# Arctic ice retreat 'accelerates' (BBC News)



## SN NewsCaster (Mar 5, 2007)

The Arctic Ocean could be largely ice free and open to shipping in the summer in as little as ten years' time, according to one of Britain's top polar specialists. 

More from BBC News...


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## Keltic Star (Jan 21, 2006)

SN NewsCaster said:


> The Arctic Ocean could be largely ice free and open to shipping in the summer in as little as ten years' time, according to one of Britain's top polar specialists.
> 
> More from BBC News...




Pigs will fly about the same time. 

In the meantime I would suggest that Peter Wadhams and his motley crew keep out of Canadian sovereign territory. There is no such thing as an Arctic route "North" of Canada.


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## J Boyde (Apr 7, 2005)

Interesting, NZ is getting over its coldest winter we have had for many years, and still getting havy dups of snow in the center of the north island. The two major glaceries in the south have both been advancing. The north might have been their ice decreasing, me, I still want the fire going to keep the place warm. 
Jim B


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## Lancastrian (Feb 8, 2006)

You have heard the BBC propaganda, now read the truth - http://wattsupwiththat.com/


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## Doug Shaw (Jan 20, 2006)

Sorry, Lancastrian.



> You have heard the BBC propaganda, now read the truth - http://wattsupwiththat.com/


I feel compelled to ask: when has a TV weatherman ever got a forecast correct? (Jester)

Regards
Doug


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## Lancastrian (Feb 8, 2006)

Good question. But at least this one covers all sides of the argument and uses real science rather than selected statistics. 
[=P]


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## Gareth Jones (Jul 13, 2007)

Lancastrian said:


> You have heard the BBC propaganda, now read the truth - http://wattsupwiththat.com/


 Yes, the BBC is so biased on this that I wonder who is turning the screws.

A few months ago the BBC reported on someone trying to Kayak as far north as possible to demonstrate the receding arctic ice. When the attempt was concluded, I watched very carefully the BBC news report. Every impression was given that the guy had actually got to the North pole. The BBC did not see fit to mention that the attempt was called off when the icebreaker which was clearing his passage got stuck!. The BBC did not also see fit to mention that in 1906 a Norwegian ON HIS OWN got about 70 miles further north than did this attempt. 

In a democracy it is very difficult for a government to remain popular and at the same time increase taxes - what a godsend this climate change business is - the chancellor can put his hand on his heart, announce he's saving the world, and tax us into the ground.


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## charles henry (May 18, 2008)

Having spent about five years in the Canadian arctic in latitudes north of
Frobisher and south of Alert ranging from Baffin island to the Yukon I have to agree that every spring a lot of the ice melted and turned into water. HOWEVER, come the fall for some reason or other all the water turned back into ice.

I am not a scientist but I believe it had something to do with warm weather in the summer and cold weather in the winter.

Been there - seen it
de chas


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## Lancastrian (Feb 8, 2006)

Sorry but such simple explanations are not acceptable. To have any credibility with the BBC, you must spend millions on computer modelling!


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## Doug Shaw (Jan 20, 2006)

It is easy to be a climate change sceptic if you live in the UK and other parts of the world untouched by the effects of global warming (?). Here we have had thirteen consecutive years of drought. We have been on water rationing for most of that time. We have had bush fires of a ferocity and extent previously unseen, and even at this early point in the season fires are already raging in several areas.

I don't pretend to have read all the information that has been produced on global warming. I don't even care if global warming is fact or fiction. I do, however, know that we cannot continue to exploit and pollute our planet in the way we do, and have been doing for generations.

The simple reality is that we have economic systems that are entirely reliant on growth. Accordingly, the world’s population is expanding at an unprecedented rate and with that expansion comes an exponential increase in the level of global pollution. It doesn’t take a scientist to understand that. Economics dictate our need for population expansion, while science endeavours to deal with the problems it causes.

Having grown up in Glasgow at a time when smogs were common, I am well aware of the results of atmospheric pollution. I well remember the lung-rotting, yellow-grey chemical soup that enveloped the city on so many occasions. At that time, almost every house had a coal fire and there were few restrictions on industry. Over time, restrictions imposed on the burning of coal and restrictions on what industry could release into the atmosphere meant an end to smogs in that city. However, Glasgow is only one city, and as other cities have become industrialised, they have become the new polluters. Think, for example, about Beijing before the Olympics.

As I say, I don’t care if global warming is fact or fiction. It simply doesn’t matter. If I go to our local park and look over the bay towards Melbourne, I can see, when the conditions are right, the yellow haze that envelopes the city. It’s a chemical cocktail born of the pollution created by burning fossil fuels including brown coal, one of the worst polluters of all.

No, it doesn’t matter if global warming is fact or fiction. We simply cannot continue to pollute the planet in the way we do.

Regards
Doug


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## spongebob (Dec 11, 2007)

You are spot on Doug, it all boils down to mankind's rapacious consumption of energy, in any form, to meet his ever growing demands for aspects of living that are in themselves injurious to the human being in the long term and not of necessity .
The world can rally round and bring this consumption and pollution under control and with a lot less effort than most of us think.
Look back to the British Clean Air Act of 1956 and the eventual cleaning up of London's atmosphere plus the lessening of the acidic rain fallout over the Black Forest.

Look back even further to the times when the Thames River was so polluted that the British Parliament could not sit for days on end.
It is claimed that mankind never knew of disease and pollution until he stopped being nomadic and set up a permanent camp that saw the ac***ulation of human waste and its accompaniments.
No one with stuff between their ears can deny climate change, it has been going on since and before the ice ages but the present world is hell bent of unnaturally accelerating it to our own detriment.
Get active, walk to the shops, wear a jersey if you are cold, find some shade if it is hot, think about it before you eat it,
It all helps

Bob


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## slick (Mar 31, 2006)

All,
"The bar to scientific progress is not ignorance, but illusory knowledge".


Yours aye,


Slick

PS Would someone explain to me the current lack of sunspots in the current cycle, thank you.


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## Doug Shaw (Jan 20, 2006)

slick



> Would someone explain to me the current lack of sunspots in the current cycle, thank you.


Well, there's this jet stream or solar current deep inside the sun. It's about 7,000 km below the surface. The sun generates new jet streams near its poles in each of its 11-year cycles. These jet streams migrate slowly from the solar poles to the solar equator. When a stream reaches the critical latitude of 22 degrees, new-cycle sunspots start to appear. In the current cycle, the jet stream has taken three years to cover a ten degree range compared to two years in the previous cycle. So, sunspot activity, though a year or so late, can be expected to increase within the next month or two.

Sorry, I'm taking the Mickey. I'm actually paraphrasing from research by Rachel Howe and Frank Hill of the National Solar Observatory (NSO) in Tucson, Arizona. Although mystery surrounds sunspot generation, the recent lack of activity is hardly a statistical anomaly.

It was Stephen Hawking who said: “The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance; it is the illusion of knowledge”.

Nowadays, much of our knowledge is derived from computer modelling. In turn, these computer predictions are the result of complex equations and algorithms. The problem is that ten different scientists can take the same information, create their equations, feed these into their computers and come up with ten different predictions. It is hardly surprising that the ordinary person has difficulty deciding which, if any, prediction is correct. As some consensus develops, nine out of the ten scientists might agree, but that does not mean that they are right; it merely increases the odds in their favour. The one scientist who is out of step might be the one whose computer modelling is most accurate.

How we, as individuals, view the predictions made by these scientists is complicated by factors such as our environment, personal experience and source of information. We cannot simply form our own opinions, because all the information is second or third hand. I have used slick’s question above to illustrate the point. We, as individuals, cannot measure solar vibrations, solar jet streams and solar surface temperatures. We cannot even show that solar vibrations and solar jet streams exist. We are not only reliant on scientists for the measurement of such things, but also for the scientists’ interpretation of the effect these have on the earth.

Climate change or global warming is not a certainty. The consensus is that it is happening and happening at an increasing rate. Yet, what scientists predict will happen over the next hundred years is not fact; it is neither knowledge nor even the illusion of knowledge. It is a probability, based on observation, but belief in the probability is not uniformly held. Yet, as a society we must acknowledge that we are not the ones who will be adversely affected should the predictions of global warming prove true. We must acknowledge that it will be our children, grandchildren and great grandchildren who will suffer the consequences. We must ask ourselves: are we really so uncaring that we would grudge a small increase in our cost of living to ensure the welfare of others? Do we not have a responsibility to future generations? Perhaps global warming is a myth, but do we have the right to ignore the risk that global warming entails? While these are questions that each individual must answer, they are also questions for society as a whole.

Regards
Doug


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## JoK (Nov 12, 2006)

Keltic Star said:


> Pigs will fly about the same time.
> 
> In the meantime I would suggest that Peter Wadhams and his motley crew keep out of Canadian sovereign territory. There is no such thing as an Arctic route "North" of Canada.



(Thumb) Right on KS. As long as it was ice and polar bears, there were only us on the breakers and the OBO going into LCI and Nanisivik up there. 
Now everyone seems to think it is theirs by right, just because they can get there. 
I wonder how much UNCLOS will shut this down.


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## ddraigmor (Sep 13, 2006)

I am a great sceptic in this whole global warming malarkey. I don't believe it - but I dio believe it is an excuse for the biggest con we have ever known - and we all know who profits!

Read this. This I believe makes sense.

http://www.spectator.co.uk/essays/a...osed-the-great-climate-change-con-trick.thtml

Reading Heaven And Earth is at once an enlightening and terrifying experience. Enlightening because, after the fruit offive years’ research, you are left in no doubt that man’s contribution to the thing they now call ‘climate change’ was, is and probably always will be negligible. Terrifying, because you cannot but be appalled by how much money has been wasted, how much unnecessary regulation drafted because of a ‘problem’ that doesn’t actually exist.

But there is now a powerful and very extensive body of vested interests up against him and people like him: governments like President Obama’s, which intend to use ‘global warming’ as an excuse for greater taxation, regulation and protectionism; energy companies and investors who stand to make a fortune from scams like carbon trading; charitable bodies like Greenpeace which depend for their funding on public anxiety; environmental correspondents who need constantly to talk up the threat to justify their jobs. 

It's all about money......

Jonty


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## fred henderson (Jun 13, 2005)

The record low for Arctic ice cover was in the summer of 2007. Since then the ice cover has been increasing, with 2009 ice melt stopping 970,000 sq km short of the 2007 ice melt. Around Antarctica last season’s ice melt was the smallest recorded since satellite data collection began 30 years ago and the current ice cover is 30% higher than the 30 year average. I do not think the guys building the enlarged Panama Canal need worry.

Fred (Thumb)


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## Lancastrian (Feb 8, 2006)

bob jenkins said:


> No one with stuff between their ears can deny climate change, it has been going on since and before the ice ages but the present world is hell bent of unnaturally accelerating it to our own detriment.
> 
> Bob


Climate change sceptics do not deny that the climate may be changing but we doubt that man is to blame. Ice ages are cyclical. Another one will be along soon.
Wear your hair shirt and change your light bulbs by all means but if you think that will make one iota of difference to the outcome, you are deluded.
The real problem is overpopulation but that somehow seems to get overlooked these days.


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## Doug Shaw (Jan 20, 2006)

> Read this. This I believe makes sense. (Heaven And Earth by Professor Ian Plimer)


The problem with the likes of Plimer is that they are out to make a profit. Rather than publish research papers, they write books targeted at the ordinary person. Plimer, contrary to what he claims, uses the precise devices he accuses his detractors of using.

Plimer particularly makes some extraordinary claims. For example, he suggests that his time scale for research is 4,567 million years, while other scientists consider only the past 150 years. That is utter nonsense. Expansion and contraction of polar ice caps is a factor considered by most models for prediction of global warming due to environmental pollution. 

Those who do not believe that global warming is the result of atmospheric pollution often point to the known fact that climatic variation over millions of years has been extreme. That fact is not disputed. However, those same people ignore the massive increase in population and the corresponding increase in atmospheric pollution that has occurred. They also ignore the fact that the population is expanding at an ever increasing rate. It is certain, global warming apart, that the increase in population will ultimately have an adverse effect on the planet.

By all means, read works like Heaven and Earth. As I pointed out, in a previous post, no-one can say for certain what will happen in the future. But, don’t buy into Plimer’s conspiracy theories. He might be right and the others might be wrong, but there is no conspiracy.

Regards
Doug


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## Derek Roger (Feb 19, 2005)

Agreed Doug ;

There is a change as there always has been over the millenium .

Whether we listen to these so called experts or not will have no effect on the climate change .

It is time for the people to tell the " anoracks " with self serving interests to P-ss Off .

Derek One Mans view


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## AncientBrit (Oct 6, 2007)

Its laughable how these intellectual dweebs have difficulty getting around in OUR arctic regions, yet Canadians work up there year round with no problem at all, maybe if they want to do it right they might ask for some guidance.
First thing they would have been told is not to take dog teams in summer, too much water on the ice.
Because he is a scientist (all intelligence and zero common sense) he is allowed to wander at will like the school boy running away from home looking for "adventure". But I guess it got him in the news in the UK.


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## JoK (Nov 12, 2006)

AncientBrit said:


> Because he is a scientist (all intelligence and zero common sense) he is allowed to wander at will like the school boy running away from home looking for "adventure".


As we say at work:
"They can figure out the square root of a pickle in the jar but can't get it out"


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## Gareth Jones (Jul 13, 2007)

Looks like Gordon getting the groundwork in ready to start upping taxes - after all he's got a lot of money to recover from us to pay for the banking debacle !

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8313672.stm


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## Alistair Macnab (May 13, 2008)

I live a long way from the ice but smack bang in the hurricane belt in Houston TX. From time to time we get a lulu of a hurricane locally that knocks all mankind's infrastructure and prognostications to hell in a handbasket. For example, last year we had two devastating hurricanes here and none at all this year. What do you make of that? The forecasters have no response.
In other words, dear readers, information is in the hands of the pseudo-scientists and self-agrandisers out to make a buck and fool the punters!
As for governments being on board....this is the biggest scam of all and the sooner it is resisted, the better it will be.
I notice that one voice in this site pointed to the improved air quality in Glasgow and I concur. Travelling to Glasgow every day to college in the late '50s and early '60s the place was a mess but look at the Old Girl now! What a beautiful place - the Merchant City , anyway. The air is pure and the buildings are scrubbed clean, only the cigarette butts, discarded chip pokes and dried pee in the dark corners to detract from the perfect ambience.
Man is by nature a polluter, just look at native kraals or Kidderpore back alleys and we can see what harm is done on a daily basis. This local mess can be cleaned up just like Glasgow's air pollution.
But to attribute our puny efforts at ravageing out planet to the extent that we are bringing forward Armageddon at an alarming rate. All we have to do is throw money at the problem and we can do something to stop this! What arrogance! What nonsense!


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