/sarcasm
Posted on 11/08/2004 11:00:30 PM PST by Exton1
Arctic sea ice not melting: new research
By BOB WEBER-- The Canadian Press
IQALUIT, Nunavut (CP) -- A Canadian scientist is pouring cold, unfrozen water on the notion that global warming is melting arctic sea ice like a Popsicle at the beach.
Greg Holloway galvanized an international meeting of arctic scientists Tuesday by saying there is little evidence of a rapid decline of the volume of ice in the northern oceans.
Despite breathless media reports and speculation of an ice-free Northwest Passage, he suggests that it's far more likely that the ice has just been moved around in the cycles of Arctic winds.
"It's more complicated than we thought," said Holloway, a scientist with the Institute of Ocean Science in Victoria.
The original theory was based on declassified records from the trips of U.S. submarines under the ice.
Satellite pictures have clearly shown that the surface area of the ice has decreased about three per cent a year for the last 20 years.
But the question was, How thick was it?
The submarine data generated headlines and cover stories from the New York Times to Time Magazine when it seemed to indicate that ice volume had decreased by 43 per cent between 1958 and 1997.
The evidence seemed good. There were only eight different voyages, but they had generated 29 different locations across the central Arctic where there were enough readings to make comparisons.
Holloway, however, couldn't make that conclusion jibe with any of his computer models.
"We couldn't understand how the reduction could be so rapid," he said.
"My first thought was, What is it we don't understand?"
Holloway knew that there was a regular pattern of sea ice being blown into the North Atlantic. He decided to examine if the wind patterns across the circumpolar North could have had something to do with the missing ice.
Wind patterns blow across the Arctic in a 50-year cycle.
At different points in the cycle, ice tends to cluster in the centre of the Arctic. At other points, the ice is blown out to the margins along the Canadian shorelines, where the subs were not allowed to go because of sovereignty concerns.
When Holloway lined up the submarine visits with what he knew about the wind cycles, the explanation for the missing ice became clear: "The submarine sampled ice during a time of oscillation of ice toward the centre of the Arctic. They went back during a time when ice was oscillating to the Canadian side."
Holloway had found the missing ice.
"I believe it is most probably explained with the shifting ice within the Arctic locations," he said to applause from scientific delegates from Norway to China.
If the submarines had made their first visit one year earlier and their return one year later, Holloway says they would have found no change in the thickness of the sea ice at all.
Holloway cautions that his research doesn't force a total re-evaluation of the theory of global warming. Temperatures on average are rising around the world, he says.
It does, however, deflate excitement about the possibility of an ice-free Northwest Passage.
The chance of a year-round northern shipping route has thrilled commercial shippers, worried environmentalists, and concerned those worried about Canada's ability to enforce sovereignty in those waters.
"At this time, we do not have the basis to predict an open Northwest Passage," said Holloway.
It also calls into question some of the findings and recommendations of the International Panel on Climate Change, which accepted the 43 per cent hypothesis in its report to various governments.
More data is coming in as further reports from American and British submarines are released. But the furore over the first results contains a lesson for both scientists and the public, Holloway says.
"It's a very small amount of time and a very limited number of places those submarines could go," he said.
"The cautionary tale to all this is the undersimplifying of a big and complex system."
"Who know what's going on out there?"
Are we celebrating or not?
btt
Currency is no measure of accuracy. Being me, the more current it gets, the more suspicious I have to be suspecting political influence as is evidenced by your own citation.
This is pure grant trolling by an obviously brainwashed scientist. I seriously doubt that the author can substantiate such prescience when a thermal inversion or singularity can change that scenario rather precipitously. I would normally suggest that the author should stick to the subject and report objective findings, but this kind of paean works wonders toward exposing those with a hidden agenda that easily confounds their objectivity.
I vastly prefer the, "Here's what we know and here's what we don't know" approach presented above, three years old, or not.
That's correct to an extent; but it's also true that something published a few years ago can be examined for accuracy when more data is available, particularly when what is being examined is potential trends in climate. These two particular articles (the first more than the second) offer more detail on the processes examined by Holloway, subject of the posted article that initiated the thread. As for the latter article, I don't see a value judgement as "bad" regarding the potential alteration of the strategic and economic importance of the Arctic Ocean: saying that it will "change" is factual and neutral. Had he said "will also change the strategic and economic importance of the Arctic Ocean with concomitant inevitable enviromental damage", that would have been a clear statement of bias.
Finally, if indeed there is a substantially increased freshwater flow out of the Arctic Ocean due to sea ice melting, that does indeed have implications for thermohaline circulation. It remains to be seen whether or not the change in the freshwater flow will actually be substantial.
I knew it!
These conflicting stories are making it difficult for me to decide whether or not I should build my dock next to the driveway.
Global Warming - Save For Later
17 - bears, like pigs and dogs, don't have sweat glands, so I guess that they all can't live anyplace but in the frozen artic.
Something Oozed on Titan's Surface
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1274512/posts
are you sure the sun isn't getting warmer?
Titan's big enough to have hydrothermal or volcanic activity. I seriously doubt that the geological activity on Titan (likewise for Jupiter's Io or Europa) is influenced by the Sun. Weather on Mars could be, though.
A chill wind blows thru the the cracks of the climactic change movement's flannel undies..
50 year arctic wind cycles?
cool... I had never heard of them.
You just crack me up.
Arctic sea ice not melting, it's simply being outsourced.
Just watching the Weather Channel and the big statement is that the Ski Resorts in Vermont are opening 3 weeks early.....but i thought we had global warming....Chicago 62 today ....42 tomorrow.....snow in Colorado.....35 degrees in Raleigh NC....28 in NYC......
Nite all!
Always! LOL!
But of course, now that they've seen all their chicken-little predictions go sideways, they've changed their hue and cry from 'global warming' to 'global climate change', so that they can continue preaching 'doom and gloom' whether things get toasty, or we go into another 'ice age'. Doesn't matter. They never gave a rap about the environment anyway. It was ALWAYS more about CONTROLLING others - you know - controlling all us 'stupid folks' in the 'red zones', and using OUR money to fund THEIR crackpot agendas...
(...SOME things NEVER change.)
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