IGX

WASHINGTON — The Arctic isn't nearly as bright and white as it used to be because of more ice melting in the ocean, and that's turning out to be a global problem, a new study says.

With more dark, open water in the summer, less of the sun's heat is reflected back into space. So the entire Earth is absorbing more heat than expected, according to a study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

That extra absorbed energy is so big that it measures about one-quarter of the entire heat-trapping effect of carbon dioxide, said the study's lead author, Ian Eisenman, a climate scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California.

The Arctic grew 8 percent darker between 1979 and 2011, Eisenman found, measuring how much sunlight is reflected back into space.

"Basically, it means more warming," Eisenman said in an interview.

After three consecutive years of below-normal rainfall, California faces its most severe drought emergency in decades. Governor Jerry Brown has called for Californians to reduce water use by 20 percent voluntarily, and mandatory rationing could be ordered soon so that homes, businesses and farms don’t run dry over the summer. Wildfire danger is unusually high.

dead man walking wrote:

WASHINGTON — The Arctic isn't nearly as bright and white as it used to be because of more ice melting in the ocean, and that's turning out to be a global problem, a new study says.

With more dark, open water in the summer, less of the sun's heat is reflected back into space. So the entire Earth is absorbing more heat than expected, according to a study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

That extra absorbed energy is so big that it measures about one-quarter of the entire heat-trapping effect of carbon dioxide, said the study's lead author, Ian Eisenman, a climate scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California.

The Arctic grew 8 percent darker between 1979 and 2011, Eisenman found, measuring how much sunlight is reflected back into space.

"Basically, it means more warming," Eisenman said in an interview.

http://www.weather.com/news/science/env ... r-20140218

dead man walking wrote:

After three consecutive years of below-normal rainfall, California faces its most severe drought emergency in decades. Governor Jerry Brown has called for Californians to reduce water use by 20 percent voluntarily, and mandatory rationing could be ordered soon so that homes, businesses and farms don’t run dry over the summer. Wildfire danger is unusually high.

dead man walking wrote:

After three consecutive years of below-normal rainfall, California faces its most severe drought emergency in decades. Governor Jerry Brown has called for Californians to reduce water use by 20 percent voluntarily, and mandatory rationing could be ordered soon so that homes, businesses and farms don’t run dry over the summer. Wildfire danger is unusually high.

While none of these inconsistencies refutes the fundamental concern about greenhouse-gas-enhanced climate change, it is disturbing that "consensus science" will not acknowledge that such discrepancies are major problems. From the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's beginning, that largely self-selected panel of scientists has embraced the notion that consensus on climate change is the necessary path to taking action and reducing man-made carbon emissions around the world. The consensus community uses this to push the view that "the science is settled" and hold up skeptics to ridicule, as John Kerry did on Sunday.

We are reminded of the dangers of consensus science in the past. For example, in the 18th century, more British sailors died of scurvy than died in battle. In this disease, brought on by a lack of vitamin C, the body loses its ability to manufacture collagen, and gums and other tissues bleed and disintegrate. These deaths were especially tragic because many sea captains and some ships' doctors knew, based on observations early in the century, that fresh vegetables and citrus cured scurvy.

Nonetheless, the British Admiralty's onshore Sick and Health Board of scientists and physicians (somewhat akin to the current Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) dismissed this evidence for more than 50 years because it did not fit their consensus theory that putrefaction (or internal decay) caused scurvy, which they felt could be cured by fresh air, exercise and laxatives.

"Consensus" science that ignores reality can have tragic consequences if cures are ignored or promising research is abandoned. The climate-change consensus is not endangering lives, but the way it imperils economic growth and warps government policy making has made the future considerably bleaker. The recent Obama administration announcement that it would not provide aid for fossil-fuel energy in developing countries, thereby consigning millions of people to energy poverty, is all too reminiscent of the Sick and Health Board denying fresh fruit to dying British sailors.

We should not have a climate-science research program that searches only for ways to confirm prevailing theories, and we should not honor government leaders, such as Secretary Kerry, who attack others for their inconvenient, fact-based views.

dead man walking wrote:from the notion of "largely self-selected scientists" (which means what when you are talking about thousands of scientists?) to an unrelated example from 150 years ago, the wsj creates a strawman.

the fact is, the slowdow in "warming" has not been ignored. it is regularly addressed. for example,

http://www.realclimate.org/

i admire the rearguard action of igxers. the glaciers melt, habitat is disrupted, extreme weather is the order of the day, but you guys can always find something to give you hope that we can pretend all is ok.

did you see the report that 26% of american believe the sun revolves around the earth. they're not buying any of this consensus science bullshit.

DrDonkeyLove wrote:

dead man walking wrote:from the notion of "largely self-selected scientists" (which means what when you are talking about thousands of scientists?) to an unrelated example from 150 years ago, the wsj creates a strawman.

the fact is, the slowdow in "warming" has not been ignored. it is regularly addressed. for example,

http://www.realclimate.org/

i admire the rearguard action of igxers. the glaciers melt, habitat is disrupted, extreme weather is the order of the day, but you guys can always find something to give you hope that we can pretend all is ok.

did you see the report that 26% of american believe the sun revolves around the earth. they're not buying any of this consensus science bullshit.

Your Copernican heresies ain't welcome in these parts.

dead man walking wrote:if the lightbulb had a nice ass, some here would want to marry it

DrDonkeyLove wrote:

dead man walking wrote:if the lightbulb had a nice ass, some here would want to marry it

DrDonkeyLove wrote:

dead man walking wrote:if the lightbulb had a nice ass, some here would want to marry it

dead man walking wrote:from the notion of "largely self-selected scientists" (which means what when you are talking about thousands of scientists?) to an unrelated example from 150 years ago, the wsj creates a strawman.

the fact is, the slowdow in "warming" has not been ignored. it is regularly addressed. for example,

http://www.realclimate.org/

i admire the rearguard action of igxers. the glaciers melt, habitat is disrupted, extreme weather is the order of the day, but you guys can always find something to give you hope that we can pretend all is ok.

did you see the report that 26% of american believe the sun revolves around the earth. they're not buying any of this consensus science bullshit.

But climate change denial is also about ideology. Many deniers have come to the conclusion that climate change is some kind of leftwing conspiracy – because the scale of the international public intervention necessary to cut carbon emissions in the time demanded by the science simply cannot be accommodated within the market-first, private enterprise framework they revere.

dead man walking wrote:

But climate change denial is also about ideology. Many deniers have come to the conclusion that climate change is some kind of leftwing conspiracy – because the scale of the international public intervention necessary to cut carbon emissions in the time demanded by the science simply cannot be accommodated within the market-first, private enterprise framework they revere.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... arkets-fix

dead man walking wrote:yes, hence the push to use natural gas, which results in less ghg pollution than coal and oil. (some recently have raised questions about the climate benefits of natural gas because of methane losses at the well.)

This exceptionally cold and snowy winter has shown that government climate scientists were dead wrong when it came to predicting just how cold this winter would be, while the 197-year old Farmers’ Almanac predicted this winter would be “bitterly cold”.

Stillwater wrote:And as Paul Harvey used to say now for the rest of the story


Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics.

Anyone who has taken a Stats class can tell you you can make the data say whatever you want.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm? ... id=2395697

Turdacious wrote:Some actually want global warming.