Monday, June 30, 2008

No Ice at the North Pole !!!!!!

My wife told me about a headline she read last week. And of course, I had to check it out. So I went and looked.

It turns out that there are scientists betting on whether or not the North Pole will be ice-free for a short time this September for the first time EVER!, I mean in recorded history, I mean since we've actually had the means and inclination to check it regularly.

Which really hasn't been that long.

We don't have any record from anyone who was actually "there" before 1909, and there weren't a lot of aerial photos of it before, I'll assume, WWII -- probably at least several years after. So probably 50 or 60 years. And after all, the earth has gotten a little warmer in the last 150 years as far as we can tell. Like 0.7 degrees C.

Now, when you see a headline that says "Scientists Say North Pole May Be Ice Free This Year for the First Time In Recorded History" -- what do you think pops into most people's heads?

A: Most people probably assume that it has never happened before, at least since the dinosaurs died off, and they also imagine the Arctic sea free of ice.

The Arctic sea will be far from free of ice, even if this prediction does come true.

The Gulf Stream tends to keep the European side of the ice cap farther to the north than the rest of it, and if the North Pole becomes ice-free briefly one year, it won't be because the ice cap shrank uniformly in all directions until one last ice cube melts away right at the pole one day and polar bears are left scratching their heads doing the backstroke.

It'll melt in from the side that's already much closer to the pole and the rest of the ice won't be far off at that time.

If the earth continues to cool over the next 30 years as expected it'll get bigger and thicker again.

Which is why AGW-oligists are scrambling to do damage control - "oh, it's just on hiatus for a while, but IT'LL BE BACK!!!!' You know, even though we're at the unstoppable tipping point, and it's ALL CAUSED BY MAN!!!! And even though it's on hiatus, it's accellerating faster than ever! Either way, we're right!!!! Wallee said so!

I was reading an article earlier that was talking about how CO2 levels were around 180 ppm during the last ice age, and it rose to a comfortable 280 ppm (caused by ... ?????), but then "we" have "pushed it up" to 390 ppm after that. So the natural balance changed naturally to a natural state, but since we've been around, it's unnaturally changed to an unnatural state.

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