Arctic ice cap to vanish in 80 years!

The Times, London ^ | Sunday, December 22, 2002 | Jonathan Leake

[freeforall]

Arctic ice cap to vanish in 80 years, study says Kyoto climate treaty came 'too late' to save polar ice from melting

Jonathan Leake The Times, London

Sunday, December 22, 2002

The ice cap covering the North Pole will vanish in less than 80 years as climate change melts it away, say British meteorological researchers.

The area covered by ice has shrunk by 20 per cent since the 1950s and its average winter thickness has reduced by 40 per cent since 1970. From detailed measurements of the rate of melting, the Met Office's Hadley Centre for monitoring climate change predicts the ice-cap will disappear around September 2079.

The Met Office research, to be published next year, assumes emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases will continue to rise at their current rate. Many believe this will happen since the U.S. rejected the Kyoto climate treaty that would have cut emissions. Canada ratified the treaty Monday.

Geoff Jenkins, head of climate change prediction, said only a few icebergs would be left. "Our figures suggest that virtually all the ice will be gone," he said.

Even if the world reduced emissions by the maximum possible, it would only give a few years reprieve, says the Met Office.

"The greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere mean we will keep getting warmer for decades, whatever we do," said Mr. Jenkins. "Cutting emissions is important, but the effects will come too late to save the polar ice cap."

The loss of the ice cap will open up the Northwest Passage and enable ships to save thousands of kilometres on journeys between Europe and the Far East.

It could also change weather patterns. The larger expanse of open sea would increase evaporation and rainfall, possibly causing wetter summers in Europe. It might also allow more plankton to grow, thus boosting fish stocks.

For other wildlife, however, the change could be disastrous. Polar bears and seals would be hit hard because they rely on floating ice to hunt and breed.

"The north polar wildlife is unique, but it is going to have to adapt fast if it is to survive," said Peter Wadhams, professor of ocean physics at Cambridge University.

The thinning of the ice has already hampered some expeditions to the pole. David Mill, a Briton, had to be rescued last May after finding his way blocked by thin ice.

The melting of the North Pole will not raise sea levels as all the ice is floating. There are, however, fears the temperature increases could melt Antarctica, the southern ice cap. This sits above sea level on a buried continent so melting would sharply raise sea levels.

© Copyright 2002 The Ottawa Citizen

[The Westerner]

"In any case man has never had anything to do witrh global temperature changes."

Do you detect delusions of grandeur aligned with an agenda to reverse the great Industrial Revolution?

[freeforall]

bttt

[pepsionice]

A little secret about meteorologists and climatologists...they don't take any history classes whatsoever to graduate except American history 101-102. If you asked any of these idiots the significance of the last ice age on Europe and the development of society...they would just look at you and say its not related to society or weather. But history is precisely what we are repeating here. This earth is a history in repartition....we repeat everything unless some meteor disrupts the cycle. And if you ask about the influence of the Sun....oh my....then the meteorologoists really get all heated up because they didn't study anything about the universe to get their treasured degree. We are simply at the mercy of American and European colleges....and their ability to pump out the idiots.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

I believe these numbers well accepted, not at all controversial. The conclusions some people draw are.

From http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/mockler.html

" the average water molecule spends about 9 days in the air before precipitating back to the surface."

For a poission process half-life and average are identical. Since a water vapor molecule doesn't retain any information about how long it's been since it evaporated, it must be a possion process. They said "average" because it's more familiar to most people. The point's the same either way.

From http://www.climate.org/topics/climate/index.shtml

"the half-life of carbon dioxide is on the order of a century."

They said "half-life" either because they weren't thinking about their audience, or they were and thought "half-life" sounded more scientific. (I wasn't thinking about my audience.)

[FreedomPoster]

>>they would discover we are still below the warm temperatures that were experienced during the . . . early Middle ages.

You mean the period that used to be known, politically incorrectly, as the MCO - Midevil Climate Optimum? When warmer temeratures and enhanced growing seasons made life measurably better for the inhabitants of Europe?

[Sentis]

I agree about the lack of history training in the sciences. I am a working Archaeologist and a conservative (not as rare as you think). Because of my background I can tell you that Human's do not produce enough CO2 to affect enviromental change. Looking at History, Natural processes created hundreds of times the amount of CO2 and water vapor than humans we have more to fear from one volcano than the industrial capacity of the entire human race when it comes to environmental change. In fact many human activities such as cutting down forests and converting them to grasslands or to grow young trees decrease the overall amounts of CO2 as long as the trees are harvested as lumber rather than burned. The forest fires caused by the ban on lumbering for the past few years also released vast amounts of Co2 and in this case it was those who support kyoto that caused that release not those who would have used the forests for more productive purposes.

That group of forest fires caused by Enviromentalist wackos actually harmed the enviroment more than big buisness has in the last one hundred years.

[TC Rider]

The Met Office research, to be published next year, assumes emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases will continue to rise at their current rate. Many believe this will happen since the U.S. rejected the Kyoto climate treaty that would have cut emissions. Canada ratified the treaty Monday.

Yep, no improvements in technology in the next 75 years. And we expect all those 3rd world countries that produce 95% of the emissions to remain cesspools. And even though the US pollutes less, and produces a small fraction of the questionable harmfull gases, we should be held responsible.

< /sarcasm >

[Nick Danger]

From detailed measurements of the rate of melting, the Met Office's Hadley Centre for monitoring climate change predicts the ice-cap will disappear around September 2079.

Linear extrapolation can be so much fun!

Will Women Soon Outrun Men?

 “Will Women Soon Outrun Men?” was the title of the letter published in the prestigious “Scientific Correspondence” section of the January 2, 1992 issue of the journal Nature. The letter was submitted by Drs. Brian Whipp and Susan Ward of the UCLA School of Medicine, who, based on observations of world record track times from early 1900s to 1992, boldly concluded that “...unless the progression rate of men’s records increases relative to that of women, then [the mean velocity] for these events will be no different for men and women within the first half of the twenty-first century... Beyond that time, current progression rates imply superior performance by women. The projected intersection for the marathon is 1998.”

The following are some insights provided by Randall Woods, a physics instructor at the British Columbia Institute of Technology in Canada, regarding the daring claim by Whipp and Ward and their questionable statistical analysis.

According to Woods, Whipp and Ward used the world record track times (the mean running velocity in meters/ minute) for men and women from beginning of the century to 1992 for the 200, 400, 800, 1500, 5000, and 10000 meter events, as well as the marathon. In short, they graphed the observed data and compared the slopes. They noted that the rate of increase for women runners was greater than that for men, most notably in the marathon. Next they extrapolated the results into the future and forecasted that women marathon runners would overtake men in 1998!

To illustrate the absurdity resulting from such a naïve statistical analysis, Woods used the same technique and compared the data from the men’s 100 meter race (taken from The Fastest Men on Earth by Duncanson) and the women’s marathon (taken from Human Kinetics by Sandrock). Applying a simple linear regression, he calculated the slope and the x- and y-intercept values, the interpretation of which provided some fascinating results:

• In 0 AD, men could run the 100 meter dash backwards at a mean speed of –430 m/min. This corresponds to 14 seconds, and though I am not an avid football fan, the last World Cup suggests to me that England would have no trouble with this today.
• Women marathoners, however, were backpedaling at a blistering –8800 m/min. This corresponds to a little under 150 m/s, rather less than a .22 cal rim-fire bullet, but nevertheless quite respectable.
• In 820 AD male runners were stationary. Perhaps this accounts for the Viking’s success with their longships.
• Women marathoners, interestingly, were stationary as recently as 1921. The introduction of flapper skirts in the Roaring Twenties evidently contributed to increased mobility.

Returning to the analysis presented by Whipp and Ward, Woods comes to the following conclusions:

• Year 2064 – Women marathon runners outrun men 100m sprinters.
  Inspection of the graph presented in Whipp and Ward's paper shows that in any specific event women will be outpacing men by 2050 AD or so. After 2064 women marathoner's mean running speeds will exceed men's mean speed at any event including the 100m dash.
• Year 2095 – Women marathon runners outrun women 200m sprinters.
  Given that mean speed differences between the 100m and 200m events are mostly due to the relatively greater importance of the first few strides in the former event, this means that past this date the fastest humans will be women marathoners as even women sprinters will have lower mean speeds. Thus, the best strategy for a women track competitor at, say, the 100 meter dash is to continue on past the finish line for an entire marathon. Interestingly, the results will not be known until she finishes the full distance. If she fails to do this, due to an ankle sprain for instance, she may lose the race even though observers agree that she had passed the finish line before her competitors. There are echoes of this phenomenon in modern physics related to the problem commonly associated with the phrase “Schroedinger's Cat.” This strategy may also come in useful during shopping events such as the “Tickle-Me-Elmo” sprint.
• Year 2271 – Women marathon runners outrun the fastest land animal.
  The Guiness Book of World Records gives the probable maximum speed of the cheetah or hunting leopard (Acinonyx jubatus) as 60 mph, which comes to about 1600 m/min. In two and a half centuries, it will have some competition for the honor of fastest land animal.
• Year 6419 – Women marathon runners reach the speed of sound (and current land-speed record).
  At 20oC the speed of sound is about 344 m/s (20600 m/min). Although 6400 AD seems a long time from now, it is comparable to the Ancient Egyptians looking forward to our time - not a great span of time in the overall scheme of things. The aerodynamics of runners exceeding the speed of sound is interesting given that their feet must repeatedly accelerate from rest, exceed the speed of sound and then stop, making for a rapid series of sonic booms.
• Year 103,700 – Women marathon runners achieve low earth orbit.
  A satellite in low earth orbit travels at about 475,000 m/min, which women marathoners will reach in about another 100 millennia or so. One practical implication of this is that tracks will have to be built on ceilings following the earth's curvature to prevent liftoff and innovative starting postures will have to be developed. NASA could profit by reducing satellite payloads to the size of a relay baton.
• Year 3.9 Gy AD – Women marathon runners approach relativistic velocities
  This date is found by simply extrapolating the mean speed to the speed of light; obviously relativistic effects will become noticeable well before this time. Also note that the sun will not yet have shuffled off the main sequence in the Hertzprung-Russel diagram. Reaching relativistic speeds will cause problems involving the definition of simultaneity in different reference frames; as observers in different inertial reference frames may disagree as to who passed the finish line first, this will have to be addressed by the governing bodies.

Today, two years after the predicted date of intersection, according to runnersworld.com the men’s marathon record is 2:05:42 (Oct. 99), while the women’s record is 2:20:43 (Sept 99). Of course, Whipp and Ward may simply have gotten the year wrong. It may be a whole different story at the next Olympics.

The complete article can be found on Wood’s home page at http://prisoner.soe.bcit.bc.ca/rjw/pers/womenrun.htm .

[Slewfoot]

The area covered by ice has shrunk by 20 per cent since the 1950s and its average winter thickness has reduced by 40 per cent since 1970.

Proof of global cooling, it's been too cold in Santaland to snow. Lack of snow is causing the ice to thin. We must drive more and bigger suvs, for the elves.

[freeforall]

Which would also help the children!

[StriperSniper]

Cool! A whole new ocean to fish!

(I hate ice-fishing ;-)

[Mike Darancette]

Uhmmm. Water vapor, which is by far the most prevalent of the "greenhouse gases," is released in copious quantities from the nuclear power plants that have cooling towers.

---

Water vapor at low altitudes has little or no effect as a greenhouse gas and all of the nuclear plants in the world combined would produce a small fraction of water vapor that is evaporated into the Atmosphere.

[nightdriver]

"the half-life of carbon dioxide is on the order of a century."

Well accepted or not, is this supported by data or is it just someone's opinion? If it is supported by data, where is the data?

[PatrioticAmerican]

Funny thing, liberal "science" is. When I was growing up, the eco-terrorists were yelling about an ice age coming in our lifetime.

[ancient_geezer]

I do not know what the net impact of H₂O vs. CO₂ is. (How many degrees increase in surface temprature for a given increase in a particular greenhouse gas?)

Climate Catastrophe, A spectroscopic Artifact?

Conclusions

It is hardly to be expected that for CO2 doubling an increment of IR absorption at the 15 µm edges by 0.17% can cause any significant global warming or even a climate catastrophe.

The radiative forcing for doubling can be calculated by using this figure. If we allocate an absorption of 32 W/m² [14] over 180º steradiant to the total integral (area) of the n3 band as observed from satellite measurements (Hanel et al., 1971) and applied to a standard atmosphere, and take an increment of 0.17%, the absorption is 0.054 W/m² - and not 4.3 W/m².

This is roughly 80 times less than IPCC's radiative forcing.

If we allocate 7.2 degC as greenhouse effect for the present CO2 (as asserted by Kondratjew and Moskalenko in J.T. Houghton's book The Global Climate [14]), the doubling effect should be 0.17% which is 0.012 degC only. If we take 1/80 of the 1.2 degC that result from Stefan-Boltzmann's law with a radiative forcing of 4.3 W/m², we get a similar value of 0.015 degC.

 

---

CO2-Temperature Correlations

Consider, for example, the study of Fischer et al. (1999), who examined trends of atmospheric CO2 and air temperature derived from Antarctic ice core data that extended back in time a quarter of a million years.  Over this extended period, the three most dramatic warming events experienced on earth were those associated with the terminations of the last three ice ages; and for each of these climatic transitions, earth's air temperature rose well in advance of any increase in atmospheric CO2.  In fact, the air's CO2 content did not begin to rise until 400 to 1,000 years after the planet began to warm.  Such findings have been corroborated by Mudelsee (2001), who examined the leads/lags of atmospheric CO2 concentration and air temperature over an even longer time period, finding that variations in atmospheric CO2 concentration lagged behind variations in air temperature by 1,300 to 5,000 years over the past 420,000 years.

 

---

The major role of water vapor in the "global warming" debate is that the hydrostatic equilibrium can be shifted by increasing CO₂, not that we could ever dump enough H₂O into the atmosphere to make a difference.

We don't dump enough CO₂ into the atmosphere to make a difference either. Contribution of mankind to the total greenhouse gas balance is 0.26%.

Water Vapor Rules the Greenhouse

[PeaceBeWithYou]

Bookmarked!

[Lael]

Where's the next ice age that these same s were predicting 25 years ago?

It starts when the Arctic is ICE FREE.

[PeaceBeWithYou]

That is one awesome resource FRiend!

Adding up all anthropogenic greenhouse sources, the total human contribution to the greenhouse effect is around 0.28% (factoring in water vapor).

Kyoto, even if imposed equally on all countries around the world, would reduce total human greenhouse contributions from CO₂ by about 0.035%.--Which is less than the natural variability of Earth's climate system.

---

"There is no dispute at all about the fact that even if punctiliously observed, (the Kyoto Protocol) would have an imperceptible effect on future temperatures -- one-twentieth of a degree by 2050."--Dr. S. Fred Singer, atmospheric physicist Professor Emeritus of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia, and former director of the US Weather Satellite Service; in a Sept. 10, 2001 Letter to Editor, Wall Street Journal.

---

1/20th of a degree C folks!

[Pablo64]

"Many believe this will happen since the U.S. rejected the Kyoto climate treaty that would have cut emissions."

And there it is, ladies and gentlemen! What it all boils down to is that it's all our fault! If Bush would have just signed that Kyoto treaty it would have saved the world (never ming that Klintoon rejected it too, it's all Bush's fault). I'm so damn sick and tired of ignorant Euro-weenies bad-mouthing the U.S., then running to us crying "mommy" when someone threatens to kick their apathetic asses!

[ancient_geezer]

Strange how global warming proponents work so hard to claim all changes on the earth are due to the existence of mankind.

The counterpoint to the above article:

Arctic Ice Cap

POLYAKOV: "We found a 60- to 70-year cycle with many Arctic parameters, such as surface temperature, air pressure, and ice thickness variability. And we believe this signal comes from the North Atlantic and is induced by very slow anomalies in the circulation in the North Atlantic. We believe that this cycle is very important for the Arctic environment, because all major parameters show this slow variability."

That seems to fit with records from about 1930 to 1960 that show sea ice in the high Arctic was thick and widespread. It also seems to mesh with data from 1960 to 1990, which shows that sea ice became 40 percent thinner overall, according to Rothrock's research.

ROTHROCK: "We've published results from submarine cruises, where they have upward-looking sonar and they are able to determine ice thickness. We took data taken from cruises in the 1990s that we had been party to and compared it to older data from the '50s, '60s and '70s and found quite a large difference."

Not to worry, however. Polyakov and others say the cycle shows signs of shifting back toward a colder Arctic climate.

POLYAKOV: "I would be very careful with forecasts. But available data suggests that we are very close to the situation when everything will go to a cold climate regime, with thicker ice, colder air temperature, higher atmospheric pressures and colder water in the ocean."

For the moment, many scientists believe that natural cycles are exerting a more powerful influence on the Arctic's ice cover than are the impacts of global warming. But, says Johnson, scientists shouldn't let their guard down.

JOHNSON: "The question of what happens should there be more open water is an incredibly complex one to answer. The question that needs to be asked is how much of these changes are "global warming" or "global change" versus the natural variability that's been going on for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years? And that's an enormously difficult question because our records are, of course, incomplete over the long haul."