[extropy-chat] Alleged Climate Collapse

Mike Lorrey mlorrey at yahoo.com
Mon Feb 23 16:15:39 UTC 2004


--- Harvey Newstrom <mail at harveynewstrom.com> wrote:
> Mike Lorrey wrote,
> > a) there has not been any collapse of Greenland or Antarctic Ice
> caps
> > in millions of years,
> 
> Just because it hasn't happened in millions of years doesn't mean it
> won't happen again soon.  Do you suppose that earth is immune to
> asteroid impact because we haven't had one for a while?

Not at all. We are, however, dealing with cause and effect. The
Antarctic Ice Caps have been stable for the last 22 million years, in
which time the Earth has experienced a number of sustained periods with
MUCH warmer climate than present, as much as 10 degrees warmer. The
mere 2 degrees that the most accurate climate models predict for the
entire next century is noise compared to these real climate changes.

> 
> > in which time the Earth has seen far more severe
> > fluctuations than the 1 degree change we've seen over the past
> century
> > or the 2-6 degree change being predicted for this century (2
> degrees
> > being more likely).
> 
> Fluctuations don't melt ice.  Total time above 32 degrees Fahrenheit
> does.
> The above-freezing line is clearly encroaching on very old ice.  Very
> old ice is melting and collapsing.  Historical data is not very
> useful at dismissing current observations.

When I say 'fluctuations' it is in a geological sense, i.e. centuries.
When Northern Europe was warm enough for hippopotami to swim in the
Thames (and did), around 5000 BC, the Antarctic Ice Cap was sitting
pretty.

No, the above freezing line is NOT encroaching on very old ice. The
oldest ice is buried in the Dry Valleys surrounding the East Antarctice
Ice Cap, and they have been present for 22 million years. Since those
valleys are also the primary paths for Ice Cap ice to collapse through,
and there is no evidence that that has ever occured in these valleys,
it follows that the Ice Cap has been sitting there for 22 million
years, through periods when the earth was as much as 10 degrees warmer
than at present.

The Ice Line in Antarctica exists several hundred meters below the
subsea bedrock beneath the Ice Cap. Antarctica has been proven to be
thermally isolated from the rest of the earth, by circumpolar wind and
ocean currents, and has been to an ever increasing degree for the last
22 million years.

> 
> > Without ice cap collapse, there will be no rise in sea levels.
> 
> There already are measurable rises in sea levels.  There have already
> been edge collapses in Antarctica.  Ice shelves and peninsulae have
> collapsed into the oceans.  Some of these have been big enough to
> see from space and to require adjustments to modern maps.

You are unfamiliar with glacial morphology, like most of the public,
and are just buying into the propaganda. An Ice Shelf is ice which is
already sitting in the water. When Ice Shelf ice melts, it displaces no
more or less water, so its melting does not change the sea levels
whatsoever. Absolutely NO Ice Cap ice has collapsed. The ocean levels
are NOT rising.

ALL of the ice calving you see in the media is Ice Shelf ice, and real
climatologists say that that calving is ice which built up over the
Little Ice Age. The acceleration of Greenland glacial movement is also
due to ice from the center of Greenland laid down during the Little Ice
Age finally reaching the coast.

REAL sea levels are NOT rising. SOME areas of coastline and some
islands are subsiding due to tectonic action, or normal and natural
current-based erosion, NOT due to glacial or ice melting. In addition,
the chicken littles are counting the rising levels of the land-locked
Caspian Sea basin (which does not drain into the oceans) as 'sea level
rise' as if the oceans are rising. This is false. 

The Caspian Sea is rising because of two things: increased rainfall in
central asia, and the abandoning of Soviet projects to divert Caspian
basin rivers to irrigate siberian agricultural projects. These Soviet
projects had caused a historical DROP in Caspian sea levels in the mid
20th century, which at the time the Greens were claiming was a sign of
global warming (funny how they use ANY evidence either way to support
their claims). Now that river waters are no longer diverted, and the
Caspian Sea is rising, that this is also a sign of 'global warming'.

> 
> > b) It has yet to be proven that CO2 is a causative agent of
> anything.
> 
> Difficulty in finding the root cause does nothing to dispute the
> problem.

Implementing political policies to address an alleged root cause that
is not a root cause IS a big problem, and will lead to much more
environmental destruction than it claims to fix.

> 
> > For example, late 19th century data of global temperatures
> > and coal production and consumption shows that temperatures began
> > rising BEFORE coal production and consumption rose.
> 
> This actually supports the reality that the globe is warming.

I don't dispute that there is SOME warming. I dispute what is causing
it, and what its claimed effects will be, and I dispute that it is
global in scope. The Pentagon report that started this thread is
self-contradictory and factually incorrect in many ways.

> 
> > c) CO2 proponents' climate models have consistently been highly
> > inaccurate at predicting *current day* climate based on historical
> > data, overestimating warming by a factor of 2-10.
> 
> Yes, weather prediction has been historically difficult.  This does
> not dismiss current observations or the most conservative
> predictions. This is merely an excuse to ignore science that is
> inconvenient.

NO, it isn't. It is an argument that science is being abused, that
conclusions are being reached for political purposes without evidence
to support those conclusions.

I find it EXTREMELY odd and suspicous that YOU, Harvey, of all people,
who has a storied history of being significantly critical of claims put
out by the Pentagon, seem so willing to accept their claims in this one
case.

> 
> > MOST warming is a result of Malenkovich Cycles in Earth
> > orbital dynamics, the rest, a warming of the arctic, is a result of
> > northern diesel burning imposing soot on the arctic environment.
> 
> Which means you can blame the greens for pushing diesel.  But again,
> this
> accepts global warming.  It merely reassigns the blame for it on the
> environmentalists.  Ironic and fun to do, but not really helpful in
> the larger scheme of things.  Even if environmentalists are to blame,
> this would be a human cause of real global warming which is having a
> real impact.

The diesel impact is NOT global. You should be smart enough to see
this: arctic climate is warming, that is IT. The tropical and
equatorial regions are not warming. The antarctic is not warming. Ergo,
it is NOT 'global warming', it is a very regional climate change
specific to the Arctic region, partly caused by more radiation hitting
the north pole, and partly because of the misguided socialist choices
that some regions have made.

Now, if I have the following set of numbers:

2
1
.5
.25
0
0
0
0
0
-.25
What is their average? It is a positive average, right? The top numbers
are the northern latitude warming figures. The rest is the rest of the
world. The average shows positive total change, but it isn't "global".
It is quite obviously regional in scope. This is a normal means of
lying with statistics. This is how the IPCC can claim a 1 degree change
in global temperatures: it is an average, and is not representative of
the WHOLE globe.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

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