

Arctic Sea Ice Ends Year at Same Level as 1979 -  fastest rate of change on record - gibsonf1
http://www.dailytech.com/Article.aspx?newsid=13834

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seldo
Climate-change denialists will of course look at this and say "see? no
problem!" when actually massive and unexpected fluctuations -- both colder and
warmer -- of exactly this kind are what you'd expect from dangerous climate
change.

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gibsonf1
Is there any science that shows that increased co2 will actually cause
cooling? I haven't seen any, but am very interested in a link if you know of
one.

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Tamerlin
There is some, most of it that I've seen is related to vulcanology.

There was also an article in Discover magazine in the late 90's (which formed
the basis for "The Day After Tomorrow" even though it was blindingly obvious
that the writers didn't understand any of the article's science) that
described some simulations that the author's had developed. They found that
the runaway greenhouse effect lead to an ice age, but not from global cooling.

Instead, it lead to an ice age because the melting ice submerged the North
Atlantic Gyre, preventing it from transferring heat to New England and Europe,
leading to a drastic drop in their temperatures. So while the arctic and sub-
arctic zones experience plunging temperatures, the equatorial waters end up
getting warmer since the currents that normally convey their heat elsewhere
aren't flowing... so the hurricanes get stronger and more frequent.

The buffoons that wrote the movie script somehow got the impression that it
was possible for a hurricane to form in the arctic. They should have consulted
a 4th-grader about how things tend to move downhill rather than uphill.

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gibsonf1
It sounds like your reference is to ideas predicated on melting arctic ice,
which is not happening. Everything I've read on co2 theories and models only
predicts increased warming, never cooling, so since 1998 the climate reality
seems to be diverging with increasing acceleration away from any predictions
about co2. The solar scientists, on the other hand, have been predicting
global cooling given the recent extreme lack of solar activity with very good
accuracy: [http://motls.blogspot.com/2007/01/peer-reviewed-global-
cooli...](http://motls.blogspot.com/2007/01/peer-reviewed-global-cooling.html)

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Tamerlin
Agreed.

The part you misunderstood is that the mini-ice age doesn't come from cooling,
but rather from a lack of convection currents -- it's a result of warming.

The same is true of extreme weather; we're getting raftloads of snow out here
in the Pacific NW, and considerably colder than usual weather; although it's
most certainly not proof, it is consistent with what the weather models
predict are side effects of global warming: more extreme weather.

I read a few articles about scientist theories relating to solar activity and
global cooling; it's interesting and a bit worrisome to think that we might be
getting less heat from the sun, and yet warming anyway. :/

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gibsonf1
"...yet warming anyway"

Where is the warming right now? Any recent evidence?

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DanielBMarkham
I always like those "on record" qualifiers when talking about climate.

 _fastest rate of change on record_

Dudes. We only got 150 data points (for arctic ice, probably less than 100) to
compare out of, er, 4 billion or so. It's not like the "X-est on record"
statements mean a heckuva lot.

