MSNBC vs. local weatherman
MSNBC is running a four-part series entitled Future Earth. On their website they say you can “find out why Earth’s climate machine — the North Pole — is melting alarmingly fast. Learn about our planet’s future, and how you can stop its decline.”He must not have heard about the SCIENTIFIC CONSENSUS.
First, the North Pole is not “Earth’s Climate Machine”. There is far more heat and area in the Tropics than at the North Pole. Second, YOU can’t stop it’s decline (assuming it’s declining)! Nature is big - you personally are insignificant compared to nature. Don’t you wish you had the power to control icecaps!
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The Antarctic icecap (which is much bigger than the Arctic icecap) has been growing. In Sept. 1979 (first year of satellite data) the Antarctic icecap was 18.4 million sq. km. In Sept. 2008, the Antarctic icecap was at 19.2 million sq. km. That’s a 30-year trend. By comparison, Michigan is 151,586 sq. km, so that’s an increase in icecover of over five times the area of Michigan.
MSNBC could instead be doing a story on the trend of cooling in Antarctica and possible falling sea levels due to ice accumulation in Antarctica. Keep in mind that if the Polar icecap (without Greenland) melted…it would hardly cause sea level to rise, because the icecap is currently displacing water in the Arctic Ocean.
1 comment:
OK, this lives up to the definition of jousting at windmills, since I'm responding to a comment posted by a person named Conservative First from a year ago, but WTF.
I'll accept that the tropics are the earth's climate machine, but that heat needs somewhere to go (2nd law of thermodynamics). Disconnect the negative (or positive) cable from your "automotive machine" and see if it starts.
Second, I don't know to which declination you claim we are powerless to stop but, yes, we can stop the degradation of our climate. Nature is big, we are billions, and some of us have mastered the use of machines.
If the polar icecap were to melt, why exclude Greenland, unless that just doesn't fit your argument? Although he (she?) suggests consulting the SCIENTIFIC CONSENSUS, Conservative First does not provide a resume. And while Bill Steffen graduated from U. Wisc. with a double major in meteorology and physical geography, he's pretty weak on science. Broadcast meteorologists are generally photogenic, well-spoken individuals with a college degree and, while Bill Steffen conforms to the latter, I don't think he is someone to listen to when it comes to science.
I heard a commentator on Fox News ask, "If this is a possibility, shouldn't we wait 20 or 30 years and see if its true?" Yeah, and if it were, we'd all truly be homeless. We started calling it "climate change" instead of "global warming" in hopes that all you idiots wouldn't mistake it for weather!
Mr. and Mrs. First named you Conservative for a reason. Maybe its time to think conservation.
David Johnson
Physicist
Fremont, MI
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