Reddit’s science forum banned climate deniers.

[Spendulus]

No, this isn't the way it works.

Antarctica always operates sort of in reverse:  N Pole loses ice, S pole gains ice.  Yes sea ice has it's own characteristics, but...we're talking ice here thick enough to stop these ships.  That's not the 'large coverage of thin ice' issue that's seen at the N Pole, which is short lived and which does not compensate for multi year ice.

  The proof or disproof of your suggested method 1..6 is whether your theory explains events AT BOTH POLES

The Arctic does not have enough tidewater glacier frontage for the meltwater effect to be anything like what it is in the Antarctic. You may verify this yourself by looking at a map. There are a few rivers draining into the Arctic Ocean, but they drain relatively modest watersheds and their contribution to any increase is likewise limited.  Thus, one would not expect much effect on sea ice from accelerated melt except right around Greenland (and that area has in fact lost less sea ice than the rest of the Arctic.) Much of the Arctic coast is tundra (polar desert) and has very little to contribute in the way of meltable ice.

And the "suggested method" is not mine. While I cannot tell you for certain who first articulated it, it has been quite widely discussed, and I find the physics of it difficult to refute.

Well, that was sort of my point - maybe I did not explicitly state it.  There was no physics in 1-6.  Sometimes, of course, this is a purposeful simplification of a mathematical model of physical conditions done to may it readable to the lay public.  But, and unfortunately so, in the area of 'global warming' we such such words being strung together in ways which appear to make sense, but which do not represent a testable hypothesis in any sense whatsoever.

This means (well, it's just my take on the matter) that if you had salinity ranges, depths and range of thermoclimes and the variances thereof over the seasons, then on a first glance a you could have a testable hypothesis as to an explanation of ice levels at both poles, given the known behavior of water of various salinity levels in the temperature ranges involved.  

But an explanation for one pole, which does not work at the other pole, or for which the testing at the other pole is shrugged off as unnecessary, is obviously highly suspect.

Secondly, I remember that the sea ice coverage issues are poorly understood, and models don't work well, for reasons as simple as variance in wind.  

Short story, there was no physics stated.  I agree 1-6 is a possible cause either in whole or part, but have to reject it as a sure fire explanation.  I mean, it's like I feel I made the OBVIOUS objection, one that a first year grad student in the field would have came up with. 

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[Wilikon]

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority’s Rescue Coordination Centre (RCC Australia) has requested the US Coast Guard’s Polar Star icebreaker to assist the vessels MV Akademik Shokalskiy and Xue Long which are beset by ice in Commonwealth Bay.


The US Coast Guard has accepted this request and will make Polar Star available to assist.
The Polar Star has been en route to Antarctica since 3 December, 2013 – weeks prior to the MV Akademik Shokalskiy being beset by ice in Commonwealth Bay. The intended mission of the Polar Star is to clear a navigable shipping channel in McMurdo Sound to the National Science Foundation’s Scientific Research Station. Resupply ships use the channel to bring food, fuel and other goods to the station. The Polar Star will go on to undertake its mission once the search and rescue incident is resolved.

RCC Australia identified the Polar Star as a vessel capable of assisting the beset vessels following MV Akademik Shokalskiy being beset by ice overnight on 24 December, 2013. RCC Australia has been in discussion with the US Coast Guard this week to ascertain if the Polar Star was able to assist once it reaches Antarctica.

The request for the Polar Star to assist the beset vessels was made by RCC Australia to the US Coast Guard on 3 January, 2014. The US Coast Guard officially accepted this request and released the Polar Star to RCC Australia for search and rescue tasking at 8.30am on 4 January, 2014.

The Polar Star will leave Sydney today after taking on supplies prior to its voyage to Antarctica.

It is anticipated it will take approximately seven (7) days for the Polar Star to reach Commonwealth Bay, dependent on weather and ice conditions.

At 122 metres, the Polar Star is one of the largest ships in the US Coast Guard fleet. It has a range of 16,000 nautical miles at 18 knots. The Polar Star has a crew of 140 people.
The Polar Star is able to continuously break ice up to 1.8 metres (6ft) while travelling at three (3) knots and can break ice over six (21ft) metres thick.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/04/usa-to-the-rescue-us-coast-guard-ice-breaker-asked-to-assist-antarctic-rescue-vessels-trapped-in-ice-due-to-spiritofmawson-fiasco/

[Wilikon]

The hapless Australasian Antarctic Expedition is finally homeward bound - and thousands of trees will have to be planted to offset the carbon footprint from the prolonged rescue effort.

The Russian research vessel Akademik Shokalskiy became stuck in thick pack ice some 3000km southwest of Bluff on Christmas Eve.

The 52 passengers, including six New Zealanders, spent eight days trapped before a helicopter from the Chinese ship Xue Long transferred them to Australian vessel Aurora Australis, which will take them to Hobart.

Yesterday, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority said the Xue Long's attempt to manoeuvre through the ice had been unsuccessful and it was now also beset by ice.

The expedition had pledged to plant about 800 kauri trees in Northland to cover its carbon footprint. Environmentalists believe planting trees helps to offset the impact of burning fuels such as diesel.

But former Act Party leader and Herald on Sunday columnist Rodney Hide said that would have to increase to about 5000 trees to make up for the fossil fuels burned in the rescue.

Expedition leader Chris Turney said more trees would be needed than earlier estimated but he was yet to work out how many.

Meanwhile, expedition members were "in fine spirits", and the crews still on the Akademik Shokalskiy and the Xue Long were confident they would break free of the pack ice. The scientific team had been recreating the 1911-to-1913 voyage of Australian explorer Douglas Mawson to Antarctica.

In an interview with AFP yesterday director of the French Polar Institute Yves Frenot criticised the "pseudo-scientific expedition".

Because it had run into difficulties, it had drained resources from the French, Chinese and Australian scientific missions in Antarctica, he said.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11181470

[Spendulus]

The hapless Australasian Antarctic Expedition is finally homeward bound - and thousands of trees will have to be planted to offset the carbon footprint.....
The expedition had pledged to plant about 800 kauri trees in Northland to cover its carbon footprint. Environmentalists believe planting trees helps to offset the impact of burning fuels such as diesel.

But former Act Party leader and Herald on Sunday columnist Rodney Hide said that would have to increase to about 5000 trees to make up for the fossil fuels burned in the rescue.

Expedition leader Chris Turney said more trees would be needed than earlier estimated but he was yet to work out how many.

call me suspicious but I'd like to know whose pockets get padded with that tree contract.

[Wilikon]

The hapless Australasian Antarctic Expedition is finally homeward bound - and thousands of trees will have to be planted to offset the carbon footprint.....
The expedition had pledged to plant about 800 kauri trees in Northland to cover its carbon footprint. Environmentalists believe planting trees helps to offset the impact of burning fuels such as diesel.

But former Act Party leader and Herald on Sunday columnist Rodney Hide said that would have to increase to about 5000 trees to make up for the fossil fuels burned in the rescue.

Expedition leader Chris Turney said more trees would be needed than earlier estimated but he was yet to work out how many.

call me suspicious but I'd like to know whose pockets get padded with that tree contract.

Not to worry! Those trees will be provided for free from the patented DNA banks of Monsanto...

Happy Days Are Here Again!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iL0Qt7IF8Q4

[Spendulus]

....
Not to worry! Those trees will be provided for free from the patented DNA banks of Monsanto...

Happy Days Are Here Again!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iL0Qt7IF8Q4

What???

But according to the Warmers, it is...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1b26BD5KjH0

[Schleicher]

But according to the Warmers, it is...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1b26BD5KjH0

Yeah. And according to the deniers it's
http://youtu.be/d-diB65scQU

[Wilikon]

....
Not to worry! Those trees will be provided for free from the patented DNA banks of Monsanto...

Happy Days Are Here Again!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iL0Qt7IF8Q4

What???

But according to the Warmers, it is...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1b26BD5KjH0

When you plant 5000 or 10000 trees in a region where trees were not missing to balance the human impact elsewhere, isn't that also an attack on Mother Nature? What about irrigation? What about the logistic behind those 5000 trees all the way to being adult? People with jobs, cars, restaurants feeding those people, containers with supply for those restaurants for the people taking care of the trees for years, tourists visiting the happy tree land, smiling people picking up the garbage behind them , dropping them in green bins with a "recycle" logo on, sponsored by the Coca Cola company
http://www.coca-colacompany.com/packaging/talking-trash-ocean-conservancy-and-coca-cola-help-keep-the-coast-clear

What is the carbon foot print of a counter carbon foot print enterprise anyway?

[Wilikon]

But according to the Warmers, it is...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1b26BD5KjH0

Yeah. And according to the deniers it's
http://youtu.be/d-diB65scQU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=149jGeIlx3I

[Spendulus]

But according to the Warmers, it is...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1b26BD5KjH0

Yeah. And according to the deniers it's
http://youtu.be/d-diB65scQU

lol, good one...

I'm thinking i don't agree with either....

but do the warmers have the better songs?  how can ice be fun?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bB5xL577r4

...wouldn't it be nice to just go back to the good old days before all the end of the world apocalyptic sliding forecasts of doom, always ten or twenty years off?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K38xNqZvBJI

[AnonyMint]

....
Not to worry! Those trees will be provided for free from the patented DNA banks of Monsanto...

When you plant 5000 or 10000 trees in a region where trees were not missing to balance the human impact elsewhere, isn't that also an attack on Mother Nature? What about irrigation?

Oh but power-elite globalist CNN's owner Ted Turner wants a utopia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Guidestones#Inscriptions

And Monsanto's genetically engineered razor blade model for agriculture causes the growth of super-weeds which render the land incapable of production.

And we don't need to wonder why the agricultural land failed at the end of the Roman empire leading to a 600 - 1000 year Dark Age. It isn't amazing all the overcapacity and stupid shit people can do when they have an unlimited supply of debt to fund their activities.

[Wilikon]

Earth's mountains, while well understood in some ways, are poorly understood in others--especially when it comes to erosion. Now, scientists have taken a closer look at the coupling of climate and erosion on a global scale, revealing that under a cool climate, erosion rates increase significantly.

In order to learn a bit more about the effect of global cooling and glaciation on topography over the last three million years, the researchers compiled data from 18,000 rock samples. This allowed them to globally estimate temporal and spatial variations in erosion rates.
During mountain erosion, rocks travel from about 10 kilometers depth in the crust to the Earth's surface. During this process, the rocks cool from great depths to the surface. Thermochronology exploits small quantities of radioactive uranium contained in the rock decay in a time-dependent process. This data can converted into an erosion rate using computer models.
"On a global scale, erosion rates span four orders of magnitude in the last eight million years from one hundredth millimeter up to ten millimeters a year," said Todd Ehlers, one of the researchers in a news release.
The researchers found that six million years ago, increase of erosion rates was expressed at all latitudes, but was most pronounced in glaciated mountain ranges. This seems to suggest that glaciers played a significant role. They also discovered that erosion rates accelerated more in the last two million years with the most substantial changes at higher latitudes that have all been glaciated in the past few million years.
The findings have important implications for improving our understanding of the coupling between climate and erosion. More specifically, they show how a cooler climate can actually increase erosion rates.

The findings are published in the journal Nature.

http://www.scienceworldreport.com/articles/11893/20140101/mountain-erosion-accelerates-cooling-climate-impact-glaciers.htm
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Enough is enough! We need a new type of carbon tax. Now!

[Wilikon]

"Excessively high temperatures" are "already" harming public health nationwide, Pres. Obama declared on Nov. 1, 2013, two months before today's assault by record low temperatures.

In his executive order on climate change, Obama warned that too much rain - and not enough rain - also dictated that executive action against climate fluctuations:

"The impacts of climate change -- including an increase in prolonged periods of excessively high temperatures, more heavy downpours, an increase in wildfires, more severe droughts, permafrost thawing, ocean acidification, and sea-level rise -- are already affecting communities, natural resources, ecosystems, economies, and public health across the Nation. These impacts are often most significant for communities that already face economic or health-related challenges, and for species and habitats that are already facing other pressures."

What's more, climate control "requires" action "by the Federal Government" (as opposed to the federal government), Obama declared:

"Managing these risks requires deliberate preparation, close cooperation, and coordinated planning by the Federal Government, as well as by stakeholders, to facilitate Federal, State, local, tribal, private-sector, and nonprofit-sector efforts to improve climate preparedness and resilience; help safeguard our economy, infrastructure, environment, and natural resources; and provide for the continuity of executive department and agency (agency) operations, services, and programs."

But, today's Accuweather.com forecast warns that the imminent danger in the U.S. is cooling, not warming:

"This brutal cold will bring danger to millions from the northern Plains to the Midwest and down into the Tennessee Valley. Overnight lows are forecast to dip well below the zero-degree mark in these areas, even dropping to 30 below zero in parts of Minnesota and North Dakota."

http://cnsnews.com/mrctv-blog/craig-bannister/executive-order-excessively-high-temperatures-already-harming-public#sthash.LCjkBU8h.dpuf
--------------------------------------
Jan. 6th 2014

[Wilikon]

. . . It’s so cold that the National Weather Service in Miami has issued a freeze watch for the Everglades. You know, home of alligators and giant pythons. And even alligator-eating pythons. Sub-freezing air will also extend southward across the border of Texas into Mexico.

It’s so cold that in places like Chicago, high temperatures on Monday could break current record lows.

Sure, schools are accordingly shut across the Midwest, but when Atlanta’s schools close, you know something’s a little out of hand.

Simply put, this is the kind of cold you don’t want to mess around with.



As crazy as it sounds, global warming may be at least partly to blame.



This particularly aspect of climate change science is not yet definitive, but here’s what may be going on:

1) The Arctic rapidly warming: It’s always going to be colder at the North Pole than it is in Miami, but the difference in temperature between those two places may already be shrinking. The Arctic is quickly losing sea ice, which is being replaced by relatively warmer open ocean. Liquid water tends to trap heat more effectively than ice, which in turn discourages the future formation of ice. It’s a feedback loop that is not working in our favor, and as a result, the Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the world.

2) The jet stream is slowing down: The coldest air in the Northern Hemisphere is typically trapped in the far northern Arctic by the jet stream. However, with a little help from climate change, that barrier is starting to break down. As the temperature contrast between the warmer tropics decreases, the jet stream, whichexists due to that contrast, weakens and becomes more elongated and chaotic. Think of navigating a car through slow-moving traffic: it’s a lot less straightforward to find a quick route from point A to point B.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/01/06/thank-global-warming-for-freezing-you-right-now.html

[Spendulus]

...this is the kind of cold you don’t want to mess around with.
...global warming may be at least partly to blame....

no, that won't fry

[AnonyMint]

The power vacuum of democracy means the vested interests of government are always searching for problems to "fix".

...this is the kind of cold you don’t want to mess around with.
...global warming may be at least partly to blame....

no, that won't fry

An elephant is a mouse built to government specifications. - Lazarus Long

Well don't worry, it doesn't really matter if the problem is warming one day and cooling the next (e.g. the front page Time magazine issue in the 1970s hysteria about global cooling), too much rain one day and a drought the next, the government assures us they will take action.

Taking action on the source of the problems seems to be the strongest fortitude of government. For example, we have Hitler declaring lack of blonde hair and blue eyes (Aryan race versus shrewd Jews) was a source problem with the economic failure brought on by printing money out of thin air to spend on universal health care and massive make-work infrastructure projects (e.g. Autobahn) after the devastation brought on the economy by WW1 reparations and the Communist Wiemar government.

See the pattern? First adopt all planks of the Communist Manifesto, go to war to blame repeated bouts of economic failure on everyone else, and then when the State is so bankrupt it can't even sell its own bonds then (via a State funded propaganda campaign the highly educated population) install a totalitarian megalomaniac as the final desperate attempt to maintain the delusion of perfection. Then there is no one else to steal from, and the dogs eat themselves.

most people don't know, but the USA government repealed the law that stopped themselves from using propaganda on its own citizens last summer

http://www.heavy.com/news/2013/07/domestic-propaganda-smith-mundt-ndaa/

the State is in full effect

Seems the western world is right on track to repeat this hamster wheel.

[Phrenico]

There are two things being postulated:

A. Climate change is happening

B. Climate change is caused by humans

People who question B. but accept A. still get brushed as "climate change deniers".

I would add

C. Climate change is going to have more bad consequences than good ones

D. The best method for solving the problem is "power to the state!"

It is simply not enough to be confident about A, relatively confident about B, then assume that anybody who questions C and D are "anti-science". I work in science and know many in various fields who take C and D for granted.

I am curious, those who you refer to as 'taking C and D for granted'.

Are those people who are basically predisposed to 'big government solutions' pretty much no matter what the issue or problem was?

It would be more indicative of sound scientific thinking, if for example, you had libertarian scientists asserting C and D, than liberal progressives.

Yeah. Unfortunately, there's immense correlation between the AGW activist crowd and the crowd that is generally in favor of government activism.

The problem, of course, is that the political issue of AGW spans so many disciplines, most of which are too complex to understand fully. Thus, it begs for confirmation bias.

[Wilikon]

It is unclear exactly why many climate change organizations are installing new executives, but it appears they are following the professional sports paradigm: When a team loses more than it wins, you can’t fire all the players, but you can fire the coach.


In the last decade the environmentalist have peddled harsh laws to install climate change strategies. However, many of these laws don’t pass, and new regulations fail to get traction. With global warming at a standstill for most of the last two decades and – much to Al Gore’s chagrin – plenty of ice still on the polar caps, more green groups are firing their CEO’s.
Next to go is Maggie Fox, president and CEO of the Al Gore-founded Climate Reality Project, who will be gone in the Spring. The group was previously called the Alliance for Climate Protection and was part of the unsuccessful environmental movement’s drive to enact cap-and-trade legislation in 2009-10.
Two other large U.S. environmental companies are giving the boot to their leaders. National Wildlife Federation President and CEO Larry Schweiger is leaving in May, and Natural Resources Defense Council President Frances Beinecke is also parting ways with her group in 2014.
Frank O'Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch, defended the changing of the guard. "It happens in every profession," he said; "An older generation gives way to a new one. In this case, a new generation of leaders needs to step up." However, this logic doesn’t fully explain why Greenpeace USA is canning Executive Director Phil Radford who is only in his late 30s, a clear member of that younger generation.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/01/06/Futile-Climate-Change-Companies-Seek-New-Leadership

[Wilikon]

In 1974, Time Magazine blamed the cold polar vortex on global cooling.

Scientists have found other indications of global cooling. For one thing there has been a noticeable expansion of the great belt of dry, high-altitude polar winds —the so-called circumpolar vortex—that sweep from west to east around the top and bottom of the world.

http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,944914,00.html


Forty years later, Time Magazine blames the cold polar vortex on global warming

But not only does the cold spell not disprove climate change, it may well be that global warming could be making the occasional bout of extreme cold weather in the U.S. even more likely. Right now much of the U.S. is in the grip of a polar vortex, which is pretty much what it sounds like: a whirlwind of extremely cold, extremely dense air that forms near the poles. Usually the fast winds in the vortex—which can top 100 mph (161 k/h)—keep that cold air locked up in the Arctic. But when the winds weaken, the vortex can begin to wobble like a drunk on his fourth martini, and the Arctic air can escape and spill southward, bringing Arctic weather with it. In this case, nearly the entire polar vortex has tumbled southward, leading to record-breaking cold

http://science.time.com/2014/01/06/climate-change-driving-cold-weather/


http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/01/07/time-magazine-goes-both-ways-on-the-polar-vortex/
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E87raPj9m0A

[Spendulus]

In 1974, Time Magazine blamed the cold polar vortex on global cooling.

Scientists have found other indications of global cooling. For one thing there has been a noticeable expansion of the great belt of dry, high-altitude polar winds —the so-called circumpolar vortex—that sweep from west to east around the top and bottom of the world.

http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,944914,00.html


Forty years later, Time Magazine blames the cold polar vortex on global warming

But not only does the cold spell not disprove climate change, it may well be that global warming could be making the occasional bout of extreme cold weather in the U.S. even more likely. Right now much of the U.S. is in the grip of a polar vortex, which is pretty much what it sounds like: a whirlwind of extremely cold, extremely dense air that forms near the poles. Usually the fast winds in the vortex—which can top 100 mph (161 k/h)—keep that cold air locked up in the Arctic. But when the winds weaken, the vortex can begin to wobble like a drunk on his fourth martini, and the Arctic air can escape and spill southward, bringing Arctic weather with it. In this case, nearly the entire polar vortex has tumbled southward, leading to record-breaking cold

http://science.time.com/2014/01/06/climate-change-driving-cold-weather/


http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/01/07/time-magazine-goes-both-ways-on-the-polar-vortex/
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E87raPj9m0A

I am sorry, but this is no different than the way you hear "It's global warming that caused it!!!!"

after tornados, hurricanes, droughts, heat waves, rain, snow, cold spells, fish kills, jet stream natural wobbles, polar ice increase, polar ice decrease, polar bear population increases, on and on and on...

This meme has jumped the shark.

People that want to talk about Global Warming need to just Shut the Fuck Up.

If in fact one day we actually figure that there is a bit too much co2 in the air, the job will then be to simply embed it in a slightly larger biomass.  And no I'm not talking the stupidity of 'planting trees', but engineered stuff.