Comments on: Right for 27 years: 1981 Hansen study finds warming trend that could raise sea levels

By: Earl Killian

Earl Killian — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 15:34:36 +0000

Joe worte, “even if Greenland has emerged as more troublesome than West Antarctica“.

It might help to mention one of the reasons why for folks. It turns out the ozone hole over Antarctica affects the wind patterns in a way that prevents warmer air from reaching the polar regions there. Thus the ozone hole, which we hope to repair someday, is actually helping to keep the Antarctic frozen.

By: Mauri Pelto

Mauri Pelto — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 22:16:07 +0000

Great article. I remember well being at a conference at Northwestern in 1983 where Steve Schneider and others convinced me of what must come. And I decided then and there to pursue a research program to monitor glaciers across an ice clad mountain range, 25 years later I still am.
I would disagree, with you Joe, that Greenland is becoming more troublesome than Antarctica. True there have been changes in the behavior of more marine terminating outlet glaciers, and the melt season has intensified more.

However, the recent collapse of Wordie Ice Shelf, Mueller Ice Shelf, Jones Ice Shelf, Larsen-A and Larsen-B Ice Shelf and Wilkins Ice Shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula has made us aware of how dynamic ice shelve systems are. After their loss the reduced buttressing of feeder glaciers has allowed the expected speed-up of inland ice masses after shelf ice break-up. Pine Island and Thwaites Glacier accelerations have indicated some of the impact occurring on the main West Antarctic Ice Sheet. The potential is larger and this ice sheet can respond faster than the GIS.

Ice shelves have long been recognized as keys in buttressing Antarctic Ice Sheets. In turn ice shelves rely on pinning points for buttressing. The pinning point are where the floating ice shelf meets solid ground, either at lateral margins or a subglacial rise meets the bottom of the ice shelf causing an ice rise on the shelf surface.We have lost a gmuch greater are of ice in Antarctica than in Greenland in the last decade, but it is true that a greater portion of this was already afloat.

By: David B. Benson

David B. Benson — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 22:16:12 +0000

“The seven atmospheric scientists predict a global warming of ‘almost unprecedented magnitude’ in the next century.”

Drop the word ‘almost’.

By: Eli Rabett

Eli Rabett — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 03:23:09 +0000

Hansen has long been involved in the sea level rise issue. To quote James Titus (and if you don’t know who he is, there is the google)

The most recent paper on the subject by Jim Hansen. The Captain’s candidate for the next Nobel Prize awarded for climate change research. Although he helped EPA get started in assessing the consequences of sea level rise in 1983, he moved on to other issues. But twenty years later he came back to this issue, with a provocative essay in Climatic Change warning that greenhouse gases may put polar glaciers on a “slippery slope to Hell.” The Captain uses these analyses to consider worse-case scenarios. (This looks like an impermanent link so if it moves, search for “slippery slope”, James Hansen, and “sea level rise”. )

By: John Hollenberg

John Hollenberg — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 04:56:31 +0000

I assume you are talking about this James Titus:

http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/ index.php/ csw/ details/ epa-titus/

I googled and found 12,000 references, so it’s a bit difficult to be sure

By: rpauli

rpauli — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 07:24:05 +0000

We might regard denialist speech as similar to antisemitic, racist or sexist speech. It is wrong and hurtful and based on learned ignorance or deliberate greed (more likely). This language directly delays the safety of our future. Increases our workload for common protection.

Our personal responses might be similar: a mild public rebuke, refusal to tolerate that language in civil discourse. It need not be a huge engagement, just a quick statement and move on.

I feel that I am doing harm by remaining silent.

By: Barry Brook

Barry Brook — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 00:21:04 +0000

Nice find Joe, and also Eli. Retrospective reflections on climate prognostications should be more readily cited to the denialosphere, because they are indisputably compelling. Similar predictions were made for an observed lag in CO2/CH4 methane feedbacks following post-glacial solar forcing.

Although the melt of the GIS is alarming, I agree with Maurie that the WAIS is still the biggest concern, because of the potential for abrupt change due to subsurface melting of ice on the pinning points, leading to break off of some rather large chunks of land-based ice.

By: Timo Hämeranta

Timo Hämeranta — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 13:15:34 +0000

Re rpauli:

History is filled with wars to solve problems (debates, conflicts) for good.

They have always followed the same pattern:

Escalation.

To win the war the escalation of any kind has gone and will go as follows:

- first you try to disprove opposition’s arguments

- then you try to prove opposition is unethical

- then you criminalise opposition

- then you kill opposition.

When you are convinced stakes a high enough you’ll go through all these stages with a clear conscience.

In climate change debates we are now at the stage “it is unethical to pollute atmosphere by CO2 and even more to suspect the man-induced disastrous climate change for future CO2 emissions”.

Examples we have, worldwide, not only in public coverage but in academic world, too.

Suggestions and instigations to criminalise and even kill polluters and dissidents have already been publicly presented.

In History the final solution to end conflicts has been:

“Let’s kill all the dissidents!”

If current trend continues our societies will escalate to the final stages presented here.