Al Gore and Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs Jonas Gahr Støre present their global report on melting ice at the COP15 Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.
Also with Danish Minister of Foreign Affairs Per Stig Møller and Greenland Premier Kuupik Kleist and Dorthe Dahl-Jensen. Dr. Bob Carell presents the summary of the report.
Bio
Gro Harlem Brundtland
Gro Harlem Brundtland was the prime minister of Norway in 1981, 1986-1989, and 1990-1996. From 2007-2009, she served as the UN special envoy on climate change. Dr. Brundtland was secretary general of the World Health Organization from 1998-2003. In 1983, the UN Secretary-General invited her to establish and chair the World Commission on Environment and Development (the Brundtland Commission), which published its report, Our Common Future, in April 1987. Before she began her political career, Dr. Brundtland spent ten years as a physician and scientist in the Norwegian public health system. She attended medical school at the University of Oslo and earned her master’s of public health from Harvard University.
Bob Corell
Robert W. Corell, Vice President, is on a leave of absence from the Heinz Center through January 2010. He joined the Center as Global Change Director in December 2006. Before coming to The Heinz Center, Dr. Corell served as a Senior Policy Fellow at the Policy Program of the American Meteorological Society and an Affiliate of the Washington Advisory Group. He recently completed an appointment that began in January 2000 as a Senior Research Fellow in the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. Dr. Corell is actively engaged in research concerned with the sciences of global change and the interface between science and public policy, particularly research activities that are focused on global and regional climate change, related environmental issues, and science to facilitate understanding of vulnerability and sustainable development. He co-chairs an international strategic planning group that is developing a strategy designed to harness science, technology, and innovation for sustainable development, serves as the Chair of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, counsels as Senior Science Advisor to ManyOne.Net, and is Chair of the Board of the Digital Universe Foundation. Dr. Corell was Assistant Director for Geosciences at the National Science Foundation where he had oversight for the Atmospheric, Earth, and Ocean Sciences and the global change programs of the National Science Foundation (NSF). He was also a professor and academic administrator at the University of New Hampshire. Dr. Corell is an oceanographer and engineer by background and training, having received Ph.D., M.S., and B.S. degrees at Case Western Reserve University and MIT.
Dorthe Dahl-Jensen
Dorthe Dahl-Jensen is professor of ice physics at The Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen. She is head of the Centre for Ice and Climate, where researchers focus on ice core data as the key to understanding the climate of the past, present and future. She also manages Danish International Polar Year's ice core drilling programme NEEM (North Greenland Eemian Ice Drilling) on the Greenland ice sheet, a programme involving researchers from 14 nations. Dorthe Dahl-Jensen's research concerns reconstructing climate on the basis of ice core data and developing ice flow models with special focus on the development of the ice cap during previous warm climate periods.
Albert Arnold Gore Jr.
Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr. was the forty-fifth Vice President of the United States, serving from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton.
Before that, Vice President Gore served in the U. S. House of Representatives (1977-85) and the U. S. Senate (1985-93), representing Tennessee.
A prominent environmental activist, he shares the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change."
Gore was the Democratic nominee for president in the 2000 election in which he won the popular vote by a plurality. A legal controversy over the Florida election recount, ultimately settled in favor of George W. Bush by the Supreme Court, made the election one of the most controversial in American history.
Today, Gore is chairman of the American television channel Current TV, chairman of Generation Investment Management, a director on the board of Apple Inc., an unofficial adviser to Google's senior management, and chairman of the Alliance for Climate Protection.
He recently joined venture capital firm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, to head that firm's climate change solutions group.
Kuupik Kleist
Jakob Edvard Kuupik Kleist is a Socialist and Left-wing Greenlandic politician. He became the fifth Prime Minister of Greenland in 2009.
Per Stig Moller
Per Stig Moller is the current Foreign Minister of Denmark. He has been a member of Folketinget (the Danish national parliament) for the Conservative People's Party since 1984, and was Minister for the Environment from December 18, 1990 to January 24, 1993 as part of the Cabinet of Poul Schluter IV and Foreign Minister from November 27, 2001 as part of the Cabinet of Anders Fogh Rasmussen I, II and III.
Jonas Gahr Store
Jonas Gahr Store is the Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs, having been appointed to Jens Stoltenberg's third cabinet on 20 October 2009. He represents the Norwegian Labour Party.
Former Vice President Al Gore references new computer modeling to suggest that the north polar ice cap may lose virtually all of its ice within the next seven years.
"Some of the models suggest that there is a 75 percent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during some of the summer months, could be completely ice-free within the next five to seven years," says Gore.
Increase in the global average surface temperature resulting from enhancement of the greenhouse effect, primarily by air pollution. In 2007 the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change forecasted that by 2100 global average surface temperatures would increase 3.2–7.2 °F (1.8–4.0 °C), depending on a range of scenarios for greenhouse gas emissions, and stated that it was now 90 percent certain that most of the warming observed over the previous half century could be attributed to greenhouse gas emissions produced by human activities (i.e., industrial processes and transportation). Many scientists predict that such an increase in temperature would cause polar ice caps and mountain glaciers to melt rapidly, significantly raising the levels of coastal waters, and would produce new patterns and extremes of drought and rainfall, seriously disrupting food production in certain regions. Other scientists maintain that such predictions are overstated. The 1992 Earth Summit and the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change attempted to address the issue of global warming, but in both cases the efforts were hindered by conflicting national economic agendas and disputes between developed and developing nations over the cost and consequences of reducing emissions of greenhouse gases.
(born March 31, 1948, Washington, D.C., U.S.) U.S. politician. He was the son of Albert Gore, who served in the U.S. Senate from Tennessee. After graduating from Harvard University, he briefly attended divinity school before serving in the Vietnam War as a military reporter (1969–71). He worked as a reporter for The Tennessean in Nashville (1971–76) while attending first divinity school and then law school at Vanderbilt University. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives (1977–85) and later the Senate (1985–93). A moderate Democrat, he was Bill Clinton's vice presidential running mate in 1992 and served two terms (1993–2001) as vice president under Clinton. As the Democratic presidential nominee in 2000, he won over 500,000 more popular votes than Republican George W. Bush but narrowly lost the electoral vote (271–266). Gore subsequently devoted much of his time to environmental issues, and his 2006 film on global warming, An Inconvenient Truth, won an Academy Award for best documentary. For his environmental work, he received, with the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the 2007 Nobel Prize for Peace. In 2007 he also earned an Emmy Award for creative achievement in interactive television for Current TV, a user-generated-content channel he cofounded in 2005.
We can get off most fossil fuels within 20-30 years if we put a concerted effort into solar, wind, fuel cells, electric cars, algae biofuels, and new nuclear technologies.
We also need a new national smart power grid to move electricity.
We can use a carbon tax on fossil fuels to pay for it, and it'll provide millions of JOBS that can't be exported.
Europe & China are ALREADY doing this and America will lose out in future green energy technologies, if we don't.
We owe it to our grandchildren.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Guy
The evidence is conflicting and confusing. It is comprised of a series of half truths. Gore says that in five years the ice caps will disappear in summer. It is conjecture based on fallacy. Other, so called, authorities speak of sea level rise of 2 millimeters per year: others say that we will have a meter rise in sea level before the end of the century. A millimenter of sea level rise is a rediculous. Sea level is not measured in millimeters thats an impossibility. Sea level is measured in feet e.g. the difference between the Caribbean and the Pacific Ocean is 22 feet. I challenge any expert to interpolate 2 millimeners of sea rise in either the Caribbean and or the Pacific.
This is a very good point.
Another very good point I have heard is that "dirty ice" may impact melting.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ProxyAmenRa
I am a pretty optimistic guy. It is reasonable to assume that more sea ice would melt in the summer period due to higher temperatures from the 1970's onwards.
Well, you've certainly said one thing that we can agree on: as temperature goes up, more ice melts. As a matter of fact, you're not going to find too many people who dispute that "assumption" - try Richard Lindzen, though!
But that this seems to make you optimistic suggests that you don't yet see the potential consequences.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ProxyAmenRa
If we extrapolate the trend it would take roughly 40 years for the entire of the sea ice to melt. If the Arctic ice sheet did not entirely melt during the 300 year period of the medieval warming where temperatures in that region were 1 degrees Celsius warmer than today I think it is safe to assume it won't during this warm period.
1) Your math for the rate of disappearance of sea ice depends on the assumption that the amount of ice is equivalent to the surface area, but in fact the surface area rebound of 2008 was accompanied by a LOSS of overall volume (don't have numbers yet for 2009). There has been drastic thinning in the last four years (by 22.2"), and a reduction by 40% of multi-year ice in February. (These data are from ICEsat measurements). I don't think that I need to argue for the precedence of volume over surface area.
2) Your math also depends on no positive feedback supervention; but that is a difficult assumption to support, since we know that dark, iceless water absorbs more heat.
3) You yourself have reminded us that the sun also forces the climate; in fact we are apparently at a hundred-year low for solar activity, despite the fact that there has been a drastic reduction of Arctic sea ice. But the solar cycle, while variable, has predictably shown a ten- to twelve-year period, so it would be surprising if there were not a steady increase in solar irradiance over the next few years, with a concomitant increase in forcing.
4) The drastic reduction in ice volume has also occurred in spite of mild to strong La Nina conditions. We appear to be moving into the El Nino phase, which predictably accompanies (or causes, whatever it is) warmer temperatures globally.
5) Meanwhile, we are increasing the concentrations of greenhouse gases. If you believe that there is no forcing from them, God bless you, but at this point that looks naive, or else in denial.
I think that you're going out on a limb with your apparently confident claim about the MWP, since there is reasonable disagreement about whether the numbers apply worldwide, or indeed what the numbers are; as I understand it the data are not from the Arctic as you claim, but in any case, and in the real world, your theory of the robustness of the sea ice there is testable and is being tested. Give me a call in, shall we say, five to seven years?
More fundamentally, the problem of sea ice doesn't suddenly begin when it disappears completely; the warmer water that we have now threatens to disintegrate the tongues of ice of the Greenland Ice Sheet that project into the water, which prevent glacial flow into the ocean by buttressing the glaciers. I take it you watched the video that we are commenting on (!): the news there is that the IPCC report was too conservative in its prediction of Greenland melt.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ProxyAmenRa
I like to reiterate that climate is a chaotic system. It seems like we are at the mercy of the sun.
This is a contradiction. If the sun is forcing the climate, then there is one element, at least, that is not chaotic - that is to say, that is driving the chaotic elements of climate in a definite direction. And in fact the sun is one among several elements that force the climate, including greenhouse gases, aerosols, volcanoes, and ozone (and solar irradiance increases ozone, so these elements interact to some extent). The forcing from greenhouse gases and ozone appears to be substantial, and substantially more than the sun itself (though your Dr. Lindzen certainly has his reservations about how much they participate).
Quote:
Originally Posted by ProxyAmenRa
There was a good paper by Professor Richard Lindzen but I would like to review the subject further. I distrust the computer modeling used by the IPCC after reviewing the code produced at the CRU.
Dr. Lindzen, I believe, is performing a signal service with his critiques. He is exactly what climate science needs at this decisive moment: a gadfly. I think that his personality and personal psychology are irrelevant.
The IPCC modeling does indeed need tweaking, now that we've seen how conservative it was.
Thanks for engaging. After the last exchange I didn't think that I'd hear from you again, frankly. Nothing personal if I don't respond further; I've got to get on with other things. Good luck, and if you're working for an oil company I'd advise you to formulate an exit strategy, especially if you're in the southwest United States or live on the coast!
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Stephen Pare
Thanks for the link; I appreciate a discussion without name-calling and with a willingness to engage the facts.
On the contrary, the link you provide shows that the minima for 2008 and 2009 are both lower than any year except 2007; the drop has not by any stretch been, as you put it, "mitigated". If you look at all the data from 1979 on, there is an unmistakeable downward trend; it is only in 2007 that "the bottom falls out." The partial recovery in 2008 and 09 only brings the minimum up to about 3.5 million square km. This is not cause for optimism.
In the ten years previous to that the average was over 4; from 1979 to 1988 the average was over 5. Note the scale; there's just a lot less ice in the summer than there used to be. I would remind you that it is the amount of summer (minimum) ice that is at issue, since it is then that a warmer Arctic Ocean poses a threat to the Greenland land ice.
It should concern us greatly that this has happened in spite of a prolonged solar minimum. Given its 10-12 year cycle, the sun is due for increased activity sometime soon.
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I am a pretty optimistic guy. It is reasonable to assume that more sea ice would melt in the summer period due to higher temperatures from the 1970's onwards. The raw data does not particularly concern me to alarm. If we extrapolate the trend it would take roughly 40 years for the entire of the sea ice to melt. If the Arctic ice sheet did not entirely melt during the 300 year period of the medieval warming where temperatures in that region were 1 degrees Celsius warmer than today I think it is safe to assume it won't during this warm period. I like to reiterate that climate is a chaotic system. It seems like we are at the mercy of the sun.
I read your comment before about non-scientists and I was wondering would a phd engineer, majors in chemical and environmental engineering with four years industry experience be sufficient to enter this debate?
Here is a link of 140 scientists with their credentials that dispute: http://www.copenhagenclimatechalleng...=article&id=64
I was wondering; do you have any idea where I can view papers and the data corresponding to experimentally deduced carbon dioxide absorptivity relating to its concentration?
There was a good paper by Professor Richard Lindzen but I would like to review the subject further. I distrust the computer modeling used by the IPCC after reviewing the code produced at the CRU.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ProxyAmenRa
If you would take the time to look at this graph ( http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosph...rrent.area.jpg ) posted on the cryosphere website you would notice that the loss of sea ice during 2007 has been mitigated by the increase in the amount of sea ice in 2008 and 2009.
Thanks for the link; I appreciate a discussion without name-calling and with a willingness to engage the facts.
On the contrary, the link you provide shows that the minima for 2008 and 2009 are both lower than any year except 2007; the drop has not by any stretch been, as you put it, "mitigated". If you look at all the data from 1979 on, there is an unmistakeable downward trend; it is only in 2007 that "the bottom falls out." The partial recovery in 2008 and 09 only brings the minimum up to about 3.5 million square km. This is not cause for optimism.
In the ten years previous to that the average was over 4; from 1979 to 1988 the average was over 5. Note the scale; there's just a lot less ice in the summer than there used to be. I would remind you that it is the amount of summer (minimum) ice that is at issue, since it is then that a warmer Arctic Ocean poses a threat to the Greenland land ice.
It should concern us greatly that this has happened in spite of a prolonged solar minimum. Given its 10-12 year cycle, the sun is due for increased activity sometime soon.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by LindaI
“The sea ice around the (Antarctic)continent is far above average (ref. UIUC). Also, note the colder than average sea surface temperatures around Antarctic (ref. NOAA). If the media is going to discuss the Wilkens Ice Shelf, they should also discuss this other data. The expansion of the sea ice coverage implies a cooling.”
The news media should indeed discuss the other data, though the breakups of the Wilkins Ice Shelf (which, by the way, is the size of Connecticut; also by the way, it's not "Wilkens") and also the Larsen B Ice Shelf are naturally dramatic, and drama is usually judged more newsworthy.
Your source's claim that "The sea ice around the (Antarctic)continent is far above average (ref. UIUC)" is not supported by a reasonable interpretation of the data. Simply citing UIUC doesn't help much without a link, by the way.
Here's a more useful link for you: http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/daily.html (from the National Snow and Ice Data Center). What this shows is that there is no discernible trend in 30 years; February (end of summer) 2009 sea ice is about where it was in 1979, and close to the 30-year mean - definitely NOT "far above average". Your source might be referring to the increase of summer 2008 (still not "far above average" though); but it was back down again in 2009.
That might sound like good news, but it's not. From 2007, succinct and comprehensible for non-scientists like yourself:
http://www.jsg.utexas.edu/walse/statement.html
The Amundsen Sea Embayment is one of the three basins for ice drainage in the WAIS. Both the grounded ice sheet and the ice shelf are thinning. This may explain why the water is still cold, since ice is melting off the ice shelf. Dr. Hansen claims that the loss is on the order of 100 cubic km per year; I can't tell where that number comes from, but it's likely from the work of Dr. Rignot at JPL, whom he cites. Get back to us if you find a different number.
While you're at it you should look up Chris Rapley, director of the British Antarctic Survey. Here's a readable start:
http://www.innovations-report.com/ht...ort-55525.html
Quote:
Originally Posted by LindaI
More than 30,000 scientists worldwide have dissented "anthropogenic" climate change.
Who are these 30,000? If you can count them, on what list are they to be found? Tell you what, pick 30 of them and list them with their qualifications and links to their work.
Quote:
Originally Posted by LindaI
The Copenhagen Conference is no more than than an attempt at a "world political governance" complete with blame and taxes. Pay attention, sheeple.
You're not going to persuade a lot of people by calling them "sheeple". I'll be blunt: you sound condescending as hell. I'll go further: I don't like being called a follower by someone who doesn't show any grasp of the issue beyond vague claims of a secret army of dissenting scientists and a link to someone's blog with dubious scientific merit. I'm tempted to ask: Who's the sheep here?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Stephen Pare
The link that you provide does not support your claim; on the contrary. Especially startling is the 2007 video of the Arctic sea ice collapse.
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If you would take the time to look at this graph ( http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosph...rrent.area.jpg ) posted on the cryosphere website you would notice that the loss of sea ice during 2007 has been mitigated by the increase in the amount of sea ice in 2008 and 2009.
@RMarkey
"1. Gore did NOT say the ice caps will disappear--he said that Dr Maslowsky feels that there is a 75% chance that within the next 7 years the North Polar icecap will be Ice Free."
This Dr Maslowsky later said publicly that Gore misquoted him.
"2. EVEN IF the data for Global Warming is questionable, ie, does not paint a simple Black and White picture that so many would like (like: Smoking causes cancer), the corollary FACTS are unambiguous:
A. Air pollution is NOT conducive to health.
B. Water pollution kills life in the foodchain.
C. Humans are a dependent life form in the web of life on earth.
D. Pesticide and "antibiotic" resistance is growing in species.
E. Arctic habitats changing more radically today than in ANYONE's memory."
I agree we need to stop polluting the planet but:
CO2 the gas that Gore want to restrict is not a pollutant but a natural essential part of the atmosphere. It is NOT harmful to humans or animals and is essential to plant growth and for proper respiration of mammals (which includes us).
This Climate change SCAM is very dangerous for our environment as it would divert huge resources towards limiting a harmless essential gas and away from tackling the REAL pollutants.
If you cannot see that, I think it's you who should leave.
