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-Short Attention Span Theater-
Whoops! Arctic's Actually Cooling......"Gaia's Fighting Back"
2006-11-17
Couldn't be that the "scientists" and the hateful Gore-bot are wrong, nosirree... watch the spin...
An international team of grant whores scientists reported Thursday that rising temperatures are steadily transforming the Arctic -- warming millions of square miles of permafrost, promoting lush greenery on previously arid tundras and steadily shrinking the annual sea ice.
except....
Yet the researchers also found new patterns of cooling ocean currents and prevailing winds that suggested the Arctic, long considered a bellwether of global warming, may be reverting in some ways to more normal conditions not seen since the 1970s.

Taken together, these findings may be evidence, the researchers said, of the region struggling to keep its balance, as rising temperatures slowly overturn the long-established order of seasonal variations.
"Gaia is fighting back! We must help her by destroying all SUV's....except ours, of course"
"This is a region that is fighting back," said lead author Jacqueline Richter-Menge, a civil engineer at the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory in Hanover, N.H. "There are things that showed signs of going back to norms, trying to right themselves under very dire circumstances."
a civil engineer doing planetary weather science....I don't recall that as a field of expertise for CE's...
"What kind of circumstances?"
"Dire circumstances!"
Posted by:Frank G

#22  We have seen a warming trend in Alaska's arctic over the last decade. We deal a lot in permafrost, so we watch the trend in permafrost temps over the years. Getting down in the ground below the active soil layer filters out a lot of short term variations. This is important, as decisions on the type of foundation for a building, for example, will depend upon what the permafrost is doing. A warming trend will greatly lower the capacity of thermal piles. Also, it will affect the amount of insulation used in insulated pipe.

The thing is that many people studying possible global warming are not exactly objective. Frank G. was being snarky with his grant whores insert, but not exactly off the mark, either. The model for climate has a HUGE number of variables. Many of which we do not know. So writing the equation for climate requires many assumptions, which makes the error band large.

The fact of the matter is that many of the big name commenters on global warming have a vested interest in the outcomes of their studies or their positions. If the earth's surface is warming, it will have to be studied objectively, which will require the scientific method, which is an endangered species in this age of politicizing everything.
Posted by: Alaska Paul   2006-11-17 21:49  

#21  If for no other reason than "...the Earth's naturally occurring 'ENGINE MUFFLER/TAILPIPE'", this thread has now been enshrined in the Rantburg Classics.

Posted by: Dave D.   2006-11-17 21:44  

#20  Besides which, we are in an inter-glacial period and have no real way of knowing what constitutes the normal flucuation range for an inter-glacial period. It could easily be that all the temperature variation that people are so worried about is normal and natural.
Posted by: Shieldwolf   2006-11-17 21:33  

#19  Earth has warmed and Earth has cooled, Earth has sweltered and chilled many times over on her billion odds years. Knowing where we are, today, on that mote in the timemap of trends is going to require one whackload more data than "one entire year over the entire arctic" to pinpoint one way or the other.
Posted by: Thinemp Whimble2412   2006-11-17 21:07  

#18  Kets follow GUARDIAN.com's advice and let the OZONE HOLE HEAL, i.e. block/close the Earth's naturally occurring "ENGINE MUFFLER/TAILPIPE", thus saving the Ozone but assuring the de facto entire planet is de facto choking = de facto DYING = de facto COOKING IN OUR OWN HUMAN JUICES via greenhouse gases = maxi-levels of atmospheric pollutions. CAN'T BLAME THE SUN FOR IT. SAVED THE OZONE BUT DOOMED THE HUMAN RACE BY CAUSING THE ATMOSPHERE TO EXPLODE INTO SPACE VIA "MOTHER OF ALL GLOBAL FARTS".
Posted by: JosephMendiola   2006-11-17 21:03  

#17  "Local weather variations at Earth's upper latitudes create a seesaw of annual hot spots and cold sinks above the Arctic Circle that, combined with incomplete data records, can easily disguise longer regional climate trends."
That says it all, Nobody knows much about longer regional climate trends.
Posted by: Darrell   2006-11-17 19:53  

#16  brrrr - do you have technical expertise in Climatology/Geophysics? Civil Engineering? Or are you just kneejerk defending her? What's your agenda?....hey....is this the name you always use? I don't recall you around here.
Posted by: Frank G   2006-11-17 18:48  

#15  Sorta like Marsiotasis.
Posted by: Shipman   2006-11-17 16:35  

#14  RE #7: Homeostasis is the property of an open system, especially living organisms, to regulate its internal environment to maintain a stable, constant condition, by means of multiple dynamic equilibrium adjustments, controlled by interrelated regulation mechanisms. The term was coined in 1932 by Walter Cannon from the Greek homoios (same, like, resembling) and stasis (to stand, posture).

So it's like Newton's First Law for biologists?

Posted by: Bobby   2006-11-17 13:59  

#13  Just one more example that we really don't understand climate yet. Certainly not to the point of trying to 'fix' it.
Posted by: SteveS   2006-11-17 13:44  

#12  I, for one, would like to see DAILY data on temperatures (going all the way back to whenever we started recording them) being graphed out in a graph of not averages, but the median. In other words, for today's date (Nov. 17), what is the median temperature whereby there are an equal # of days both above and below that mark? Averages, to those of us who took Statistics, mean absolutely nothing with a finite set of data. Especially when 1 freak (or just a handful of freak) day/year can skew the average so much.

Think of it this way, if you have 100 years worth of data for today's date, and just say the average in the Antarctic is 0 degrees, but last year it (freak-ily) reached 100 degrees, well then your average jumps an ENTIRE degree. Add to that, the advances in thermometers since the late 1800's, the fact that many of the temp meters are in locations that were very rural 100 years ago (in fact, many of the US temp gauges are in urban areas now, which has the "heat island" effect of all that glass/concrete/steel), and then add in the sun having extremely active solar flares recently and you get a TON of variables that can NOT just be thrown out the window, if you're a TRUE scientist.
Posted by: BA   2006-11-17 13:44  

#11  I'm farting my way to a warmer, happier Gaia!

Just doing my part.
Posted by: DarthVader   2006-11-17 13:28  

#10  how about the cherry-picked yearly data was chosen because it served their agenda and over time was normed out. Why not say it that way instead of the global wraming/climate change agenda spin? Clearly our emissions are also causing the cooling, right? Jeebus
Posted by: Frank G   2006-11-17 12:44  

#9  I think regions should be allowed to marry. They should also get to make a living wage. It's only right. And universal health care, too. Yeah.
Posted by: Kent Brockman   2006-11-17 12:40  

#8  begin being
Posted by: brrrrr   2006-11-17 12:39  

#7   am a licensed Civil Engineer (as are a couple others here , Alaska Paul and Bobby) and I'm not qualified to make professional assessments like that

You're an engineer and you don't recognize homeostasis begin described in non-technical terms?

Ah well, it's so much more fun to have a knee-jerk reaction I suppose.
Posted by: brrrrr   2006-11-17 12:38  

#6  Thanks Raj........
Posted by: Mullah Richard   2006-11-17 12:08  

#5  This is what the Artic gets for not signing the Kyoto Treaty...

/come on, somebody had to say it!
Posted by: Raj   2006-11-17 12:02  

#4  "This is a region that is fighting back," said lead author Jacqueline Richter-Menge, a civil engineer at the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory in Hanover, N.H. "There are things that showed signs of going back to norms, trying to right themselves under very dire circumstances."
So this region has a free will ? If so, should a region be allowed to vote ? Procreate ?
Posted by: wxjames   2006-11-17 11:38  

#3  well, brrrrr. I am a licensed Civil Engineer (as are a couple others here , Alaska Paul and Bobby) and I'm not qualified to make professional assessments like that, and no matter who she works with, she's not either. To use that resume as a qual is BS and shows this for the farce it is.
Posted by: Frank G   2006-11-17 11:27  

#2  a civil engineer doing planetary weather science....I don't recall that as a field of expertise for CE's...

CORREL is an Army lab that tracks cold region conditions and develops new equipment and procedures for troops in cold regions. Richter-Menge may not be a weather scientist, but you can bet she's been informed by knowledgeable ones.
Posted by: brrrrr   2006-11-17 10:42  

#1  I blame Bush! Wait.... this is a good thing for libs? Go Gore!
/liberal mindset
Posted by: DarthVader   2006-11-17 10:31  

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