I do not know enough to comment on climate change, or economics. I rely on people that know more than I do, and I usually know when someone knows more than I do.
"Usually" does not apply to me or others that have made a deep study of the area and its many shortcomings. And I beg to differ on not knowing "enough to comment on climate change". I've seen more alarmists being fear mongers and extremely arrogant than almost any other identifiable group.
What I do know is that the majority of the top atmospheric scientists in the world have no doubt about AGW.
FALSE
Where did this 97 percent figure come from? When you explore the lineage of this cliché, it appears about as convincing as a North Korean election. Most footnotes point to a paper published last year by Prof. John Cook of the University of Queensland, which purported to have reviewed the abstracts of over 11,000 climate science articles. But the abstract of Cook’s paper actually refutes the talking point:
"We find that 66.4% of abstracts expressed no position on AGW [anthropogenic global warming], 32.6% endorsed AGW, 0.7% rejected AGW and 0.3% were uncertain about the cause of global warming. Among abstracts expressing a position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming. In a second phase of this study, we invited authors to rate their own papers. Compared to abstract ratings, a smaller percentage of self-rated papers expressed no position on AGW (35.5%). Among self-rated papers expressing a position on AGW, 97.2% endorsed the consensus."
The Antarctic is a special situation that does not nullify global warming.
I've never said it did, but it sure helps offset the Arctic melt, which was my original point.
More snow accumulation is, counterintuitively, a sign of global warming; more precipitation happens when there is more moisture in the air, and more moisture in the air is a product of higher temperatures, said Elizabeth Thomas, a glaciologist with the British Antarctic Survey.
That link had no data on snow being caused by global warming, nor even any data on temperature (or humidity!) variances in Antarctica.
For example, the study doesn't include current data, leading some scientists to question whether the results are meaningful.
The most recent data in the study was from 2008, noted Michael Mann, a climate scientist at Pennsylvania State University.
The chart had data through 2013 and the site it came from said that 2014 data was available. Sounds like a failure, possibly intentional, on Mann's part. The higher rate of ice loss that he predicted also does not show up - a twofer fail.
The results also contradict a finding detailed last year in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters, in which Christoper Harig, a geoscientist at Princeton University, and his colleagues found a net loss of ice covering Antarctica.
A higher rate of ice loss is possible though, give the El Nino occurence... and strangely enough the only two times that global temperatures have gone up in the last 20 years has been during El Ninos. An inconvenient coincidence?
However, Mann said that, although the consensus among climate scientists is that Antarctica is, indeed, losing more ice than it is gaining, the new NASA study still demonstrates good science.
I'll believe it when I see it.
However, Mann said that, although the consensus among climate scientists is that Antarctica is, indeed, losing more ice than it is gaining, the new NASA study still demonstrates good science.
Thinking and supposedly having a consensus is very different than proving, and the prior 25 or so years of ice gain data still stands on its own.
As the ozone hole has gotten smaller, this cooling effect has mostly disappeared, Mann said, meaning that even East Antarctica will have warming rates comparable to global warming rates soon.
No facts yet again, just conjecture - very tacky "science" that I'd expect from Mann.
researchers studied the climate of West Antarctica over the past three centuries by looking at ice core records.
Oh wow, 300 years! Quite a long period of study they selected... and that doesn't include either the Roman warm period nor when Greenland had farms. /sarc Limited science just plain isn't science.
It's clear that studying climate change is a complicated endeavor, but any climate scientist will stress the importance of understanding what's happening to Antarctica. "In terms of climate, [the process] is hugely complex, and [there is] a lot going on," Thomas said. It will take a lot of research to get a better understanding of what's happening there because records of the region date back only decades.
Couldn't agree more... but that's not representative of the AGW alarmists or fear mongers |
