Outright Fraud
Look, this kind of story should, in a rational world, act to discredit the entire global warming scare-mongers. Because it flat-out makes no sense at all. This is probably the most insane credulousness on the part of a of a reporter I have ever seen. This bull is stated as a flat set of facts and it never occurred to the reporter to even question the absurdity of the claims.
Ice mass snaps free from Canada's arctic
TORONTO - A giant ice shelf the size of 11,000 football fields has snapped free from Canada's Arctic, scientists said. The mass of ice broke clear 16 months ago from the coast of Ellesmere Island, about 497 miles south of the North Pole, but no one was present to see it in Canada's remote north. Scientists using satellite images later noticed that it became a newly formed ice island in just an hour and left a trail of icy boulders floating in its wake.
Warwick Vincent of Laval University, who studies Arctic conditions, traveled to the newly formed ice island and could not believe what he saw.
"This is a dramatic and disturbing event. It shows that we are loosing remarkable features of the Canadian North that have been in place for many thousands of years. We are crossing climate thresholds, and these may signal the onset of accelerated change ahead," Vincent said Thursday.
In 10 years of working in the region he has never seen such a dramatic loss of sea ice, he said.
The collapse was so powerful that earthquake monitors 155 miles away picked up tremors from it.
The Ayles Ice Shelf, roughly 41 square miles in area, was one of six major ice shelves remaining in Canada's Arctic.
Scientists say it is the largest event of its kind in Canada in 30 years and point their fingers at climate change as a major contributing factor.
"It is consistent with climate change," Vincent said, adding that the remaining ice shelves are 90 percent smaller than when they were first discovered in 1906. (Emphasis added).
It is the biggest event of its kind in 30 years? So there were as large or larger events back in 1976? And the ice shelves are only 10% of what they were 100 years ago? Then why are icebreakers still needed in the north? Why are there not tropical resorts in Greenland? The ice mass in question measures out to about 23 square miles. Big? Sure. Unprecedented? Not even close. Back only a few years scientists were saying that some of these large chunks of ice were badly overdue to be shed free. But the 90% thing should be a huge red flag. There is no way the North is only covered in 10% of the ice it was 100 years ago.
This is insane. No, this is fraud. Straight up fraud.
Environment, Junk Science | Gaius Thursday, 28 December , 2006
By anthony, Friday, 29 December , 2006 @ 12:42 am
hmm…
yes Gaius, your post really is an excellent example of ‘fraud. straight up fraud’, if not outright chicanery.
gotta say it’s clever how you try show how common the collapse of Canadian ice shelves is, by linking to a story about ice shelves in Antarctica. perhaps your more eagle-eyed readers will notice the hemispheric incongruity.
but the ice shelves in question were formerly known as the Ellesmere ice shelf, discovered by Robert Peary in 1906, their last major collapses ended in 1974 (32 years ago rather than 30), and they have indeed shrunk by 90% over the last century. for the record, the Ellesmere ice shelf is not, on its own, ‘the North’, as your post suggests.
the data which inspired the journalist’s ‘credulousness’ was released in 2000,and measured shelf area, thickness, and the temperature and salinity curves of the water over decades of observation. rather credible.
the true absurdity in all this is that you’ve chosen to compose such an off-base and factually deficient post on the very same day that the White House has acknowledged that Global Warming has gotten so bad it’s endangering the polar bear population of the Arctic…
By Finnegan, Friday, 29 December , 2006 @ 11:16 am
I have to say, I’ve read a lot of conservative blogs, and find most of them hard to stomach, but I’ve actually liked yours for being primarily fact-based and logical. I don’t always agree with your conclusions, but it seems like you take a pretty logical path to get to them. But this post strikes me as just a knee-jerk reaction. Scientific reports must be subject to scrutiny and attack, but your rebuttal seems to be devoid of any evidence-based argument. The report puts forward legitimate concerns that may or may not be proof of global warming, but I think it’s a pretty ridiculous stretch to argue that this story discredits global warming.
By Quilly Mammoth, Friday, 29 December , 2006 @ 12:08 pm
Did you know that some of that ice is almost three thousand years old! That’s what the story says. Though one must wonder what happened to the ice that _used_ to be there 3001 years ago.