show. That’s why most of what he says make anyone on the right look stupid, and by design.

    As a well-known radio talk show host in LA, Larry Elder, likes to say, a “fact” to a liberal is like Kryptonite to Superman. That’s why their so-called debate technique quickly deteriorates into rampant ad hominens towards all the unbelievers.

    All this talk of “consensus” is just that – talk.

    Here is an interesting piece by the founder of the Weather Channel, Perhaps the owners and contributors of this site would care to read it (but probably won’t, because the cognitive dissonance would be too painful):
    http://www.kusi.com/weather/colemanscorner/19842304.html

    Here is the website with the names of the 31,000 scientists who signed a very strongly worded anti-global warming petition. It would be interesting to know how many of the readers here had heard about this on the mainstream media:
    http://www.petitionproject.org/

  35. Instead of arguing all the time, or playing smart by judging articles and scientific studies, maybe it’s time we concentrated on the real facts.

    The Ice REDUCES constantly. And it is not rocket science to understand what this means.

  36. The AGW theory has been falsified by empirical data on several fronts, and AGW adherents do not have a good response to the empirical realities of the AGW debate. Most discussions with the devout tend to either dissolve into name calling IE- flat-earther, denier, heretic, big oil whore, etc.

    Have you ever noticed that the Pro-AGW camp has a ton of slurs for the Ant-AGW camp, but not vice versa? Worst slur the Anti camp has is ‘climate alarmist’ (as in Chicken Little). When the facts are on your side there’s not the slightest bit of need for any attacks on the messenger so the need for slurs were never there and hence the Anti-AGW camp never developed them.

    Einstein made a good point when asked about the consensus of 200 Nazi scientists that claimed Relativity was incorrect. He said ‘All it takes is just one to prove me wrong’.

    Well, I’m not a climate scientist but I’ll step up in this forum as Einstein would have me do and be the one that proves the AGW consensus wrong using the simplest of tools, empirical data.

    0. There is no ‘Global’ in ‘Global Warming’.

    Temperature records show that the 20th century had 0.6C of warming. However when you break down the data by hemisphere you see a warming in the Northern Hemisphere, but a cooling in the Southern. ‘Global Warming’ is a misnomer, it should be ‘Northern Warming’. In the theory of AGW, CO2 is the main driver of temperature change. There is NO scientific literature that even suggests that CO2 clumps in one hemisphere over another. If AGW were correct you would see warming in both hemisphere’s, not just the Northern. The next point (#1) expands on this even more.

    1. Greenhouse warming occurs in the layer of the atmosphere called the troposphere. This is the layer of the atmosphere that is warmed by the greenhouse effect first, and this heat then warms the layers below it and then the ground. The data showing the temperature of the troposphere from 2 different data sets (satellites and weather balloons) show no such heat build-up in the troposphere. The empirical evidence of greenhouse warming is absent, the troposphere is cooler than the ground.

    2. A main contention of the AGW theory is that when the CO2 goes up, the temperature goes up (Uncle Al told us this in his flick). The ice core data from Vostok and several other ice core surveys are in agreement that just the opposite happens. Not only does the temperature rise before the CO2 does, there is a ~800 year lag between the two!

    AGW alarmists often attempt to counter this embarrassing fact by saying that it’s the rise in CO2 afterwards that keeps the temperature high with the greenhouse effect.

    However this doesn’t explain the initial rise in temperature, what caused that? Nor the increased CO2 after the temperature falls and the failure of this CO2 to prevent falling temperatures ever explained. Empirical data shows another problem with the AGW theory.

    3. On the same basic subject of #2 above, the amount of CO2 in the air has increased by 4% since 2000, yet there has been a cooling trend this decade – not the warming trend that the alarmists were clamoring about! And they are finding it very hard to try and explain this one away, harder than the ice core data from above!

    3A. In trying to explain why the temperature is going down rather than the predicted direction (up), some climate modelers are admitting that the climate models do not take into account natural variation. They have modified their models to take this into account and now can properly predict the past 8 years (which I can do without a computers, but hey so can you!).

    So here again empirical proof that the climate modelers know their models are not accurate and that to even model past climates they have to know what happened so their models can be setup nd tweaked to give a proper readout of known data.

    And you want to ration my carbon use based on that??

    4. The ‘hockey stick’ graph was found to be falsified (also know as MBH98). This graph rewrote history and eliminated the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period, two climate events that are well documented as having happened. It also indicated that the 20th century was unusually warm by a very large degree.

    What was found was that many of the the data sets supporting the hockey stick were cherry-picked and that several other sets of data used were flawed and contained erroneous data. The statistical methods used to create the graph were incorrect and that random data generated with red noise always produced a hockey stick when the MBH98 methods were used.

    The branch of climatology that uses tree-ring data to reconstruct past climates is very small. This leads to two problems, they all tend to use the same (flawed) datasets and they tend to collaborate and publish with each other. This leads to a somewhat incestuous relationship and damages the peer review process since the they all tend to get the same answers from the same flawed techniques and flawed datasets, as well as being a defacto ‘good old boys’ club.

    And so the famous ‘hockey-stick’ temperature graph that was the center piece of the Third IPCC report in 2001 was nowhere to be found in the Fourth IPCC report just issued last year (2007). No explanation, no excuse, no nothing!

    4. Speaking of the warmest century, with the casting down of the hockey stick graph into the pit, what is the warmest century in the past 1000 years? The ‘Medieval Warm Period’ or as it’s called by climatologists the ‘Medieval Climate Optimum’ and it lasted from the 10th to the 14th century and is associated with a time of relative riches. This time period takes the prize for having the warmest century in the past 1000 years.

    5. What about the warmest decade in the 20th century, was it the 1990’s? No, recent corrections to the temperature record (remember AGW acolytes, the studies by Jones and Wang claiming the urban heat island effect was compensated for were found to “not be in error by accident” and “fabricated”) shows the 1930’s to be the warmest decade in the 20th Century, not the 1990’s. CO2 emissions were so small during the 1930’s as to be inconsequential, as the industrial boom didn’t start until the 1940’s (when it started cooling).

    6. Polar bears are NOT endangered by warming, this is not science – it’s just dirty pool!! The past 5000 years there have been 3 or more periods that were significantly warmer than now and polar bears survived quite well!! Secondly only one of the various populations (8 or so) of polar bears is not doing well, the rest are flourishing, and warming is not indicated as the problem with the population that is having problems.

    The drowning polar bears Uncle Al talks about were 4 bears that were caught In a storm and downed. There have been NO other reports of polar bear drowning. Here it’s just more dirty pool on the part of Uncle Al and the faithful.

    7. The “Iris Effect” had been empirically validated, and if this effect shows applicable globally it negates 75% of the climate model predicted warming, upon which most of the AGW fear mongering is based (see #3A above).

    In layman’s terms, it means that the models are wrong as they do not incorporate this effect into their modeling process. And as I sort of mention above, the whole AGW debate revolves around those models – at least for the AGW advocates it does. For us climate realists it revolves around empirical proof from the real world around us, not fantasy simulations on the computer. We take the time to step away from our computers and check in with reality!

    8. Severe storms. I have two point here that I will group together. First is that the incidence of hurricanes and tornadoes has not gone up and is indeed average for the past decade. Second – Since we’ve been in a cooling trend since the beginning of the 21st century, how could global warming have any effect on the storms that did take place? Katrina wasn’t overly destructive as a storm, but if you stand on the road with a semi-truck bearing down on you, you WILL get hurt.

    I recently found a good website that you can go to and find the research backing much of what I’m detailing here:

    http://www.climatedvd.com

    Not only will you be able to learn the science of climate sufficient to understand the issues AGW raises, but you will find pointers to the work the actual scientists are doing and read their research yourself.

    I’m not the only “one” that can prove AGW wrong, and there are many more out there much better qualified than I am!

    James

  37. Looking back over some of the postings in this thread it occurred to me that the Creationists actually have a stronger case for their beliefs than AGW faithful have for theirs…

    Pretty amazing stuff!

  38. Nancy,
    For what it’s worth, I appreciated the article and the data. Whatever “bias” that the cadre of responders read into this article is pure, fancied conjecture dreamed up in their own biased minds. The article posted facts. Again, I thought this site was a FORUM FOR IDEAS. While I appreciated those who took the time to raise good questions, I am thoroughly disappointed with the mass of other congealed crap that was posted that was hysterical in nature, abysmal in scientific observation, and reactionary in tone. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, we live in an age that is so polarized in its thinking that we’ve lost the ability to have a conversation. We blast people for having ideas. How sad. I will continue my idealistic and perhaps misguided quest in finding a blog site that supports thoughtful, engaged dialogue, no matter what the point of view may be.

  39. So David, anyone who disagrees with your approved “ideas” is “reactionary”, and does nothing but toss around “congealed crap”. We are all “hysterical”, while you of course, are just all about “thoughtful, engaged dialogue”. Perhaps you could actually try engaging in such dialogue yourself.

    You really ought to read what you write. That you can’t see your own hypocritical position is astonishing (but not surprising). This kind of thinking permeates the global warming acolytes.

  40. Thanks geokstr for setting me straight. I see the light now. Never will I err in my thinking again. Thanks for reducing me to a “global warming acolyte.” I am nothing more than an idiot with a differing idea than your own. That you can’t see your own hypocritical position is equally astonishing and equally not surprising. But then again, according to your post, I’m not worthy of posting and just a hypocrite. So I’ll just shut up and let you have at it, since you have it all figured out.

  41. The problem is that the latest and most accurate measurement of ocean temperatures in the Antarctic show them cooling, not warming.
    And snow melt is decreasing, not increasing.
    I think the better explanation is that we are gathering new kinds of evidence for the first time.

  42. David, the AGW acolyte-

    “Biased” in that information in this article was cherry-picked to promote a certain viewpoint.

    The data Nancy chose to include was selected based on bias. As hunter points out in the message above, the the warming oceans that Nancy mentions are actually cooling. The oceans cooling instead of warming would have undermined her message tremendously.

    Without the warming oceans there very little news here. She even makes up the tidbit about this happening ‘even in winter’, which was still 3 weeks off at the time Envsat made it’s observations.

    Those are two distinct and separate misrepresentations of the facts. And there was the failure to mention that this area of the Antarctic is 2% of the total and that the other 98% has been in a long term cooling trend, a fact which any fair and balanced reporting would not fail to include.

    So why the misrepresentation of data included in the report and the outright lie of omission as to the scale? Bias.

    For you to not see this bias should be embarrassing to you!

    But I suspect that you share the same bias, so of course you would be blind to it. But what other facts and truisms does this bias make you blind too?

    James

    PS- if you put an infinite number of scientists and politicians in a room with an infinite number of typewriters, in an infinite amount of time they would produce the AGW theory and it’s draconian policy recommendations (the IPCC Summary for Policymakers). We’ve simply hit that stage of infinity where it’s actually happened, but it turned out to take only 2500 scientists and politicians in a room the size of a UN building and it took only a few years. AND they’ve managed to repeat the feat 4 times!! Now we’re waiting for the Shakespeare that was actually expected….

  43. How is late may and early june winter in antartica? It should be fall. Secondly last year global temp. was .7 degrees below normal.It hasn’t been that cold since the thirties.

  44. David:

    Are you really looking for a blog that “…supports thoughtful, engaged dialogue, no matter what the point of view may be.”? I suspect from your dismissive tone towards “ideas” that are not on algore’s approved list that you are really searching for a blog that prints only what you believe in. There are already plenty of those. I’m looking for one that will print both sides, and this is certainly not one of them.

    Remember, it was you who said that everything that you disagree with was “congealed crap”. What’s next, calling all the non-believers “shills for Big Oil”? How about actually contributing to the discussion instead of just dissing your opponents?

    What this has come to is that it is no longer just a scientific issue, but an overwhelmingly political one. The believers wish to take over the entire world economy in a way that will be totally disastrous for humanity, likely much more so than if the world continues to warm slightly (which is all that is projected by the reigning computer models.)

    Whatever changes happen will come so gradually as to be barely noticeable, and humankind will simply adapt to the new climate with little effort. Despite the claims of the AGW proponents, there will be no 100 foot walls of water suddenly crashing down on New Orleans, Denmark or New York. In fact, there is much evidence that the planet being somewhat warmer will be good for humans and life overall. Imagine the prosperity that can occur when there are vast areas of farmland in Siberia and the Yukon that are now frozen wasteland.

    The real scientific evidence from the past, as shown through ice cores and other means, is that there have been numerous periods where climate was much warmer than today. In every one of those periods, the world was lush with life, indicating that warmth is actually a good thing. After all, CO2 is what plants eat, and oxygen is what they poop. And this is assuming that CO2 is really a greenhouse gas, when the same data shows that CO2 buildup LAGS warming by an average of 800 years.

    Hardly a case for draconian restructuring of human civilization, which is what the believers call for, with them, of course, in charge, and not personally subject to the same minute “carbon footprint” that the rest of the paeons will be forced to live within.

  45. geokstr said:
    “Are you really looking for a blog that “…supports thoughtful, engaged dialogue, no matter what the point of view may be.”? I suspect from your dismissive tone towards “ideas” that are not on algore’s approved list that you are really searching for a blog that prints only what you believe in. There are already plenty of those. I’m looking for one that will print both sides, and this is certainly not one of them.”

    If you’re still following this chain of comments, let me set the record straight. I am not an algore acolyte, nor am I riding the global warming bandwagon. I am simply tired of the mass of reactonary comments posted–either for the argument or against it. I was trying to have a conversation and was tired of wading through the, yes, congealed crap, that always seems to proliforate with anything that flies in the vicinity of the so-called global warming debate. For the record, I tend to side with the conservatives in this debate. But I do not assume a label. If you read the chain of postings closely, you will see the reactive tone that this article inspired. Kudos to you, however, for continuing the conversation. Maybe the post omitted facts. But that was not apparent to the general reader. Thanks JamesB for the additional info.

  46. Большое спасибо автору. Возможно, в будущем я и на самом деле реализую подобную затею. 🙂

  47. Очень хорошая статья. Обязательно буду ждать продолжения. Эта тема конечно же интересна всем.

  49. Я тоже врямя от времени такое вижу, но как-то раньше не придавала этому значения.

  50. За статью большое спасибо, все по делу, достаточно много кто это использует

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