While we’re on the subject of ice, Australia’s Antarctic Climate & Ecosystem Cooperative Research Centre today launched two new publications: Polar ice sheets and climate change: global impacts [PDF], and Changes to Antarctic sea ice: impacts [PDF]. Described as “position analyses”, the papers provide an excellent overview of the current state of our understanding of ice sheets and how they’re behaving in a warming climate and the way Antarctic sea ice is responding to climate change.
Tag: Greenland
North to Alaska
Interesting times in the Arctic, as spring turns into summer and the sea ice melts towards its summer minimum. Will this year’s minimum be a new record, or will the ice bounce back towards the long term (but still downward) trend? The first scientific forecasts of the season are expected soon from the Sea Ice Outlook project coordinated by ARCUS, the first yacht has set sail for an attempt to get through the Northwest Passage, and the usual suspects are insisting that the ice is continuing to recover. So what are the odds of a new record this year, and how is the ice really doing at the moment? The picture’s mixed…
How many times can you shoot yourself in the foot and still walk to work?
I do enjoy Wishart’s attempts at ripostes to my debunking of his nonsense. Last time, you may recall, he got confused between volcanoes beneath the ocean and the ones you can see — like Ruapehu. This afternoon he shoots from the hip in response to my post, and confuses himself yet again…
And in case Truffle doesn’t explain it properly, Wouters et al’s paper is helpfully entitled “GRACE observes small-scale mass loss in Greenland” [my emphasis on small scale]. The paper was not called “Panic Stations: All Hands To The Pumps!”.
He claims to have read the paper, but hasn’t noticed that in this context, small-scale means regional — that is, differentiating between mass loss in the various bits of Greenland. It’s all there in the abstract…
…we examine changes in Greenland’s mass distribution on a regional scale.
Remember, this is a man who claims to have investigated the whole field, and determined that “anthropogenic global warming theory is nothing more than a propaganda stunt” (p227). And “behind all the scare stories on a number of fronts — from the need to give up the war on drug trafficking to the need to tax you thousands of dollars more per year because of your “carbon footprint” — lies a left-wing billionaire (one of several in his group) with an agenda and the means to pull it off.” (p242).
Schoolboy howlers and conspiracy theories. A heady mix for some, a laughing stock to others.
[PS: The former NZ champion trufflehound has fully working teeth.]
Savaged by a dead sheep #2
In a meeting last week a late arrival strode in and announced (with a big grin) “You’ve finally made it, Gareth, you’ve been attacked by Ian Wishart.” It appears that my review of Air Con rattled Wishart sufficiently to prompt him to pen an attack on me in his conspiracy magazine Investigate. Over the weekend he helpfully posted what he calls the “salient” bits at his blog under the title More idiocy from the team at Hot Topic. Saves me from having to buy a copy…
Wishart’s main claim is that the evidence I submitted to the ETS Review committee was out of date before it was given, and to prove his point he quotes extensively from his own book. That was a major tactical error on his part, because it gives me an opportunity to demonstrate (once again) that Air Con is full of misrepresentations and inaccuracies.
Extreme Ice Now
“Once upon a time, I was a climate-change skeptic. How could humans affect this huge planet so much? Could activists be creating a new cause to sell? Could scientists be trying to create research grants? Could the computer models be wrong? Could the media be over-hyping the science?
“Though if I was once a skeptic, I’m not one anymore. The evidence is in the ice. This knowledge of melting glaciers made me despair. But despair and defeat are not options. We must invest in our optimism and in our strength. This is the way forward.”
Not a lot of words for the first nine pages of a book. But they are ingeniously arranged and interesting to look at. And they point straight to the heart of James Balog’s Extreme Ice Now: Vanishing Glaciers and Changing Climate: A Progress Report. The book’s publication by National Geographic was timed to coincide with his film Extreme Ice recently showed on National Geographic channels and previewed here.
Balog is an award-winning American photographer, exhibitor in many museums and galleries and author of photography books. After gaining a master’s degree in geomorphology he turned to nature photojournalism, covering a range of subjects over the years, including endangered wildlife and trees. Latterly his attention has focused on ice. Outdoor adventure has long been part of his life.
Extreme Ice Now contains a number of short essays written by Balog, interleaved with many wonderful photographs from the ice world. He explains the Extreme Ice Survey, begun in 2007, a collaboration between image-makers and scientists to document the changes transforming Arctic and alpine landscapes. Time-lapse cameras in selected places, taking images once in every hour of daylight over a period of years, are part of the record, along with a portfolio of still images, and the documentary film. Art meets science to convey the reality of global warming to a worldwide audience, to celebrate the beauty of the landscapes, and to assist scientists understand the mechanisms of glacial retreat. “If the story the ice is telling could be heard by everyone, there would no longer be any argument about whether or not humans are causing global warming. We are.”
His essays are mostly about his personal response to this realisation. He puzzles over what is holding us back from acting. He thinks probably a natural psychology of denial, allied with complacency, avoidance of responsibility, and fear. Add to this the “toxic effluent” poured through journalistic pipelines by vested interests to counter solid, observed, physical, empirical facts, and we have a recipe for confusion.
Balog chooses optimism though doesn’t find it easy: “…photography is something of an act of love. The sustained attention we give to our subjects draws us closer and closer as we get to know them better … I was filled with despair when I realised that the object of my fixation just might vanish before I returned in October.” But the idea that the people of his time will be the ones responsible for destroying something as monumental as the climate of this huge planet is too sickening to accept. Despair is not an option. We must exercise the will-power and technological resolve needed to change our ways.
The interest in Balog’s reflections is not that they offer any new information, but that they express very well the thoughts that probably many of us entertain in the face of the ongoing evidence of global warming. And they encourage us to believe that a solution can be found and to commit ourselves to working for it. The voice from the increasing ice flows of Greenland or the retreating glaciers of the Rockies and the Andes lends determination to those of us who frequent less challenging terrains.
The book may be for the coffee table but it has serious things to say as well as striking images to delight in.