I heard on "Democracy Now" that the Nepalese are having villages wash away by heavy rains because, well, they used to get snow. Must be a left wing conspiratorial lie according to many folk who believe climate change to be a lie.
I am bringing this issue to the forefront again because on a previous post, "Climate Change Ain't Real?" kk posted a comment that Antarctic ice is on the increase, and thus, I looked it up on one of them there internet thingys and came up with this:
Objection: Sure, sea ice is shrinking in the Arctic, but it is growing in the Antarctic. Sounds like natural fluctuations that balance out in the end.
Answer: Overall, it is true that sea ice in the Antarctic is increasing.
Around the peninsula, where there is a lot of warming [PDF], the ice is retreating. This is the area of the recent and dramatic Larsen B and Ross ice shelf breakups.
But the rest of the continent has not shown any clear warming or cooling and sea ice has increased over the last decade or so.
This is not actually a big surprise.
In fact, it is completely in line with model expectations that CO2-dominated forcing will have a disproportionately large effect in the north. The reasons lie in the much larger amount of land in the northern hemisphere and the fact that the ocean's thermal inertia and ability to mix delay any temperature signal from the ongoing absorption of heat. The local geography also plays a dominating role. The circumpolar current acts as a buffer preventing warm water from the tropics from transporting heat to the South Pole, a buffer that does not exist in the north. You can read some more details about that here.
Does it "balance out" in the end? Not really. Sea ice in the Arctic is reaching dramatic record lows. There are other components of the cryosphere that we can look at as well, permafrost, the Greenland ice sheet, global glacier mass, and these all carry the Global Warming signal.
One must look at the balance of evidence, not just those bits one likes. And this balance is clearly in agreement with all other indicators that warming is real and rapid.
So all you climate change deniers best get your butts over to Copenhagen and expose the lies them there indigenous folk are spreading around about their subsistence being damaged because of climate change. It must be their own damned faults, right? Maybe there were doing too many drugs are they are a buncha alcoholics maybe, you think? Maybe they ate some hallucinogens and dreamed it all because deniers say climate change is a lie because Rush, Hannity, and Colmes have told them so, and we all know them good ole white guys (except Hannity, being Irish, which wasn't considered white by white folk until recently) don't need to back up anything they say with facts. In that way, they is like duh Pope!
And again, reality check...Why where there those meetings in Japan and Brazil prior to this one in Copenhagen? If it is a lie, why the heck is the U.S. government wasting our tax dollars on going to these things? Why did the U.S. fix it so developing nations have to take the brunt of the climate change issue? Of course, we all know the U.S. government doesn't want to take any responsibility for its actions, especially those that are criminal, or worse yet, may reduce the wealth of a billion by $.25. Why, climate change deniers, is the U.S. government wasting our tax dollars on a lie instead of just handing our money over to billionaires like they did the bankers? Why?
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