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[Hallcat]

Not to cause an argument but I think global warming is harming us now.  I know I'm going off topic and maybe my comment needs to be moved, but he brought it up and it needs to be addressed.  In the end it doesn't really matter who is causing global warming, industry and human usage and consumption, or normal Earth cycles.  What matters is that it is happening and it will affect every single one of of us. I hope you will take the time to read below.


Greenland ice-melt 'speeding up'

      
By David Shukman
BBC environment and science correspondent in Greenland

First you hear a savage cracking sound, next the rolling crash of thunder.

Then as the icebergs rip away from the margin of the ice-sheet they plunge into the grey waters of the Atlantic with a roar that echoes around the mountains.

Iceberg
In some places, the ice is melting one metre a month
Nothing prepares you for the sheer scale and drama of events in this forbidding terrain and all the signs are that the changes at work here are gathering pace.

The only way to reach the ice-sheet is by helicopter - a spectacular flight through remote fjords and the jagged blue-white rubble of the ice.

We travelled with Danish scientist Carl Boggild of GEUS, the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland.

For the past few years he has been managing a network of 10 automatic monitoring stations and his first results are alarming - the edges of the ice-sheet are melting up to 10 times more rapidly than earlier research had indicated.

Cracks and crevasses

In 2001 NASA scientists published a major study based on observations by satellite and aircraft.

Satellite image with glacier retreat marked
Scientists have traced the retreat of the Sermilik glacier
It concluded that the margins of the Greenland ice-sheet were dropping in height at a rate of roughly one metre a year.

Now, amid some of the most hostile conditions anywhere on the planet, Carl Boggild and his team have recorded falls as dramatic as 10 metres a year - in places the ice is dropping at a rate of one metre a month.

The glacier we visited - the Sermilik glacier in southern Greenland - is so volatile that one automatic monitoring station was lost into a yawning crevasse.

   

Guide to climate change
Between a maintenance visit in May and our visit this month, new cracks had opened up in the icy surface and we had to help shift one of the devices to a safer position.

Engravings from the late 19th Century show how the glacier once reached far into the ocean and satellite pictures highlight how the retreat has accelerated - the glacier dropping an astounding 150 metres in the last 15 years.

The latest data shows the melting picking up even more speed.

Heating up?

A vicious wind whipping across 2,000 kilometres of solid ice - the length of the Greenland ice-sheet - chilled us as we filmed.

Engraving of how the Sermilik glacier looked 100 years ago
A hundred years ago the glacier reached into the sea
But the feeling of cold was ironic - it is the rise in air temperatures recorded here that is at least partly responsible for the sudden acceleration of the melting.

Dr Boggild and his colleagues, studying the physics of how the air and ice relate, conclude that as much as 55% of the melting is attributable to warming in the air.

He is cautious to avoid blaming climate change too readily: "Maybe if we look back after 50 years and see how temperatures have risen, then we can call it climate change."

Sea level rise

Dr Boggild is all too aware of how easily he could be accused of jumping onto a climate change bandwagon.

But he is adamant that the results he has gathered so far are reliable.

Local residents growing potatoes
Potatoes are growing for the first time in centuries
"We can say for certain that the rate of melting has increased and we can say for certain that the height of the ice-sheet is falling, even allowing for increased ice-flow.

"There is no doubt that something very major is happening here."

As we speak, he checks the instruments on the automatic station. A large range of data is collected and transmitted via satellite to Copenhagen every six hours.

For the first time, scientists should have a long-term, on-the-ground view of the changes taking place here.

Just before we leave, there is another roar as more icebergs crash into the ocean

Many more icebergs falling into the sea will cause two things to happen - the sea-level will rise and the injection of freshwater could disrupt the ocean currents, including the Gulf Stream.

What happens in this remote barren land has the potential to affect us all.












 

[corrodedmonkee]

Who said it is anything other than the natural warming and cooling phases the Earth goes through?

[Nivlac]

I think it is a combination of both. What we do to the earth isn't without consequences but at the same time there is a cycle to earths weather patterns. Look up and read about what is called the little ice age - it ended around 1850 the same time industry really started to boom.

[Vasco]

The hypothisis of global warming works off a simple scientific technique.  You take two known but seperate facts and by considering them together you come up with a plausable analysis.

Example:  Fact 1 - All trees have roots   Fact 2 - All Oaks are trees  therefore All Oaks must have roots.

The danger in this is that you can get it wrong as the system isn't fool proof

Example:  Fact 1 - All Dogs have 4 legs  Fact 2 All Cats have 4 legs therefore all cats are dogs.

There is a strong scientific argument that global warming fits the second scenario not the first.

The scientists that think this use this argument:-

Strong sunspot activity reduces the amount of stellar radiation hitting the earth. Stellar radiation causes clouds and clouds are white and reflect  heat and sunlight.  Hence when there are no clouds all the heat gets through and the earths surface heats up, when it heats up the ice melts exposing more of the grey rock underneath adding to the heating affect as the dark land absorbs the heat.

The opposite is that when there are a lot of clouds the earths surface is cool.  When it is cool more ice forms, which is also white and more sunlight is reflected thus increasing the cooling.

Sunspot activity is cylical and can be predicted.  Last time there was no or very little sunspot activity the earth suffered an ice age and long before that there was a period of high sunspot activity and there was at that time a significant temperature rise on earth.

At the moment we are under a period of heavy sunspot activty and stellar radiation is low.  Correspondingly, there is less cloud clover.  This is all fact.  These scientists say that if you take these facts and then look act the sunspot predictions then the earth will enter a new ice age begining somewhere between 2012 and 2024.

The facts used by global warming proponents are all correct and the facts used by ice age proponents are also correct. One set of scientist are of the oak variety and one set are of the cat variety.  But who can tell which is which???

[Ctulu]

Damnit man, you can explain it good and simple. /respect

[Galah]

The set of the oak variety are the vast majority of scientists that are of the published in peer reviewed journals

Not one of the cat variety has ever been published in the last 20 years and most do not regard them as scientists.

The 'its all the sunspots fault' that was the main premise of the The Great Global Warming Swindle has been debunked. It was no co-incidence the graphs in that film stopped at 1980 as the sunspot activity and warming curve went in very different directions and have stayed going in opposite directions.
http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2006/1740858.htm
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/climatechange-sceptics-shouldnt-bluff-the-world/2007/05/23/1179601487039.html
http://www.abc.net.au/science/features/globalwarmingswindle/

But if you do doubt climate change then I have a proposition for you - there's been a spate of property put up for sale, real cheap, (more than a couple of them deceased estate as the farmer suicided - a growing and very sad problem of late - but you may be able to help their families by purchasing a property or two). Take Tumut for example, the coal fired power station requires enormous amounts of water but it wont be turned off as it feeds Canberra (my computer but more importantly that of every federal pollie and parliament etc). Irrigation for food comes a distant second as we can source food from elsewhere, at possibly a little more expense but that's ok unless you're poor. However, when it rains again, and the next mini ice age cometh 2012-2024 as you say you'll make a killing, even sooner as surely some cooler wetter stuff will preceed this ice age. The story is repeated over SA, West QLD and West NSW where some areas are going into their 20th year of drought and our conservative government is finally thinking of a 'climate change management fund' to assist these poor buggers as even they cant push it under that carpet anymore - it's just too obvious some in places down here - it looks as if la Nina may not eventuate this year after the destructive il Nino finished end 2006 and may go into yet another back to back il Nino making for at least another 7 years drought.

I do hope of course that the scientists are wrong and we can continue to pollute the planet with no ill effects at all, for that is exactly what we will continue to do as a whole whilst there's a buck to be made and the ill effects will only burden the poor.

What am I doing about it? Nothing - just continuing to make sure I wont be one of the poor! (and isnt that what we're all doing ) I definately wont be investing in rural properties down here but I may be wrong and urge you to ignore me there. I have invested in greenhouse abatement technology and have done very well with http://www.asx.com.au/asx/research/CompanyInfoSearchResults.jsp?searchBy=asxCode&allinfo=on&asxCode=GDY  (potentially 5 nuclear power plants worth of energy from hot rocks here - base load - and I still reckon they're a good buy even now and intend to put some more soon - but that's because I think the situation is going to get worse - if you think the situation has nothing to do with CO2 emissions then this stuff is a bad investment as coal is far cheaper and there's a lot of it and I do hope you're right - I'm just not betting you are

[Nivlac]

The more I look at the maps of how the coastlines will change the more I like it. I live in Florida and where my house sits according to google maps elevation I will have some nice beach front property that will be worth millions....tempted to round up some space heaters and head to the arctic so I can cash in on my property sooner 

[AbaddonsFury]

I'm not going to try and baffle everyone with scientific theories, these are the facts...the human race is like a cancer, we consume all the goodness from the healthy cell, (Mother Earth) left unchecked we will kill it, wether we are causing the mass global warming or not at this particular moment in time, we are not doing the planet any favours, you all know that...
I do believe however that the whole 'warming' sitiuation is a mixture of Mother Nature and us (the cancer), do you know 1 hour in Australian sun is equivalent to 8-10 hours of sun in the USA..
I have long believed humans dont deserve this planet.
I have seen alot of changes over the years, more than a lot of people, I live on a farm, and have seen all sorts of random weather patterns. But things aren't random anymore they are 'set' in a forward mtion...our windy months have moved back, and so it seems the seasons also, they seem to be out by around a month...
We try our hardest on our farm, we recycle evrything, even our sewerage goes into a biocycle and is treated with good bacteria, then (grey water) pumped through sprinklers onto some of our paddocks.

[Ctulu]

I must concur that the last few years the seasons indeed seem off by a period of time.  But I'm not shure if it's that abnormal ...

[Galah]

we are not doing the planet any favours, you all know that...

faark - I plastered a wall of bloody text and you go and sum it all up in a few words ... I'm bloody jealous!!

[AbaddonsFury]

we are not doing the planet any favours, you all know that...

faark - I plastered a wall of bloody text and you go and sum it all up in a few words ... I'm bloody jealous!!

I do hope of course that the scientists are wrong and we can continue to pollute the planet with no ill effects at all, for that is exactly what we will continue to do as a whole whilst there's a buck to be made and the ill effects will only burden the poor.

I'm jealous..lol.. you elaborated very well..., your above comment sums it up pretty much in a nut shell...