Global warming: Antarctica isn’t melting — it’s actually gaining ice

[Baruch]

I read the thing about the Antarctic yesterday.  While I was surprised, it is not out of line with other predictions about localized changes that are a part of global warming.  I remember hearing someone on NPR saying they thought global warming was a misleading term, and a better name would be global meteorological chaos.  If everything warmed 2 degrees, and that was the end of it, it wouldn't seem like a big deal.  Unfortunately, that's not the end of it.  I talked with an oceanographer from Canada one time, who believed changes in ocean currents will be the big problem caused by that 2 degrees.

Ocean currents are important (El Ninyo and La Ninya) ... and the Gulf Stream determines N Hemisphere ice ages.  Ultimately, if environmental temperature rises too high, then the core temperature of animals will be too high, like 110 degrees, and all the animals die (who are not kept indoors in air conditioning).  That would pretty much end it all.  People are struggling to survive outside in 115 degree weather ... and for good reason.  If that was the normal temperature 24x7 ... we would not survive outside.

[trdsf]

I read the thing about the Antarctic yesterday.  While I was surprised, it is not out of line with other predictions about localized changes that are a part of global warming.  I remember hearing someone on NPR saying they thought global warming was a misleading term, and a better name would be global meteorological chaos.  If everything warmed 2 degrees, and that was the end of it, it wouldn't seem like a big deal.  Unfortunately, that's not the end of it.  I talked with an oceanographer from Canada one time, who believed changes in ocean currents will be the big problem caused by that 2 degrees.

That's exactly the problem with the phrase.  The long term trend is toward warming, but the near term effects are instability in the natural cycles that moderate planetary weather -- so summers are hotter, winters are colder, hurricanes are stronger, etc.  The more correct phrase is anthropogenic climate change.

And you're right about the ocean currents.  It's theorized that if the Gulf Stream shuts down, that may be the trigger of a new ice age -- not much Toronto, Chicago and New York (to say nothing of London, Paris, all of Scandinavia, and vast tracts of Russia) can do about an advancing mile-thick sheet of ice.

[Baruch]

That's exactly the problem with the phrase.  The long term trend is toward warming, but the near term effects are instability in the natural cycles that moderate planetary weather -- so summers are hotter, winters are colder, hurricanes are stronger, etc.  The more correct phrase is anthropogenic climate change.

And you're right about the ocean currents.  It's theorized that if the Gulf Stream shuts down, that may be the trigger of a new ice age -- not much Toronto, Chicago and New York (to say nothing of London, Paris, all of Scandinavia, and vast tracts of Russia) can do about an advancing mile-thick sheet of ice.

Don't worry, investment banks will sell derivative financial instruments on all this, and make lots of money ;-)