Michael, first of all, you failed to cite the source for your Arctic ice article, which is Basin Electric News. I would be very suspicious of "scientific" articles from a power company, whose mission is to make profits from selling energy. If you reread your article, you will note that it states that there is no "statistically significant" cooling going on. Temperatures do vary significantly from year to year. However, there are trends, like every year recently getting warmer, that are alarming to many scientists. One might want to wonder why that it happening.
I do think you are confusing an article full of little stories that mean essentially nothing with science, however. And are you disputing that the polar ice caps are melting, which is what the global warming people are alarmed about? Your article is sort of pseudo-science, not dealing with the melting ice caps at all, which is one thing that will cause widespread chaos. It is easy to take data and distort it.
Here is a much more relevant article, in my opinion. Unfortunately you will actually have to click on the url to look at the graph, which didn't replicate:
160,000 BP - Global Warming
Many scientists fear that rising levels of
so-called "greenhouse gases" from the
burning of fossil fuels and other human
activities will cause global warming, with
potentially grave consequences for human
agriculture and society. One of the clearest
signs that elevated levels of greenhouse
gases can result in warming comes from an
ice core taken near the Russian Vostok
station in Antarctica. This graph tracks
temperature and atmospheric levels of
carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4)
from the present back to about 160,000
years ago. (This represents about 11,350 feet of ice accumulation.) The graph clearly
shows how a rise in gases will mean a rise in global temperature (though whether rising
gases trigger rising temperatures, or vice versa, remains unknown). Also note that, at
about 360 parts per million, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere today far exceeds
levels at any time in the past 160,000 years--indeed, in the past few million years. For
those worried about global warming, this is a sobering statistic.
Graph data taken from:
Barnola, J. M., D. Raynaud, Y. S. Korotkevich and C. Lorius, 1987, Vostok ice core provides
160,000-year record of atmospheric CO2, Nature, 329, 408-414.
Chappellaz, J., J.-M. Barnola, D. Raynaud, Y. S. Korotkevich and C. Lorius, 1990, Atmospheric CH4
record over the last climatic cycle revealed by the Vostok ice core, Nature, 345, 127-131.
Jouzel, J., C. Lorius, J. R. Petit, C. Genthon, N. I. Barkov, V. M. Kotlyakov and V. M. Petrov, 1987,
Vostok ice core: a continuous isotope temperature record over the last climatic cycle (160,000 years),
Nature, 329, 403-407.
Lorius, C., J. Jouzel, C. Ritz, L. Merlivat, N. E. Barkov and Y. S. Korotkevich, A., 1985, 150,000-year
climatic record from Antarctic ice, Nature, 316, 591-595.
pbs.org |
