The Ice Was Nice

[n2doc]

Robert A. Brown
Just another weblog



It used to be “Ice is Nice”, a cliché for Arctic scientists who studied on the Arctic pack ice, 1970s to ‘90s.

In the 1970s the Arctic Ocean was frozen with an average pack ice thickness of about 3.64 meters (12’) and it was easy to keep a camp on a big floe for a year (The Arctic Ice Dynamics Joint Experiment). I enjoyed walking around on it, sleeping on it, and flying low over it to get data in the boundary layer. I wasn’t there when it broke apart under the mess tent.

Submarine transit ice thickness data goes back 50-years and the ice was about the same thickness until 1980 (Kwok and Drew Rothrock: August 6 in Geophysical Research Letters). Then it started decreasing, until it is now about 1.89m (6.2’) thick. And the extent is evidently decreasing.

There might be some who would dispute it, but when ice disappears, warming is the usual suspect. Since global temperature measurements in the same period have increased (less than a degree C, maybe 5 in the Arctic region), this is a likely cause of the vanishing ice.


more

http://blog.seattlepi.com/robertbrown/2011/03/01/the-ice-was-nice/

[pscot]

1. The not-quite-bright

tend to dominate the PI's comment threads when GCC is mentioned.

[damntexdem]

2. What, heat might be involved when ice thaws! Nonsense!

Scientific misconduct! Go read your bible!

;-)

[Gregorian]

3. Nothing will change until the disconnect between personal behavior and global warming is fixed.

I continue to be amazed at how vicious people are when confronted with their own irresponsibility. Especially from people like those on this forum. People who should know better. And that makes me much less than confident that anything is going to change. People don't see that when you hop on a plane for Hawaii, they are promoting global warming. How dare I mention something like that! I have no right!

I also have no children. So it's your kids who will be treading water. But I kind of like the place, and sort of wanted to preserve it.

Hop in the car and go on a drive, every morning. Every night. We have designed our lives around the stinking box on rubber wheels. I want to scream. I'm sick of it.

And it isn't going to go away. And it isn't going to be engineered away. Screw in a compact fluorescent, and feel good. Then produce more humans who will do more driving, and just don't think about it.

[txlibdem]

4. What do the idiot deniers need as a wake-up call?

Does the entire planet need to be reduced to a burning cinder before they'll believe. I'm pretty sure it will be too late by then...

[n2doc]

5. It needs to never snow, anywhere, or be cold

Even then they will say it is all "natural", like the middle ages warming period. As if they knew anything about it.

[txlibdem]

6. The Repukes pine for the "good old days" of the Middle Ages

They were firmly in control then, no social safety nets, the poor worked for nothing and could be killed (or raped or assaulted) by anyone in the upper class on a whim and without recompense, the lower class had zero rights, all the government/clergy/etc powerful or well paying professions were occupied by the upper crust of society exclusively.

A sociopath's wet dream.