Naked Science Forum
Life Sciences => The Environment => Topic started by: Hadrian on 10/05/2006 19:37:24
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Aftenposten: Wednesday May 10 2006
http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article1294039.ece
Svalbard temperature soaring
April measurements for arctic Svalbard have produced three records and the monthly average this year is likely to be an all time high.
On Tuesday the web site for the Norwegian Meteorological Institute announced that the monthly temperature for April on Svalbard will smash previous measurements.
Temperatures of 7.5C (45.5F) in Longyearbyen, 6.6C (44F) on Bjørnøya were record highs and just before midnight a mark of 6.3C (43.3F) was registered on Ny-Ålesund, another record.
The mark of 7.5C is the highest temperature measured on Svalbard since measurements began in 1912. The prognosis for the rest of the month predicts more mild weather.
What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.
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Well, I think this is interesting stuff. It is an example of a temperature measurement which supports the reality of the global warming phenomenon. Taken as an isolated event, it could be a freak occurence. Taken as one example of tens of thousands of measurements over several decades, it is not really something that can be debated. Global warming is here.
Of course it is possible to argue that scientists are misinterpreting and exagerating and mystifying the data simply as a way to line up more grant money. Possible, but not very sensible. When your team of doctors suggests that heart surgery is necesary to save your life, do you thank them for their opinion but decline their offer on the grounds that the surgery was suggested solely as a way for them to make money? No? I suggest that this goofy denial mechanism is at work with global warming. We do not wish to adjust our lifestyles in North America to take action against global warming. Therefore we hold onto outdated beliefs and choices that make inevitable the fact that our great grandkids will have to make serious adjustments to their lifestyles in order to survive. Goodbye Greenland ice sheet.
chris wiegard
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quote:
Originally posted by VAlibrarian
Well, I think this is interesting stuff. It is an example of a temperature measurement which supports the reality of the global warming phenomenon. Taken as an isolated event, it could be a freak occurence. Taken as one example of tens of thousands of measurements over several decades, it is not really something that can be debated. Global warming is here.
Since we have had three and a half centuries of rising temperatures, I don't think there is any doubt that it continues to rise.
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When your team of doctors suggests that heart surgery is necesary to save your life, do you thank them for their opinion but decline their offer on the grounds that the surgery was suggested solely as a way for them to make money? No? I suggest that this goofy denial mechanism is at work with global warming. We do not wish to adjust our lifestyles in North America to take action against global warming.
The problem is not that we know that we need a heart operation. The problem is closer to a situation where you know the patient has had a stroke, but strokes can be caused by blood clots, or by haemorrhage, and the treatment for one can be fatal if the cause is the other.
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Goodbye Greenland ice sheet.
The Vikings would have been overjoyed at that scenario – since it was the expansion of those ice sheets that destroyed their colonies in that region of the world . Alas, the retreat of the ice sheet comes too late for them, as they were driven from Greenland around 1350.
George
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Well, I fail to see how reducing the amount of coal and petroleum consumed in North America would be fatal to anyone. It might result in a brief recession, but the economy would roar back as it did in the 1980s when conservation and improved efficiency took hold.
As to the unfortunate Norse who were frozen out of Greenland- they would have been fine if they had converted their lifestyle to that of the local Inuit people. In any event, that was then and this is now. It might be nice to have Greenland warmer, but not at the price of having Africa and India hotter than they are already, plus having Bangladesh disappear under the Indian Ocean. A few scientists may argue that global warming will produce as many winners as losers, but most see it as a net loss to human survival.
chris wiegard