Skeet, you have done quite well in encompassing all possible existing claims in the world, but I'm sorry to read that I (Millet) am the person responsible for oil pricing, and the killer of grandchildren... I only say that the environs seem to come up with a new "end of the world" catastrophe ever couple years. Now its "man made" global warming, just a few years earlier, they warned us the devil was "global cooling". In between enviros claimed the next satin was Y2K . "Educated" scientists supped at the table of everyone of these cancers. A dozen additional doom's day endings that mankind witnessed were in line every couple years before those. I'm sure they will have many more wolves in our future yet to devour us. Skeet, it is nice to hear that you are an actual real scientist, all this time I thought you were a EPA chemist. I'll bow out, as this post is turning into the beating of a dead horse. This will be my last posting on this subject. I give anyone who wishes the last word. Take care of your selves, I hear the end is near. - Millet

(Then Came the Morning, the Darkness Has Met the Dawn

As I said, you can choose: burn all the oil you can, contribute to the increasing cost of oil for everyone else, reduce the security of this country by increasing the power of the arab countries, and if the global warming theory is right, make the future a little less desirable for your grandchldren;

Or: conserve, save your money for other things, contribute to reducing the price of oil, increase the security of this country, and even if the global warming theory is wrong, not have done anything to make the future less desirable for your grandchildren.


You can twist those words any way you like, but it doesn't really change the choices.

Skeeter, it's not just the folks that burn oil that increase the price of our fuels. As I wrote earlier, environmentalists have their hand in it by preventing drilling in many domestic locations and preventing the construction of new refineries.

Also, I wrote earlier that I agree conservation is a prudent step, but mostly for economic reasons. With China and India using more and more oil and supplies not increasing fast enough.

But fees for such things as carbon credits as part of conferences, etc. is crazy, IMO.

Harvey, I do not disagree with you on the supply side, but we are not in control of that. As for refineries, the opposition there is more from the NIMBY syndrome than from environmentalist. Environmental regulation only requires new refineries or significant addition to be built with the best available technology, but the NIMBY crowd often uses environmental effects to oppose it.

Unfortunately, economic reasons are the only way to get most people to do any conserving, and when it comes to that, carbon credits and fees are penny ante stuff compared to what the oil companies and the Arabs are doing.

Phillip, thanks for he links on the ice sheets. Do you think those show increasing ice coverage?

I did not spend a lot of time looking at them, but I agree with your assessment. I did compare the minimum cover in the first year with the minimum cover in the last year in both the Arctic and Antarctic and it appears to be noticably less cover in the last year in both poles. I am sure that someone has actually got measurements of the coverage area.

I was surprised at the amount of intra-annual change. I guess that is an indication of just how cold it gets there.

A few extensions to links given by Philip:

Daily Updated AMSR-E Sea Ice Maps (my prefered)
http://iup.physik.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsr/amsre.html

AMSR/AMSR-E home page (includes link to Arctic Sea-Ice Monitor)
http://sharaku.eorc.jaxa.jp/AMSR/index_e.htm

MMAB Sea Ice Analysis Page
http://polar.ncep.noaa.gov/seaice/Analyses.html

I don't like CryosphereToday, their data are usualy to much behind current situation (a week or oven more)
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/

Ice carts (Norvegian)
http://retro.met.no/kyst_og_hav/iskart.html

Satellite Images (data courtesy of NOAA), specialy HRPT (NOAA polar orbiting)
http://www.weatheroffice.gc.ca/satellite/index_e.html
where I regularly watch (last couple of months)
Northern Canada and Arctic Ocean, visible
http://www.weatheroffice.gc.ca/data/satellite/hrpt_dfo_nir_100.jpg
Northern Nunavut, visible
http://www.weatheroffice.gc.ca/data/satellite/hrpt_yrb_nir_100.jpg

Current Weather Information - Worldwide Weather Charts - Arctic
http://www.uni-koeln.de/math-nat-fak/geomet/meteo/winfos/wetterk_arctic_world-e.html

Arctic Theme page, Web Cam
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/gallery_np.html

Extremely High Horizon Refraction, observations of the man in Resolute
http://www.eh2r.com/

Recently released analyses
Climate of 2008,May in Historical Perspective
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2008/may/global.html#introduction

Arctic Sea Ice News & Analyses
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/index.html

Various links:
http://www.weathercharts.org/
and from there, specialy:

Nth Hemisphere H500 + SLP
http://www.netweather.tv/index.cgi?action=nwdc;sess=

Jet Stream Analyses and Forecasts at 300 mb
http://virga.sfsu.edu/crws/jetstream.html

I like browse here during heatwave:
Beach front house in Nuuk and other photo galleries of JJK
http://jensjk.dk/

Greenland Summit Camp, Web Cam
http://www.summitcamp.org/

Web Cam Norway, Siberian and Greenland
http://firenzemeteo.com/inverno.html

South Pole, North Pole News & Guide
http://www.thepoles.com/morenews.php

What man should do to get pizza:
http://www.ursa.fi/~riikonen/Siberia/pages/earning%20pizza%20in%20-48%20C.htm

Before you ask, yes I'm spending too much time there

Aside from the rest global warming debate, the one facet that came to mind from viewing the animations was the claim that the ocean levels are going to rise significantly due to polar ice melting. With what appears to be a net reduction in surface area from winter to summer of roughly 50%, I would think that we would already be seeing ocean levels rising and falling significantly on an annual basis. I would tend discount some of the catastrophic claims of Arizona becoming ocean front property if my assumption is correct.

Phillip

If the ice is floating, then melting does not change water level. If the ice is on land or supported by the bottom, it does change water level when it melts. Arctic ice melt, for the most part, does not contribute to sea level rise, because most of it is floating. The main consequence of loosing Arctic ice cover is the reflected sunlight--ice/snow reflects about 90%, water less than 10%.

I don't waste my time arguing about this, but I am somewhat skeptical. I first heard about about the time Al Gore did in 1973 in freshman chemistry at U of Washington. The peril discussed was changing the chemistry of the ocean and killing the coral. I don't care whether it is true or not. In my optionion, there is no way in h!ll that the burning of fossil fuels will be voluntarily be stopped by the world's population until it is all gone. Enjoy it while it lasts.

Phil, you mention Latte. Coffee drinks at Starbucks cost more than a gallon of gas. No one seems to be complaining about Starbucks prices. Evidently, gas must not be in short supply, at least I have never seen, heard or come across a gas station that did not have all the fuel you wished to purchase and then some. Because we are a farm, we purchase fuel in 500 gallon lots, and propane in 1,750 gallon lots. As far as I can see, the only reason to conserve on gas would be if $4.00 is too expensive for ones budget. Currently, in our little rural town, gasoline is selling for $3.86 gallon, but when purchasing $100.00 dollars worth of groceries you get an additional .10 cents per gallon off. Actually, many things I buy cost more than gas. Anyway, each to their own. - Millet

In light of the fact that even the White House (as if buildings can speak) is blaming the Iowa floods on "global warming", I thought I'd share a couple of other interesting articles sent to me by a friend (non-citrus grower, if you can believe it!).

First, is this article which discusses a fundamental flaw in the forumla which has lead some scientists into predicting ever-increasing global temperatures.

http://www.dailytech.com/Researcher+Basic+Greenhouse+Equations+Totally+Wrong/article10973.htm

Miklós Zágoni isn't just a physicist and environmental researcher. He is also a global warming activist and Hungary's most outspoken supporter of the Kyoto Protocol. Or was.

That was until he learned the details of a new theory of the greenhouse effect, one that not only gave far more accurate climate predictions here on Earth, but Mars too. The theory was developed by another Hungarian scientist, Ferenc Miskolczi, an atmospheric physicist with 30 years of experience and a former researcher with NASA's Langley Research Center.

After studying it, Zágoni stopped calling global warming a crisis, and has instead focused on presenting the new theory to other climatologists. The data fit extremely well. "I fell in love," he stated at the International Climate Change Conference this week.

"Runaway greenhouse theories contradict energy balance equations," Miskolczi states. Just as the theory of relativity sets an upper limit on velocity, his theory sets an upper limit on the greenhouse effect, a limit which prevents it from warming the Earth more than a certain amount.

continues....


Secondly, this article discusses Canadian researchers worried about global cooling due to decreased solar activity:

http://ibdeditorial.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=287279412587175

Climate Change: Not every scientist is part of Al Gore's mythical "consensus." Scientists worried about a new ice age seek funding to better observe something bigger than your SUV — the sun.

Related Topics: Global Warming

Back in 1991, before Al Gore first shouted that the Earth was in the balance, the Danish Meteorological Institute released a study using data that went back centuries that showed that global temperatures closely tracked solar cycles.

To many, those data were convincing. Now, Canadian scientists are seeking additional funding for more and better "eyes" with which to observe our sun, which has a bigger impact on Earth's climate than all the tailpipes and smokestacks on our planet combined.

And they're worried about global cooling, not warming.

Kenneth Tapping, a solar researcher and project director for Canada's National Research Council, is among those looking at the sun for evidence of an increase in sunspot activity.

Solar activity fluctuates in an 11-year cycle. But so far in this cycle, the sun has been disturbingly quiet. The lack of increased activity could signal the beginning of what is known as a Maunder Minimum, an event which occurs every couple of centuries and can last as long as a century.

Such an event occurred in the 17th century. The observation of sunspots showed extraordinarily low levels of magnetism on the sun, with little or no 11-year cycle.

This solar hibernation corresponded with a period of bitter cold that began around 1650 and lasted, with intermittent spikes of warming, until 1715. Frigid winters and cold summers during that period led to massive crop failures, famine and death in Northern Europe.

continues....