Lunchtime, but be back later....
John, I'm sorry the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP/GRID-A) quoted text from my link was confusing for you. I have to say that your reply is confusing to me. Maybe tonight I can look at it closer.
Canuck,
The title to this thread mentions "climate," not "global warming." Since the Arctic is a major terrestrial influence on our climate....
Why am I talking about the Arctic?
Just to make it clear, it was not I who said "please don't quote any ice core data". That was RicS.
...and then you go on for 3 long paragraphs to repeat the lot of blogospheric, out-of-context, anectodal speculation on ice-core problems;
as if all of that stuff hasn't been thought of and already addressed in the scientific community.
>see:
http://www.scienceagogo.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=27013#Post27013...and then JMR goes on to make a seemingly significant claim, with several links, about the Arctic.
Why am I talking about the Arctic? Because everyone else is, it seems....
But if you'd like, we could talk about the 100+ Gigatonnes of yearly ice-loss in Antarctica;
or the close to 100 Gigatonnes of yearly ice-loss from the world's mountain glaciers;
or why some glaciers are advancing, even while losing ice mass.
...or CO2, or some other complex facet of climate change...?
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Oh, I see you've again pulled out that old, uiuc.edu "area.withtrend" chestnut.
Does this make seven different Topics that graph has been cited on; or is it only five?
I know I've commented before on how lame that graph is. What is it supposed to show; that it plots a reversal in global warming over the last few months?
The last few months!? Talk about cherry picking....
...and it's not a reversal; it's a slowing of the increased melting relative to last year.
But from this site that you (and ImranCan, and JLowe, and JMR) have cited....
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/"You've heard Al Gore comment that the "Earth has a fever"? It may also have major tooth decay. The 40Mb animation at the left shows the dramatic loss of multiyear sea ice over the past year. Multiyear sea ice is older and generally thicker ice - sea ice that has survived at least one melt season (shown in brighter white)."
Unfortunately, the current "extent" of ice cover is increasingly composed of "first-year" ice; and not the multi-year ice that gives stability to the ice-cap.
As I recall, I was chided for introducing "complexity" into the question, when I tried to talk about more than "ice extent," the last time this old chestnut was resurrected.
Can you find any graphs of increasing ice mass (perhaps E. Antarctica)?
