Monday, July 07, 2008
Report on the Climate
The sea ice in the Southern Ocean, around Antarctica, is about 800,000 square kilometers above normal, about 500,000 above where it was this time last year (and last year was a record high for Antarctic sea ice). In the Northern Ocean, the sea ice is about 1,200,000 square kilometers below normal. But just in the sea inside the Arctic circle, the sea ice is about 800,000 below normal, but it is about 800,000 above where it was at this time last year (and last year was a record low for Summer Arctic sea ice). So things were melting far faster in the Northern Ocean last year at this time. I'd bet against all the Northern sea ice melting this year (or any year in this century), but it's a tougher call about the area right around the North Pole. There is a lot of evidence that sea volcanoes in the Northern Ocean certainly contributed to the alarming sea ice melt last summer. The Northern Passage is blocked by lots of sea ice.
The reliable satellite measurements (averaged) have the mean global temperature about .04 degrees Celsius below normal (so the Earth is not actually warming that much lately).
For the future, recurring sea/weather patterns indicate global cooling should take place over the next 8 to ten years. As far as the Sun is concerned, everything is very quiet. The flux density number has been in the mid upper 60s for months now (64 is as low as it goes) and there have been only a handful of tiny, last cycle sunspots, which last mere hours, since January and the sun is clear now.
The mean ocean level has risen 20cm since 1884. That's half a foot per century, not an alarming rate to me.
Labels: Climate Report
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 10:16 AM 
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Roger,
The rate of rise in sea level may not alrm you but it is significant.
Whereas low lying areas would normally adapt ecologically to this grdual rise, human activity in some instances has prevented that adaptation. Look at the mess in the Everglades. There are equally alarming situations ringing parts of the aquatic habitat of in the New York metro area.
Therefore I request you do not pooh pooh the rise in sea level as being insignificant or unimportant.
T
The rate of rise in sea level may not alrm you but it is significant.
Whereas low lying areas would normally adapt ecologically to this grdual rise, human activity in some instances has prevented that adaptation. Look at the mess in the Everglades. There are equally alarming situations ringing parts of the aquatic habitat of in the New York metro area.
Therefore I request you do not pooh pooh the rise in sea level as being insignificant or unimportant.
T
# posted by 
: 9:36 AM
: 9:36 AM
I didn't say unimportant, just not alarming. It isn't. Not a whole heck of a lot we can do about it anyway as mammade CO2 is such a tiny component of the atmosphere and natural CO2 seems never to have had any effect on global temperature, but I guess that's just denier talk (although absolutely true). Thanks for the comment, T.
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