Our Oceans are Under Attack

Greenland is now losing 20 percent more mass than it receives from new snowfall each year. Ice sheets are thick, broad masses of ice formed mainly from compaction of snow. They spread under their own weight, transferring mass towards their margins where it is lost primarily by runoff of surface melt water or by calving of icebergs into marginal seas or lakes.
An analysis of 30 years of satellite data suggests that the loss of Arctic sea ice is also accelerating. There are projections that much of the sea ice, until now thought to be permanent, will melt during the summer by the end of this century if the current trend in global warming continues. This will have major direct impacts on indigenous people and Arctic wildlife such as polar bears and seals, and will also open the region to increased development pressure as access by sea to valuable natural resources becomes easier.

The global impacts may also be significant as absorption of solar radiation increases, and could lead to changes in the world ocean circulation. The positive feedbacks involved here are that once the melting Greenland ice sheet gets thinner, temperatures are higher, increasing the melting and causing more precipitation to fall as rain rather than snow. This also lowers the albedo of the exposed ice-free land causing a local climatic warming; and the cycle speeds up and continues, where surface melt water accelerates ice flow.

 

Where is the 2014 picture? I see only 1978 and 2007

 

Political correctness ISN'T an attempt to restrict free speech?

I don't care how skinny a man's wife is. Her self perception overrules the mirror.
Call her FATTY, you better plan sleeping elsewhere if you VALUE YOUR JEWELS!

 

http://www.climatedepot.com/2014/08...gores-prediction-it-would-be-ice-free-by-now/

 

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/

 

Not quite an apples to apples comparison, but here is the latest update from the Arctic Sea-Ice Monitor website. As you can see, a few days ago was probably the lowest Arctic sea-ice extent for this year.




September 22, 2007


September 22, 2014



As you can see, 2007 was the second lowest Arctic sea-ice extent since @1980? This year is nowhere near the lowest (2012), but still substantially less than the 2000-2009 average.

Edit: I see that NASA is calling this year's Arctic Sea-Ice Extent the sixth-lowest on record (since 1978).


An animation of daily Arctic sea ice extent from March 21 to Sept. 17 – when the ice appeared to reach it’s minimum extent for the year. It’s the sixth lowest minimum sea ice extent in the satellite era. The data was provided by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.


2014 Arctic Sea Ice Minimum Sixth Lowest on Record | NASA

 

Climate always changes. Has been for millions of years. (I'm an old earth creationist)
The question remains, can we accurately predict future change?
You can project assumptions which is like extrapolating conclusions.
Results are more affected by your personal "expectations' than facts.
If the majority of climatologists are of the same political world view, and they are, then no surprise their projections will be similar.
Is this scientific consensus? Or consensus of adherents of one political worldview?
My recommendation?
Adapt, man is talented at adapting, adjust to whatever level of comfort you feel is needed consistent with your personal philosophy.
Leave other people free to make the same personal choice.
If you don't respect the freedom of others, you'll quickly have much bigger problems than climate variation!

 

S'ok darlin'. I'll be gentle with you.

So you're telling me that if a bunch of scientists walked up to you and said they'd seen an elephant, your conclusion would be that they had actually seen an aardvark and were just saying it was an elephant because obviously they were all communists, and if some good old conservatives had been with those durned scientists we would be able to get the truth about that aardvark.

Ok. Interesting way of looking at things. The other possibility is that there actually was an elephant, and that they were capable of recognising an elephant when they saw one.

This says more about you than it does about climate science. You are assuming that because a particular scientific issue may have political ramifications that you don't personally like, the only possible reason for the scientific results is that there is some secret conspiracy, involving hundreds of thousands of people all over the world, of differing personal and political views, who never breaks ranks with the conspiracy. That the results could be just what they are, regardless of what anyone thinks about them, and that it is then up to us to decide what to do with the information, is something you can't process.

Short version: it's a scientific consensus.

Nobody is proposing not adapting. What some people are suggesting is that it would be an extremely good idea to adapt the way we do some particular things, rather than just blindly continuing to do them the way we have always done them. This is still adaptation. It's just a more effective type of adaptation than what you have in mind.

It's not all about you. Sometimes your actions affect other people.

 

so why should your wishes, desires, ideas about what you think I should do, so you can feel safe and be happy, have more value than my desire for you to leave me alone?
And simply they don't. so answer if you want, but what I want to do is more important than what you want me to do.

 

Well, I'd agree if it wasn't going to affect anyone else. However, when your actions have adverse effects on other people, then it's hardly just about your rights. It's also about their rights. This is a basic idea for most societies: that if it's stuff that only affects you then you can do whatever you like, but if your actions have effects on other people then you need to consider them too. Screwing other people over without giving a damn is rude, to say the least. It can also be flat out inhumane and/or illegal, depending. You're the polite one, remember? I'm the foul-mouthed barbarian. I shouldn't need to explain this stuff to you.

Anyway, the problem with global climate change is, you guessed it, it's global. That means it affects everyone. So, not surprisingly quite a lot of people would like to do something about it. If you, personally, want to ignore it all then I suppose you can up to a point, but that doesn't mean you can stop everyone else taking the actions they think are necessary. That would be an infringement of their rights, yes? You wouldn't want to do that.

The problem you have is that although you may like to pretend that this is a purely political issue, and the product of a worldwide evil conspiracy, the number of people worldwide who believe that is far fewer than the number who don't. Most people aren't, to put it plainly, that irrational. This is why there is already some action being taken internationally, and this is very likely to increase. This should not diminish your personal freedom noticeably, so I wouldn't panic about it. You'll still be living in basically the same society that you have always lived in. It's just that some of the technology employed may be different. Technological change has been happening for yonks anyway, so why worry?

 

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/element-magazine/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503340&objectid=11329450

Hundreds of people marched down Queen Street to draw attention to climate change on Sunday, in the first of a series of mass demonstrations around the world.
Organisers have said as many as 600,000 people turned out to thousands of events in the US, Latin America, Europe, India and Australia, including up to 310,000 in New York and up to 30,000 in Melbourne.
The People's Climate March - co-ordinated by international campaign organisation Avaaz - was timed to coincide with the UN Climate Summit in New York.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jFyRAkeTLw

 

Soooo - what side of the road do you drive on, when you're in the UK, Japan or Australia....?

PDW

 

On a Warmer Planet, Which Cities Will Be Safest? | NEW YORK TIMES

And besides, who'd want to live near Hoyt or Yob? They're going to get very crotchety in the next few decades...

 

I like your sources for a scientific rebuttal, an old neocon Israeli whose only other writings are about radical Islam and how the Whitehouse is full of Communists.

Once again, you are confusing weather with climate. The ship got trapped not by ice that was created by the water around them freezing, but by old sea ice that shifted location because of high winds. Sea ice itself may be very thin, but when it gets broken up and then blown and packed into a smaller area, it gets thick enough to stop icebreakers.

Here's from a diary, showing how malfunctioning equipment delayed teams on land from getting back to the ship before the pack ice blew in and trapped the expedition ship, so by the time an icebreaker was rounded up, it was too thick.

http://www.theguardian.com/science/...ntarctic-expedition-was-worth-it-chris-turney

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/30/world/antarctica-ship.html?_r=0

Too bad you don't understand what you're observing.

 

You presume to tell me about ice navigation?
Besides an Ocean Masters and Towing Masters licenses, I hold 1st Class Pilot Any Gross Tons for the entire Great Lakes system . Includes 5 lakes, 3 rivers and the Welland Canal. I sailed GL ore freighters for 11 years, 70 thru 82. Done quite a bit of ice navigation. Including 1977/78 season record ice conditions. Normally a 4 to 5 day round trip, it took us from Dec 18 till Jan 28 to sail from Cleveland to Escanaba and return loaded to Cleveland, ice bound most of the trip.
How much ice navigation experience YOU got?
http://www.wbay.com/story/24933405/2014/03/10/ice-breaking-on-great-lakes-could-take-months

The POINT isn't who has the information, but who LIES.

Antarctic summer ice mostly all melts? Insubstantial? Malarky!
The liars got caught in the all melted 'insubstantial" ice.
ROFLAMAO