bbauska wrote:Just stating that both ice caps are fluctuating and have been for all times. Can we agree that they do fluctuate?

danivon wrote:

bbauska wrote:Just stating that both ice caps are fluctuating and have been for all times. Can we agree that they do fluctuate?

Yes. Did you read the article I linked to that shows that below such fluctuations there is a clear trend?

rickyp wrote:http://climate.nasa.gov/interactives/climate-time-machine

really cool. and really informative.

Some of it is cool. The temperature gage seems more manipulative than informative; basically the planet goes from blue to red because of a 4 degree temerpature change

In response to
in 1990, as the debate over climate change was heating up, a dissident shareholder petitioned the board of Exxon, one of the world’s largest oil companies, imploring it to develop a plan to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from its production plants and facilities.]The board’s response: Exxon had studied the science of global warming and concluded it was too murky to warrant action. The company’s “examination of the issue supports the conclusions that the facts today and the projection of future effects are very unclear.”
Yet in the far northern regions of Canada’s Arctic frontier, researchers and engineers at Exxon and Imperial Oil were quietly incorporating climate change projections into the company’s planning and closely studying how to adapt the company’s Arctic operations to a warming planet.
Ken Croasdale, senior ice researcher for Exxon’s Canadian subsidiary, was leading a Calgary-based team of researchers and engineers that was trying to determine how global warming could affect Exxon’s Arctic operations and its bottom line.
Top, the loss of sea ice due to climate change has taken a toll on wildlife. (Mike Lockhart / U.S. Geological Survey, Associated Press) Bottom, rapidly thawing permafrost is changing the landscape in Canada’s Northwest Territories. (Scott Zolkos / The Canadian Press)
“Certainly any major development with a life span of say 30-40 years will need to assess the impacts of potential global warming,” Croasdale told an engineering conference in 1991. “This is particularly true of Arctic and offshore projects in Canada, where warming will clearly affect sea ice, icebergs, permafrost and sea levels.

danivon wrote:http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/mar/26/collapse-antarcticas-glaciers-ice-melt-sooner-than-thought-scientists-warn

More from Antarctica.

The trends over the last 40 years are the most accurate we can measure, the trends over the last 200 are still pointing towards change.

According a study, published in the journal Nature, collapsing Antarctic ice sheets are expected to double sea-level rise to two metres by 2100, if carbon emissions are not cut.

Previously, only the passive melting of Antarctic ice by warmer air and seawater was considered but the new work added active processes, such as the disintegration of huge ice cliffs.

Until now, researchers have believed the oceans rose between 0.7 to 1mm per year due to thermal expansion.

But a fresh look at the latest satellite data from 2002 to 2014 shows the seas are expanding about 1.4mm a year, said the study.

“To date, we have underestimated how much the heat-related expansion of the water mass in the oceans contributes to a global rise in sea level,” said co-author Jurgen Kusche, a professor at the University of Bonn.

The analysis of satellite data, led by Yale University, found that clouds have much more liquid in them, rather than ice, than has been assumed until now. Clouds with ice crystals reflect more solar light than those with liquid in them, stopping it reaching and heating the Earth’s surface.

The underestimation of the current level of liquid droplets in clouds means that models showing future warming are misguided, says the paper, published in Science. It also found that fewer clouds will change to a heat-reflecting state in the future – due to CO2 increases – than previously thought, meaning that warming estimates will have to be raised.

ExxonMobil's claim last week in a Texas court that the First Amendment bars an attorney general's investigation into its history of climate denial is probably a loser.
Big Tobacco tried to use the First Amendment defense to shield itself when the U.S. Department of Justice sued the cigarette makers for conspiring to mislead the public about smoking's dangers under the federal racketeering law or RICO.
ExxonMobil raised the First Amendment defense when it sued in Tarrant County, Texas on April 13th. It argued that a subpoena by the attorney general of the Virgin Islands charging it with violating the V.I.'s Criminally Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, its version of RICO (the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act), is politically-motivated and should be quashed as a violation of ExxonMobil's constitutional right to participate "in ongoing public deliberations about climate change..."
But federal courts came to a simple conclusion: The constitution doesn't protect fraud.
That was the opinion of the judge who tried the government's RICO case, and of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, the nation's second highest court, which issued a scathing opinion upholding the trial judge's ruling that Big Tobacco's long history of denial of cigarettes' lethality was a deliberate lie intended to defraud the public and therefore not protected speech.
"Of course, it is well settled that the First Amendment does not protect fraud," the appeals court noted.

Doctor Fate wrote:Question: how many times do the models have to be wrong before you chicken littles will admit scientists "don't know" precisely what the effects of CO2 are?

Furthermore, how is it that the Earth has been warmer than it is now? So how do you then take CO2 and force a formula of "correlation equals causation" upon it?

But, you want to deal in caricatures. Conservatives "want" dirty air and dirty water.

That's why there can't be a serious discussion. You all are hysterical and the slightest bit of calm offends you.