North pole to melt this year?

Less ice affects albedo. In that sense it should put upward pressure on global temperatures. Here are the global sea ice anomaly data. Interestingly, I note no significant association between recent ice melts and the temperature anomaly linked above, nor was ice particularly scant preceding or following the 1998 global warm year. This hardly disproves the importance of the albedo effect, but it does seem to call for scrutiny. With less sea ice and more CO2, something else is (at least for now) more strongly influencing our global tropospheric mean temperature.

Global sea ice
 
Texoz....why don't you check out the satellite images and tell me how this year could be worse than last year?


satellite comparisons

furthermore, it is completely hypocritical to mention single data points (the fact that we had an early hurricane this year) but then shun other data points (the fact that the global temperatures are getting LOWER and LOWER month after month for the past 6 years (general trend, not every month).

by the way, if you can mention an early hurricane as evidence of something that even meteorologists mostly reject (the notion that global warming leads to more frequent and larger hurricanes) then is it ok for me to mention the fact that the past few years have had very low numbers of hurricanes contrary to predictions by those who wanted to link the issues?

how about the fact that Charlotte, NC (i think it was them) just broke a 123 year old record for cold? etc etc.....it is silly to mention single data points such as a hurricane but to reject others......i think it is silly to use them at all.....i only mention global temperatures because that is SUPPOSED to be what this thing is all about.....currently, they are dropping, rather quickly i might add.
 
Don't know that I was arguing anything...
btw, how much rain fell in Austin this June?

You worry about San Francisco, let us worry about Texas.
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mackfan....check out some of the links i have been posting to. 1998 was the hottest year on record, but the trend still continued upwards (from before 1998 to about 2002.....since then the trend has been fairly steady to downward, particularly in the past 2 years. so far 2008 is on track to be colder than 1980.......not exactly what Global Warming theory would predict do you think?
 
well if we are going to only worry about Texas....then we don't really need to worry at all do we? short of a bit more discomfort, it won't be a big deal for us if it is true will it?


by the way, i think this is a bad idea. if it is legit and CO2 is one of the major causes, we should be doing far more than worry about only Texas.
 
Looks like more surface area covered with sea ice at present, but it also looks like much of the coverage is thinner. Let's look again in August, September and October and back off this thread for a little while. The only eternal thread about something melting on HornFans should be "Mira Sorvino eating an ice cream cone."
 
how can you tell that the coverage is thinner?

there are websites that update the actual coverage and currently it is about 5 days behind last year's melt off.....which is significant.
 
Apologies. The colors were showing concentration, not thickness. So, more total area has some concentration, but the area of higher concentration appears to be shifted east and not much greater, if any, than last year.

Again, let us see what we see later in the summer.
 
The original article referred to estimates that all the ice in the Arctic will melt in the summer by the year 2030, not this summer. The article only suggested it is possible that the geographic north pole, not the entire Arctic, might be melted this year. The original poster read the article wrong if he thinks it was saying all the Arctic ice will disappear this summer.
 
Scroll down to Fig. 4 on Aug 22, 2007 entry for info about Arctic ice thickness.
The Link

It's an odd animated gif, but the message is that old ice (aka thicker ice) is decreasing each season, which creates faster melting for the next season.
 
bierce....there are pictures of the north pole melted in the 50's.....if that is all the article is claiming (and you may be right)....that is a very boring prediction.

Texoz.....and yet, it is not happening this year.
 
What Beirce said. "We'll wait and see what happens later this summer."

what if nothing does, what then?
 
What part of 50% chance do you not understand? There is a good chance the ice will melt this summer, a good chance it will take a year or more longer.
 
"What part of 50% chance do you not understand?"

Classic.
"Hey, we'll just put it at 50%. Half chance we're right and if we're not... eh, what the hell."
 
The chance that global warming is real and partly anthropogenic is rated as over 90% by current best science (as discussed and linke on previous West Mall posts)-does that carry any weight with you? No, didn't think so.
There, fixed it.
 
accuratehorn, I don't know to whom you directed your last salvo. If it was directed my way, if you look back through the thread you might glean that I am concerned about loss of global ice mass.

BTW, I have yet to turn on the air conditioner in my house this year. I live in Corpus Christi. My electricity bill is running about $30 a month. I have a 40/32 mpg car. I fill the tank about once a month.
 
all very vague..."partly" anthropogenic (i am giving him the benefit of the doubt here kgp) could mean anything. if man is contributing 10% to global warming...that is "partly" but i could frankly care less. if the world is going to go up by 5 degrees in the next Century and all of our pollution adds .5 degrees.....do i really care? no...

why? because that means we could spend trillions and trillions of dollars to only affect the global temperatures by some FRACTION of .5 degrees.

i still say innovation is the answer, not radical and extreme measures when we still don't know what the heck is going on.

plus....global ice is steady........north pole is NOT going to eclipse last year, that becomes more clear with every passing day (after yesterday we are now 10 days behind last year's melt off that was NOT all of the ice).......and global temperatures are continuing to drop. last month was COLDER than the past 30 years' average according to the UAH satellite data and just SLIGHTLY above average according to the RSS.

this is looking more and more like much ado about nothing and it is going to be funny to watch it all come crumbling down or to watch the panic switch to global cooling.

for the record, i do realize that the chance of this happening is slim, but it cracks me up to think about it. more than likely, the temps will swing back up soon.....but it has been fun to consider the alternative.
 
For those of you who prefer science to science denial, check out the most recent issue of American Journal of Physics (you need a subscription to access it on-line, but you can find it at your local university library). The reference is:

Mastrandrea, M. D., and S. H. Schneider. 2008. Resource letter GW-2: Global warming. American Journal of Physics 76:608-614.

Interesting excerpts include:

"There is now overwhelming scientific evidence that the primary driver of the observed global-scale warming, particularly the rapid warming of the last forty years, is emissions of infrared-trapping gases such as carbon dioxide and methane, from human activities..."

"...human activities, predominantly the burning of fossil fuels, are increasing the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere..."

"The greenhouse effect and its intensification by human-induced emissions of greenhouse gases are well understood and solidly grounded in basic science."

"Meanwhile, even the most optimistic "business-as-usual" emissions pathway is projected to result in dramatic, and perhaps dangerous, climate impacts. Therefore, there is a clear need to make policy decisions before this uncertainty is resolved, rather than using it as a justification for delaying action."

Or, you can listen to MOP and the chief engineer for the West Virginian Office of Mine Safety.

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