I found this "yellow journalism" article in the Independent humorous. They're trying to sound the alarm bells about Global Warming but the story comes apart as you go along. I have to do a mini-fisking here. Climate warning as Antarctic ice bridge shatters
An ice bridge which held a vast Antarctic ice shelf in place shattered at the weekend and could herald a wider collapse linked to global warming, a leading scientist has warned.
"It's amazing how the ice has ruptured. Two days ago it was intact," said David Vaughan, a glaciologist with the British Antarctic Survey.
OK. This sounds serious. Obviously a sign of Global Warming. Surely this has never happened before?
Nine other shelves have receded or collapsed around the Antarctic Peninsula in the past 50 years, often abruptly like the Larsen A in 1995 or the Larsen B, further north, in 2002.
Oh, so it has happened before. For the last 50 years. What about 100 years ago? Well, no humans went ashore in Antarctica then and hence we have no historical data on ice shelves. Serious scientific studies of the Antarctic weren't established until the mid 1950's. Essentially, they are saying that as long as we've been studying this ice, it's been doing this.
But here is the clincher, and it makes me laugh:
The loss of ice shelves does not affect sea levels – floating ice contracts as it melts and so does not raise ocean levels. But their loss can allow glaciers on land to slide more rapidly towards the sea, adding water to the oceans.
So it doesn't makes seas levels rise! I thought that is what you're supposed to think, as part of the Global warming doomsday scenario. Thanks for adding that in.
Also, apparently, it'll make glaciers slide into the sea? Is that how it works? That's not science. That's some hack writer who put that in the final sentence. Glaciers "expand" into the sea, because ice expands when it gets cold.
People read this headline, and read the first sentence and it reafirms their climate catastrophe scenarios. I don't understand why these media agencies slant, and make things up about Global Warming. What's in it for them?
This morning there was 10-20 cm of snow north of Steeles Avenue (the northern part of Toronto). The Cubs Yankees game at new Yankee Stadium on Friday night April 3rd, you could see wet snow falling onto the field.
ReplyDeleteThis could be a sign of a returning ice age.
That's just it, they take natural occurances and build them up to prove one theory or the other.
ReplyDeleteI agree. I just hate the way the mainstream media reports on global warming, as a factual occurrence. This 2008/2009 winter has been one of the coldest in years. I also live in Canada, so any global warming would be welcome. Just think, Baffin Island could become a tourist beach resort.
ReplyDelete