Arctic sea ice likely to hit record low next week

[glenn]

(Reuters) - Sea ice in the Arctic Ocean is likely to shrink to a record small size sometime next week, and then keep on melting, a scientist at the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center said on Monday.

"A new daily record ... would be likely by the end of August," said Ted Scambos, lead scientist at the data center, which monitors ice in the Arctic and elsewhere. "Chances are it will cross the previous record while we're still in sea ice retreat."

Read on . . .http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/ ... T920120820

Anyone still think this is hoax?

[FalcoColumbarius]

Personally... I have never thought of this as a hoax. This sort of weather cycling has been going on for millennia. In the 14th century (our there abouts) Gloucester Vale was a primary wine centre in Europe. Then the environment cooled a degree or two which curtailed the wine production there. Now the temperature is rising a degree or two, perhaps the British wine production will make a comeback. What I query is whether the cause is from man made corruption of the environment or another natural cycle. After all ~ it's 2012; end of many cyclical calendars ~ kind of stands to reason, no?

Falco.

[glenn]

it's 2012; end of many cyclical calendars ~ kind of stands to reason, no?

No.
Not sure what the Mayan Calendar has to do with anything. Falco, you're baiting me with comments like that.

From the New Scientist:http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1 ... lexed.html

Ice cores show that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have remained between 180 and 300 parts per million for the past half-a-million years. In recent centuries, however, CO2 levels have risen sharply, to at least 380 ppm (see Greenhouse gases hit new high)

So what's going on? It is true that human emissions of CO2 are small compared with natural sources. But the fact that CO2 levels have remained steady until very recently shows that natural emissions are usually balanced by natural absorptions. Now slightly more CO2 must be entering the atmosphere than is being soaked up by carbon "sinks".

The consumption of terrestrial vegetation by animals and by microbes (rotting, in other words) emits about 220 gigatonnes of CO2 every year, while respiration by vegetation emits another 220 Gt. These huge amounts are balanced by the 440 Gt of carbon dioxide absorbed from the atmosphere each year as land plants photosynthesise.

Similarly, parts of the oceans release about 330 Gt of CO2 per year, depending on temperature and rates of photosynthesis by phytoplankton, but other parts usually soak up just as much - and are now soaking up slightly more.

Ocean sinks

Human emissions of CO2 are now estimated to be 26.4 Gt per year, up from 23.5 Gt in the 1990s, according to an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report in February 2007 (pdf format). Disturbances to the land - through deforestation and agriculture, for instance - also contribute roughly 5.9 Gt per year.

About 40% of the extra CO2 entering the atmosphere due to human activity is being absorbed by natural carbon sinks, mostly by the oceans. The rest is boosting levels of CO2 in the atmosphere.

How can we be sure that human emissions are responsible for the rising CO2 in the atmosphere? There are several lines of evidence. Fossil fuels were formed millions of years ago. They therefore contain virtually no carbon-14, because this unstable carbon isotope, formed when cosmic rays hit the atmosphere, has a half-life of around 6000 years. So a dropping concentration of carbon-14 can be explained by the burning of fossil fuels. Studies of tree rings have shown that the proportion of carbon-14 in the atmosphere dropped by about 2% between 1850 and 1954. After this time, atmospheric nuclear bomb tests wrecked this method by releasing large amounts of carbon-14.

Volcanic misunderstanding

Fossil fuels also contain less carbon-13 than carbon-12, compared with the atmosphere, because the fuels derive from plants, which preferentially take up the more common carbon-12. The ratio of carbon-13 to carbon-12 in the atmosphere and ocean surface waters is steadily falling, showing that more carbon-12 is entering the atmosphere.

Finally, claims that volcanoes emit more CO2 than human activities are simply not true. In the very distant past, there have been volcanic eruptions so massive that they covered vast areas in lava more than a kilometre thick and appear to have released enough CO2 to warm the planet after the initial cooling caused by the dust (see Wipeout). But even with such gigantic eruptions, most of subsequent warming may have been due to methane released when lava heated coal deposits, rather than from CO2 from the volcanoes (see also Did the North Atlantic's 'birth' warm the world?).

Measurements of CO2 levels over the past 50 years do not show any significant rises after eruptions. Total emissions from volcanoes on land are estimated to average just 0.3 Gt of CO2 each year - about a hundredth of human emissions (pdf document).

While volcanic emissions are negligible in the short term, over tens of millions of years they do release massive quantities of CO2. But they are balanced by the loss of carbon in ocean sediments subducted under continents through tectonic plate movements. Ultimately, this carbon will be returned to the atmosphere by volcanoes.

[konadog]

We're on a baaaad path for sure, but the Maya didn't have any more insight into the future than anyone else - btw, those same Maya who were supposed to have some kind of magical view of the future ruined their environment and collapsed their societies, so the kings of the city states could have shiny white palaces and pyramids... The modern Maya think the whole 2012 doom thing is ridiculous too...

[rezdiver]

(Reuters) - Sea ice in the Arctic Ocean is likely to shrink to a record small size sometime next week, and then keep on melting, a scientist at the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center said on Monday.


record since when, since humans infested the planet and learned how to write? the big round spinny thing has been around just a bit longer and I am sure knows how to take care of itself much better than we can figure out. Just like everything else, it will adapt and change accordingly as it always has. no matter how much you feel sad and sorry for the destruction, damage, and extinction that has been caused, with the speed of growth of the human population it is an inevitable and unreversable consequence. when you have advanced to the point to have the technology to assimilate man and machine, nature gets put on the back burner. you cant live 10 extra years without that artificial heart made from petrolium products and manufacturing technology.

this is the best time to start looking for waterfront property and lay some artificial turf.

Anyone still think this is hoax?

Yup.

[Drumster]

Lots of interesting discussion around the campfire on some "hot" topics. (Pass the marshmallows.)

These guys ... http://www.solarstormwarning.com/ ...seem to have worked out a fairly unique explanation which takes in a number of factors and ties up a number of loose ends.
I haven't read the whole site in detail and I'm neither a proponent nor a naysayer; I simply don't know and I don't pretend to. But from what I could see as a non-astrophysicist, the authors present a pretty tidy case.

And speaking of loose ends, what do you guys make of this? http://www.wired.com/science/discoverie ... uidestones

"The more I learn, the more I realize how little I know." - some famous guy?

[FalcoColumbarius]

It was not my intention to bait anyone in this thread. Regarding the Maya: They're not the only ones to come up with a calendar that ends in 2012, there are a number ~ the Hopi, Aztecs, ancient Chinese (I-Ching time wave zero) ~ and all it is ~ is the end of a cycle.

Just as in the Chem-Trail thread I don't actually take any particular side ~ but I will argue for both sides, this is how I learn. All the same, I really can't say that I know and I question those who claim to speak with authority. Many times I have spotted errors and I am not impressed with how the subject matter is casually discredited before there is any serious investigation.

In the Bible there are many... shall we say ~ "different interpretations". One of these is "I will be with you until the end of the world". The word that was translated to "world" was "aeon", which actually means "age". But what is an age ~ but a world, alluding to the affairs of man. I'm not too worried about the Earth, she will survive.

Taking core samples from ice packs gives us some clue but I don't think we can draw definitive conclusions of what life was truly like purely from those samples. What about the Ice Age? The Earth was slammed with a huge asteroid that caused a great weather change? Do we really know this? Or is it a theory?

In 2008 I was working on a film called "2012", a disaster film of large proportions. I worked primarily on the "Ship's Jazz Club" set. At the end of the day I would sometimes stop off at a favourite coffee shop on the way home for a macchiato doppio and chat with the barista. One day I come in. The place is empty apart from one table with a gentleman and two ladies, who have a darker complexion. I order my coffee and the barista asks me how things are on the set. I tell him about any remote highlights of the day. Then he starts asking about the title, "2012", what it refers to and we start talking about the Mayan Long Count Calendar. While this is unfolding the gentleman sitting at the table with the two ladies rises and saunters over:

• "Forgive me for interrupting but I could not help but overhear your discussion. Allow me to introduce myself: My name is Juan Carlos, I am from the Yucatan ~ I am Mayan.

As this is happening I am standing back in my thoughts ~ "all right, this is out of left field". He goes on:

• "The way we see the prophesy is that Mankind is on the verge of global enlightenment where everyone will be aware of everyone else. It's not going to happen on the 21st of December, 2012, it will happen over a fifty year period, twenty-five years either side of 2012."

I thought about this. When you consider how small the world has become over the last twenty-five years, the Arab Spring, how fast news gets around through mass texting ~ this could actually make sense. Especially in light of all the mainstream media censorship. The information is like water seeping through all the cracks of authority.

Whether the Maya had insight to the new age is up for debate ~ but what we do know is they understood the celestial seasons and how long they would be, along with other cultures, as well.

One interpretation of the I-Ching is that time, the dimension, will collapse and we will be left with three dimensions that will occur simultaneously. This, to some extent, fits in with some theoretical physical views, that our world had more dimensions long ago. Many of these dimensions have since collapsed and we now recognize them as electricity (lightning) or gravity, &c.. The traditional count is eleven dimensions, Professor Stephen Hawking has suggested as many as seventeen.

I have wondered if any global climate change could be as a result of these dimensional changes ~ kind of a multidimensional friction? Maybe hot flashes, as it were?

Falco.

[nxski]

My dad is a Latin American historian and it's my understanding based on his knowledge that the Mayan Calendar actually ended October 28, 2011 which would render the end of the world theory moot.

[konadog]

Global warming and melting polar and glacial ice is a real fact - it has nothing to do with anyone in the past's predictions of doom in 2012 - People can see trends and make extrapolations but no one can see the future - not Myans, not Hopis nor ancient Chinese - that's another real fact.

[yojimbo]

not Myans, not Hopis nor ancient Chinese - that's another real fact.

I notice you left out Nostradamus, I shall pop my tinfoil hat on and consider this...

[glenn]

Regarding the Wired magazine article:

In his article Apocalypse Not in Wired, Matt Ridley tortures facts to such a degree that he should be hauled in front of the International Court of Justice. He looks at the four modern horsemen of the apocalyse, chemicals (DDT, CFCs, acid rain), diseases (bird flu, swine flu, SARS, AIDS, Ebola, mad cow disease), people (population, famine), and resources (oil, metals) and concludes "no problem."

read on: http://www.treehugger.com/energy-polic ... mics.html

Shame on Wired for printing such pap. Oh well, it is Wired magazine, the leading authority on environmental science.

And Falco, when I was thinking about this thread, I think I was actually baiting you! I like arguing with you because you never make it personal - even if I don't seem to make any ground bringing you on board with empirical science.

Rezdiver - you're right - I have no doubt that life will survive on the planet. It's ourselves that we are dooming. If we, as humans, are able to engineer our survival it will be a question of who can afford the lifeboat strategies. There is little doubt that we will be facing a massive human die-off, because our effect on the climate is not being taken seriously. Arguably good for the planet - not so good for my kids.

[FalcoColumbarius]

Hahaha.
I don't rule out science, in fact I hold actual science in great veneration, much the same as I do with religious philosophy. It's the institutions and interpretations that I have issue with.

I made a discovery one day that had a profound affect on me. I came across a website that had an extensive library on Christian literature. In fact it had a biblical search engine that compared 44 different Bibles. In this site you can compare the differences between the same biblical passage such as John 14-2: "In my Father's house are many mansions" (King James), where in other Bibles it might read "In my Father's house are many abodes, or many rooms &c.". These are different statements and it fuelled my curiosity, as well as giving me ammunition for religious/philosophical arguments with beguiling religious zealots that try to save me from their sins.

Whilst paging though this website I noted that it has a substantial library containing bibles of The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi writings, which I found interesting. Amongst these various collections I discovered the Alchemical Writings. It is in these writings that I read an Alchemical view of the Holy Trinity.
When I was growing up as a choirboy I would hear the vicar go on about "God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost". After a while I got to thinking: I was told there was only one God and now the vicar is talking about three of them. So after the service I went to my choir master and asked him "who is God the Father?" He replied that God the Father sat on a great throne in the heavens watching over us with a bin full of lightning bolts to strike us down because we deserve it. I found this scary. I went on and asked "who is God the Son?" He gently cupped he hands together and replied in a pious tone that that was Jesus. So I followed my course and asked "who is God the Holy Ghost?" To this he paused for thought, after a minute he replied "you are too young to understand."

This was a turning point in my life. This impelled me to find out more, after all ~ we are all trying to figure this whole mess to one degree or another.

So many years later I discover this website with the Alchemical Writings and stumble across the Alchemical view of the Holy Trinity:

• God the Father = the collective whole of creation;
• God the Son = the individual observer;
• God the Holy Ghost = the silver thread that binds us altogether.

At first it dawned on me ~ this description pretty much sums up every religion. The silver thread that binds us all together is also known as "The Great Web of Life". That's when the epiphany hit me: The individual observer... great web..... Great Scott! That's the Unified Field Theory!

Since that point I see religion and science as one basic field that is approached from different angles. Noble in essence but potentially dangerous in the hands of some.

If I am going to be offended by a person's possible answer then I will refrain from asking the question. We can agree to disagree. In the meantime ~ by reading someone else's opinion I just might learn something... (or some such rubbish)... smiles.

Global warming and melting polar and glacial ice is a real fact - it has nothing to do with anyone in the past's predictions of doom in 2012 - People can see trends and make extrapolations but no one can see the future - not Myans, not Hopis nor ancient Chinese - that's another real fact.

Never once have I denied the melting of the polar ice cap or the fact that the weather is going through some metamorphosis. This is pretty evident. Just made the observation that it's all happening at a time when a number of ancient calendars mark the end of a cycle. Having said that, the Hopi definitely promulgate doom.

Does anyone ever get "gut feelings"? You know, when you walk into a room and something is different. You can't quite place your finger on it but the atmosphere has changed. I suppose this is a rhetorical question as I don't think we would be having these discussions if you didn't get gut feelings. And to take it a step further have you ever been in a situation where you know how it's going to end, that is to say "I've read this story before". In life there are not many essential scenarios. I think it is something like six or seven primary stories of life that all the other stories feed from. I think that once we understand the basic mechanics of existence ~ that's when we start dancing with "reality".

I digress.

Okay, so the world is melting all around us. What do you propose we do about it?

Falco.

[Drumster]

I was hoping to see what some of you thought about the Georgia Guide Stones but instead it looks like we have the old "shoot the messenger" thing going on.
The stones have got nothing to do with Wired or any other web site that has info about them... there's dozens of entries...

http://duckduckgo.com/?q=georgia+guide+stones

...and I'm sure the stones are quite real. What they are and how and when they came into being is well documented.

The question is, what do you make of them?

[glenn]

I would say that the 10 inscriptions are not that radical - but spit in the face of the WTO lead civilization we now live in. Without fossil fuels, it can easily be argued that the carrying capacity of the planet is around 500 000 000 (although I think we can go much higher than this using more traditional and sustainable methods). The inscriptions regarding reproduction are a little disturbing because they smack of eugenics, and the "one" language seems like a mostly irrelevant idea. But overall, I'd say not bad.

Back in 1979 there was a lot of optimism for humanity. Now, we have been duped into believing that economy is our #1 concern, and we cannot address any other significant issues until we are "back on our feet" Meanwhile, we are consuming at an alarming rate, and lining the pockets of the rich - who are enjoying the greatest income gap we have witnessed since just before the great depression. The middle class is disappearing, as are all the hard won concessions that were part of the "new deal" that got us out of the depression and led to the golden age of capitalism (50's-70's). No wonder the economy is struggling.
It would be interesting to know who commissioned them though, and what their motivations were. Could just be a rich person's prank - or self delusions of grandeur - who knows? They're not overtly religious.

Now, if they found them in an ancient burial site and were able to date them to prehistoric times - That would be cool!

If I may turn this back to you, Drumster, what do you make of it?

[konadog]

Okay, so the world is melting all around us. What do you propose we do about it?

Falco.

Nout to be done now but suck it up and get used to the differences - or not... Either way there's no going back.