Big Thaw of Arctic Soil May Unleash Runaway Warming

[pheyton]

[Ol Dirty Gaijin]

I know there are a few Climate Change deniers on this board so I am going to start reporting articles to help you understand that it is happening, we are causing it and we better do something about it.

Skeptic please. Climate always changes, no denial there. Skeptics look at the data around rather than quote the AlGorical and the "Big Watermelon" groups. Stop changing the talk every time it no longer suits the argument. Remember Global Warming, now it's Climate Change.

[Uhhuh35]

I know there are a few Climate Change deniers on this board so I am going to start reporting articles to help you understand that it is happening, we are causing it and we better do something about it.

Here's a little "Primer on Global Warming" for ya':
http://eteam.ncpa.org/files/GlobalWarmingPrimer_low.pdf
Wanna' know the real cause of all this "global warming" hysteria? Follow the money:
http://blog.heritage.org/2008/05/27/the-fraud-at-the-core-of-cap-and-trade/
http://www.globalclimatescam.com/?p=160

[Greji]

Here's a little "Primer on Global Warming" for ya':
http://eteam.ncpa.org/files/GlobalWarmingPrimer_low.pdf
Wanna' know the real cause of all this "global warming" hysteria? Follow the money:
http://blog.heritage.org/2008/05/27/the-fraud-at-the-core-of-cap-and-trade/
http://www.globalclimatescam.com/?p=160

Nice....

[pheyton]

I expected as much from Riech wingers. Your come back to actual scientists doing research is to quote sites from fuckin politicians and Right Wing Think Tanks. Absolutely no addessing the science behind the article, just hey look here at my right wing websites for the truth! Follow the money all right, Coors, Melon-Scaife, Walton's, etc are the people funding the Heritage Foundation.

I would much rather call it Global Warming because that is what is happening, but most are referring to it now as climate change to appease the dumbed down Americans. The turth is inconvenient isn't it?

From 8-28-08
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5io8-mhR216BbP-65r8IrK1C6y8ZQD92QRQD81

WASHINGTON (AP) — More ominous signs Wednesday have scientists saying that a global warming "tipping point" in the Arctic seems to be happening before their eyes: Sea ice in the Arctic Ocean is at its second lowest level in about 30 years.

The National Snow and Ice Data Center reported that sea ice in the Arctic now covers about 2.03 million square miles. The lowest point since satellite measurements began in 1979 was 1.65 million square miles set last September.

With about three weeks left in the Arctic summer, this year could wind up breaking that previous record, scientists said.

Arctic ice always melts in summer and refreezes in winter. But over the years, more of the ice is lost to the sea with less of it recovered in winter. While ice reflects the sun's heat, the open ocean absorbs more heat and the melting accelerates warming in other parts of the world.

Sea ice also serves as primary habitat for threatened polar bears.

"We could very well be in that quick slide downward in terms of passing a tipping point," said senior scientist Mark Serreze at the data center in Boulder, Colo. "It's tipping now. We're seeing it happen now."

Within "five to less than 10 years," the Arctic could be free of sea ice in the summer, said NASA ice scientist Jay Zwally.

"It also means that climate warming is also coming larger and faster than the models are predicting and nobody's really taken into account that change yet," he said.

Five climate scientists, four of them specialists on the Arctic, told The Associated Press that it is fair to call what is happening in the Arctic a "tipping point." NASA scientist James Hansen, who sounded the alarm about global warming 20 years ago before Congress, said the sea ice melt "is the best current example" of that.

Last year was an unusual year when wind currents and other weather conditions coincided with global warming to worsen sea ice melt, Serreze said. Scientists wondered if last year was an unusual event or the start of a new and disturbing trend.

This year's results suggest the latter because the ice had recovered a bit more than usual thanks to a somewhat cooler winter, Serreze said. Then this month, when the melting rate usually slows, it sped up instead, he said.

The most recent ice retreat primarily reflects melt in the Chukchi Sea off Alaska's northwest coast and the East Siberian Sea off the coast of eastern Russia, according to the center.

The Chukchi Sea is home to one of two populations of Alaska polar bears.

Federal observers flying for a whale survey on Aug. 16 spotted nine polar bears swimming in open ocean in the Chukchi. The bears were 15 to 65 miles off the Alaska shore. Some were swimming north, apparently trying to reach the polar ice edge, which on that day was 400 miles away.

Polar bears are powerful swimmers and have been recorded on swims of 100 miles but the ordeal can leave them exhausted and susceptible to drowning.

And the melt in sea ice has kicked in another effect, long predicted, called "Arctic amplification," Serreze said.

That's when the warming up north is increased in a feedback mechanism and the effects spill southward starting in autumn, he said. Over the last few years, the bigger melt has meant more warm water that releases more heat into the air during fall cooling, making the atmosphere warmer than normal.

On top of that, researchers were investigating "alarming" reports in the last few days of the release of methane from long frozen Arctic waters, possibly from the warming of the sea, said Greenpeace climate scientist Bill Hare, who was attending a climate conference in Ghana. Giant burps of methane, which is a potent greenhouse gas, is a long feared effect of warming in the Arctic that would accelerate warming even more, according to scientists.

Overall, the picture of what's happening in the Arctic is getting worse, said Bob Corell, who headed a multinational scientific assessment of Arctic conditions a few years ago: "We're moving beyond a point of no return."

Climate change is the most important issue we face period. Everyone knows when those methane burps start we are fucked.

[Samurai_Jerk]

I don't think anyone is denying the climate is changing. They're skeptical that what's happening is caused by man and is unusual or unprecedented in our planets four billion year existence. Here are the facts: when I saw Al Gore's movie it all seemed very plausible to me that we're heading to hell in a hand basket and it's our own fault not mention a vast right wing capitalist conspiracy. However, when I saw that BBC documentary about how the global warming doomsday scenario propaganda machine is full of it and we are just experiencing a normal and natural cycle that also seemed very plausible to me. You know why? I'm not a fucking scientist and no matter what I read and who it's published by, in the end I'm just choosing to take a side.

However, the more I look into it the less I believe it is just a matter of our own carbon emissions. The problem with the global warming doomsday crowd is they're putting all their eggs in one basket, telling a lot of big fat lies in the process to get everyone on board, and doing their best to silence and marginalize any experts on climate change who might not agree with the so called mainstream opinion.

The fact is, even if climate change isn't the result of carbon emissions, we do need to work to cut back on pollution and find a cleaner way to exist on this earth. That should be the focus. The chicken-little-sky-is-falling scenario gets us nowhere.

[Uhhuh35]

I would much rather call it Global Warming because that is what is happening, but most are referring to it now as climate change to appease the dumbed down Americans.

Actually I think the phrase "climate change" is used now because "Global Warming" as introduced by Algore has been exposed for the hoax that it is. "Climate Change" has been happening for 4.5 billion years so people are generally more open to discussions about that. Know what I'm sayin'?
The new scam that has replaced global warming is "Cap and Trade". This is merely a way to transfer wealth to poor nations as rich, producing nations will have to buy the poorer nations "pollution credits". See how that works? Global welfare payments under the guise of "saving the planet". What an incredible scam!
And you think the economy sucks now? Wait till that wrench gets thrown into Americas' economic engine. But perhaps that was the plan all along?
And how could you go for a plan that was supported by the "evil" Ken Lay of ENRON?:
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Economy/wm1723.cfm

None other than Enron's Ken Lay was a strong supporter of carbon cap and trade when the idea was first floated in the 1990s, saying that it could "do more to promote Enron's business than almost any other regulatory initiative." These carbon allowances that will be bought and sold have a value estimated at $50 billion to $300 billion annually, and the trade in them would be a huge new business. Enron may be gone, but others ready to take advantage of cap and trade--often at public expense--are not.

I don't read that "saving the planet" was his reason for doing it either, money was. You see? "Follow the Money". Cap and Trade is only good for the people who will buy and sell the credits. Sorta like those speculators that drove up the price of oil remember? And do you think that business is just gonna eat that expense as "acost of doing business"? Hell no! They're gonna' pass it on to average Joes like you and I at the cash register.