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  • Originally posted by gunnut View Post
    Really? Let's take a look....

    http://www.theguardian.com/environme...icism-coverage

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reuter...ange_reporting

    Notice if one does not report "established climate change science" or expresses "doubt" or "skepticism," one is like a "flat earth society" member reporting on satellites.

    I'm sure there's no pressure at all at Reuters to grovel to the climate change mafia.

    Nope. No pressure at all. There is no such thing as persecution in science. It's absolutely, 100% neutral.
    Point taken but exactly who would be applying this 'pressure' on Reuters. One journalist resigning over editorial disagreements is neither proof of conspiracy nor is it justification for claiming that any article on the subject of GW is by default corrupted. Analyise and identify the flaws in their facts first - then complain.
    If you are emotionally invested in 'believing' something is true you have lost the ability to tell if it is true.

    Comment


    • Originally posted by Monash View Post
      Point taken but exactly who would be applying this 'pressure' on Reuters.
      The answer is in the articles... The Guardian, Media Matters, Climate Progress blog, Ceres sustainable business network, Joe Romm (who runs DesSmogBlog smear site). The usual suspects, all left wing propaganda outlets. If you think it's not a coordinated effort to denigrate and displace a climate "denier", and pressure Reuters to publish only what these self appointed watchdogs deem as acceptable climate change articles, then you haven't been paying attention.
      Last edited by Wooglin; 28 Jan 16,, 15:49.

      Comment


      • Sea-level rise 'could last twice as long as human history'
        The Guardian

        Damian Carrington

        9 hrs ago

        Huge sea-level rises caused by climate change will last far longer than the entire history of human civilisation to date, according to new research, unless the brief window of opportunity of the next few decades is used to cut carbon emissions drastically.

        Even if global warming is capped at governments’ target of 2C - which is already seen as difficult - 20% of the world’s population will eventually have to migrate away from coasts swamped by rising oceans. Cities including New York, London, Rio de Janeiro, Cairo, Calcutta, Jakarta and Shanghai would all be submerged.

        Populations at risk from sea-level rise
        “Much of the carbon we are putting in the air from burning fossil fuels will stay there for thousands of years,” said Prof Peter Clark, at Oregon State University in the US and who led the new work. “People need to understand that the effects of climate change won’t go away, at least not for thousands of generations.”

        “The long-term view sends the chilling message of what the real risks and consequences are of the fossil fuel era,” said Prof Thomas Stocker, at the University of Bern, Switzerland and also part of the research team. “It will commit us to massive adaptation efforts so that for many, dislocation and migration becomes the only option.”

        The report, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, notes most research looks at the impacts of global warming by 2100 and so misses one of the biggest consequences for civilisation - the long-term melting of polar ice caps and sea-level rise.

        This is because the great ice sheets take thousand of years to react fully to higher temperatures. The researchers say this long-term view raises moral questions about the kind of environment being passed down to future generations.

        The research shows that even with climate change limited to 2C by tough emissions cuts, sea level would rise by 25 metres over the next 2,000 years or so and remain there for at least 10,000 years - twice as long as human history. If today’s burning of coal, oil and gas is not curbed, the sea would rise by 50m, completely changing the map of the world.

        “We can’t keep building seawalls that are 25m high,” said Clark. “Entire populations of cities will eventually have to move.”

        By far the greatest contributor to the sea level rise - about 80% - would be the melting of the Antarctic ice sheet. Another new study in Nature Climate Change published on Monday reveals that some large Antarctic ice sheets are dangerously close to losing the sea ice shelves that hold back their flow into the ocean.

        Huge floating sea ice shelves around Antarctica provide buttresses for the glaciers and ice sheets on the continent. But when they are lost to melting, as happened the with Larsen B shelf in 2002, the speed of flow into the ocean can increase eightfold.

        Johannes Fürst, at the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg in Germany and colleagues, calculated that just 5% of the ice shelf in the Bellingshausen Sea and 7% in the Amundsen Sea can be lost before their buttressing effect vanishes. “This is worrying because it is in these regions that we have observed the highest rates of ice-shelf thinning over the past two decades,” he said.

        Avoiding the long-term swamping of many of the world’s greatest cities is already difficult, given the amount carbon dioxide already released into the atmosphere. “Sea-level rise is already baked into the system,” said Prof Stocker, one of the world’s leading climate scientists.

        However, the rise could be reduced and delayed if carbon is removed from the atmosphere in the future, he said: “If you are very optimistic and think we will be in the position by 2050 or 2070 to have a global scale carbon removal scheme - which sounds very science fiction - you could pump down CO2 levels. But there is no indication that this is technically possible.” A further difficulty is the large amount of heat and CO2 already stored in the oceans.

        Prof Stocker said: “The actions of the next 30 years are absolutely crucial for putting us on a path that avoids the [worst] outcomes and ensuring, at least in the next 200 years, the impacts are limited and give us time to adapt.”

        The researchers argue that a new industrial revolution is required to deliver a global energy system that emits no carbon at all. They conclude: “The success of the [UN climate summit in] Paris meeting, and of every future meeting, must be evaluated not only by levels of national commitments, but also by looking at how they will lead ultimately to the point when zero-carbon energy systems become the obvious choice for everyone.”

        We are making choices that will affect our grandchildren’s grandchildren and beyond,” said Prof Daniel Schrag, at Harvard University in the US. “We need to think carefully about the long timescales of what we are unleashing.”
        http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/...rab?li=BBnbcA1

        Give us more money for research. What we do in the next 30 years, just happened to be our working lives, will affect the planet for the next 10000 years. Don't believe us? Check back with us in 10000 years. We'll give you a full refund if we're wrong. Think about the children!
        "Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

        Comment


        • http://mashable.com/2016/02/10/clima.../#e5ZrSWA4nZqJ

          The news that Australia’s federal science agency plans to cut as many as 350 climate science research jobs is being met with worldwide condemnation from the climate science community.

          The cuts, which are planned for the country's Commonwealth Science and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), are based on the organization's new director's reasoning that climate change is proven and needs fewer research dollars and assets going forward.

          The latest expression of alarm comes in the form of a letter to the Australian government and CSIRO governing board from at least 2,800 climate scientists from around the world, which is scheduled to be sent by Thursday morning.
          LOL! It's about time... I've often wondered why the world continues to spend tens of billions a year on "settled science". Hopefully this starts a trend. When the gravy train slows and a lot of these people are booted off it, there's going to be a glut of climate skeptics coming to light, no longer afraid to speak up. I can't wait.

          Comment


          • Oh that is a good one!
            "Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

            Comment


            • January Smashed Another Global Temperature Record

              Climate Central

              1 hr ago

              The calendar may have turned to 2016, but temperatures are picking up where 2015 left off. January was record warm, according to data released this week by NASA.

              You may recall that last year was the hottest on record for the globe. And by NASA’s accounting, it ended with a bang. This past December was the warmest December on record and the most abnormally warm month on record, too.

              That is until now.

              This January was the warmest January on record by a large margin while also claiming the title of most anomalously warm month in 135 years of record keeping. The month was 1.13°C — or just a smidge more than 2°F — above normal. That tops December’s record of being 1.11°C — or just a smidge below 2°F — above average.

              It marks the fourth month in a row where the globe has been more than 1°C (1.8°F) above normal. Incidentally, those are the only four months where the globe has topped that mark since record keeping began.

              Large swaths of the globe were painted red by warmth to the point where it’s easier to talk about where the heat wasn’t (that would be Antarctica, Scandinavia, East Africa and a few parts of Russia for the record). The telltale signal of El Niño’s heat in the Pacific continues to be notable, but it’s the Arctic that truly stands out as the most abnormally warm place on the planet.

              According to NASA, temperatures in some parts of the Arctic averaged up to 23°F above normal for the month. No, that’s not missing a decimal point.

              The extreme warmth in the region sent sea ice dwindling to a new record low for January. Sea ice extent was 402,000 square miles below average, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. That’s the equivalent of a missing area of sea ice almost four times the size of Colorado, and puts this year right in line with a trend of ever decreasing sea ice in the region as the climate warms.

              Since 1979, winter sea ice extent has decreased 3.2 percent per decade (the loss is much more pronounced in summer at a rate of 13.4 percent per decade).

              The first half of February has continued the trend of pronounced heat in the Arctic with no signs of it letting up soon. The western U.S., which was also a hot spot in January, is continuing to see abnormal warmth this February as is the East Coast after a brief cold blast this weekend.

              Global heat is somewhat a symptom of El Niño. The climate phenomenon of warm water in the eastern tropical Pacific might have passed its peak, but is still providing a little boost to global temperatures.

              The big driver, though, is human-caused climate change, according to a Climate Central analysis.
              With January off to record heat, it reinforces the likelihood that 2016 could be yet another record-setting year. The U.K. Met Office has already released its forecast for 2016. It expects the globe to “be at least as warm, if not warmer” than 2015, according to Chris Folland, a Met Office research fellow.

              If 2016 sets another global temperature record, that would make it back-to-back-to-back years of record setting hot temperatures. That’s never happened before.

              And regardless of whether 2016 sets a record or not, some scientists think the world has stepped up to a new period of global warming. That doesn’t mean every year will set a record, but “it seems to me quite likely that we have taken the next step up to a new level,” National Center for Atmospheric Research climate scientist Kevin Trenberth told Climate Central last month.
              http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/...Slc?li=BBnbcA1

              Scientists have spoken. I will put my faith into science any day. Their words are beyond contestation. Embrace the truth, deniers!
              "Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

              Comment


              • https://judithcurry.com/2016/02/07/m...controversies/

                A very interesting new paper has been published in the Public Understanding of Science [link].

                Communicating science in public controversies: Strategic considerations of the German climate scientists

                Senja Post

                Abstract. In public controversies on scientific issues, scientists likely consider the effects of their findings on journalists and on the public debate. A representative survey of 123 German climate scientists (42%) finds that although most climate scientists think that uncertainties about climate change should be made clearer in public they do not actively communicate this to journalists. Moreover, the climate scientists fear that their results could be misinterpreted in public or exploited by interest groups. Asking scientists about their readiness to publish one of two versions of a fictitious research finding shows that their concerns weigh heavier when a result implies that climate change will proceed slowly than when it implies that climate change will proceed fast.

                Excerpts from the section on Findings:

                The climate scientists assessed the causes of climate change, its past and present volatility, future consequences and calculability in ten items. For the present purpose, it suffices to say that the climate scientists have little doubt about the human impact on the climate but are more or less split on its extent and danger as well as on the reliability of future climate projections. Based on their judgements, their degree of conviction of the publicly held assumptions that climate change is man-made, dangerous, unique in history and calculable was determined.

                On a five-point scale, most climate scientists (72%) more or less agreed that “climate scientists should tell the public more clearly that many questions about climate change are still unresolved”. Few (9%) more or less disagreed and about a fifth (21%) were indifferent.

                Correlations confirm that the more the German climate scientists talked with journalists and published articles in the media, the less they approved of discussing unresolved questions in public. They were also the more engaged with the media the more they were convinced of the publicly accepted frame of climate change, i.e. that it is man-made, dangerous, historically unique and cal- culable. There may be at least two reasons for these relationships. On the one hand, journalists may prefer scientists definitely and unambiguously confirming rather than questioning the public frame of climate change. On the other hand, being aware of journalists’ preferences, the climate scientists may be the more encouraged talking to journalists the more certain and convinced they are of the publicly held assumptions about climate change. Another explanation may be that climate scientists who consider climate change a dangerous threat are motivated to act politically and speak up in public. Plausibly, all three factors apply and interact. How far this is the case should be determined by future research.

                When deciding to give their results to the media, climate scientists likely consider the dynamics of the public debate – e.g. the potential effects of their findings on social or political actors or the general public. The climate scientists rated several objections to publishing a fictitious research result in the media. Two versions of the fictitious finding were created. One confirms the estab- lished assumptions about climate change, implying that climate change is proceeding faster than expected and the situation thus at least as dramatic as assumed. The other version contradicts the established views, implying that climate change is proceeding more slowly and the situation not as dramatic as assumed. The two versions were distributed randomly among the respondents.

                A knowledge gap in climate science was exploited to construct the fictitious finding. Based on this, two versions of the finding were formulated:

                Suppose a geologist conducted measurements to explore how the soil in the Northern hemisphere influences the climate. His measurement data show that the soil’s capacity to store CO2 has been considerably

                a) overestimated b) underestimated.

                The geologist concludes that climate change could proceed

                a) faster b) more slowly

                than expected.

                Both versions were improved with the help of a full professor of geology to ensure their plausibility. None of them yielded any critical comments or remarkable response refusals, indicating that respondents considered them realistic. To explore the climate scientists’ objections to publishing the respective result in the media they were asked:

                Suppose the geologist’s finding was published in a scientific journal. Now he wants to publish it in a newspaper, concluding that climate change will proceed

                a) faster b) more slowly

                than expected. One can have several objections to his decision. How relevant or irrelevant do you consider each of the following?

                The objections referred to possible undesirable effects on the public interpretation of the result, the credibility of climate science or the fictitious scientist’s career. Bringing uncertainty to the public debate or putting the credibility of climate science at risk matters less to them than interest groups misusing or the public misinterpreting their results.

                Their answers differ in the two versions of the finding. When the result indicates that climate change is proceeding more slowly rather than faster the climate scientists are more worried that the finding “could be exploited by interest groups” and “misinterpreted in public” – though the latter difference is not significant. The climate scientists’ ratings of the remaining objections follow the same pattern, though with small differences. When a finding indicates that climate change is proceeding more slowly rather than faster than expected, they are slightly more worried that it “may provoke criticism among his peers”, “might bring too much uncertainty to the public debate” and could “put the credibility of climate science at risk”.

                Overall, climate scientists object to publishing a result in the media significantly more when it indicates that climate change proceeds more slowly rather than faster than expected. This gives reason to assume that the German climate scientists are more inclined to communicate their results in public when they confirm rather than contradict that climate change is dramatic. Yet one has to bear in mind that the above objections may not amount to climate scientists’ overall readiness to publish a result in the media. In any case, their fear of interest groups seems to play some role in hindering climate scientists from communicating their findings in public.
                As an aside, with regards to "When the result indicates that climate change is proceeding more slowly rather than faster the climate scientists are more worried that the finding “could be exploited by interest groups” and “misinterpreted in public”, I find this a rather interesting result since there are tons of interest groups (climate central, desmogblog, skepticalscience, climate progress, the union of concerned scientists, etc.) that are dedicated to exploiting results and misinterpreting them to the media and public... but I guess alarmism keeps the funding coming in.

                Anyway, I'll just let this sit here. It needs no comment...

                Overall, climate scientists object to publishing a result in the media significantly more when it indicates that climate change proceeds more slowly rather than faster than expected.

                Comment


                • Geophysical Research Letters

                  Unreliable climate simulations overestimate attributable risk of extreme weather and climate events

                  http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/1...ab46-303449629

                  Event attribution aims to estimate the role of an external driver after the occurrence of an extreme weather and climate event by comparing the probability that the event occurs in two counterfactual worlds. These probabilities are typically computed using ensembles of climate simulations whose simulated probabilities are known to be imperfect. The implications of using imperfect models in this context are largely unknown, limited by the number of observed extreme events in the past to conduct a robust evaluation. Using an idealized framework, this model limitation is studied by generating large number of simulations with variable reliability in simulated probability. The framework illustrates that unreliable climate simulations are prone to overestimate the attributable risk to climate change. Climate model ensembles tend to be overconfident in their representation of the climate variability which leads to systematic increase in the attributable risk to an extreme event. Our results suggest that event attribution approaches comprising of a single climate model would benefit from ensemble calibration in order to account for model inadequacies similarly as operational forecasting systems.

                  Comment


                  • Climate Models Botch Another Prediction

                    http://www.realclearscience.com/blog...rediction.html

                    Today's news tells of another mistake of exaggerated climate science prediction.

                    I'm not getting in the foxhole with the warriors on either side of the raging climate war. But I think there's something more alarming going on than the spike in CO2 level charts.

                    Our global system of air currents, ocean currents, cloud patterns, resonant temperature cycles, energy storage and release mechanisms, and further processes is mind-bogglingly complex.

                    Presently, the best climate models fall many orders of magnitude short of the power and intricacy needed to effectively predict the long-term climate patterns that emerge from the interactions of all these planetary systems. And that's not a failure of science; it's just the reality of how tough the problem is.

                    Predictions are made by building models using the smartest simplifications we have thought of and running them on the most powerful computers ever built. Basically, it's the best we can do right now.

                    But there is a major failure of science going on.

                    The failure is the lack of transparency and honesty about how feeble these models are and how much we should stake on their all-too-fallible forecasts. Thus the same problem continues: climate science has once again botched a prediction that its models were underequipped to make.

                    It seems that there can be no moderate and honest discussion of this issue. Skeptics are singled out in creepy enemies lists. Actually, we're now supposed to call them deniers, as though they were disputing the existence of HIV or the holocaust. Numerous scientists, as well as senators, anti-vaccination Kennedys, and clickbait purveyors have even called for the imprisonment and legal prosecution of those who disagree with them.

                    Climate science acts like it is fighting a holy war. There are only those who are just and those who must be silenced and stopped at all costs. Anyone who mounts reasonable logical, empirical, or skeptical challenges to the orthodoxy must be ruined, not by counterfactual evidence, but by vicious attack.

                    Weekly, we're bombarded with doom-and-gloom future scenarios spit out of these models. The public is supposed to quiver in fear and to disregard and forget the many times that these predictions have failed.

                    Models told us that the years of 1998-2013 were supposed to show ever-increasing runaway warming. And yet, these years actually exhibited the famous "global warming hiatus." An article published in Nature says that zero models predicted this.

                    Numerous modelers have told us that the Arctic polar ice would be completely gone by now. It's still there. Many models now seem to skew in the opposite direction, predicting more ice than we see today.

                    Modeler Kerry Emanuel's widely reported initial correlation of global warming with dramatically worse hurricane seasons has been strongly rebutted by multiple groups, leading him to reconsider.

                    The scientific failure here isn't that models are inaccurate -- it's that the models are presented as undebatable apocalyptic predictors, harbingers of certain future catastrophe. Omens that compel us to rethink our lives. If we take issue with that, we're heretics.

                    Given how fallible climate models are, why shouldn't we be skeptical of the scary headlines? How good can your science be if you try to prove your point by ruining your detractors rather than through empirical success?

                    Climate scientists may win their war in a friendly press and with political parties aligned with their agendas. But they make enemies of those people who make logical and empirical evaluations of their results, those who don't give in to pressure and political and professional expediency.

                    The crusader mentality of climate researchers leads them away from the factual debate and empirical accounting of sound science. We really deserve more from our publicly funded scientific establishments.
                    Last edited by Wooglin; 03 Mar 16,, 19:10.

                    Comment


                    • But....at the current rate of global warming...I mean climate change, our children may not know what snow/sunlight is.
                      "Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

                      Comment


                      • February breaks global temperature records by 'shocking' amount

                        Michael Slezak

                        10 hrs ago

                        Global temperatures in February smashed previous monthly records by an unprecedented amount, according to Nasa data, sparking warnings of a climate emergency.

                        The result was “a true shocker, and yet another reminder of the incessant long-term rise in global temperature resulting from human-produced greenhouse gases”, wrote Jeff Masters and Bob Henson in a blog on the Weather Underground, which analysed the data released on Saturday.

                        It confirms preliminary analysis from earlier in March, indicating the record-breaking temperatures.

                        The global surface temperatures across land and ocean in February were 1.35C warmer than the average temperature for the month, from the baseline period of 1951-1980.

                        The global record was set just one month earlier, with January already beating the average for that month by 1.15C above the average for the baseline period.

                        Related: Sea level rise is accelerating; how much it costs is up to us | John Abraham

                        Although the temperatures have been spurred on by a very large El Niño in the Pacific Ocean, the temperature smashed records set during the last large El Niño from 1998, which was at least as strong as the current one.

                        The month did not break the record for hottest month, since that is only likely to happen during a northern hemisphere summer, when most of the world’s land mass heats up.

                        “We are in a kind of climate emergency now,” Stefan Rahmstorf, from Germany’s Potsdam Institute of Climate Impact Research and a visiting professorial fellow at the University of New South Wales, told Fairfax Media.

                        “This is really quite stunning ... it’s completely unprecedented,” he said.
                        http://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/top...gyE?li=BBnbfcL

                        I'm puzzled. If the planet is warming at an unprecedented rate, setting new temperature records month after month, why is it still "climate change" rather than "global warming?"
                        "Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

                        Comment


                        • Originally posted by gunnut View Post
                          http://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/top...gyE?li=BBnbfcL

                          I'm puzzled. If the planet is warming at an unprecedented rate, setting new temperature records month after month, why is it still "climate change" rather than "global warming?"
                          Because when you change the data you get new records without having to have any actual warming.

                          Click image for larger version

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                          • Watch the slight of hand...
                            "...warmer than the average temperature for the month,
                            from the baseline period of 1951-1980"


                            Want to prove something with statistics? Just pick a "baseline" that supports your thesis. With this sort of logic, you can prove ANYTHING!

                            And the gullible will line up at your door to spend other people's money to solve the problem.

                            Comment


                            • Originally posted by Sanjac View Post
                              Watch the slight of hand...
                              "...warmer than the average temperature for the month,
                              from the baseline period of 1951-1980"


                              Want to prove something with statistics? Just pick a "baseline" that supports your thesis. With this sort of logic, you can prove ANYTHING!

                              And the gullible will line up at your door to spend other people's money to solve the problem.
                              But...but...but...it's science!!! Science cannot be wrong.
                              "Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

                              Comment


                              • Arctic sea ice extent breaks record low for winter
                                A record expanse of Arctic sea never froze over this winter and remained open water as a season of freakishly high temperatures produced deep – and likely irreversible – changes on the far north.

                                Scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Centre said on Monday that the sea ice cover attained an average maximum extent of 14.52m sq km (5.607m sq miles) on March 24, the lowest winter maximum since records began in 1979.

                                The low beats a record set only last year of 14.54m sq km (5.612m sq miles), reached on February 25 2015.

                                “I’ve never seen such a warm, crazy winter in the Arctic,” said NSIDC director Mark Serreze. “The heat was relentless.”

                                It was the third straight month of record lows in the sea ice cover, after extreme temperatures in January and February stunned scientists.

                                The winter months of utter darkness and extreme cold are typically the time of maximum growth in the ice cap, until it begins its seasonal decline in spring.

                                With the ice cover down to 14.54m sq km, scientists now believe the Arctic is locked onto a course of continually shrinking sea ice – and that is before the 2016 melt season gets underway.

                                Arctic sea ice graph
                                “If we are starting out very low that gives a jump on the melt season,” said Rick Thoman, the climate science manager for the National Weather Service’s Alaska region.

                                “For the last few years, we have had extremely low ice cover in the summer. That means a lot more solar energy absorbed by the darker open water. That heat tends to carry over from year to year.”

                                After this winter’s record ice lows, scientists now expect more than ever that the Arctic will be entirely ice-free in the summer months within 20 or 25 years.

                                “Sometime in the 2030s or 2040s time frame, at least for a few days, you won’t have ice out there in the dead of summer,” said Dr John Walsh, chief scientist of the International Arctic Research Centre.

                                Those changes are already evident on the ground. In 1975, there were only a few days a year when ships could move from Barrow to Prudhoe Bay off the north coast of Alaska. Now that window lasts months.

                                The Arctic will always have ice in the winter months, Walsh said. But it will be thinner and more fragile than the multi-year ice, and less reliable for indigenous peoples who rely on the ice as winter transport routes or hunting platforms.

                                “It’s not just about how many hundreds of thousands of square kilometres covered by the ice. It’s about the quality of that ice,” Thoman said.

                                The extent of ice cover is a critical indicator of the changes taking place in the Arctic – but the shrinking of the polar ice carries sweeping consequences for lower latitudes as well.

                                The bright white snow-covered ice reflects about 85% of sunlight back into the atmosphere, compared to the dark surfaces of the open water which absorb most of the heat energy.

                                “Basically the polar regions are the refrigerator for the Earth,” said Dr Donald Perovich, a researcher at Dartmouth University. “They are extremely important for being able to keep the Arctic colder, and in turn help keep the rest of the planet colder.”

                                Since 1980, however, the summer sea ice cover over the Arctic has gone into a drastic decline, from 7.8m sq km to 4.4m sq km in 2012, before rebounding slightly. “It would be as if the entire United States east of the Mississippi melted away plus the states from Minnesota down to Louisiana, past North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma. It’s huge,” Perovich said.

                                This winter scientists said the Arctic freeze stalled early on, across the polar seas. The sea ice extent was exceptionally low both in the Barents and the Bering seas – which in past years has been one of the most prolific producers of ice. And it was thinner, especially in the Beaufort sea north of Alaska, scientists said.

                                There were a number of causes, in addition to the record high temperatures and carry-over effects of earlier ice loss.

                                The El Niño weather system produced more warming, and the Arctic saw influxes of exceptionally warm water from the Pacific as well as the Atlantic side.

                                In any event, Walsh said it was becoming increasingly clear the Arctic would never return to its previous frozen state, even if there are small gains in ice cover in a single year.

                                “The balance is shifting to the point where we are not going back to the old regime of the 1980s and 1990s,” he said. “Every year has had less ice cover than any summer since 2007. That is nine years in a row that you would call unprecedented. When that happens you have to start thinking that something is going on that is not letting the system go back to where it used to be.”
                                http://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/top...Gm4?li=BBnbfcL

                                Wow! Can you imagine? The arctic ice is at the smallest expanse in 37 years of recorded history. We have no idea what the previous 4 billion years were like but it's time to worry.

                                If we compress earth's 4 billion years into a single 24 hour period, then at 10,000 years old, human civilization appeared 0.216 seconds before midnight. At 37 years, our record of Arctic ice expanse started at less than 0.0008 seconds before midnight. Please forgive me if I don't find this record to be an overwhelming representation of the planet.
                                "Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

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