Beware of melting glaciers
Scientists are reporting that Greenland's glaciers are melting at a much faster rate than what was measured in 2001. I think most of the world's population would have a gut reaction to blame global warming. I would have too before reading this article. While I don't doubt global warming plays a part in this trend, this article opened my eyes to other factors of influence.
"Pfeffer said climate change warming trends do not directly explain the shrinking Columbia Glacier [in Alaska - used for comparison] and other tidewater glaciers. Instead, scientists think the retreat is triggered by a slow warming trend that began five centuries ago.
Significant thinning of the Columbia Glacier is thought to be caused by huge chunks of iceberg that break off into the sound as a result of seawater pressure rather than climate change, Pfeffer said."
Interesting!
On a somewhat-related tangent, I was listening to the BBS news this morning and apparently the U.S. has declined to participate in a global warming conference that Canada is hosting. A quoted British official said that the U.S. tends to go it's own way, saying no to everything until the end, at which point we agree to part of whatever solution/act/law/guidlines is created. So basically we're unpredictable....and this surprises everyone??
3 comments:
Read Michael Crighton's "State of Fear", re global warming. It's a fun novel, but he's definitely got an agenda with it.
He thinks the whole global warming this is an media overblown, hysterical over-reaction to inconclusive data, at best. Agree with him or not, the novel does a good job of presenting the other side of the global-warming arguement, along with a lot of footnotes and documentation for the interested reader to chase down and follow-up on. He even tackles the melting glacier issue, and brings of lot of data forward that makes ya say "hmmmmmm".
It IS just a novel, but it's interesting if people want to find out why there ARE some very credible scientists that don't believe in global warming.
Did you know the surface of Mars is warming to? I'm pretty sure auto-emissions aren't responsible for that. ;-)
I would say you're right about Mars. LOL
In my environmental archaeology class, we studied the global warming issue a bit, but in broader perspective...meaning in 10,000 year increments. My biggest concern about the whole warming issue is that the increase in the earth's temperatures (which global warming does affect) has seemingly interrupted or reversed environmental trends. We are actually due for another ice age if we were still subject to earth's historical cycles. Given the melting ice caps and all other indicators of increasing temps, I'm wondering if one will ever occur again. Then you have to ask yourself what the future of earth will look like - will our icecaps refreeze at some point? Or are we destined to become something similar to what the movie Water World portrayed?
The only sure answer I have for global warming versus cyclic trends idealogies is long after we humans are but a blip on Earth's radar that has passed by into the night, the earth will still be here.
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