Entire Antarctic Shelf splitting away from Continent.

[gatorback]

OK.  Either way, why don't you explain this one fact.  That in the North Poll, where nobody lives, and nobody has ever lived, that the ice there, the ice that has  been there for ever since we recoreded, that ice, it's gone.   Explain please that if we are cooling, why wouldn't we have more ice there then no ice at all?

[RiversideGator]

Isnt this old news?

Ages-Old Icecap at North Pole Is Now Liquid, Scientists Find

By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
Published: August 19, 2000

The North Pole is melting.

The thick ice that has for ages covered the Arctic Ocean at the pole has turned to water, recent visitors there reported yesterday. At least for the time being, an ice-free patch of ocean about a mile wide has opened at the very top of the world, something that has presumably never before been seen by humans and is more evidence that global warming may be real and already affecting climate.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940CEFDE133EF93AA2575BC0A9669C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1

[Charleston native]

Hmmm...it's currently August...the article was written in August.......

Oh yeah...it's late summer!

Reports have already stated that the ice has grown back and is even thicker now; in addition, Antarctic ice grew in huge levels when ice up north shrunk.

However, you won't read those facts in the headlines.

[gatorback]

You don't have to convince me.  With over 8,000 new record highs this year, I know we are cooling.  It was like only 107 here last week.

[BridgeTroll]

OK.  Either way, why don't you explain this one fact.  That in the North Poll, where nobody lives, and nobody has ever lived, that the ice there, the ice that has  been there for ever since we recoreded, that ice, it's gone.   Explain please that if we are cooling, why wouldn't we have more ice there then no ice at all?

The point I have been trying to make (apparently not very well) is that recorded human history is a VERY short time in the context of geologic time.  I contend that the records kept for the vast majority of human history are inaccurate. So when statements like "hottest or coldest in history" are used they do not mean much to me.  Statements from victims of drought or flood like "It has never been this dry,wet,hot,cold,windy" only mean in their short lifetime.  Even if we read about conditions from past generations... that is only a couple of hundred years old.

Is it cooling or heating???  I do not know...

[gatorback]

True.  Very true BridgeTroll; however, what about non-human recorded events, like ice cores, and tree growth rings, glaciers, and patterns like that.  Wouldn't that give us some insight into the past without us having to be here?

[BridgeTroll]

True.  Very true BridgeTroll; however, what about non-human recorded events, like ice cores, and tree growth rings, glaciers, and patterns like that.  Wouldn't that give us some insight into the past without us having to be here?

They do give us valuable insight.  Ice cores and tree rings give us a general idea of conditions in a time frame...ie wet, dry, cold, or hot.  What they do not help with is the high and low temperature for any given day.  Ice core will tell us whether a little or alot of snow fell... tree rings will tell us if the climate was helpful or hurtful for tree growth.  We cannot use that data to say that on 8/14/08 10,000 years ago it was 105.5 degrees and humid...

[gatorback]

We're not looking at 10,000 years ago, we're going back to late 1700s or the start of the industrial revolution.  Remember, it's the green house gasses causing global cooling.  We just think we're to small to make a difference.

[BridgeTroll]

We're not looking at 10,000 years ago, we're going back to late 1700s or the start of the industrial revolution.  Remember, it's the green house gasses causing global cooling.  We just think we're to small to make a difference.

But you need to go back 10,000 years... even more.  Is the "normal" temperature range only applicable for the last 300 years??  That is but a very small blip on the radar screen...

[gatorback]

so then te ice cores and the glaciers give us the big picture to support global cooling by green house gases then?

[BridgeTroll]

the ice cores and the glaciers give us the big picture to support global cooling by green house gases then?

If you say so...

[RiversideGator]

True.  Very true BridgeTroll; however, what about non-human recorded events, like ice cores, and tree growth rings, glaciers, and patterns like that.  Wouldn't that give us some insight into the past without us having to be here?

Speaking of tree rings, here is a chart which indicates that England is not as hot now as it was in the Medieval Warm Period:


http://www.weatherquestions.com/Roy-Spencer-on-global-warming.htm

[RiversideGator]

Here is actual satellite data from the past 20 years (which used the same methods to measure global temperature throughout the time period):


Fig. 9. UAH monthly globally averaged lower atmospheric temperature variations since 1979 as measured by NOAA and NASA satellites.

[gatorback]

the ice cores and the glaciers give us the big picture to support global cooling by green house gases then?

If you say so...

I'm not saying so, it was of an interrogative sentence really.

[Doctor_K]

We're not looking at 10,000 years ago, we're going back to late 1700s or the start of the industrial revolution.  Remember, it's the green house gasses causing global cooling.  We just think we're to small to make a difference.

I was always told that greenhouse gases cause global warming.  Which is it?