Sea-level predictions are 'fantasy'

Some data suggesting the sky isn't falling, to mix metaphors. As I mentioned earlier, the Greenland ice sheet is the one to watch. Antarctica is doing fine, thank you very much. Other studies show Antarctica is actually growing ice and has more sea ice than ever. Recall the last two years were the coldest ever recorded in Antarctica. Trust me, this is good news. For a critique of the IPPC summary, which was 'leaked two weeks before the US elections and did not reflect the actual report that you may not be able get, click HERE The summary is a conjecture upon the worst case scenario. (PS, I don't know how to make the bold above go away.) -Gene Fears of Melting Polar Ice Are Discredited Written By: James M. Taylor Published In: Environment News Publication Date: June 1, 2007 Publisher: The Heartland Institute

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Ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are losing little if any ice mass, thus having very little impact on global sea level, results from several recent studies show.

Andrew Shepherd of the University of Edinburgh and Duncan Wingham of University College London examined data from 14 satellite-based estimates of Greenland and Antarctic ice sheet volume taken since 1998. According to the scientists, who published their findings in the March 16 issue of Science magazine, the ice sheets are affecting sea level somewhere between a rise of 1.0 millimeters per year and a fall of 0.15 millimeters per year.

"In an effort to scare the American public into reducing their emissions, Al Gore and his fellow alarmists talk about 20 feet of sea level rise, while science shows that is pure fantasy."

Examining the data for Greenland and Antarctica, the two scientists concluded, "Our best estimate of their combined imbalance is about 125 gigatons per year of ice, enough to raise sea level by 0.35 millimeters per year. This is only a modest contribution to the present rate of sea-level rise of 3.0 millimeters per year."

Minuscule Effect

The Shepherd and Wingham estimates mean less than an inch-and-a-half of sea level rise due to polar ice melt over the entire next century. "Yet even this unimpressive [estimate of] sea level increase may be far too large," said Craig Idso, founder and former president of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change.

"For although two of Greenland's largest outlet glaciers doubled their rates of mass loss in less than a year back in 2004, causing many climate alarmists to claim that the Greenland Ice Sheet was responding much more rapidly to global warming than anyone had ever expected, Howat et al. report--in the very same issue of Science as Shepherd and Wingham--that the two glaciers' rates of mass loss 'decreased in 2006 to near the previous rates'," Idso continued.

"And these observations, in their words, 'suggest that special care must be taken in how mass-balance estimates are evaluated, particularly when extrapolating into the future, because short-term spikes could yield erroneous long-term trends,'" Idso said.

Ice Sheet Stabilized

In the March 30 issue of Science, still more evidence indicated there is no reason to fear rising sea levels resulting from polar ice melt. Four scientists from Pennsylvania State University and the University of Texas studied a sedimentary wedge (also known as a "till delta" of rocks and sediment) deposited by West Antarctica's Whillans Ice Stream.

The scientists determined the sedimentary wedge will prevent the West Antarctic ice sheet from sliding into the Antarctic Ocean any time in the foreseeable future.

The sedimentary wedge, the scientists explain, "serves to thicken the ice and stabilize the position of the grounding line," such that "the ice just up-glacier of the grounding line is substantially thicker than that needed to allow floatation, owing to the restraint from friction with the wedge." As a result, the scientists conclude, "the grounding-line will tend to remain in the same location despite changes in sea level (until sea level rises enough to overcome the excess thickness that is due to the wedge)."

The four scientists then conclude that a substantial rise of sea level would be required to budge the sedimentary line and destabilize the ice sheet. "Sea-level changes of a few meters are unlikely to substantially affect ice-sheet behavior," the scientists report.

Further Confirmation

In a separate article in the same issue of Science, John B. Anderson, a scientist at Rice University, concluded, "at the current rate of sea-level rise, it would take several thousand years to float the ice sheet off [its] bed."

Additionally, a study by five scientists also published in the March 30 issue of Science reports the ice thickness caused by the sedimentation line will tend to stabilize it against "any other environmental perturbation."

The scientists report, "Large sea-level rise, such as the ~100-meter rise at the end of the last ice age, may overwhelm the stabilizing feedback from sedimentation, but smaller sea-level changes are unlikely to have synchronized the behavior of ice sheets in the past."

"Cumulatively and individually, these studies show once again that global warming alarmism and scientific reality are in serious conflict," said Competitive Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow Iain Murray. "In an effort to scare the American public into reducing their emissions, Al Gore and his fellow alarmists talk about 20 feet of sea level rise, while science shows that is pure fantasy."

Gore fans ARE diverse

Check out the following comments which were relayed, called in, faxed, and emailed to Nicole Williams who became the target for complaints concerning the revelation of Al Gores use of 211,000 kw/h of electricity in 2006. She works for the the group that published that inconvenient truth was the Tennessee Center for Policy Research which is, as they say, a free-market think tank. Their web site put up the responses, names and all. Below is a sample.

I am not sure what sort of crack to make about them, they are so vicious it takes away the breath. What we have here is the venom of the True Believer reacting to someone saying their demigod is not wearing clothes. I can't imagine what the South Park people got for the account of Gore vs. Manbearpig.

Where do these people come from? Seriously. Serially. Does Al Gore get letters like this from the right?

1. Several: "Stupid, redneck bitch.
2. Whose whore are you? [This came in so often, she thinks it was someone's talking point.]
3. 100+ death threats consisting of "I'm gonna get you..."
4. ROGER MILLER writes, "Why don't you all go back to shooting one another across the hollows (I think he meant 'hollers') instead of trying to make people think anyone in Tennessee has an ounce of intelligence?" (Say, doesn't Al Gore live there?)
5. Get your snaggle (sic) tooth grins capped and learn to read and write
6. "W.T.F. difference would it make if he was (sic) using 1000 times more energy than the average household if it came from clean energy," says Thomas Grinnell, "Don't think about that too much. It will give your southern mullet a headache."
7. D. Hunter: You really should concentrate on what Southerners do best...Sodomizing and impregnating little children. (Say, doesn't Al Gore live in the South.)
8. Christopher LaBarge, a nice Catholic name: I hope you all die slowly and have your heart and brains trampled to pieces you small minded, ignorant, back-woods ideologues.
9. From Mount Laural, NJ, Rovert Dodelin informs us, "We should have flattened the South when we had a chance.... (Funny, that is what I say about New Jersey.)
10. BENJAMIN GREUEL: Go fuck yourselves you neo con, non-secular, bible thumpin, anti-science dumb fuck pricks. (I never heard of someone being accused of being a "non-secular" before.)
11. Anthony Black: You bunch of stupid hick red-necks. I am sure you are quite religious, yet you have no problem destroying His creation with pollution....(You see, say a truth about the god that is not praise and you are the anti-god. This is dangerous.)
12. How about you have a do (sic) humanity a favor and have a stroke.
13. Apparently, there were many anti "fag" messages. I won't repeat them here as they are so bizarre as to not be curious, just terrifying. (Tennessee has the faggiest fags, one wrote.)
14. "You people are such slime," says TJ Williams, "You are a total waste of skin and air. Help the environment and jump off a cliff." (You know, that almost sounds like an attempt at humor.)
15. Bob Beaver has a good one: "Find a hole and stick a knife in it."

You can click on the title to go to the research center's home page. You can then click through to many emails in pdf format for your enjoyment. The morons who wrote them actually had valid return addresses.

Feel free to write them, if you like, to discuss the logic of their positions.

Tell me we are not on the eve of destruction.

Big Lie #2 for 2007

As we prepare for the next election cycle, it is time to address the Big Lies. I will entertain Big Lie entries from those who find the right is lying all the time, like Bush and his cronies went to war for oil, though no one seems to connect the two in any way. There are maybe-lies, spin, conspiracy theories, and, then, there are LIES.

My problem with Big Lies are that they come from the left because the left gets a lie by, thanks to print and TV media which is immune from Lexis-Nexis research. It is one thing to allege some grand conspiracy, it is another to ignore facts. The only sector of media not under correct-think control is talk radio, so, obviously, there is an all out attack by Democrats on the hugely successful political talk/entertainment shows.

Here is the lie for today: the Bush Administration tricked everyone into going into Iraq by saying Iraq was linked to 911 via its Al Qaeda cooperation.

I never heard the Administration say that and continue to be amazed at the repetition of the lie. Last week, the Rangel caricature was on TV nearly yelling, in a non-responsive answer to a critical observation, that Bush lied to us by telling us we went to Iraq because of 911.

I don't think he is stupid, so either he is a manipulative liar or just reads the Post and Times and, like many, assumes they are reporting reality, which is understandable for busy people - but he is a politician.

Here is the result of 5 seconds of Google research, a 2003 Press Conference:

[Adam Boulton, Sky News (London):] One question for you both. Do you believe that there is a link between Saddam Hussein, a direct link, and the men who attacked on September the 11th?

THE PRESIDENT: I can't make that claim.

THE PRIME MINISTER: That answers your question.

This is exactly what I recall. The Administration, by its President's own words, several times, has refused to link 911 with Iraq. Period. End of story, except, now we have the media complex shifting words to trick people into believing otherwise. This game is intentional, hurts the commonweal, and in various guises gets people killed.

For your consideration:

Bush Defends Assertions of Iraq-Al Qaeda Relationship

By Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 18, 2004; Page A09

President Bush yesterday defended his assertions that there was a relationship between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda, putting him at odds with this week's finding of the bipartisan Sept. 11 commission.

"The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and al Qaeda: because there was a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda," Bush said after a Cabinet meeting. As evidence, he cited Iraqi intelligence officers' meeting with bin Laden in Sudan. "There's numerous contacts between the two," Bush said.

The finding of the commission's staff led Bush's Democratic challenger, Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), to escalate his accusations that Bush deceived both the Senate and the American public about the rationale for war in Iraq. "The president owes the American people a fundamental explanation about why he rushed to war for a purpose that it now turns out is not supported by the facts," Kerry told reporters at the Detroit airport. "That is the finding of this commission." [HUH? What is? This guy is hopeless. No wonder he got a low C at Yale.]

The panel's staff reported on Wednesday that there were contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda, "but they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship."

In challenging the commission's finding, Bush and his aides argued that their previous assertions about the ties between Iraq and the terrorist organization were justified by the contacts that occurred.

"This administration never said that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated between Saddam and al Qaeda," Bush said. "We did say there were numerous contacts between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda."

No one seems to care what the President actually says. It gets in the way of the reportage of what he said, which, because it is wrong, can be attacked like any good straw dog.