Tag Archives: Arctic Ocean

I Love Irony

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Yesterday Breitbart reported that an expedition to the North Pole has ground to a halt this month because the scientists’ ship was blocked by the ice packs near Murmansk, Russia. The ship was planning to measure the effects of global warming.

The article reports:

The website Real Climate Science notes that the Polar melt season is half over, but temperatures have not climbed high enough to sponsor a large melt off of ice. According to the site, there has not been a big melt, and ice gains seem to be very close to the amount of ice lost because temperatures near the pole have been persistently below normal this year. And at the very least, large ice floes have blocked the ocean passages around the area.

The global warming expedition expected to be able to sail all around the Arctic Ocean through the Northeast and Northwest Passages because they assumed the ice would be gone, but they have been stymied because ice blocks most of the route they planned to take.

As previously stated, the best site on the Internet for scientific information on climate change is wattsupwiththat. I strongly recommend it.

Sometimes The Earth Just Doesn’t Cooperate With The Scientists

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The Daily Caller posted an article today about some recent occurrences involving Arctic ice.

The article reports:

For years, scientists have been warning the Arctic was in a “death spiral” and could soon be ice-free during the summertime and shrink to unprecedented levels due to man-made global warming. Such ice loss could be “irreversible,” some scientists claimed.

But new research from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography says that predictions of an ice-free Arctic are based on “oversimplified” theories. Scripps researchers, who were co-funded by the Navy, found that the Arctic sea ice may be “substantially more stable than has been suggested in previous idealized modeling studies.”

I should probably point out at this point that I am not in favor of dirty water, dirty air, or any other sort of pollution. I just have serious doubts as to whether the earth is warming or whether man actually has anything to do with any climate change that is occurring.

There were many predictions saying that Arctic Ice would be gone by 2030–the levels of ice had decreased in 2007, 2008, and 2009, and some scientists were saying that the ice would not come back. However, that is not what has happened.

The article concludes:

NSIDC (National Snow and Ice Data Center) and European satellite data show that multi-year sea ice made a big comeback in 2013 and 2014 — increasing from 2.25 to 3.17 million square kilometers during that time and making up 43 percent of the north pole’s ice pack.

In fact, Arctic sea ice extent as a whole seems to be stabilizing despite this year’s record low maximum in February. NSIDC data shows Arctic sea ice extent is currently within the normal range based on the 1981 to 2010 average extent.

“Global sea ice is at a record high, another key indicator that something is working in the opposite direction of what was predicted,” Dr. Benny Peiser, director of the Global Warming Policy Forum, told the U.K. Express in January.

“Most people think the poles are melting… they’re not,” he said. “This is a huge inconvenience that reality is now catching up with climate alarmists, who were predicting that the poles would be melting fairly soon.”

Global warming is not a proven fact. Until it is, it would be foolish for industrialized nations to cripple their economies to accommodate faulty science. Again, we need to cut down on pollution simply because it is a bad thing, but we do not have to go overboard to create a result that is questionable at best.

 

Don’t Let Scientific Information Get In The Way Of Your Political Agenda

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The roots of the outcry about the dangers of global warming are political. If global warming is a crisis, government can exert more power over citizens. Government can choose winners and losers in the business world (e.g. subsidies to Solyndra or avoiding the Keystone Pipeline to increase the business on Warren Buffett‘s railroad, etc.), and generally those in power can consolidate their power by employing quid pro quo policies without being obvious about it. So what about some of the claims used to sell the theory that we are melting?

Yesterday WattsUpWithThat posted an article about some recent claims that the North Pole is melting. Good grief, what will happen to Santa Claus?

The picture below was posted on Facebook by the Climate Reality Project. The picture was described as a picture of the North Pole showing that the North Pole was melting. There’s only one problem with that–the picture was taken 300 miles from the North Pole. So how much difference does 300 miles make? Three hundred miles is the approximate distance between Boston, Massachusetts, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Anyone who has been in these cities in February knows that 300 miles matters.

Drifting_webcam_Capture

In case you are still fearful that we are melting, the article at WattsUpWithThat included a few pictures from the 1960’s.

Seadragon (SSN-584), foreground, and her sister Skate (SSN-578) during a rendezvous at the North Pole in August 1962

Seadragon (SSN-584), foreground, and her sister Skate (SSN-578) during a rendezvous at the North Pole in August 1962 (US Navy Photo).

The article also includes a picture of the North Pole from the 1980’s when Time Magazine was proclaiming the dangers of global cooling.

The following video posted on YouTube with the explanation below to clarify what is actually happening:

Published on Jul 27, 2013

There was quite a bit of hype bouncing around the Instanet on a “lake” at the North Pole. This video tries to clarify what’s up. Ponds of meltwater form routinely on Arctic Ocean sea ice in the summer. The sea ice is floating on the Arctic Ocean and in constant motion. The webcam that took these images was placed on the ice a few dozen miles from the North Pole in early spring, but has since drifted hundreds of miles.
The North Pole Environmental Observatory Web site:
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/northpo…

I went on the 2003 expedition to set up the same batch of instruments in 2003 and wrote an award-winning book about the project and the once and future North Pole:
http://us.macmillan.com/newyorktimest…

Andrew Freedman’s Climate Central post is helpful as well:
The Lake at the North Pole, How Bad Is It?
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/me…

More on my blog on Arctic climate change and sea ice: http://j.mp/dotPole

Before you purchase waterfront property in West Virginia in anticipation of global warming, you might want to look at the facts.

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American Industry Triumphs–Even When It Is Not Allowed To !

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Escopeta Oil and Gas Spartan 151 jackup oil ri...

Escopeta Oil and Gas Spartan 151 jackup oil rig being towed, Kachemak Bay, Alaska (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There is something very ironic about this story. One of the reasons that the American economy is recovering so slowly is the high price of gasoline. That price is pretty much set by OPEC (made up of countries that generally do not like us) and the falling value of the American dollar.  One of the solutions to that particular problem would be for America to develop its own oil resources and become energy independent. The Obama Administration has done a fairly good job of blocking any attempt to make that happen (offshore drilling, drilling in ANWR, Keystone pipeline, etc.). American oil companies have been limited in where they can explore for oil and where they can drill. Because American oil companies are in business to make a profit, they are going elsewhere!

Breitbart.com reported yesterday that Exxon Mobil has been hired by Russia to drill for oil in the Arctic Ocean–you know–up where the Obama Administration prevented Americans from drilling.

The article reports:

Think about how backward things are under Obama—the largest oil company in America is going to be drilling in waters around the Arctic where they expect to find 85 billion barrels in recoverable oil. And instead of sending it to Texas refineries, and thereafter to gas stations across America, the oil will be sent to Russia and refined for their use.

By the way, if extracted at the rate of 1 million barrels a day, 85 billion barrels of oil would last for 85,000 days.  85,000 days equals well over 200 years.  Yet here we are, listening to Obama telling us the future is one of wind farms, electric cars, and a companies like Solyndra.

Perhaps we’ll get lucky and Russia will sell us some of their oil. If Obama keeps us in this energy stranglehold we’re going to need it.

It seems that one of the casualties of the Obama Administration’s energy policy is common sense.

 

 

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Giving Away America’s Resources

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New Siberian Islands map Bennett island

New Siberian Islands map Bennett island (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This is truly under the radar. The Washington Times was the only reliable source I could find on this. The source for the Washington Times article was World Net Daily.

The Obama Administration is planning to give away seven islands in the Arctic Ocean. They are planning to give these islands and the tens of thousands of square miles of oil-rich seabeds surrounding the islands to Russia as part of a maritime boundary agreement between Alaska and Siberia.

World Net Daily reports:

The agreement was negotiated in total secrecy. The state of Alaska was not allowed to participate in the negotiations, nor was the public given any opportunity for comment. This is despite the fact the Alaska Legislature has passed resolutions of opposition – but the State Department doesn’t seem to care.

This is the list of the islands involved:

The imperiled Arctic Ocean islands include Wrangel, Bennett, Jeannette and Henrietta. Wrangel became American in 1881 with the landing of the U.S. Revenue Marine ship Thomas Corwin. The landing party included the famed naturalist John Muir. It is 3,000 square miles in size.

Northwest of Wrangel are the DeLong Islands, named for George Washington DeLong, the captain of USS Jeannette. Also in 1881, he discovered and claimed these three islands for the United States. He named them for the voyage co-sponsor, New York City newspaper publisher James Gordon Bennett. The ship’s crew received a hero’s welcome back in Washington, and Congress awarded them gold medals.

In the Bering Sea at the far west end of the Aleutian chain are Copper Island, Sea Lion Rock and Sea Otter Rock. They were ceded to the U.S. in Seward’s 1867 treaty with Russia.

The World Net Daily article ends with the following statement by the author:

Author’s addendum, Feb. 17, 2012: This is not a new issue. In fact the Bush and Clinton administrations are directly at fault for the same inaction. A maritime agreement negotiated by the U.S. State Department set the Russian boundary on the other side of the disputed islands, but no treaty has ratified this action. Consequently, it is within the president’s power to stop this giveaway. The Alaska delegation’s failure to put pressure on the administration is inexplicable. State Department Watch, an organization that assisted with this article, has confronted each administration and is currently confronting the Obama administration — and has been met by silence. I’m hoping this piece will help reinvigorate efforts to stop this handover.

I don’t know how many people actually read this blog, but I would really appreciate it if some of them will send an email to their Congressman about this land deal. At some point in the very near future, the existence of America will depend on our energy independence. That time will probably come before the practicality of ‘green energy.’ It is not wise to give away a resource that may be necessary for the survival of America.

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Whoops! I Guess They Were Wrong Again

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Three Polar bears approach the USS Honolulu, 2...

Image via Wikipedia

The Register, a British website, reported today that scientists have now discovered that the increasing amount of fresh water being added to the Arctic Sea is not due to glaciers melting but to an eastward shift in the path of the Russian runoff through the Arctic Ocean.

The article reports:

The team attributes the redistribution to an eastward shift in the path of Russian runoff through the Arctic Ocean, which is tied to an increase in the strength of the Northern Hemisphere’s west-to-east atmospheric circulation, known as the Arctic Oscillation. The resulting counterclockwise winds changed the direction of ocean circulation, diverting upper-ocean freshwater from Russian rivers away from the Arctic’s Eurasian Basin, between Russia and Greenland, to the Beaufort Sea in the Canada Basin bordered by the United States and Canada. The stronger Arctic Oscillation is associated with two decades of reduced atmospheric pressure over the Russian side of the Arctic.

This is another example of the fact that we really don’t as much as we need to know about climate science and man’s impact on climate. That is another reason to be very careful about what we do to solve a problem that we do not fully understand. All the suggested solutions to ‘global warming’ involve a major redistribution of wealth in the world–oddly enough from free countries with private property rights to dictatorships with no private property rights. To take money from countries where people are free and give it to tyrants who rule countries where people are not free does not help global warming or anything else. It does nothing to address the needs of the poorest people in the world–it simply improves the lifestyles of the crooks that lead them.

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