Think Again: Reporting on Warming, Dropping the Bali
By Eric Alterman, George Zornick
As Greenland shrinks daily and Artic sea ice disappears faster than Roger Clemens’ fan base, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change met this month in Bali to look for ways that the global community can act in concert to deal with the urgent threat that scientists overwhelmingly agree we face from man-made climate change.
The meeting’s agenda included setting specific greenhouse-gas reduction targets, as opposed to the undefined “deep cuts” preferred by the Bush administration’s delegation; discussing the management of carbon-trading; and looking for solutions to the problem of resource management in poor third-world nations. In terms of the seriousness of the issues faced, it was a conference on par in importance with the famed summits of Tehran, Yalta, and Pottsdam during World War II.
Yet what was broadcast on American television was a debate about whether Al Gore may have said something naughty. After the newly minted Nobel laureate observed in Bali that the United States was holding up progress at the conference, CNN brought the incident up on eight different shows over two days, according to a Lexis Nexus search. (Americanprogress)
December 20, 2007 at 9:12 pm
When Al Gore pronounced that all the science was in and the debate was over, everybody naturally shut up. I know longer use my private jet and we know only heat half of our 28,000 square foot home.
December 20, 2007 at 9:25 pm
Interesting article on Global Warming that just can out today.
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=f80a6386-802a-23ad-40c8-3c63dc2d02cb
December 21, 2007 at 3:56 pm
hmmm, makes you wonder if they even read the IPCC report as in chapter nine IPCC 2007 Report, Chapter 9 is specifically states:
It is likely that there has been a substantial anthropogenic contribution to surface temperature increases in every continent except Antarctica since the middle of the 20th century. Anthropogenic influence has been detected in every continent except Antarctica (which has insufficient observational coverage to make an assessment), and in some sub-continental land areas. The ability of coupled climate models to simulate the temperature evolution on continental scales and the detection of anthropogenic effects on each of six continents provides stronger evidence of human influence on the global climate than was available at the time of the TAR.
No climate model that has used natural forcing only has reproduced the observed global mean warming trend or the continental mean warming trends in all individual continents (except Antarctica) over the second half of the 20th century.
December 21, 2007 at 4:06 pm
The except Antarctica is actually are a huge expection. Antarctica holds 90% of the worlds glacial ice. The arctic, greenland, Alaksa, etc. or just 10%. Depending on the time of year Antarctica is the fourth or fifth largest continent.
In addition, a lot of the arctic ice is floating so when it melts it doesn’t raise sea level. The ice in Antartica ranges between 2 and 3 miles deep. Interestingly Antartica is actually considered a desert because at those temperatures it can’t hold much moisture so precipitation is similar to the Sahara desert.
Currently, we continue to loose some ice off the edges but the rest of the continent is actually increasing in ice. This creates increased pressure on the ice which causes it to move more quickly.
If rising sea levels are a concern, what happens on those other continents is insignificant. Shows you how easy it is to skew data.
December 21, 2007 at 6:44 pm
Excerpts from Chapter 4….
The main components of the cryosphere are snow, river and lake ice, sea ice, glaciers and ice caps, ice shelves, ice sheets, and frozen ground (Figure 4.1). In terms of the ice mass and its heat capacity, the cryosphere is the second largest component of the climate system (after the ocean). Its relevance for climate, variability and change is based on physical properties, such as its high surface refl ectivity (albedo) and the latent heat associated with phase changes, which have a strong impact on the surface energy balance. The presence (absence) of snow or ice in polar regions is associated with an increased (decreased) meridional temperature difference, which affects winds and ocean currents. Because of the positive temperature-ice albedo feedback, some cryospheric components act to amplify both changes and variability. However, some, like glaciers and permafrost, act to average out short-term variability and so are sensitive indicators of climate change. Elements of the cryosphere are found at all latitudes, enabling a near-global assessment of cryosphererelated climate changes.
While Antartica may hold as you say, I didn’t research that figure, 90% of the worlds glacial ice
The cryosphere on land stores about 75% of the world’s freshwater. The volumes of the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets are equivalent to approximately 7 m and 57 m of sea level rise, respectively. Changes in the ice mass on land have contributed to recent changes in sea level. On a regional scale, many glaciers and ice caps play a crucial role in freshwater availability.
Presently, ice permanently covers 10% of the land surface, of which only a tiny fraction lies in ice caps and glaciers outside Antarctica and Greenland (Table 4.1). Ice also covers approximately 7% of the oceans in the annual mean. In midwinter, snow covers approximately 49% of the land surface in the Northern Hemisphere (NH). Frozen ground has the largest area of any component of the cryosphere. Changes in the components of the cryosphere occur at different time scales, depending on their dynamic and thermodynamic characteristics (Figure 4.1). All parts of the cryosphere contribute to short-term climate changes, with permafrost, ice shelves and ice sheets also contributing to longer-term changes including the ice age cycles.
The late 20th-century glacier wastage likely has been a response to post-1970 warming. Strongest mass losses per unit area have been observed in Patagonia, Alaska and northwest USA and southwest Canada. Because of the corresponding large areas, the biggest contributions to sea level rise came from Alaska, the Arctic and the Asian high mountains.
Flow speed has increased for some Greenland and Antarctic outlet glaciers, which drain ice from the interior. The corresponding increased ice sheet mass loss has often followed thinning, reduction or loss of ice shelves or loss of fl oating glacier tongues. Assessment of the data and techniques suggests a mass balance of the Greenland Ice Sheet of between +25 and –60 Gt yr–1 (–0.07 to 0.17 mm yr–1 SLE) from 1961 to 2003, and –50 to –100 Gt yr–1 (0.14 to 0.28 mm yr–1 SLE) from 1993 to 2003, with even larger losses in 2005. Estimates for the overall mass balance of the Antarctic Ice Sheet range from +100 to –200 Gt yr–1 (–0.28 to 0.55 mm yr–1 SLE) for 1961 to 2003, and from +50 to –200 Gt yr–1 (–0.14 to 0.55 mm yr–1 SLE) for 1993 to 2003. The recent changes in ice fl ow are likely to be suffi cient to explain much or all of the estimated antarctic mass imbalance, with changes in ice flow, snowfall and melt water runoff suffi cient to explain the mass imbalance of Greenland.
Results summarised here indicate that the total cryospheric contribution to sea level change ranged from 0.2 to 1.2 mm yr–1 between 1961 and 2003, and from 0.8 to 1.6 mm yr–1 between 1993 and 2003. The rate increased over the 1993 to 2003 period primarily due to increasing losses from mountain glaciers and ice caps, from increasing surface melt on the Greenland Ice Sheet and from faster fl ow of parts of the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets.
And so you say “Currently, we continue to loose some ice off the edges but the rest of the continent is actually increasing in ice.” but:
Glaciers and ice caps adapt to a change in climate conditions much more rapidly than does a large ice sheet, because they have a higher ratio between annual mass turnover and their total mass. Changes in glaciers and ice caps reflect climate variations, in many cases providing information in remote areas where no direct climate records are available, such as at high latitudes or on the high mountains that penetrate high into the middle troposphere.
As for the sea ice, yes it is true that when it melts it doesn’t raise sea level but, and again I refer you to another chapter of the IPCC’s data:
Sea ice is formed by freezing of seawater in the polar oceans. It is an important, interactive component of the global climate system because: a) it is central to the powerful ‘icealbedo’ feedback mechanism that enhances climate response at high latitudes (see Chapter 2); b) it modifi es the exchange of heat, gases and momentum between the atmosphere and polar oceans; and c) it redistributes freshwater via the transport and subsequent melt of relatively fresh sea ice, and hence alters ocean buoyancy forcing.
What data do you have that suggest the antartic ice sheets are thickening?
Quantitative data on the thickness of antarctic pack ice only started to become available in the 1980s from sparsely scattered drilling programs covering only small areas and primarily for use in validating other techniques.
Antarctica appears to be losing mass at least partly in response to recent ice flow acceleration in some near-coastal regions, although with greater uncertainty in overall balance than for Greenland. Shortcomings in forcing, physics and resolution in comprehensive ice flow models have prevented them from fully capturing the ice flow changes.
The IPCC does address some a lack of agreement between techniques and the small number of estimates on the Greenland Ice sheets.
December 21, 2007 at 6:45 pm
I would go further, but, lol….my boss just told us all we could take off the rest of the day!! Merry Xmas…will continue next week if you want to!
December 21, 2007 at 8:15 pm
If you think all the debate is over, all the science is in and you can prove it, here’s a quick way to make $150,000. Go to http://www.junkscience.com and tell them you’re ready to collect. Very easy rules.
I think most people have very little faith in scientific projects, because they are almost always wrong. Take a look at the 5 day forecast in your area. Then track what happens in the next five days. The results will only be slightly better than making a wild guess.
Where I live the accuracy of forecasts start at about 95% for what it’s going to be doing in the next two or three minutes. The forecast for later in the day is at about 50% and the next day it’s about 25%. Next week is just fantasy land.
So, I’d say that the degree of accuracy of a 50 to 100 trend is less than 1%. We just have to hope that the volcano under Yellowstone which was due to go 200,000 years ago doesn’t go soon. Covering the entire globe with 1 to 3 feet of volcanic ash is going to play havoc with the climate models.