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Comments 89651 to 89700:

  1. Has sea level rise accelerated since 1880?
    #29: "The Japanese government has just announced it is going rebuild" That's hardly a done deal: Government sources said on Sunday the initiative includes buying urban areas that would be hard to reconstruct as well as encouraging people from coastal regions to move to higher places, DPA reported. ... However, the residents are likely to show resistance to the resettlement plan. Having predicted people's disagreement, the government is also working on a plan to develop urban residential regions that can resist a tsunami and thus allow people to continue to live near the sea.
  2. Has sea level rise accelerated since 1880?
    Daniel, if you knew more about sea level rise, you would realise Bangladesh hasnt got a hope when sealevel rise overwhelms sediment deposition rates. You cant adapt to growing in salt and you cant adapt to living underwater. Have a look at WG2 for actual studies of consequences rather than guessing. The most vunerable deltas are Mekong, Nile, and Ganges. Where do those people go? And yes, bully for the Japanese - nice being rich - I'll bet they are not moving the farming though and that is the point, not the settlements.
  3. Has sea level rise accelerated since 1880?
    #28: "Of all the people on Earth the Bangladeshis are probably best able to cope with sea level rise." Yes, they've had lots of practice. The catastrophic flood of 1987 occurred throughout July and August and affected 57,300 km2 of land, (about 40% of the total area of the country) and was estimated as a once in 30-70 year event. ... The flood of 1988, which was also of catastrophic consequence, occurred throughout August and September. The waters inundated about 82,000 km2 of land, (about 60% of the area) and its return period was estimated at 50–100 years. ... In 1998, over 75% of the total area of the country was flooded. It was similar to the catastrophic flood of 1988 in terms of the extent of the flooding. ... The 2004 flood was very similar to the 1988 and 1998 floods with two thirds of the country under water. So that's four 50-100 year events in a period of 17 years. No problem, right?
  4. daniel maris at 11:59 AM on 8 April 2011
    Has sea level rise accelerated since 1880?
    "Cradle" was perhaps the wrong word. "Lifeline" might ahve been better because many experts think humanity spread out across the globe along the narrow coastal strips, where there was always a plentiful supply of seafood to keep them alive.
  5. Has sea level rise accelerated since 1880?
    Daniel Maris @19, 2110 is about 99 years of by my calendar. Water used in irrigation is, as you say, evaporated, but from there it joins the water cycle and ends up in the sea. The total effect on SL of the additional water vapour in the atmosphere due to irrigation, therefore, will be much less than the additional water vapour in the atmosphere due to higher temperatures- whose effect on SL is inconsequential. A better case can be made that the amount of water dammed by humans has reduced sea level (by about 1 mm from memory), but more water has been released from ground water into the water cycle than has been dammed, so the net effect of human interference with the water cycle has been a very slight increase in the rate of rise of SL - although inconsequential compared to thermal expansion and glacial melting.
  6. Models are unreliable
    At the other extreme, evidence suggests that models are quite reliable at climate prediction, and that the cost of doing nothing is more expensive than taking action. Furthermore, estimates of climate sensitivity from empirical means also provide alarm bells. Suppose the climate models are wrong and we take action needlessly. What are consequences? Now consider the more likely possibility that models predictions are accurate (lets hope they dont underestimate) and that we do nothing?
  7. daniel maris at 11:55 AM on 8 April 2011
    Has sea level rise accelerated since 1880?
    Scaddenp, No I reject that. The Japanese government has just announced it is going rebuild a number of vulnerable coastal towns destroyed by the Tsunami on hillside locations. So it can be done.
  8. daniel maris at 11:54 AM on 8 April 2011
    Has sea level rise accelerated since 1880?
    Albatross - If you knew anything about Bangladesh you'd know those delta islands are constantly forming and re-forming. Of all the people on Earth the Bangladeshis are probably best able to cope with sea level rise. Not that I blame the government making use of the issue to garner some more development funds.
  9. Models are unreliable
    Ggf #335: "not convinced that we need to rush into setting targets now at large cost to the economy ..." You've not provided any evidence that anyone is rushing into so-called interventions. Nor have you provided any evidence that such interventions will cost more than doing nothing -- when there is evidence in a 2010 study that doing nothing costs more in the long run. See the thread Plan for 100% renewables for a discussion of these alternatives. "Governments are being spooked into committing large amounts of money on the basis of unreliable models." Spooked? Which governments are you referring to? Nor have you provided any evidence that models are unreliable. Your argument in #323, "no computer model of a non linear dynamic system of the complexity of the global climate can accurately predict the future," is overly general and far from convincing. So far, without evidence, what you have is just hearsay. "A more measured response is required which considers a broader range of possible responses " A more measured response than doing nothing is ... ?
  10. Geologist Richard Alley’s ‘Operators Manual’ TV Documentary and Book… A Feast for Viewers and Readers
    My local PBS station, KPBS in San Diego, isn't showing the program until April 20 at 10:00 PM.
  11. Models are unreliable
    DSL I have not suggested that warming will not happen or that the consequences will not be bad. I am saying that i do not believe that climate models are capable of making predictions as to what will happen with a sufficient level of confidence to spend large amounts of money based on their predictions. What i am also suggesting is that unless we can be confident that what is being proposed in terms of emissions cut will work we should be cautious about spending large amounts of money on what may be the wrong response. I am not convinced that we need to rush into setting targets now at large cost to the economy when we can't be sure that the proposed interventions will work. Governments are being spooked into committing large amounts of money on the basis of unreliable models. A more measured response is required which considers a broader range of possible responses
  12. Has sea level rise accelerated since 1880?
    A further point - how easily humans adapted in the past can be deceptive. 2000 years ago, global population was around 200 million. By time of colonisation of America, it was still less than 1 billion. Moving a few people is much easier than moving a very large no. of them dependent on complex created infrastructure.
  13. Has sea level rise accelerated since 1880?
    Daniel, do think the migration of say 100 million people away from salted deltas which can no longer sustain agriculture is going happen with no problems? When in history did we have a peaceful migration of even a 1/10 of the that magnitude. You will lose the deltas to salt and erosion long before they go underwater.
  14. Models are unreliable
    Ggf - there is the equivalent of wind tunnel for climate - natural forcings. Do the models predict correctly what will happen with volcano erupts, sun dims, etc. Why do you think there is so much interest in PETM? It absolute basic physics that if you increase net forcings, you will increase the temperature. If you apply heat to pot of water, its temperature will increase though you will have extreme difficulty predicting the evolving convection system. How fast it will warm is difficult but politicians have to make the choices based on best info available. That is a climate sensitivity of around 3 is consistent will model and empirical evidence. You seem to be arguing for doing nothing because we dont have perfect knowledge. Is that really sensible risk management?
  15. Geologist Richard Alley’s ‘Operators Manual’ TV Documentary and Book… A Feast for Viewers and Readers
    For those here in Oz, here's the Booko listing. Best price seems to be $23.45 including delivery. I look forward to seeing that documentary!
  16. Christy Crock #1: 1970s Cooling
    Yes Nick. Those of us a bit older than you were well accustomed to the idea of a nuclear winter. "If the bomb doesn't get ya, the starvation will" and similar cheery sentiments were quite common. My feeling is that this is what underlay the media's promotion of the cooling idea. We were familiar with this particular doomsday scenario and Whoops! you don't need nuclear war to get there. And we did live with dirty, to be honest filthy, skies so we could *see* how it could get worse. In Adelaide there was a huge difference driving towards the NW suburbs on a Friday evening compared to a Sunday evening. On Fridays as you emerged from the city level at the top of the slope the whole of the lower region was blanketed in brown murk. On Sundays, with industry having had 2 days off, the same trip was clear skies all the way.
  17. A Flanner in the Works for Snow and Ice
    Sphaerica #44 You need to read and understand #43 above before you suggest that "I don't get it". The only number you have contributed to this debate is an angle of incidence of 66 degrees at the North Pole which is in error by *only* 43 degrees. Suggest that you get out your HP Calculator and find the Sine of 23.4 and 66 degrees respectively - invert them and then see the comparison of intensity of insolation. That is the size of your error.
  18. Christy Crock #1: 1970s Cooling
    I was at school when the global cooling scare was publicised. From memory, it took advantage of our expected trend towards the next ice age in x thousand years to warn that particulate pollution, specifically soot and acid, was causing a cooling force that might set off feedbacks (more ice, more albedo) that would speed up the coming ice age. I seem to remember it all got a bit conflated with the risks of nuclear winter (nuclear war would kick up a lot of dust etc).
  19. Has sea level rise accelerated since 1880?
    Not wanting to go too far off-topic, but Prometheus also lived quite high up (on Mount Olympus) and was later (painfully) confined to the Caucasus (also mostly far from the sea), so none of that conforms to the "cradle of humanity" theory also - even if it is fanciful. As for my liver...
  20. Christy Crock #1: 1970s Cooling
    Albatross #12 - yes, I recall at the beginning one of the Democrats asked if the witnesses had been sworn under oath, and the chairman answered yes. To take action against Christy you'd have to prove he knew he was misleading Congress. He was very careful with his words - like I said, mainly lies by omission.
  21. Christy Crock #1: 1970s Cooling
    I keep forgetting to ask about this. "Christy's intellectual dishonesty while testifying before Congress under oath has misinformed our policymakers." Were the witnesses asked to swear an oath? If so, Christy's actions may be actionable-- if I understand correctly it is a felony to mislead congress.
  22. Christy Crock #1: 1970s Cooling
    Thanks SteveL @10, "swift boating" indeed.
  23. Daniel Bailey at 09:04 AM on 8 April 2011
    Has sea level rise accelerated since 1880?
    Aah, JMurphy stole my thunder. I shall have to start calling him Prometheus. :) Well, to salvage a comment: When the world emerged from the depths of the last ice age & the meltwater pulses flooded what humanity was then using for their civilizations at the time, there were perhaps only a few million humans worldwide. We are now pushing 7 billion persons on the globe...and struggling to feed them all. Combine the expected losses of some of the worlds most productive agricultural lands due to SLR with increasing drought and desertification, mix in societal instability and degraded & overtaxed infrastructures with hundreds of millions of climate change refugees along with nuclear-capable rogue states and you have a recipe for disaster. Those that remain will have a bit more room (a bit tough to grow crops under the harsh Arctic winter dark though), once the fighting wanes. The Yooper
  24. Has sea level rise accelerated since 1880?
    This is OT, but a location near Johannesburg has dibs on "cradle of human kind". And the Witwatersrand (on which Jo'burg is located) is about 1500 to 1700 m above sea level. Tamino's stats are in all likelihood correct.....the conclusions drawn from the paper in contention are based on a seriously flawed analysis and thus baseless, as are almost all 'skeptic' arguments. It is estimated that currently about 160 million people live below 1 m above sea level (Copenhagen Diagnosis). Wealthier nations may very well be able to adapt to rising sea levels, but even then building sea level defenses is incredibly expensive and an ongoing task (yet more money for maintenance). But let us not forget about those who do not have the resources for such luxuries, let us not forget Bangaldesh.
  25. Has sea level rise accelerated since 1880?
    daniel maris wrote : "Humanity has always lived in "low-elevation coastal zones" - indeed many experts theorise they were a cradle of humanity. A rise in sea level won't make them disappear. All that will happen is that people will move with the sea." Cradle of humanity ? From human evolution and movement out of Africa, to the development of civilization around rivers like the Euphrates, Tigris and Nile, I'm not too sure about that. Even if true, how far inland can people move (in their millions, don't forget) as sea levels rise, and how do you think the millions already in those areas will feel about all those extra millions trying to move next to them ?
  26. Has sea level rise accelerated since 1880?
    daniel maris#18: "melted ice in the Arctic for instance has no effect on sea level " Perhaps more careful reading is in order. The Arctic is sea ice; it is floating on water. By itself, that means it has minimal impact on sea level rise. However, wither Arctic ice, so goeth Greenland's land-based ice - and that's a heck of a lot of water.
  27. Has sea level rise accelerated since 1880?
    daniel maris @19 "I have faith that in 11 decades' time we will have (a) have found a way of producing all our energy without adding carbon to the atmosphere and (b) found technical solutions to many of the big environmental problems." I hope so, but the first step is admitting there is a problem. Many have yet to make it even that far.
  28. daniel maris at 08:13 AM on 8 April 2011
    Has sea level rise accelerated since 1880?
    Tom Curtis - You talk of a "1 metre sea rise by 2110". Even assuming you are correct, that's 110 years off. Have you taken into account the impact of irrigation schemes? Water that used to run off into the sea is now pumped into dry desert areas and vapourises several times over - adding to the total amount of water vapour in the atmosphere. This could be offsetting sea level rise and such schemes will multiply hugely over the next 110 years. I have faith that in 11 decades' time we will have (a) have found a way of producing all our energy without adding carbon to the atmosphere and (b) found technical solutions to many of the big environmental problems.
  29. Christy Crock #1: 1970s Cooling
    There's a good and relevant review of some related issues (Rasool & Schneider) written by James Hansen at This link to pdf. No pictures though.
  30. daniel maris at 08:08 AM on 8 April 2011
    Has sea level rise accelerated since 1880?
    Villabolo - Are you failing to account for the fact that ice is more expansive than water? I have read that melted ice in the Arctic for instance has no effect on sea level because of that scientific fact.
  31. daniel maris at 08:05 AM on 8 April 2011
    Has sea level rise accelerated since 1880?
    JMurphy - Humanity has always lived in "low-elevation coastal zones" - indeed many experts theorise they were a cradle of humanity. A rise in sea level won't make them disappear. All that will happen is that people will move with the sea. We've seen this in reverse, where ports and other areas have silted up. We see it on our Eastern coast in the UK where people are having to move inland as the coast erodes. It's sad for the people immediately affected but it is hardly a disaster. Even with coastal erosion, where the effects are much quicker than the sort of sea level rise being talked about here, we are able to cope with minimal casualties. Sea level rise would have to be v. dramatic to make much difference to the world.
  32. Has sea level rise accelerated since 1880?
    Marco, are you referring to Neil White's comment about Yukutat? White's comments not very relevant, since Houston and Dean excluded Yukutat from the analysis, along with 5 other outliers.
  33. Arctic Ice March 2011
    Gilles#188: "I know that any decreasing trend can be extrapolated to zero. What does it prove ?" In this case, it is the value of your continued comments that is clearly decreasing. In the case at hand, it proves that if we continue knowingly doing the same stupid thing, we have no one to blame for the result but ourselves. More importantly, it should suggest, to someone of an open mind, that things must change before we get to zero. It should also stimulate us to work harder to rise above the incessant noise: 'no, its not,' 'I can't see the trend,' 'what is the variability on an arbitrary timescale?', 'what does it prove?' are just noise.
  34. Bob Lacatena at 06:48 AM on 8 April 2011
    Arctic Ice March 2011
    188, Gilles,
    I know that any decreasing trend can be extrapolated to zero. What does it prove ?
    The statement itself proves nothing. Your death grip on the statement and refusal to look beyond it proves that if all that you do is to look at numbers and trends and correlations, you will be frozen into inaction because you actually understand nothing. For those of us who apply science, and mechanics, and insight into what is going on behind the numbers and the trends and the correlations, it gives us a chance to alter events and so control our future. A wise man lives with a future, a fool lives with a destiny.
  35. Arctic Ice March 2011
    Gilles: I can clearly discern the trend of your comments and they extrapolate to an infinity of 'yes buts' and a miniscularity of useful content. Our planet doesn't care what we believe. It just keeps on swinging around that jolly old sun whether or not the human race has wiped itself out. Once the Arctic is perennially ice free the unstable northern climate will do something which we cannot yet predict with any certainty. At the extremes of that range of uncertainty are two highly plausible scenarios: 1 - methane clathrates dump their cargo into the atmosphere , triggering massive global temperature rises. 2 - a warmer Arctic causes greater precipitation of snow which no longer melts entirely in summer. Within a decade or two it becomes obvious that a new ice age has started. This is not science fiction and it is not a computer game. I write about climate change because I wish the human race to continue long after I am gone. I shall pass this way but once. If I can leave behind me even the tiniest amount of scientific knowledge that is of value to future generations then I shall not have lived in vain.
  36. Nicholas Christie-Blick at 06:00 AM on 8 April 2011
    Skeptical Science in other media
    48% of Americans think that "the seriousness of global warming is generally exaggerated, up from 41% in 2009 and 31% in 1997, when Gallup first asked the question" (Gallup, March 11, 2010). 40% of Americans say that "God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so]" (Gallup, December 10-12, 2010). An additional 38% think that "Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process. That leaves fewer than 22% of Americans whose views on evolution as a phenomenon even remotely resemble our scientific understanding. I do not think that either demographic group can be dismissed as fringe. They represent mainstream American thinking. And that is a problem.
  37. daniel maris at 05:56 AM on 8 April 2011
    A Plan for 100% Energy from Wind, Water, and Solar by 2050
    I agree with CBD. The techologies are now proven. Storage is a problem but even that is capable of resolution. Really, the problems, in so far as they exist are cost-related. And really it is an infrastructure issue. We are faced with the sorts of costs associated with putting in place a motorway network or rail network, of that order. But once in place renewables are nearly all very cheap to run - wind, solar, tidal, hydro. Storage carries a lot of cost admittedly but it is not so much as to put a renewables solution beyond our grasp. We can deploy a range of renewables solutions: hydro, compressed air, methane production, hydrogen production, chemical batteries, molten salts... Look at what Germany is doing - making rapid progress towards 20% solar (7GW installed last year). Look at Denmark - nearly at 20% wind energy. Scotland is on target to reach 50% electricity generated by renewables from 2020. I think a 100% solution within 20 years is doable if we have the political will. Perhaps we need to find in the UK something like $60billion (this is a fairly wild guesstimate on my part). $3 billion a year. It's not a huge, huge sum in terms of our GDP. It is doable I believe. Of course if we paid for the infrastructure completely out of taxation, in later years we would still be generating income from the infrastucture which would offset the investment (or - to put it another way, a large part of your elec bill already goes into funding infrastructure investment).
  38. Arctic Ice March 2011
    DB: I think the number of words and topics I'm adressing is much less than yours - so how to qualify your own modus operandi ? muoncounter : it may be that the Arctic will be icefree in 2030. I don't know. What I'm discussing here is the significance of a trend - and so the possibility of extrapolating it. I know that any decreasing trend can be extrapolated to zero. What does it prove ?
    Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] It doesn't prove anything, but it suggests that based on the information we have, unless something changes, we are likely to see an ice free Arctic. That interpretation is so obvious, I am surprised it needs explaining to you. You do know that you can never prove an hypothesis empirically, only disprove, don't you? Also the difference between your posts and DBs is that his goal here evidently is to discuss the science, unlike you, which explains why his posts generally have useful content. Enough sniping.
  39. Arctic Ice March 2011
    GIlles#186: "what is the variability at this frequency (i.e. : at a 30 years scale)" Based on the graph you posted in #158 and others (myself included) have also posted, the 'variability' is thus: Within 30 years, summer Arctic sea ice extent may be perilously close to zero. The JAXA monthly extent data show this 'variability': summer minimum has dropped by one third, from ~6 million to ~4 million sqkm, in less than a decade. It is remarkable that one who claims such powerful scientific credentials either cannot or will not see this. What can be said of a decade hence? < 2 million sq km? < 1 million? Yet you persist with nonsensical questions. 'And Nero fiddled whilst Rome burned' will be rewritten to say 'And Gilles prevaricated whilst the summer Arctic became ice free.'
  40. Dr. Jay Cadbury, phd. at 05:22 AM on 8 April 2011
    Christy Crock #1: 1970s Cooling
    Couldn't it be argued that since the last 40 million year were dominated by cooling, with the past 10,500 mostly warming, the trend has not really reversed because it would take at least that many years of warming to claim the trend has been reversed?
    Moderator Response: [DB] The majority of your comment is off-topic here. Please use the search function to find a more relevant thread if you wish to pursue getting an answer to this. If anyone wants to reply to this appropriately, please do it on the relevant thread with a pointer here. Thanks!
  41. actually thoughtful at 04:50 AM on 8 April 2011
    Christy Crock #1: 1970s Cooling
    Or, the accurate version: "There were 6 times as many papers predicting warming as there were cooling from 1965-1979."
  42. actually thoughtful at 04:49 AM on 8 April 2011
    Christy Crock #1: 1970s Cooling
    Once upon a time there was a list of one line responses to each skeptic argument on this site. For the life of me I can't find it today. I suggest the following as the one line response: "There were 9 times as many papers predicting warming as there were cooling from 1965-1979"
    Moderator Response: [DB] See http://www.skepticalscience.com/oneliners.php.
  43. Arctic Ice March 2011
    Mucounter :"A quick count shows at least 12 prior threads about Arctic ice loss (including Greenland, but excluding Antarctica). And yet there are still those who claim to disagree on the most basic points: Arctic summer ice extent is decreasing at an increasing rate and Arctic temperatures are increasing. " Mucounter : when I said that a variation must be estimated with respect to the noise, I'm not saying the variation does not exist. You're just stating that the variation exists, and I don't disagree on that. It was not my point. My point is : what is the variability at this frequency (i.e. : at a 30 years scale). Do we have an accurate measurement of it, yes or no ? ( - Snip - )
    Moderator Response: [DB] Off-topic portion snipped.
  44. Arctic Ice March 2011
    This discussion has been interesting and educational, so thanks to all who participated. At his point though I am having difficulty following what Gilles is arguing for/against. Perhaps a restatement of your position is in order? It might clear some things up and get this discussion back on track. At the moment it seems to be all over the place and getting a bit personal.
    Moderator Response: [DB] Gilles' modus operandi, after having watched his orbit over at RC and here for over a year, is to draw as many possible people into as many conversations as they will endure for as long they can stand; in doing so, he will say less with more words than can be believed for the sole purpose of wasting your time.
  45. Arctic Ice March 2011
    Readers, Global warming refers to the increase in the globe's mean temperature; warming, will not be uniform across the planet, nor will it be monotonic. For example, the theory of AGW suggested for a very long time now that the northern high latitudes will warm faster than elsewhere with increasing GHG concentrations. And that is exactly what we are seeing, and not surprisingly, the ice volume is decreasing fastest in the northern high latitudes. This is all quite elementary and simple, and very well documented in the scientific literature, as are previous natural mechanisms responsible for the advance and retreat of the ice caps, yet some choose to ignore the science (and history) and choose instead to talk through their hats and troll. The trolling has now lost its entertainment value and is now boring and tiresome. This thread really needs to be cleaned up.
  46. Arctic Ice March 2011
    Gilles#169: "It's a pity that we loose so much time on so simple things" For the first time, we agree! A quick count shows at least 12 prior threads about Arctic ice loss (including Greenland, but excluding Antarctica). And yet there are still those who claim to disagree on the most basic points: Arctic summer ice extent is decreasing at an increasing rate and Arctic temperatures are increasing. I suggest that anyone who claims to have 'scientific' objections must first review the mountain of data presented in these many threads; if they still have something to say other than 'I can't see the correlation' or 'No, its not,' then we can talk.
  47. Arctic Ice March 2011
    RE long term variability in the Arctic temperatures and sea ice, please read the links(e.g., Polyak et al.) posted in my post @38. The long term downward trend and acceleration of Arctic ice volume loss that is being witnessed in the Arctic is clearly highly unusual and not explained by natural variability alone.
  48. Arctic Ice March 2011
    " It is clear that ice extent began to decline around the 1850s. Prior to the 1850s the eastern coast of Greenland was virtually unapproachable due to the many miles of landfast ice extending from Nord to Kap Farvel and beyond." Very interesting, but frankly, I'm lost : didn't you say that the ice melting didn't occur before ? if there is long term (secular) variability and short term (annual) variability, what about the medium term (decadal) variability ?
    Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] If you think someone has contradicted themselves, give a link to the previous comment so that it can be verified. Without it, this looks very much like trolling, the ice has waxed and waned for millenia, so it is very unlikely that any such comment was made.
  49. Call for beta testers of the latest SkS Firefox Add-on
    Unfortunately, FF4 does not think it is a compatible plugin.
    Response: Is that the "official" older version or the new beta version?
  50. Bob Lacatena at 03:50 AM on 8 April 2011
    Arctic Ice March 2011
    178, Gilles,
    It is not obvious at all for me , sorry. Do you have a correlation between summer extent as a function of winter volume ?
    I have told you repeatedly that looking for simplistic correlations and focusing on correlations without understanding physical mechanisms is a waste of time. But you know that, don't you?
    I don't see what you have explained...
    Of course you don't, because admitting to any aspect of global warming is contrary to your belief system.
    Again the first decade of the XXIth century when ice most retreated is far from being the decade when temperatures most increased.
    This is patently and demonstrably false and misleading. First, what matters here are Arctic, not global, temperatures, as I demonstrated in the graphs that you are conveniently ignoring. Second, the pace of continued warming from 2000-2010 is not nearly as important as the temperature which as been reached by that point, as well as what logicman keeps referencing, which is basically that a "tipping point" has now been reached which is freeing methods for old ice to pass out of the Arctic circle. It's basically a different paradigm than past centuries presented. Before, all that mattered was temperatures, melting the ice inward from the edges. Now, wind and water circulation patterns are becoming important, because the ice further inward has thinned and melted enough to free up. Of course, if one can't think beyond a pair of centuries long graphs, taking into account physical mechanisms and varying observations, instead of the most childishly simplistic views of things... well, you're just never going to get it.

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