NASA Finally Agrees that Antarctic Ice has Long been Increasing

A NASA paper published in the Journal of Glaciology found that Antarctic ice has long been increasing in agreement with many other studies, but in disagreement with the UN IPCC report of 2013.  Its main conclusions are:

• The Antarctic ice sheet had net gains in ice of 112 billion tons per year from 1992 to 2001.
• Antarctic ice from 2003 to 2008 had a net gain of 82 billion tons per year.
• Extra snowfall in East Antarctica began about 10,000 years ago as the Earth warmed after the last Ice Age and this snowfall thickened the East Antarctic and the interior regions of the West Antarctic by 1.7 cm/year.  This accumulation over vast expanses more than offsets the melting of ice on the West Antarctic peninsula which gets so much publicity.
• The increased ice in Antarctica is now acting to reduce sea levels by 0.23 mm/year.

One of the more interesting observations on this data is that the global warming due to the end of the last Ice Age caused more snowfall in Antarctica, which serves to counterbalance the rise in sea level due to the thermal expansion of water in a warmer world.  This is one of many ways in which the Earth moderates climate changes.

The findings of this study were the result of more accurate measurements of the small thickening of the ice in most of Antarctica from satellite measurements, with the exception of the ice core investigations by others that indicated the increase in snowfall beginning 10,000 years ago.  It would not be surprising if the application of these satellite analysis methods to Greenland were to find that previous claims of large ice losses there were also wrong.  It is easy to observe large glaciers calving into the ocean while missing the slow increases of ice thickness over much larger areas.

Chairman Pachauri of the UN IPCC AR4 Report Lied

We live in a world that seems to accept lies very readily, at least if they are made by someone whose politics is approved by the progressive (socialist) elitists.  Examples of constant liars are Presidents Clinton and Obama.  So, Chairman Pachauri's lies about when he learned about the error in the UN IPCC AR4 report of 2007 being very badly wrong about a prediction that the glaciers of the Himalayan Mountains would be gone by 2035 may not do him the damage it ought to.  Nonetheless, the story of his lie is recited here.

A Host of Unscientific References in the UN IPCC AR4 Report

Donna Laframboise on her blog NOconcensus.org has turned up a host of unscientific references in the UN IPCC AR4 report of 2007.  Many of them are World Wildlife Fund reports and others of a similar level of objectivity.  Apparently, this is the result of looking into just a small fraction of the many references.

Thanks for your work on checking these references out, Donna Laframboise!  Donna also notes that the NASA website had claimed the Himalayan glaciers might be gone by 2030, five years earlier than their disappearance according to the discredited claim in the UN IPCC AR4 report!

UN IPCC AR4 Errors on Himalayan Glaciers Revealed

An article in the Seattle Times by Seth Borenstein notes that numerous claims made about the melting of glaciers in the Himalayan Mountains in the UN IPCC AR4 report of 2007 were wrong.  As usual, all of the errors made it appear that global warming was much more dire than it actually is.  Here are the errors in a half page of the report:

• "Glaciers in the Himalayas are receding faster than in any other part of the world." Cogley and Michael Zemp of the World Glacier Monitoring System said Himalayan glaciers are melting at about the same rate as other glaciers.
• It says that if the Earth continues to warm, the "likelihood of them disappearing by 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high." Nowhere in peer-reviewed science literature is 2035 mentioned. However, there is a study from Russia that says glaciers could come close to disappearing by 2350. Probably the numbers in the date were transposed, Cogley said. 
• The paragraph says: "Its total area will likely shrink from the present 500,000 to 100,000 square kilometers by the year 2035." Cogley said there are only 33,000 square kilometers of glaciers in the Himalayas.
• The entire paragraph is attributed to the World Wildlife Fund, when only one sentence came from the WWF, Cogley said. And further, the IPCC likes to brag that it is based on peer-reviewed science, not advocacy group reports. Cogley said the WWF cited the popular science press as its source.
• A table says that between 1845 and 1965, the Pindari Glacier shrank by 2,840 meters. Then comes a math mistake: It says that's a rate of 135.2 meters a year, when it really is only 23.5 meters a year.

The Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh says that some glaciers are expanding and others are receding more slowly than indicated in the UN IPCC report. But secondly, note that an Indian scientist did speculate, not in a published paper, that the Himalayan glaciers might vanish by 2035.  He says his speculation should not have been used in the UN IPCC report.  Note that losing 400,000 square kilometers of glacier by 2035 is a much greater loss of sources of fresh water than is the loss of some fraction of the 33,000 square kilometers of actual Himalayan glacier and a much greater contributor to images of sea level rise.  The error on calculating the rate of retreat of the Pindari Glacier is especially foolish, since it was particularly easy for any reader to check the calculation.  The article rate of 23.5 meters/year is also actually wrong.  The rate is really 23.7 meters/year.

This set of errors, all favoring alarmism, is simply another indicator of a massive scientific fraud orchestrated by the UN IPCC, the Hadley Center and CRU of Great Britain, and NOAA and the NASA GISS of the U.S.  All of them aided and abetted by Al Gore, Tony Blair, Obama, Pelosi, many other socialist politicians, and much of the socialist press, which is most of the press.  The People have been massively betrayed here again by many scientists, almost all universities, many politicians, and most of the press.  The desire for money from governments and/or more control and power over other people's lives is just too great.  This is a great lesson in the perils of government grown beyond its rationally limited powers as defined in our Constitution, now ignored by our government and the fascist/Marxist/environmentalist intellectual pretenders and posers.

Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide

I wish to direct my readers to an excellent review of the climate literature on the subjects of global temperature and climate related to the observed increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide which has occurred since 1870. The rate of increase in CO2 has been faster since about 1950 than it was before that date. This review by Arthur B. Robinson, Noah E. Robinson, and Willie Soon was published in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons (2007) 12, 79-90 and was entitled Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide. Because the article was written for physicians, it is well aimed for my audience of intelligent people, who may very well not be up on the latest jargon of climatologists or all the details of the many ocean cycles, etc.

The first figure of the article shows the temperature measured at the surface of the Sargasso Sea, which is a large area of the Atlantic, over a 3,000 year period using isotope ratios of marine organisms left in the sediment. The average temperature of this period is drawn as a reference and it is seen that the height of Greek civilization occurred during a warm period with a maximum temperature about 2 degrees Centigrade warmer than the average temperature, that the Roman period corresponded to a temperature period very near average, that the Fall of Rome and the Dark Ages corresponded to a period in which the temperature dropped by about 1 degree Centigrade, followed by the Medival Climate Optimum during which conditions improved in Europe, followed again by a decrease called the Little Ice Age, followed again by a return to a very nearly average temperature, where we are today. The French and Indian War and the American Revolution were during the coldest parts of the Little Ice Age, with conditions few living Americans would prefer to those of the present near average temperature. This figure is shown below:

They then show that the shortening of glaciers occurred well before increases in the atmospheric CO2 began. It began as a result of the warming ending the Little Ice Age. They show that the arctic temperature correlates very well back to 1880 with solar activity and does not correlate with atmospheric CO2. Then they show that the increase in annual mean surface temperature in the contiguous United States from 1880 to 2006 was 0.5 degree Centigrade per century. This is a temperature difference well within the 3 degree Centigrade variance over the last 3,000 years and one which few people would notice personally. A 0.5 C temperature increase is caused by an increase in solar activity of about 0.21% and the measured increase in solar activity from 1900 to 2000 was 0.19%.

During the recovery from the Little Ice Age, U.S. climate has improved with more rainfall, fewer tornadoes, and no increase in hurricane activity. Sea level has trended upward over the last 150 years at a rate of 7 inches per century. This sea level rise also began with the end of the Little Ice Age, rather than with the major increases in atmospheric CO2.

During the past 50 years, human use of hydrocarbons has increased 6-fold, but the increase in atmospheric CO2 has been only 22%. This increase in atmospheric CO2 has stimulated plant growth, which is good for both humans and other animals. Higher CO2 concentrations allow plants to grow faster and larger and to grow better in drier climates than otherwise. The Industrial Revolution has not only improved human life, but it has benefited plant life and the animals who depend upon plants. Increased warmth has also made life a bit easier for most plants and animals. The historical record of bursts in human civilizations also seems strongly to correlate with the warmer periods of the last 3,000 years.