Glaciers Melting at an Alarming Rate

[xironman]

The Mars issue is covered pretty well under this post http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/10/global-warming-on-mars/langswitch_lang/en, it will clear up the issues with the size of the south pole. Can't really add much to it, except that Mars is obviously no analog for Earth.

[wbug1]

Hey, I linked to that site. They have something on the Heartland institute too.

[Ed Mahmoud]

From the Wkipedia link on Singer

During Operation Desert Storm in 1991, Dr. S. Fred Singer debated Carl Sagan on the impact of the Kuwaiti petroleum fires on the ABC News program Nightline. Sagan said we know from the nuclear winter investigation that the smoke would loft into the upper atmosphere and that he believed the net effects would be very similar to the explosion of the Indonesian volcano Tambora in 1815, which resulted in the year 1816 being known as the year without a summer, in massive agricultural failures, in very serious human suffering and, in some cases, starvation. He predicted the same for south Asia, and perhaps for a significant fraction of the northern hemisphere as well as a result. Singer, on the other hand, said that calculations showed that the smoke would go to an altitude of about 3,000 feet and then be rained out after about three to five days and thus the lifetime of the smoke would be limited.[25] According to a later study, the Kuwaiti oil fires, "had no lasting meteorological impacts at any of the locations examined, and there has been no change to the seasonal synoptic weather patterns throughout the Persian Gulf Region". However, Persian Gulf cities like Dhahran, Riyadh and Bahrain experienced days with smoke filled skies and carbon fallout."[26]

I assume the problem with him is that he may have the wrong views, scientifically.


Weird how the alarmist turned out to be wrong. Darned Kuwait oil fire nuclear winter denialist...

[x-y-no]

I'm a little skeptical of that account. Sagan was certainly aware that such extreme effects would only occur if a large part of the smoke from the fires got into the stratosphere. In actuality, hardly any of the Kuwait oil fire smoke made it that high.

I find it pretty hard to believe he didn't include that caveat. Could it be that the wikipedia contributor who wrote that was somewhat selective in his editing?

[Ed Mahmoud]

I'm a little skeptical of that account. Sagan was certainly aware that such extreme effects would only occur if a large part of the smoke from the fires got into the stratosphere. In actuality, hardly any of the Kuwait oil fire smoke made it that high.

I find it pretty hard to believe he didn't include that caveat. Could it be that the wikipedia contributor who wrote that was somewhat selective in his editing?

Wiki isn't an authoritarian source, but same article says Singer isn't convinced of a link between second hand smoke and cigarettes, so I doubt the thing was written as a puff piece, and wbug1's links were all to prove he is either a crackpot or a dupe of evil Exxon, as shown in a Greenpeace web site called 'ExxonSecrets.org'.

Sagan was an astrophysicst, wasn't he? He just got popular for a while as a source on all things scientific.

[x-y-no]

Well, Singer did have ties to the tobacco lobby ...

I think he's seriously wrong about a lot of things, but he is a legitimate atmospheric physicist (although he's done precious little of his own research for quite some time) so his arguments are rather more sophisticated than the average.

Yes, Sagan was an astrophysicist.

As I said, if he really argued that about the Kuwait fires without strong caveats, then he made a big error. Climate scientists were well aware at that time that tropospheric smoke alone won't cause an extensive climate event.

[wbug1]

From the Wkipedia link on Singer

During Operation Desert Storm in 1991, Dr. S. Fred Singer debated Carl Sagan on the impact of the Kuwaiti petroleum fires on the ABC News program Nightline. Sagan said we know from the nuclear winter investigation that the smoke would loft into the upper atmosphere and that he believed the net effects would be very similar to the explosion of the Indonesian volcano Tambora in 1815, which resulted in the year 1816 being known as the year without a summer, in massive agricultural failures, in very serious human suffering and, in some cases, starvation. He predicted the same for south Asia, and perhaps for a significant fraction of the northern hemisphere as well as a result. Singer, on the other hand, said that calculations showed that the smoke would go to an altitude of about 3,000 feet and then be rained out after about three to five days and thus the lifetime of the smoke would be limited.[25] According to a later study, the Kuwaiti oil fires, "had no lasting meteorological impacts at any of the locations examined, and there has been no change to the seasonal synoptic weather patterns throughout the Persian Gulf Region". However, Persian Gulf cities like Dhahran, Riyadh and Bahrain experienced days with smoke filled skies and carbon fallout."[26]

I assume the problem with him is that he may have the wrong views, scientifically.


Weird how the alarmist turned out to be wrong. Darned Kuwait oil fire nuclear winter denialist...

Also from that Wikipedia article:

"Climate scientists from NASA, Stanford University and Princeton who were contacted by ABC News dismissed Singer's most recent report on global warming as 'fabricated nonsense'. "[40]


As for Singer being a darned Kuwait oil fire nuclear winter denier, I don't know, but I think that both Sagan and Singer got a lot of publicity during that debate. I think that the Kuwaiti oil fire is a non-issue in terms of climate change, and that the Kuwaiti's aren't too happy that a lot of their oil got burned up.

[Ed Mahmoud]

From the Wkipedia link on Singer

During Operation Desert Storm in 1991, Dr. S. Fred Singer debated Carl Sagan on the impact of the Kuwaiti petroleum fires on the ABC News program Nightline. Sagan said we know from the nuclear winter investigation that the smoke would loft into the upper atmosphere and that he believed the net effects would be very similar to the explosion of the Indonesian volcano Tambora in 1815, which resulted in the year 1816 being known as the year without a summer, in massive agricultural failures, in very serious human suffering and, in some cases, starvation. He predicted the same for south Asia, and perhaps for a significant fraction of the northern hemisphere as well as a result. Singer, on the other hand, said that calculations showed that the smoke would go to an altitude of about 3,000 feet and then be rained out after about three to five days and thus the lifetime of the smoke would be limited.[25] According to a later study, the Kuwaiti oil fires, "had no lasting meteorological impacts at any of the locations examined, and there has been no change to the seasonal synoptic weather patterns throughout the Persian Gulf Region". However, Persian Gulf cities like Dhahran, Riyadh and Bahrain experienced days with smoke filled skies and carbon fallout."[26]

I assume the problem with him is that he may have the wrong views, scientifically.


Weird how the alarmist turned out to be wrong. Darned Kuwait oil fire nuclear winter denialist...

Also from that Wikipedia article:

"Climate scientists from NASA, Stanford University and Princeton who were contacted by ABC News dismissed Singer's most recent report on global warming as 'fabricated nonsense'. "[40]


As for Singer being a darned Kuwait oil fire nuclear winter denier, I don't know, but I think that both Sagan and Singer got a lot of publicity during that debate. I think that the Kuwaiti oil fire is a non-issue in terms of climate change, and that the Kuwaiti's aren't too happy that a lot of their oil got burned up.

Of course the Kuwait oil fire wound up being a non-issue as far as climate change was concerned, as sometimes the hysterical version of doom and gloom promoted by those whose professional livelihood depend on gloom and doom (the press, among others) turns out to be flat wrong. The supposed Y2K computer disaster, unrelated to climate change, of course, also turned out to be much over-hyped.


But again, neither Wiki, edited by whoever wants to edit, and with an senior editor (I think I linked here a while ago to a story) that kills any entry that is counter-AGW,and GreenPeace and its page "ExxonSecrets", aren't fair and unbiased sources.

[wbug1]

So, Ed, what is a fair and unbiased source?

[Ed Mahmoud]

So, Ed, what is a fair and unbiased source?

I really can't say, that borders on the political, but other than Fox News ("Faux News" to some) which openly has a slight right of center bias, most major news sources have a center-left to clearly left bias. GreenPeace, however, much like the European 'Green' parties, well, I'd better stop before I get too deep into their ideology, now before I get another nasty PM.

[MGC]

AGW and politics are hopelessly inbred. Can't talk about one without talking about the other.....MGC

[Sanibel]

This thread has gone to Mars and back - but wasn't the topic about glaciers melting at a fast rate?