Science vs. Hype

WattsUpWithThat posted an article this week about a recent study, published in the European Geosciences Union journal The Cryosphere..

The article reports:

The study, published in the European Geosciences Union journal The Cryosphere, suggests Antarctic sea ice is much less sensitive to the effects of climate change than that of the Arctic, which in stark contrast has experienced a dramatic decline during the 20th century.

The research, by climate scientists at the University of Reading, estimates the extent of Antarctic summer sea ice is at most 14% smaller now than during the early 1900s.

Jonathan Day, who led the study, said: “The missions of Scott and Shackleton are remembered in history as heroic failures, yet the data collected by these and other explorers could profoundly change the way we view the ebb and flow of Antarctic sea ice.

“We know that sea ice in the Antarctic has increased slightly over the past 30 years, since satellite observations began. Scientists have been grappling to understand this trend in the context of global warming, but these new findings suggest it may not be anything new.

“If ice levels were as low a century ago as estimated in this research, then a similar increase may have occurred between then and the middle of the century, when previous studies suggest ice levels were far higher.”

The new study published in The Cryosphere is the first to shed light on sea ice extent in the period prior to the 1930s, and suggests the levels in the early 1900s were in fact similar to today, at between 5.3 and 7.4 million square kilometres. Although one region, the Weddell Sea, did have a significantly larger ice cover.

There are a few things to learn from this. First of all, we are not as smart as we think we are and really have no idea what man’s impact on climate is or if man has any impact on climate. Second of all, the global warming industry is about money and control–it really has little to do with global warming. Do you really believe that if the people claiming that global warming was going to kill us all tomorrow believed that global warming was catastrophic,  they would be traveling to their global warming meetings in private jets and living in houses with carbon footprints bigger than that of a small nation?

If you need proof that global warming is hype related to money and control, please read this story. It illustrates one way that Congressmen come to Washington as middle-class citizens and leave as millionaires. The story is a beautiful example of one time the plan to gain instant wealth through legislation didn’t work!