Opinion, Play, Writing

WTF ? Artic Ice Cap Is Growing NOT Shrinking ? – Don Charisma’s Opinion

For many years I was led (or misled ?) to believe that our greed in burning fossil fuels (to keep us warm and have light at night ?) and releasing CFCs from Fridges (to prevent our food rotting quickly ?) was melting our polar ice caps. The seas would rise, there would be earthquakes, tsunamis, famine and the end of the world would be nigh …

iceland-glacier-landscape-nature-pb-677694-DonCharisma.org-1024LE

But not according to recent reports from Tony Heller @ realclimatescience.com and Steven Goddard @ stevengoddard.wordpress.com

Both Tony and Steven say that, the Arctic ice cap is increasing not decreasing, with a graphic to support their claims :

arctic-has-gained-hundreds-of-miles-of-ice-the-last-three-years-doncharisma.org

(Source – http://realclimatescience.com/2015/09/arctic-has-gained-hundreds-of-miles-of-ice-the-last-three-years/ )

It’s an interesting sentiment, and story, guys, that there’s a massive conspiracy to pull the wool over our eyes and convince us that we’re the bad guys in melting the ice caps, in order to further a political agenda … but …

Some of my own research into the source of the graphic used by both Tony and Steven (and some other sites), suggests that the original (now presumably “altered”) image might have come from nsidc.org (National Snow & Ice Data Center), which seems to be a “real” science site. Their latest article is entitled – “Steady decline, seasonal minimum approaching” in relation to Arctic ice.

Personally I’m no expert in the field, but see no evidence to support Tony and Steven’s claims that ice cap is increasing from reading the nsidc.org site. In fact my conclusion reading nsidc.org was that the Arctic ice cap is indeed shrinking and has been for many years :

nsidc.org-arcticseaicenews-doncharisma.org

(Source – http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2015/09/steady-decline-summer-minimum-approaching/ )

So perhaps the end of the world is still nigh, and those of us that survive will all be sold as human traffic to whoever owns the high ground – the mountains which wont be underwater from the melted ice ?

Joking apart, bottom line – global warming is it a real, and present danger or just a political agenda ?

Cheers

Don Charisma

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51 thoughts on “WTF ? Artic Ice Cap Is Growing NOT Shrinking ? – Don Charisma’s Opinion”

  1. I am agreeing with godless cranium here.
    Climate change, Caused by various things etc blah blah… just makes sense.
    I do think it would happen naturally anyway, but the process has sped up a lot.
    Plus the resources we think will last eternally, just seems sensible to harness the good aspects – only thing – I still think the whole argument of – but its getting colder not warmer is so how can there be global warming… is odd.
    Over time as we learn more about all things sciencey we find better suited names for things and to know the details of hows and whys and what’s rather than just assuming always seems to work better.
    So the scientists get money to research – well yeah… I guess they need to. I also guess many other things need more money for researching – for example more money spent on researching the possibility of a meteor hitting the planet…which IS actually a lot higher than we think it is 😀
    SO where climate change takes precedence it seems – we skimp on programmes that will allow monitoring of all those things crossing our path.
    It is an amazing topic actually – so darn interesting. Though I will say (sorry to veer a little but still on topic of scientists squiffing things) that a lot of things have to be pushed hard to get funding. And science kinda works that way… ‘WE THINK this and that – now we need to figure out why and how.’ They seem to come up with a theory and than prove it – the answer before the question..some things work backwards in that way.
    Oooh – I liked this topic! Thanks Don! 🙂

    1. Thanks Belinda, I enjoyed your exploration … I think mathematician’s (and scientist’s) work this way, find the answer and then figure out why and whether the answer is true … can be applied to many things, not sure it works with affairs of the heart, though …

      1. lol. Yeah, I am guessing that is mildly more complex! Yet one can determine to love, and that love is the answer and so decide how best to do so. Or decide to love and determine how best to do so. 🙂

      9. Yup 😉 all seasons ey. Doing Spelling and English with my six year old… using google voice search with her to check spelling of fancy words. She is LOVING this. Lol!

    2. Part of what may seem like a speeding up of shifts in the climate is that our current technology gives us a higher resolution picture of recent times than we have ever seen before. The further back in the past that science looks, then the resolution of the picture decreases.

      Then, on the other hand, there is currently a very real large scale cyclic event underway. This has to do with the Sun. The event is known as a grand minimum. If you would like to read related material as to the effects from a GM, then look up the Dalton, Maunder, Wolf, or Sporer. Those are the last 4 GM,s to occur. However, this will be the first time in history where a GM will be monitored with modern tools. Science in large part does not know exactly what to expect. Overall, a GM always means some level of cooling. In the old days, these events often meant millions of people starving to death, war, and spread of disease.

      We should not be so severely affected due to our modern technology. Except, that with this current push by many world leaders to fight the supposed dread warming, the world may be facing the wrong way when the “enemy” comes. This could lead to catastrophe for millions or tens of millions of people around the globe. Of course, it will be the poorest of people who will suffer the worst of this. China could swiftly find themselves in dire straits with their huge population to support. Remember, most of the world,s food is produced in the Northern Hemisphere. This is where a grand minimum has known negative consequences. This is where the bird brain politicians and activists can increase that risk by blindly promoting the catastrophic climate change fairy tale.

      1. Thanks! Very informative. Always good to look at all possibilities. I do find it a difficult area to be adamant about, as with everything, as we look and research further ..Well, we learn more and more.
        Pretty pointless to hold too tightly to any set of ideas, whether we believe them to be well founded or preconceived. If we did so, well dang… the earth would still be flat. I cannot say science is my string point in life, but I am gaining interest and learning a lot as my children begin choosing paths in the sciences. I am sure the best approach is to assimilate the facts we can, and then think about it again and again. That being said… it sure can get hard knowing what is fact and what is not, when one is a lay person in such things. What I do disagree strongly with is the general public who do not have knowledge of it all, jumping on one or other band wagon… And pushing their opinion real hard. Opinions are one thing, so long as we are willing to have them changed, should the evidence be placed in front of us. Thanks again!

  2. Global warming, is a money scam. They cook the results, then present them to governments, and say they can study it, solve it, if they can only have trillions of dollars…lol One thing I learned working in military space programs, is that the ‘global warming’ of the earth, corresponds identically with every other planet in the solar system. Even Pluto. That’s never put out in the snooze media. The cause of the warming? That big orange ball in the sky. 😉

      3. Very likely after a major solar event, or perhaps a massive volcanic event. If you truly want to trip up a global warming theorist, ask them to explain how Greenland got it’s name, and watch their face contort and twitch…lol

      4. You’re a character Kevin, and yes I’ll add that to my arsenal 🙂 … I looked up the dino extinction, seems it’s thought by many to be a meteor collision which caused global cooling … nothing to do with humans !

      5. Thanks! 🙂 Yeah, that is plausible too. The one documentary I watched some time ago, theorized the impact was off what is now the Yucatan Peninsula. And, that what is now the western Gulf of Mexico was once dry land.

  3. Don, the idea of global warming has become a religion. If you disagree with those that believe this, you are labeled a heretic. I did a lot of reading early on about GW, and came to the conclusion there was no real evidence over the last decade or more that the planet was warming. And how to account for the fact that scientist as recently as the 70s were bellowing we were entering a new Ice Age?
    The ice packs in both the Arctic and Antarctic are expanding, but I heard as recently as a week ago that this was due to global warming. Of course, and I have a bridge to sell you over the Hudson River.
    Follow the money! The GB acolytes make a lot of money from their governments for their research – where would they be if GB wasn’t real? It explains why they’ve manipulated their data and tried to silence any scientists with data to the contrary.
    Are humans putting a lot of garbage into the air? Can we do a better job of getting rid of this nasty stuff? Absolutely. Is this creating GB? I’m not convinced by a long shot.

    1. I think the heretic is branded anytime someone has an opinion which doesn’t fit with mass opinion … and it’s frustrating to have this, a political tactic applied when someone may actually be trying to speak the truth … politics is about winning and being right, the truth often isn’t included … anyway, I’m probably not saying anything you don’t already know …

      I personally concede that “I don’t know” as far as global warming goes … the reason for this is I don’t have scientific equipment to verify any data, nor do I have access to any historical data that I trust … all I can do is look at what looks to be more professionally and scientifically derived data and take a view on it … the view I took on this is that the anti-GW brigade seem to be offering little in the way of “proof” and the pro-GW brigade seemed to be doing their work professionally and scientifically … which is probably because they’re getting gazillions of dollars thrown at them to say that …

      Within that, it’s quite true that pro-GW is the popular choice, stats can be skewed, reports falsified etc, and money buys “professionalism” and “science” as others have said on this thread … so it’s an interest topic for an opinion post, because it’s controversial …

      Lastly – How much for the Hudson bridge, I think it would go well with MY London bridge, which the guy told me should be arriving next week …

      1. Thanks for the thoughtful reply, Don. Since I have a scientific background I can look at the data more critically than the lay person. Even if not the wild claims by the GW addicts should give one pause.
        Hugs from NC

      3. Leave it to good old Winnie to express the situation in a nutshell. There doesn’t seem to be good people around who are willing to sit down and have a reasoned discussion. Thanks, my friend, for stimulating discussion!

  4. The three physicists (Phd’s all) in my family assure me that global warming is real. Politics aside, and yes, there are always politicians, we need to better care for this planet if we want to assure any decent kind of future for our children and grandchildren. Unfortunately, it really does take a well educated scientist to be able to understand the complex and intermingled scientific details of global warming, dwindling resources, and species extinction of a fragile planet. Too many people with agendas of their own (the politicians) promote a dedicated viewpoint via sound bites and catch phrases, but simple explanations don’t exist. Too many folks want only a bumper sticker for their life’s inspiration when only an encyclopedic knowledge will work. If you don’t understand it yourself, trust the real scientists. But anyone can guard resources and promote smarter existence in the world.

    1. Sharron – “Too many folks want only a bumper sticker for their life’s inspiration when only an encyclopedic knowledge will work.” … very wise, I might borrow that one myself 🙂

      And yes, it’s a bit concerning that people are posting misleading stuff about global warming, as Matt pointed out lower down the Arctic ice cap expands and contracts every year, but over time it’s NET contracting, or so I’m told …

      Within that I think we all have a right to share in the resources of the planet, and not to be made to feel guilty about what is for most a modest use of the planet’s resources … I don’t have a car or motorbike, haven’t for years, I walk, bus it, taxi, car share, hire … I do travel on airplane (in economy), but don’t fly around in a private jet … I would prefer they put one less seat in the row, in economy, that extra shoulder room would make all the difference on a 24 hour journey, but I get by somehow or other 🙂

      1. Absolutely – I’m not suggesting at all that we live in caves, scraping water from mud pits, eating acorns and corn cobs. I do think most of us could conserve a bit more. It’s not hard.

  5. Don, I think this issue has been so politicized that finding the truth is akin to determining who Jack the Ripper was, you can theorize all you want but will never be sure.

    The problem is that politicians on the pro-side of this are too heavily invested in the alternate technologies to really be able to trust what they say. I have been in scientific research in the past, and research is all but unbiased, it follows the money trail, and scientists with personal views and agendas are not beyond falsifying, or misinterpreting, data to match their views.

    I find it suspect when one thing is blamed entirely for a problem, such as fossil fuels and global warming. Occam’s Razor aside, nothing is ever that simple. I live in a rural area, but have to travel through the city to get to the other side where I work. As I leave the countryside into the city I can feel the temperature rise, and then fall again as I get into the country on the other side. Same geographic area, traveling at 5am before the heat of the day, the only difference at that time is the landscape, from trees and dirt to heavily paved areas and a lack of foliage. There is no traffic at that time to add to the temps. So, based on my unscientific study, it would seem the build up of our landscape is more of a problem that cars driving down the road (try walking barefoot from grass onto an unpaved driveway, then onto a paved road). Add to that air conditioning (cars and buildings) pumping heat out of one area into another, adding more heat from the mechanics of pumping the heat, and you end up adding to the temperatures.

    Nothing is so simple as to have a single source causing a problem.

    1. Are you sure we’re not related, you took the words right out of my mount, very well said … what was it – lies, damn lies and statistics !

      The city is always warmer than the countryside – cars/buses/vehicles/trains, people’s bodies, heating in houses/commercial, aircon, industry etc etc etc all generating heat … and less green space to “clean” the air and presumably add moisture … hot time, summer in the city 🙂

      1. When I was a research chemist I found that there was rarely one solution to a problem, or one cause. That is also when I found that many, though not all, scientists would do or say anything to get the money that a research grant provides. If you aren’t working on a paying project then you don’t have a job. And governments rarely pay for unbiased research, the projects are usually worded in such a way as to let you know what they are looking for, like “polar ice caps are melting, are fossil fuels a possible cause?”

  6. Its shrinking but ive heard people use the argument its growing when really the “growth” being observed is seasonal sea ice, it freezes over water in winter so people use that to argue its growing when in fact that ice just melts when spring comes and were still losing massive amounts of land ice thousands of years old

      3. A very important point which I do not see mentioned around here is that when the satellite record began in late 1978 the Arctic sea ice was at a peak. Let me ask you, when you reach a peak of a mountain or a peak of anything, what happens as you continue to move forward? The sea ice in the Arctic has rebounded off of it,s lows over the last 3 years. Perhaps if that very large anti-cyclone did not impact the Arctic in the summer of 2012, then we would now be witnessing a much larger gain in Arctic sea ice. However, that natural event did take place, and it had a very large negative impact on the sea ice for that season.

        One last thought, take a look at this graph and note that the sea ice has trended sideways since 2005/06….http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.arctic.png

        What that tells me is that this has been a cyclic event. You see the downstepping over 20+ years that then leads into a more rapid drop to the floor of the valley of this warm cycle. That was the warming period. The global trend, for the next 14 years in particular, is going to be one of cooling. This regrowth in the Arctic sea ice will be seen as the turning point after the passage of another half a dozen years. Remember, history shows us that this Arctic ice melt has happened before in the past. There are news articles from a century ago where the headline for the daily paper was all about what was going on in the Arctic, and what did that severe melting of the sea ice portend for the future of mankind.

      4. It’s been mentioned a couple of times … it’s like looking at something FAR too close up, and not the bigger picture …

        Thanks for adding to for me 🙂

  7. Given that I am from a generation that was told the world would end in 1975, I may be a bit cynical about writing about global warming in 2015. Yes, it’s real but the facts are manipulated for political advantage, by all sides. We are never likely to know the whole truth, while politicians control the data.

  8. It’s real and our continued waffling on the subject is dangerous. Worst case scenario being it’s a conspiracy so we clean up our environment as a result and stop putting particulates into the air by burning dirty oil. Best case scenario is the majority of scientists are right and we partially divert a mass extinction.

    The choices seem obvious to me.

  9. Climate is in a state of flux. When I was a teen in the 70s ,we were threatened with global cooling; and now, global warming. There are always things we can do better for the planet and our environment. Overall, I believe the current global warming frenzy is mostly a political-economic agenda for control over business regulations that in turn, remove money from the coffers of corporations and businesses and funneled to who knows where. If the money were being properly utilized, our debt here in the U.S. would shrink, there would be more efficient and cost-effective “alternative” energy, as well as, more people working in a better and cleaner environment. None of that is realistically taking place. This country is getting poorer, not richer and too many are doing without when it is not necessary. When environmentalist protect a water source for a few thousand minnows over the crops and welfare of humanity, I think the problem is more than just climate change.

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