Antarctic Sea Ice Reaches Highest Levels Since Record Began
Scientists say the extent of Antarctic sea ice cover is at its highest level since records began.
Satellite imagery reveals an area of about 20 million square kilometres covered by sea ice around the Antarctic continent.
Jan Lieser from the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) said the discovery was made two days ago.
“This is an area covered by sea ice which we’ve never seen from space before,” he said.
“Thirty-five years ago the first satellites went up which were reliably telling us what area, two dimensional area, of sea ice was covered and we’ve never seen that before, that much area.
Zerohedge adds more color and a satellite image-
In what appears to be an awkward moment of uncomfortable fact, ABC reports satellite imagery reveals an area of about 20 million square kilometres covered by sea ice around the Antarctic continent - the highest level of coverage since records began. This is the 3rd year in a row that the sea ice coverage has reached a record level - increasing at 1.5% each decade since
- However, there is another side to this, as the area covered in sea ice expands scientists have said the ice on the continent of Antarctica which is not over the ocean continues to deplete. The climate is changing, one way or the other.
Not only in Antarctica, but globally the temperature has not risen from where they were 15 years back, in what Acting-man blog calls The Inconvenient Pause.
Given that several years ago, climate scientists admitted that their models would have to be thrown out if the pause lasted longer than 15 years, it may be a bit surprising to find that not only have they not been thrown out, but the scaremongering in the media generally continues to be as shrill as ever, if not more so.
In the meantime, about 40 different explanations for the pause have been proposed in scientific papers. Obviously, not all 40 can be correct, but a thread that is unifying most of them has emerged: the pause is the result of, well, nature. Taking a laymans stab at this, we would propose that the same is true of the most recent warming period and the 30 years of cooling that preceded it. In other words, human influence on the climate is probably so small as to be negligible, and there is no cause for alarm.
So why the continued alarmism? Simple: it sells. Newspapers for instance arent sold with stories about there being no reason to be alarmed about something or other. Alarmist scientists face some risk to their reputation, but more importantly, a huge gravy train could be derailed if they admit that they have been wrong all along. As we have previously pointed out, before the current climate alarmism really got going in the 1980s, climate science was a rather small, sparsely funded scientific niche. Along with all the other government- subsidized activities that have sprung from climate alarmism (think e.g. green, but economically non-viable energy) it has in the meantime grown into a quite sizable tax-payer funded racket.
Bob Hoye - Tyrannical Duncery (continued)
Global Warming Nonsense
With a degree in Geophysics this writer has found the story about man-caused global warming fascinating. Fascinating in its blatant abuse of the discipline and skepticism that has driven the advance of science for thousands of years. Even more fascinating is that since catastrophic warming displaced global cooling concerns of the 1970s it has become another great experiment in authoritarian science.
The last such example involved a bitter struggle between the establishment and the giants in science Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler. The establishment spent considerable effort to incorporate growing astronomical evidence into their Earth-centric model. They imagined crystal spheres within spheres with absolutely impossible planetary motions. Officialdom promoted absurdity. Research contrary to authoritarian dogma was not permitted.
A prosperous middle class devoured books and pamphlets that criticized the establishment’s dogma.
Something similar prevails today and today’s “deniers” should be relieved that the full censure of the movement does not include the threat of capital punishment. In which case, the continued assembly of climate data with reason and logic independent of state propaganda will win the argument.
Can the issues be described as state propaganda?
The remedy for every intense concern about global warming and climate change is an increase in taxation and regulation. By the state, of the state and for the state.
In January 2008 this writer published “Intellectual Hysteria” which reviewed the promoted ‘political science’ as well as actual science. The main points were that the CAGW movement promoted that only man-generated CO2 was the cause of global warming. It was not the first time that mankind was deemed evil. Likely it won’t be the last.
The science part was a review of climate changes based upon orbital mechanics of the solar system. Earth scientists not on the government band wagon appreciate how climate history really works.
The title “Intellectual Hysteria” was based upon the long history of charismatic intellectuals discovering a personal revelation and promoting it. Usually part of the personal concern included that there were too many people on the planet. In the politically turbulent 1860s, Stanley Jevons calculated that the supplies of coal would soon be exhausted. His book was called The Coal Question. In the politically turbulent 1790s, Thomas Malthus promoted his personal anxieties under the rubric later described as “Malthusian Catastrophe”.
