This Is Absolutely Not About The Bakken

Updates

December 18, 2012: by the way, about that Antarctic ice melting in the original post. Breaking news;

In an interesting twist on the issue, British researchers last year [undated] published an article in the peer reviewed scientific journal Nature showing how volcanic activity may be contributing to the melting of ice caps in Antarctica—but not because of any emissions, natural or man-made, per se. Instead, scientists Hugh Corr and David Vaughan of the British Antarctic Survey believe that volcanoes underneath Antarctica may be melting the continent’s ice sheets from below.

And so it goes. Something tells me this won't be added to Al's PowerPoint presentation.


November 30, 2012: wow, this very same story was picked up by WSJ. And placed on page 3 of the first section as the only story .

This is quite amazing. Last night I posted the "original post" below and came up with a figure of 0.47 inches which I rounded one-half inch (see below -- over 20 years the oceans have risen exactly 0.47 inches). Smack dab in the middle of this WSJ story is a graph -- and there it is: 12 millimeters (0.47 inches). I.N.C.R.E.D.I.B.L.E.

Again, buried near the end of the article:

The latest findings show that the rate of ice loss in Greenland has increased almost fivefold since the mid-1990s, while Antarctica overall has been losing relatively small amounts of ice at a more or less constant rate.

"Antarctica is so cold that even if warming occurs it won't melt" at the rate seen in Greenland, said Ian Joughin, a glaciologist at the University of Washington in Seattle and a co-author of the new paper.

One tricky question is whether the overall accelerated melting of the ice sheets can be linked to man-made climate change.

The shrinkage of the permanent ice sheets can't entirely be explained by any of the decades-long or century-long natural shifts in climate cycles, according to Prof. Shepherd. 

And remember: the Antarctic accounts for 90% of the earth's frozen water. 

So bottom line:

• 90% of earth's frozen water is in Antarctic and that ain't gonna melt
• scientists agree: tricky question -- whether accelerated melting up north is anthropogenic
• scientists agree: the shrinkage of ice sheets cannot be entirely explained by any of the natural shift if climate cycles
• the polar bears are thriving
• the north polar ice cap is melting just in time for oil companies to start drilling
• a northwest passage to the Orient may yet appear
• the WSJ and I come to the same conclusion: in the last 20 years, the oceans have risen 0.47 inch if one trusts the data; it could be worse. It could be 0.49 inch

Original Post

From the LA Times:

The loss of ice covering Greenland and Antarctica has accelerated over the last 20 years,...

The study, published Thursday by the journal Science, comes weeks after Hurricane Sandy’s destruction of coastal communities in New York and New Jersey starkly highlighted the risks posed by sea level rise, especially during storm surges. [We're talking 12 millimeters here -- see below -- or one-half inch.]

Sea level has risen an average of 3 millimeters a year since 1992, but the effect is cumulative and accelerating, Abraham said.

Since 1800 A.D., or so, the oceans have risen 8 inches, according to the linked article. [Don't ask me to compare inches and millimeters; I'm not sure why the spokesman mixed inches and millimeters. Let's just stick with one or the other.]

Ice sheet melting accounts for 20% of ocean level rise since 1992.

The oceans have risen an average of 3 millimeters / year since 1992. That's from the linked article. Three millimeters.

 Twenty percent of 3 mm --> 0.6 mm.

Some years ago, I put a popsicle stick in the sand at Cabrillo Beach, San Pedro, California, to measure the rising ocean. I marked the stick in one (1) millimeter hash marks. Unfortunately, I used water-soluble ink. My experiment gone awry. But I digress.

0.6 mm/year. Reproducible? Hardly. Statistically significant? Unlikely.

0.6 mm / year. But this is the scary part, from the linked article:

“Most people think they don’t have to worry about it, because it’s just a few millimeters,” he said. “But every inch we get makes a storm surge worse.”

Look at Hurricane Sandy. 

By the way, the year "1992" was picked for a very good reason. That was the year Al Gore was named Bill Clinton's running mate; by that time he had already warned us of the global warming disaster awaiting us. I find it incredible that the ocean started rising that same year. And to think that in 1992 the oceans were at their pre-ordained, perfect, level, as set by the Intelligent Designer.

What frustrates me is that "we" had 20 years to prepare for Hurricane Sandy. Just having generators on top of high-rise buildings instead of in basements would have been a start. And pre-positioning FEMA trailers a bit more inland.