Here is a look at the melting ice hysteria and how it might not be the most "accurate," of scientific endeavors...
(I was asked on another thread why I doubted "man made," global warming and asked to give reasons...here is another reason...shoddy science by the global warmers...)
http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/12/another_global_warming_drive-by.html
Say that again...
And more from the article...
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/12/another_global_warming_drive-by.html#ixzz2EUbEedwf
(I was asked on another thread why I doubted "man made," global warming and asked to give reasons...here is another reason...shoddy science by the global warmers...)
http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/12/another_global_warming_drive-by.html
Well, it turns out to be more complicated than that. See, satellites pass over the same places at the same time every day. Also, how do you tell how much ice is over a spot? How do you tell how dense it is? Satellite coverage is far from complete for the whole Arctic or Antarctic, and so models have to be employed and extrapolations made. If ice is seen as disappearing in one spot it is assumed to be disappearing in spots that the satellites aren't getting a good look at. So models have to be used to make that extrapolation. It's part of why the National Snow and Ice Data Center accidentally "lost" Arctic ice -- about 193,000 square miles of it -- when they changed methods a few years back. This was a result of "sensory drift" and algorithmic problems.
And let us not forget that Antarctica is largely covered with ice; these sensors have to determine the mass of the ice based on other factors such as measurements of gravitational anomalies and other tricky things. It's difficult when you are trying to get a side-shot of your target, and trying to take into account factors that are not readily apparent such as land rise (when ice weight is reduced). Dr. Shepherd and the other researchers at IMBIE claim to have taken all this into account, but how accurate is their data?
There is a better way to determine this.
If I may quote from myself in a piece I had at Pajamas Media back in 2008:
"This is interesting because it logically ties in with sea level rise. Sea levels have been rising for the last 10,000 years - since the end of the last ice age - and an increase in [COLOR=#11B000 !important]ice melt[/COLOR] should coincide with an increase in the rate that the sea level is rising.
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report from 2001:
"No significant acceleration in the rate of sea level rise during the 20th century has been detected."
And in 2007 the IPCC reported:
"Global average sea level rose at an average rate of 1.8 [1.3 to 2.3] mm per year over 1961 to 2003. The rate was faster over 1993 to 2003: about 3.1 [2.4 to 3.8] mm per year. Whether the faster rate for 1993 to 2003 reflects decadal variability or an increase in the longer-term trend is unclear."
(Hat tip: World Climate Report)
According to the University of Colorado, the short-term rate of sea level rise has been leveling off.
But the researchers stubbornly persist in claiming an increase in sea level rise from ice melt.
Interesting. So how do they arrive at the conclusions that they do?
Dr.S. Fred Singer, Professor Emeritus at U. of Virginia and current head of the Science and Environment Policy Project, gives us the answer:
55.5 mm or 2.2 inches per century. The international research group of polar scientists, IMBIE, announced that melting glacial ice on Greenland and Antarctica has increased sea levels by 11.1 mm over 20 years, from 1992 to 2011, which can be extrapolated to the numbers above. However, one must not rely on long run extrapolations from short run data.
Yet, IMBIE did so. It stated that sea level rise increased in the second decade over the first decade. What is particularly interesting is the early data shows a decline in sea levels from an accumulation of ice, which indicates a cooling. Yet the 1980s and 1990s were decades of warming.
It is also interesting that news reports, such as in the Washington Post, excitedly reported the polar melt and sea level rise, but failed to provide information on how tiny the rise is. See here (for a graph).
This despite clear evidence that the RATE of sea level rise has not significantly increased.
Three years ago a claim was made that West Antarctica was warming -- and it turned out that the author of the paper (Steig et. al) "smeared" temperatures across the region, mixing warming in the Antarctic Peninsula with the rest of West Antarctica. By redefining regions, and he used the warming during the 1950's to "prove" West Antarctica was warming as a whole. He created a warming trend where none existed. Antarctica underwent considerable warming in the '50's -- well before the acceleration of carbon dioxide rise in the Earth's atmosphere, and the Antarctic Peninsula was and is considerably warmer than the main body of the continent.
Say that again...
He created a warming trend where none existed.
And more from the article...
The IMBIE report admits that ice is growing in East Antarctica and blames that on Global Warming; warmer air causing increased precipitation. But if that is so why is it not happening in West Antarctica as well? The entire Antarctic continent is surrounded by seas and the circumpolar current keeps the cold water swirling around it. By their own logic their argument falls; a warmer Antarctic would mean more snowfall everywhere, and that would mean we should see MORE ice in West Antarctica.
And if heat is shriveling the ice cap, is it reducing the sea ice packs? It just so happens that Antarctic sea ice extent is at an all time high.
Here is a table of sea ice extent in the Antarctic from NASA's Earth Observatory:
September/February (maximum/minimum) in million square kilometers
Sept. Feb.1979-2000 mean 18.7 2.9Interesting; if Global Warming is real we should have seen less sea ice on an ever declining scale.
1999/2000 19.0 2.8
2000/2001 19.1 3.7
2001/2002 18.4 2.9
2002/2003 18.2 3.9
2003/2004 18.6 3.6
2004/2005 19.1 2.9
2005/2006 19.1 2.7
2006/2007 19.4 2.9
2007/2008 19.3 3.9
2008/2009 18.5 2.9
2009/2010 19.2 3.2
2010/2011 19.2 2.5
2011/2012 18.9 3.5
Please note that sea ice extent is up through the 2000-2012 period. Only the 2001-04 period saw any reduction in the spring thaw and 2004 and 2010 saw a reduction in the fall freeze-up numbers.​
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/12/another_global_warming_drive-by.html#ixzz2EUbEedwf