Sunday, February 17, 2008

Deep Freeze

Remember last fall's panic about vanishing Arctic ice? Terence Corcoran updates the story in The Financial Post:
The disappearing sea ice that was supposedly going to dramatically change the North, if not the world, is back. Thanks to really cold weather -- gee, where did that come from?--winter sea ice has been growing across the North. "Clearly we're seeing the ice coverage rebound back to more near normal coverage for this time of year," says Gilles Langis, a senior ice forecaster with the Canadian Ice Service in Ottawa.

There goes a good story. And if you doubt me on this, the source is as biased on climate change as sources get: The CBC. And if the weather stays cold, the ice will get even thicker, says the report.. At this rate, Mr. Mansbridge's ice-breaker crew won't be able to make it north to report on the disappearing ice because there's too much ice. . .

A University of Illinois report showed that Arctic sea ice is back to its previous level. I don't know anything about the accuracy of that report, but combined with the CBC report I'd say we have a story: The ice is back.
Will someone tell Connie and similar alarmists "frightened by nightmares of drowning polar bears that Al Gore unnecessarily scared them?"

MORE:

The February 18th Daily Express (U.K.):
New evidence has cast doubt on claims that the world’s ice-caps are melting, it emerged last night.

Satellite data shows that concerns over the levels of sea ice may have been premature.

It was feared that the polar caps were vanishing because of the effects of global warming.

But figures from the respected US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show that almost all the “lost” ice has come back.

Ice levels which had shrunk from 13million sq km in January 2007 to just four million in October, are almost back to their original levels.

Figures show that there is nearly a third more ice in Antarctica than is usual for the time of year.

The data flies in the face of many current thinkers and will be seized on by climate change sceptics who deny that the world is undergoing global warming.

A photograph of polar bears clinging on to a melting iceberg has become one of the most enduring images in the campaign against climate change.

It was used by former US Vice President Al Gore during his Inconvenient Truth lectures about mankind’s impact on the world. But scientists say the northern hemisphere has endured its coldest winter in decades.
According to Iain Murray, Competitive Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow:
Temperatures ought to be at a peak, but instead they've held steady for at least the last five years and by some accounts, they've actually dropped. The case for urgent action to restrict energy use is getting weaker, not stronger. Given that affordable energy is the best hope of escape from poverty for billions around the globe, politicians need to ask themselves "where's the beef" before pushing their anti-energy policies.
(via AstuteBlogger, GatewayPundit, Wolf Howling)

3 comments:

@nooil4pacifists said...

I've tried to tell Connie, but I assume my reassurance, like all facts, will disappear down her intolerant memory hole.

GW said...

Perhaps thoughts of a Maunder Minimum might assure her that the polar bears will likely thrive better than the rest of us.
http://www.usadaily.com/article.cfm?articleID=265816

@nooil4pacifists said...

GW (of the top-notch Wolf Howling blog) cites an excellent article:

"I can understand why people believe that global warming is real and that all the things Greens say are true. One cannot read a newspaper or magazine, turn on the television or radio, without getting the Green message.

Since switching their message in the 1970s that an Ice Age was coming to the complete fiction of a massive, dramatic global warming due to greenhouse gases, the Greens have been able to influence policy at the international and national level. They have been utterly relentless, a modern version of the Mongols on horseback who swept out of the East to conquer everything before them until the reached the gates of Europe. These days the Greens have long since conquered Europe.

One thing alone stands against the Greens. The SCIENCE does not support them. Their sense of moral superiority, their contempt for all things modern, their resistance to all forms of energy except the weakest—wind and solar, and at the very heart of the Greens’ message is a contempt and hatred for the human race."

Read the whole thing.