Posted: Aug 15, 2011 10:30 pm
johnbrandt wrote:
”There is no chance of it being inundated, short of a collapse of the Greenland Ice Shelf,” Professor Flannery said.
Or this gem from the same article...Let’s check on another Flannery scare from 2008 - his claim that the Arctic could be ice-free by 2013:
So, if you look at the data for the decay of the Arctic ice cap for example, that is just moving so quickly now. I mean last year was the worst year ever. People are saying, you know, that instead of the ice cap lasting a century, that maybe in five years there’ll be no Arctic ice cap. So you can’t look at things like that without seeing that we are in deep trouble.
Now being debunked:
Scientists say current concerns over a tipping point in the disappearance of Arctic sea ice may be misplaced…
Writing in the journal Science, the team found evidence that ice levels were about 50% lower 5,000 years ago.
They say changes to wind systems can slow down the rate of melting. They argue, therefore, that a tipping point under current scenarios is unlikely....
Dr Svend Funder from the Natural History Museum of Denmark ... and his team say their data shows a clear connection between temperature and the amount of sea ice. The researchers concluded that for about 3,000 years, during a period called the Holocene Climate Optimum, there was more open water and far less ice than today - probably less than 50% of the minimum Arctic sea ice recorded in 2007.
But the researcher says that even with a loss of this size, the sea ice will not reach a point of no return.
They must really hate the fact that recordings of what they said years ago are kept and wheeled out at inopportune moments...
...and they wonder why a huge number of people are skeptical about the whole scam...
You do realise that Dr Funder's research was about the possibility of a tipping point based on the loss of arctic sea ice right and that Flannery specifically references the Greenland Ice Shelf right?
The two are not even remotely similar and it's a fantastic thing if loss of arctic sea ice will not tip us over the edge since we're very much on track to lose all of it - witness the opening of the northern passage. More to the point, the current loss of arctic sea ice and the reduction in planetary albedo thereof, is a trend which is unlikely to reverse anytime soon. That has grave consequences even absent any catastrophic tipping point. Now, melt the Greenland ice sheet or Siberian tundra and we'd have severe problems.
Note also that Dr Funder's paper does not claim that the warming effect is not happening, merely that one facet of this incredibly complex system will not lead to an irreversible tipping point. That's OK though, denialists often misrepresent or misunderstand scientific work.