Robot Sub Finds Surprisingly Thick Antarctic Sea Ice

[Cow Poke]

Stopping climate change is like trying to stop a train by standing in front of it.

Meanwhile, people will find ways to get rich off proposing "fixes". This will be (and already is being) exploited to the max.

[shunyadragon]

According to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, even if we cease and desist all emissions effective immediately, there will be no decrease in temperatures. Our grandchildren's grandchildren will be long dead and still there would be no reversing it.

"People have imagined that if we stopped emitting carbon dioxide that the climate would go back to normal in 100 years or 200 years. What we're showing here is that's not right. It's essentially an irreversible change that will last for more than a thousand years," the lead scientist of the study says.

Stopping climate change is like trying to stop a train by standing in front of it.

[Bill the Cat]

... Our children and grandchildren deserve at least that.

According to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, even if we cease and desist all emissions effective immediately, there will be no decrease in temperatures. Our grandchildren's grandchildren will be long dead and still there would be no reversing it.

"People have imagined that if we stopped emitting carbon dioxide that the climate would go back to normal in 100 years or 200 years. What we're showing here is that's not right. It's essentially an irreversible change that will last for more than a thousand years," the lead scientist of the study says.

[firstfloor]

Why should people be puzzled? The theory of anthropogenic global warming has not gained empirical ground for many years now.

The last doubter will be in a minority of one but he will still be convinced that he is right.

http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024/article

“We analyze the evolution of the scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming (AGW) in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, examining 11 944 climate abstracts from 1991–2011 matching the topics 'global climate change' or 'global warming'. We find that 66.4% of abstracts expressed no position on AGW, 32.6% endorsed AGW, 0.7% rejected AGW and 0.3% were uncertain about the cause of global warming. Among abstracts expressing a position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming. In a second phase of this study, we invited authors to rate their own papers. Compared to abstract ratings, a smaller percentage of self-rated papers expressed no position on AGW (35.5%). Among self-rated papers expressing a position on AGW, 97.2% endorsed the consensus. For both abstract ratings and authors' self-ratings, the percentage of endorsements among papers expressing a position on AGW marginally increased over time. Our analysis indicates that the number of papers rejecting the consensus on AGW is a vanishingly small proportion of the published research.”

[Cow Poke]

Well, it remains the overwhelming evidence is that humans are influencing the climate, but yes the question is how much. I believe there is actually little that can be done to significantly reduce the human influence, because of the world wide demand for energy and the growing population. I believe the emphasis should be we have to learn to deal with climate change. Many of the same things we are trying to do help could such as, reducing carbon based energy demands, and reduce the human impact on the environment. A considerable part of the problem is we are a wasteful, indulgent and trashy culture, and we are spreading this disease worldwide.

At least that's a response!

[shunyadragon]

Therein lies the problem --- if they are not "human influenced", then what can humans do to influence them to... do what, exactly?

Well, it remains the overwhelming evidence is that humans are influencing the climate, but yes the question is how much. I believe there is actually little that can be done to significantly reduce the human influence, because of the world wide demand for energy and the growing population. I believe the emphasis should be we have to learn to deal with climate change. Many of the same things we are trying to do help could such as, reducing carbon based energy demands, and reduce the human impact on the environment. A considerable part of the problem is we are a wasteful, indulgent and trashy culture, and we are spreading this disease worldwide.

[Cow Poke]

I have a physics degree, but I don't understand climate science. It's very complex. As with any subject I don't fully understand my default position is to go with strong consensus of scientists trained and working in that field. Could they be wrong? Possibly. But the alternative is to ignore sound advice. Is climate change not at least contributed to by the actions of humanity? Possibly. But if we do nothing, then again we ignore that sound advice. On something as critical as the climate on our only planet, I think we'd be foolish not to take action if only 'just in case'. Our children and grandchildren deserve at least that.

What nobody seems to be able to answer is "what results will [whatever] action produce"?

I mean, there's all the dire warnings, but there are also cost/benefit considerations.
At what cost do we do something for which we have no way of knowing the actual benefit.

And, yes, climate science is, by all accounts, quite complex. I think it's even more complex than the earlier modelers had thought.

And I was responding, particularly, to Shuny's statement:

The problem is regardless of whether human influence is real or to what extent it is real, the natural trends of climate change is enough to upset the apple cart, our food supply.

He was allowing for the possibility that "climate change" (formerly known as global warming) is not due to human influence. Now, perhaps he didn't intend to make that allowance, but I chose to pursue that possibility. IF "climate change" is NOT caused by human influence, then what influence can humans have on "undoing" or mitigating "climate change"?

[pancreasman]

Therein lies the problem --- if they are not "human influenced", then what can humans do to influence them to... do what, exactly?

I have a physics degree, but I don't understand climate science. It's very complex. As with any subject I don't fully understand my default position is to go with strong consensus of scientists trained and working in that field. Could they be wrong? Possibly. But the alternative is to ignore sound advice. Is climate change not at least contributed to by the actions of humanity? Possibly. But if we do nothing, then again we ignore that sound advice. On something as critical as the climate on our only planet, I think we'd be foolish not to take action if only 'just in case'. Our children and grandchildren deserve at least that.

[Cow Poke]

Therein lies the problem --- if they are not "human influenced", then what can humans do to influence them to... do what, exactly?

So your position is that if humans ARE not influencing the climate, therefore humans CAN not influence the climate.

I didn't STATE a position. Perhaps you failed to notice the QUESTION MARK?

[phank]

Therein lies the problem --- if they are not "human influenced", then what can humans do to influence them to... do what, exactly?

So your position is that if humans ARE not influencing the climate, therefore humans CAN not influence the climate. I don't think that conclusion necessarily follows. Instead, I think it's entirely possible for human activities to influence climate.

Meanwhile, even the skeptics must admit that human activities are puffing billions of tons more CO2 into the atmosphere each year than are being absorbed (this is the NET increase), and have increased the (admittedly small) percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere by 40% and climbing. The AGW folks have been trying to determine what all that CO2 is actually doing, while their opponents take the position that if what it's all doing is not obvious, therefore it's not doing anything and can be ignored.

So we have the practical question: are human activities influencing climate? And the answer seems to be very clearly in the affirmative. And as the old joke has it, if it hurts when we do that, then stop doing that.

I think it's of purely academic interest to wonder what humans might do if they are NOT influencing the climate, but for other reasons climate is changing in ways we don't like. Personally, I think if humans perceived a vested interest in managing the climate, they'd do so. If they perceived (as they do now) a vested interest in denying the effects of their behavior (which would help our grandchildren at the expense of today's profits, a tradeoff NEVER made), they'd probably go ahead and try to increase profits by managing the climate.

Currently, this seems to be the bottom line. If admitting a problem promises to boost profits, DO something. If admitting a problem promises to reduce profits, deny the problem.

[Cow Poke]

The problem is regardless of whether human influence is real or to what extent it is real, the natural trends of climate change is enough to upset the apple cart, our food supply.

Therein lies the problem --- if they are not "human influenced", then what can humans do to influence them to... do what, exactly?

[Cow Poke]

There are overlapping climate cycles that follow warming and cooling trends. These cycles over lap.

I'm guessing that's why they call them overlapping climate cycles? Because they over lap?

[shunyadragon]

There are overlapping climate cycles that follow warming and cooling trends. These cycles over lap. We are in a long term warming trend,that is on a paleoclimate scale older then possible human influence on climate change. Pretty much all the models indicate we are warming faster then normal based on a natural model. The other problem is we can experience cooling trends within the over all warming trend. The other complicating climate change is that there is a drying trend of the mesic and semiarid regions of the world where our major agriculture regions of the world. Based on recent data these regions are drying faster then the natural trend.

The problem is regardless of whether human influence is real or to what extent it is real, the natural trends of climate change is enough to upset the apple cart, our food supply.

[rwatts]

Source: http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/robot-sub-finds-surprisingly-thick-antarctic-sea-ice/ar-BBfC446

Antarctica's ice paradox has yet another puzzling layer. Not only is the amount of sea ice increasing each year, but an underwater robot now shows the ice is also much thicker than was previously thought, a new study reports.

The discovery adds to the ongoing mystery of Antarctica's expanding sea ice. According to climate models, the region's sea ice should be shrinking each year because of global warming. Instead, satellite observations show the ice is expanding, and the continent's sea ice has set new records for the past three winters. At the same time, Antarctica's ice sheet (the glacial ice on land) is melting and retreating.

The findings were published today (Nov. 24) in the journal Nature Geoscience.

© Copyright Original Source

With respect to your last point about the ice sheet, there is also this:-

http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...imate-changes/

To my mind, part of the problem is that we can measure minute changes in this and that, all over the globe these days and as a result we are very senstive to the meaning of very small changes hear and there.

I'd like to think that the skeptics are correct, but simply don't see how that can be so. We are taking an ancient atmosphere and pumping it back into the sky. It goes somewhere. And with the average wealth of people on the globe increasing all the time (which is, I think, a very good thing), we need to do something to counter the bad side affects that are associated with this improvement.

It's not just the potential for global warming that is the problem, but also it's the changes we are making to the surface of our planet and how it adds to or subtacts from that potential.

[shunyadragon]

Or, maybe, climate is a complex system with multiple factors:

here

and here

I just read your sources, and they confirm my conclusions and references.