Re: [asa] Subglacial Water System Moving Faster Than Previously Thought

On Feb 18, 2007, at 6:19 PM, Janice Matchett wrote:

> At 05:37 PM 2/18/2007, Rich Blinne wrote:
>
>> What Janice bolded:
>>
>>> From December 2003 to December 2005, MODIS captured these two
>>> images showing a draw down of water in a subglacial lake (left)
>>> and the rise of water in the same subglacial lake (right). Color
>>> coded ICESat tracks across both images indicate rises and falls
>>> in the elevation of the lake's water. (Credit: NASA)
>> What I bolded:
>>>
>>> In recent years, scientists have discovered more than 145
>>> subglacial lakes, a smaller number of which composes this
>>> "plumbing system" in the Antarctic. Bindschadler and Fricker; Ted
>>> Scambos of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder,
>>> Colo.; and Laurence Padman of Earth and Space Research in
>>> Corvallis, Ore.; observed water discharging from these under-ice
>>> lakes into the ocean in coastal areas. Their research has
>>> delivered new insight into how much and how frequently these
>>> waterways "leak" water and how many connect to the ocean.
>>
>> It's these leaks that are a cause for concern. ~ Rich Blinne
>
> @ For whom is it "a cause for concern"?

All those who are concerned about physical mechanisms that cause sea
level rise.

>
> I'll tell you.
>
> It is a cause for concern to those mainly interested in finding a
> plausible scam to transfer wealth from the first world to the third
> through the purchase of "emission credits".
>
> If you actually believe that the "concern" is all about reducing
> greenhouse gases, then I know where there's a bridge for sale.
>
> The day you'll know the central planners "seriously" believe that
> human beings are responsible for "global warming", and aren't just
> using scientists (wittingly or unwittingly) for their own ends, is
> the day:
>
> [1] they refuse to exempt China, the world's second-biggest emitter
> (14.8%) of greenhouse gases from proposed "regulations"...
>
> [2] or the 27-member European Union, collectively the world's
> third-biggest emitter (14%), isn't allowed to benefit from the
> economic collapse of communist East Germany ...
>
> [3] or Russia -- the world's fourth-biggest emitter (5.7%) --
> doesn't get to benefit by having huge "emission credits" to sell to
> other countries, not because of anything it did to reduce
> greenhouse gases, but because its economy also collapsed around
> 1990 (Kyoto's base year) after the fall of the Soviet Union. ..
>
> [4] or India, the world's fifth-biggest emitter (5.5%), isn't
> allowed to be exempt because it's also a developing country. ...
>
> [5] or allowing Australia, the world's biggest per-capita emitter
> of carbon dioxide due to its heavy reliance on coal, to opt out of
> participation - like they did with Kyoto. (Or allowing them to
> increase their emissions by 8% as they could have if they had
> agreed to sign on to Kyoto). Almost 850 coal-fired energy plants
> ---planned by: China (562), by India (213) and by the U.S. (72)
> --- over the next few years will pump an estimated five times more
> carbon dioxide into the air than Kyoto would have removed.
>
> What a joke! The number of dumb clucks in the United States will
> be confirmed (since last November) when we soon get to see how
> many will agree to having their taxes raised to fund "saving the
> planet" - leaving the above-named countries laughing all the way to
> the bank.

So, we should oppose what China did at the AR4 meeting? Fine with me.
At the AR4 meeting they tried unsuccessfully to "tone down" the
consensus concerning anthropogenic global warming as very likely and
deny that CO2 forcing was 5X larger than solar forcing. Here's a
description of this by New Scientist:

> One delegate told me they spent 10 hours discussing one sentence,
> which was eventually dropped from the report on request of the
> Chinese delegation. The dropped sentence noted that the warming
> effect of man-made greenhouse gasses was five times that of solar
> irradiance – a fact that climate sceptics have used in the past to
> argue that changes in the climate are due to natural factors. A bar
> graph, still in the report (see left), suggests human factors may
> in fact be 10 times more important than solar activity.
>
> Another bone of contention was the sentence saying that human
> activities were "very likely" responsible for warming global
> temperatures. China and Saudi Arabia asked that "very likely" (90%
> probability) be replaced by "likely" (66%) - effectively keeping
> the same conclusion as the last IPCC report, in 2001.
>
> The suggestion was resisted by New Zealand, UK, Norway,
> Switzerland, Argentina, US, France, Canada, Australia, Germany,
> Austria, Japan, Kenya, Sweden, and the scientists. Not much of a
> chance of winning there, then. As a consolation prize, a footnote
> was added: "consideration of remaining uncertainty is based on
> current methodologies." (I leave it to you to decide what that means.)

You were so big on political manipulation of the scientific report.
It was the Chinese and the Saudis who wanted to tone down the
results. They were the political manipulators. But, you are stuck on
Kyoto and that's so last week. On 16 February an agreement in
principle was reached for the components of the Kyoto followup. The
meeting had heavy US representation including Senator McCain. Neo-con
Paul Wolfowitz representing the World Bank was also in attendance.
What was one of the principles? Emission targets for all countries.
What about those exempted by Kyoto? Let's see, what other countries
were there? Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa. China
announced last Tuesday that they would seek to reduce CO2 by 10% over
the next five years.

> Because we're a coal dominant country, we have to take
> responsibility for lowering greenhouse emissions," said Zhang, an
> unusual admission for a Chinese official. He added: "China plans to
> reduce its energy consumption per unit of gross domestic product
> (GDP) by 20% by 2010."

Now I trust China about as far as I can throw it and their pollution
control effectiveness so far has been poor. But, your issue is with
others and not China itself. Everything points to the concern about
climate change being genuine and not an oblique attempt at wealth
transfer.

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Received on Sun Feb 18 21:55:46 2007