Canadian Ice Shelves Halve In Six Years 458
eldavojohn writes "The CBC reports on new research that shows thousand-year-old ice shelves (much different than sea ice) are breaking up and have been reduced by half in a region of Canada over the last six years. 'This summer alone saw the Serson ice shelf almost completely disappear and the Ward Hunt shelf split in half. The ice loss equals about three billion tonnes, or about 500 times the mass of the Great Pyramid of Giza.' More detailed pictures can be seen at The Conversation, with a quote from Professor Steven Sherwood, Co-Director of the University of NSW's Climate Change Research Centre: 'The real significance of this, in my view, is that this ice has reportedly been there for thousands of years. The same is true of glaciers that have recently disappeared in the Andes. These observations should dispel in one fell swoop any notion that recent global warming could be natural.'"
Logical fallacy (Score:3, Interesting)
"These observations should dispel in one fell swoop any notion that recent global warming could be natural"
Why?
Ice melting fast != humans at fault. Honestly, I've seen a lake go from "safe to walk on" to "no trace of ice" in a few days. I never once thought "Holy crap, some dude must have caused this!"
Certainly, that's the ASSUMPTION, and there are a lot of credible reasons for believing that to be true. But I don't see how A logically follows B unless you're already certain that B is true and just looking for more reasons to say it.
The Alarmism misses a key detail (Score:3, Interesting)
I'll just point out the corresponding lack of sea level rise. I'm going to have to put this in the same category as the atlas maker that said 15 percent of Greenland's ice melted. If that had actually happened the oceans would have gone up by feat. That hasn't happened so 15 percent of greenland's ice didn't melt. Likewise if this ice pack is so significant in canada there must be a corresponding rise in sea level.
Over the last century we've had a rise of about 8 cm in sea level. That means ice has absolutely melted. Just not as much as the alarmists would have us believe.
We can take GW seriously without getting hysterical about it. What we're seeing is SLOW melting and SLOW sea level rise.
Re:There were glaciers all over Montana (Score:4, Interesting)
Gary Cooper. High Noon. (Score:4, Interesting)
Global warming is happening.
Why do we care whether global warming is human-caused, or not? Are we all Catholics trying to assess guilt? What does it matter whether or not global warming is human caused or not? Global warming is here and it is happening. The cow is already out of the barn.
What's relevant is whether or not humans can alter the course of global warming.
Re:"These observations should dispel..." (Score:4, Interesting)
No, the last ice age ended 10,000 years ago [grist.org]. There was a more recent "little ice age," but that was a local phenomenon, not global.
But you're right that this doesn't prove that the global average temperature is rising. Again, it's only a local phenomenon, and it's possible that the ice shelves are getting colder but seeing less precipitation, resulting in the loss of ice mass.