Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Oopsie daisy… NSIDC misplaces 500,000 sq. kilometers of arctic ice

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The National Snow and Ice Data Center had to pull down its January and February arctic ice extent data because a deteriorating sensor on a satellite was slowly changing ice to water. By mid-February when someone noticed the readings were off by a half-million square kilometers. That’s a lot of ice when you consider that the all-time low (at least since 1980 when measurement started) in 2006 was down by less than 1.5 million square kilometers from the average.

Read more at NSIDC: Satellite sensor errors cause data outage

In other “global warming” news, the NSIDC reports that antarctic sea ice is at a record high (at least since 1980 when measurement started). The new high is REALLY high. It’s 50% greater than the old record set in 1995. In case anyone is laboring under the misapprehension that antarctic sea is retreating, it ain’t. The 30-year trend is up 2.5% per decade.

As the northern hemisphere warmed the southern hemisphere cooled. They don’t tell you that because, well, it’s not so easy to work you into a panic when the planet isn’t really warming. Only the northern hemisphere where most of the humans and human industry is located was warming and a lot of that was simply thermometers that were located near gradually increasing urban heat islands.

Repeat after me:

CO2 is plant food…
CO2 is plant food…
CO2 is plant food…

Comments
A key feature of those who cannot support their claims: 1- make a list 2- Claim the list has some meaning, so 3- Define the list- give it a name 4- Then, as opposed to getting the DATA they can just point to the list as if that is enough. IOW if you want to call me a "denialist" please provide the DATA you think I am denying. You can start with the data that demonstrates what the earth's temperature should be.Joseph
February 26, 2009
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Dave, You're right. I didn't hurt myself. But then again, a simple look at the various geological and lifescience blogs and links on the Net would reveal that Greenland has not been "green" in any real sense since half a million years. Yes, at one time at was, but no significant farming from human beings took place. Perhpas a million years ago some badgers dug the earth there, but no humans ever tilled that soil other than to make pits to toss our fish and seal bones and light fires on the ice. Certainly not between 800-1400 AD. "greenland" was so named to attract settlers. Something I picked up from a high school history book and reinforced at dozens of science sites. Antarctica used to be green too? So what? Both areas were in different positions of latitude in the first place, and while AGW did not make them warm due to carbon build up, naturally, their melt-off in recent decades is via AGW by general scientific consensus. The recent slowdown in temp rises is probably due to the meltwater reducing via absorption, the air temps. This can be demonstrated by chunking ice into a bathtub at home. Close the bathroom door; the air in the bathroom will decrease slightly as well. For a time.S Wakefield Tolbert
February 26, 2009
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Tolbert There hasn't been any net warming since 1998. Arctic sea ice didn't get any smaller this year. It recovered quite a bit. Probably above the 30-year average when this missing ice is added back in. Greenland hasn't melted back to where it was between 800 and 1400AD when there was enough green (hence the name GREENland) to raise crops and livestock. Do you figure it was AGW 1200 years ago that melted it? If not, then what did? Maybe you better just ignore these questions. I don't want you to hurt yourself by thinking.DaveScot
February 25, 2009
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Key features: 1. Conspiracy 2. Selectivity 3. The fake expert(s) 4. Impossible expectations 5. The metaphor 6. The quote mine 7. Appeal to consequencesS Wakefield Tolbert
February 25, 2009
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Oppsy indeed. And so what? Displaced, misplaced, unplaced--whatever, Greenland melts just the same. So does Antarctica. Is there evidence to the contrary? At what magical point does the word "consensus" among climate scientists mean anything at all, as against the denialism that can actually be diagnosed. The Heartland Institute just got busted, as have many other "surveys" of "scientists" allegedly signing various petitions, for making bogus claims about the AGW detractors: http://lippard.blogspot.com/2006/09/key-characteristics-of-denialism.htmlS Wakefield Tolbert
February 25, 2009
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Jerry, And it is always appropriate to point out that if one does subscribe to AGW, it is really strange to not oppose --much less advocate -- ripping down long-standing hydro-electric plants.tribune7
February 25, 2009
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Two things, 1. I can confirm that the weeds seem to be winning and are thriving in the increased CO2 world where I live. No Audrey's yet (for those who have seen the Little Shop of Horrors) but quite an abundance of green stuff. 2. I was listening to a financial program on Saturday, called The Bob Brinker Show. He had on a respected energy expert named Charlie Wheeler: http://www.weedenco.com/research/2008/maxwellNEW.html Wheeler said that wind power now accounts for about 1% of energy in the country and if a lot of investment was put into it, it could get up to maybe 2-3 % in 20 years. One problem with wind is that the high wind areas are not where the people are and the loss of energy in transmission is about 50% He said that solar accounts for about 1/4 of 1% of our energy currently and with large investment may bake up to 2% in 20 years. So these renewable energy sources account for a little more than 1% of our energy and with massive investment may reach 5% in 20 years. The implications of this is that there is only one place to go in the future and that is fossil fuels and the best hope for a relatively short term change is coal that is clean or sequestered. That will take about 10 years. Nuclear power is an obvious answer but he had the caveat that we must solve the terrorism problem first before going full speed on nuclear. We now have much safer and more efficient nuclear technology. The other short term solution is natural gas and he said mass amounts are stored untaped in the shale deposits in the Rocky Mountain area. He also said that the use of ethanol from food products is a big mistake as it is inefficient and displaces food production. It may be possible to get a significant amount of energy from non food carbon waste. So global warming or not the near term future for energy has to be carbon based and it is time someone talked sense about it.jerry
February 25, 2009
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my brother sent me the folowing- we usually don't agree but we seem to have found some common ground: Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Abstract:
A review of the research literature concerning the environmental consequences of increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide leads to the conclusion that increases during the 20th and early 21st centuries have produced no deleterious effects upon Earth's weather and climate. Increased carbon dioxide has, however, markedly increased plant growth. Predictions of harmful climatic effects due to future increases in hydrocarbon use and minor greenhouse gases like CO2 do not conform to current experimental knowledge. The environmental effects of rapid expansion of the nuclear and hydrocarbon energy industries are discussed.
My apologies if this has already been posted in some other thread...Joseph
February 25, 2009
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#4 Berlinski had two manuscripts to complete recently (elementary mathematics, non ID related) and either two or three essays, IIRC. Hopefully he will come up for air soon, I look forward to his next work...Upright BiPed
February 24, 2009
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CO2 is plant food ...QuadFather
February 24, 2009
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Don't worry Dave, the cooling will be blamed on the recession. BTW, I just had a look at the Yukon river in downtown Whitehorse. It is far more frozen than I have ever seen it. (I've been up here 6 winters.) It is like the old-timers describe it. We may all go down to the river to celebrate breakup this year like they used to.bFast
February 23, 2009
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Granville I was certain that the CO2 bogeyman was a load of crap. The observations didn't fit the greenhouse gas theory at any more than a casual glance. The gamble I took was whether the northern hemisphere warming would reverse in a way that made it painfully obvious at a casual glance that CO2 wasn't the driver of it. I looked at the warming/cooling cycles over the past century and saw that they reversed every 20-40 years. When I started calling CO2 warming bogus the warming cycle was about 25 years old i.e. getting long in tooth with good evidence it had already stalled out. I figured there was a better than even chance it would change to a cooling cycle in the near future. It appears the gamble paid off and cyclical solar electromagnetic field waxing and waning on cycles longer than the 11-year sunspot cycle is the real cause. Obviously nothing humanity is doing now, in the past, or in the future is going to influence the strength of of the solar electromagnetic field. If the field doesn't kick back up we're going to be wishing that warming the earth was as easy as pumping CO2 into the atmosphere because colder is a lot worse than warmer for the primary producers in the food chain.DaveScot
February 22, 2009
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Is David Berlinski still involved with ID? I know the Devil's Delusion was recently published, but where are the articles man?Platonist
February 22, 2009
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I live north of 60 degrees latitude. We are having an unusually cold winter -- if you believe Environment Canada's stats, and not the tales of the old codgers. It makes sense to me that the arctic sheet is growing well this winter. In truth, three years ago it seemed that global warming was our experience, but for the last three years we have had whimpy summers, and solidly winter winters.bFast
February 22, 2009
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Dave, You may remember that I used to object to including posts on UD about global warming. My concern was that, except for the bullying tactics used by those in the majority, this topic was unrelated to ID, and while there is no chance the majority view on evolution is right, there was some chance it was right on global warming, and if we identified ourselves too much with the global warming skeptics, and turned out to be wrong, it would unnecessarily reflect badly on ID. This is still unrelated to ID, but the danger that the alarmists will turn out to be right seems to have passed, so maybe this will end up being a plus, as perhaps it will help people to understand that in science, it is evidence, not consensus, that counts. So, go for it, Dave.Granville Sewell
February 22, 2009
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Tell the global warming alarmists to hold their breath.William Wallace
February 21, 2009
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