"What I learned Today"

Climate Catrastophists Counterattack

from The Resilient Earth

....Fearing that politicians aren't listening, climate scientists convened an emergency doomfest in Copenhagen in order to get their stories straight. The 2000 conference attendees were just the latest wave of climate change true believers to go on the offensive in recent weeks. The Copenhagen Climate Congress hoped to present their view of world climate science before another set of delegates meets in Copenhagen in December. That meeting of government representatives will try to hammer out a follow on agreement to the 1997 Kyoto Accords, which expire in 2012. “This is our opportunity to get science back on the agenda,” said climate modeler Vicky Pope of the U.K. Met Office. British Member of Parliament Colin Challen, who attended several sessions, said the update was crucial as nations are making plans “on data that's out of date.”

I would agree with that, what with a number of projections that global warming was going to take a 20-30 year holiday and that melting ice caps in Greenland and Antarctica were far from “unprecedented” calamitous events. With old treaties about to expire, a new administration in Washington and the possibility of governmental changes elsewhere in the developed world, the forces of environmental disaster are taking it to the streets (or at least the conference halls).....


....Jonathan Bamber, of the University of Bristol, presented the results of new modeling work that showed a complete disintegration of the Greenland sheet would require a 6°C rise in global temperatures, double the conventional wisdom. Not wishing to damage his climate change street cred, and before the audience could react to this rare piece of good news, Bamber quickly added that a 15% loss to the sheet would translate into a 1 m rise in sea level, “a horrendous prospect whichever way you cut it.” Yes, even the good news is horrendous, folks....

OK now you are really confusing me. Conventional wisdom is that an increase in temperatures of 3C will cause the the Greenland Ice Sneets to collpse? Yet the Greenland Ice Sheet began forming when it was 5C warmer than now? But 6C increase will cause a 15% decrease in ice.

So let me get this straight,to summarize what I have learned today. 5C increase in temps over today's temps will be the same as it was when ice started forming in Greenland 100,000 years ago, but conventional wisdom was that a 3C increase in temps would melt the ice (above) which formed when it was 2C warmer. However now we know if we get just 1C warmer than when ice formed 100,000 years ago-Rhode Island will be beach front property for Western Massachusetes. Buy land in Webster Mass !