Henry Payne for June 29, 2014

this is not a political cartoon, it is a part of the hate, ruin, and destroy president Obama cabal that will tear down our economy over just to exercize their hate glands.

11 am — Speech on declining science education. Point out number of high school graduates who don’t realize that climate change, while involving an overall warming of the average temperature, also means colder weather in some areas..Noon — Give up on rightwingers who are only stupid because they want to be.

We’d be working hard on getting thorium reactors figured out like China and India, but that involves math and the word “reactor” which your average progressive feels is double plus ungood.

If you’re seriously interested in climate, you would know that your questions have been addressed. But you may not be seriously interested, you may just be blowing hot air (and thus adding to the problem).+“Antarctic sea ice has shown long term growth since satellites began measurements in 1979. This is an observation that has been often cited as proof against global warming. However, rarely is the question raised: why is Antarctic sea ice increasing? The implicit assumption is it must be cooling around Antarctica. This is decidedly not the case. In fact, the Southern Ocean has been warming faster than the rest of the world’s oceans. Globally from 1955 to 1995, oceans have been warming at 0.1°C per decade. In contrast, the Southern Ocean has been warming at 0.17°C per decade. Not only is the Southern Ocean warming, it is warming faster than the global trend.If the Southern Ocean is warming, why is Antarctic sea ice increasing? There are several contributing factors. One is the drop in ozone levels over Antarctica. The hole in the ozone layer above the South Pole has caused cooling in the stratosphere (Gillet 2003). This strengthens the cyclonic winds that circle the Antarctic continent (Thompson 2002). The wind pushes sea ice around, creating areas of open water known as polynyas. More polynyas lead to increased sea ice production (Turner 2009).Another contributor is changes in ocean circulation. The Southern Ocean consists of a layer of cold water near the surface and a layer of warmer water below. Water from the warmer layer rises up to the surface, melting sea ice. However, as air temperatures warm, the amount of rain and snowfall also increases. This freshens the surface waters, leading to a surface layer less dense than the saltier, warmer water below. The layers become more stratified and mix less. Less heat is transported upwards from the deeper, warmer layer. Hence less sea ice is melted (Zhang 2007). An increase in melting of Antarctic land ice will also contribute to the increased sea ice production (Bintanga et al. 2013).In summary, Antarctic sea ice is a complex and unique phenomenon. The simplistic interpretation that it must be cooling around Antarctica is decidedly not the case. Warming is happening – how it affects specific regions is complicated.”http://www.skepticalscience.com/antarctica-gaining-ice-intermediate.htm+One key point, I would suggest, is that whatever is going on with the extent of the sea ice, the temperatures are increasing. Here, again, is a key sentence: “In fact, the Southern Ocean has been warming faster than the rest of the world’s oceans.”

I know just what you mean, and sometimes I don’t bother, but sometimes I feel it’s not right to abandon the field to those who maintain these misconceptions.

lies, damned lies, and statistics.

take your pick

Harley, thanks for that information. I’m not a climate scientist, and I don’t claim to have the last word on this topic. I am open to new information, and I could be convinced that there is nothing to worry about if I could see the evidence. So I did a little more research, and I discover that the researchers who found out about this don’t think their discovery disproves AGW. The following is a little long, but I think it’s important to read it if you’re interested in the topic:+Climate change skeptics are using a new study about geothermal heating under the world’s ice caps to claim that volcanoes are the real cause of glacial melting, not global warming.The study was conducted by researchers at the Institute for Geophysics at the University of Texas at Austin (UTIG) and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It analyzes geothermal heat below the glaciers in West Antarctica and acknowledges that these sources — which include magma movement and volcanic activity — do contribute to some ice cap melting.Yet, according to the researchers behind the study and other experts in the field, these findings do not actually provide new insight into why the ice is melting.“It is true that there are active volcanoes in West Antarctica, and so there may have been some local changes, but in most cases, at most times, volcanoes are not erupting under the ice,” Richard Alley, a geologist at Penn State, told VICE News. “This paper is exciting for modelers and geologists who focus on Antarctica, but it doesn’t tell you anything about why the ice is now thinning.”+Dusty Schroeder, the lead author on the UTIG study, told VICE News that this information gives important insight into how hot the earth is underneath the glaciers and thus how it contributes to certain changes.“Especially in terms of trying to predict the rate of rising sea levels, this is a factor you need to take into account,” Schroeder said.+“People have to be careful when drawing hasty conclusions into how much volcanoes can affect glacial melting,” Eric Rignot, an earth science professor at University of California Irvine and a principal scientist at NASA, told VICE News.Rignot, also the lead author of a study out last month that documented widespread retreat of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, said geothermal heating contributes to a few millimeters of melting annually, compared to rising sea temperatures which can trigger rates of up to 100 meters each year.+According to Schroeder, Rignot’s paper, and another that came out in May, show that warm oceans are currently the main cause of glacier loss at the edge of the ice.“The fastest glacial changes are happening where the ocean is warmer,” Schroeder said. “Geothermal heating is not enough by itself to have caused the observed changes.”In response to those who are using his study to deny climate change, Schroeder confirmed that volcanic activity is not the dominant force of ice loss and rising sea levels.“If you want to understand how the glaciers are changing, you can’t just look at the ice, you can’t just look at the climate system, you can’t just look at the geology, you have to look at the whole picture,” he said.+https://news.vice.com/article/no-volcanoes-are-not-the-primary-cause-for-the-melting-ice-caps