Arctic Sea Ice about to hit Normal Levels

[inventor]

"Ice area only? Wouldn't volume also be a important measurement?"

I think area and volume are directly proportional to each other. They may not be in perfect alignment, but they are certainly related.

Nope. Like a puddle with ice on the surface, is not the same as the entire puddle frozen solid.
The surface freezes, then continued freezing conditions build more ice, increasing volume. A one time freeze will not replace the ice already gone.
And you don't have to believe in Global Warming any more than you have to believe that the plane you're on is crashing.
There are no known laws of physics that require specific chemical reactions in a human brain to function.

 

[smellzlikefish]

inventor-You're right about the volume. Somehow I wasn't thinking about the thickness.

As far as global warming, the earth is heating up at a steady rate. Global warming is happening right now. However, there are as many opinions as to the mechanisms behind it and the effect this will have on our planet as there are people studying it. The fact is nobody really knows what will happen. Personally, I take comfort in the fact that the planet warms and cools periodically and has coping mechanisms to deal with these kinds of things. Animals will adapt and migrate towards the poles. Cities will creep away from the coasts. I don't think global warming will bring about the end of days, but since I'm not sure what's going to happen either, I ride a bike everywhere I go and make green choices in everything I do. If you're going down on a plane, may as well flap your arms a little.

 

[inventor]

If you're going down on a plane, may as well flap your arms a little.

Correct! Yeah I personally think that it's a warming cycle that we happen to be assisting, at least, if not the main factor. My worry is that we happen to have a stable functioning global weather system that may be permanently disrupted, cuasing us tremendous problems with crops and fresh water.

So I'm stocking up on Spaghettio's, microwave popcorn, and ammo.

 

[inventor]

They stole our ice!

2 more glaciers gone from Glacier National Park - Yahoo! News

It was Norwegia! I'll bet those crafty Swedes were in on it too!

You'd think somebody would have seen trucks or something. Probably did it at night.

 

[lock_washer]

They stole our ice!

2 more glaciers gone from Glacier National Park - Yahoo! News

It was Norwegia! I'll bet those crafty Swedes were in on it too!

You'd think somebody would have seen trucks or something. Probably did it at night.

Better get Al Gore on the case immediately! He needs another Nobel Prize for discovering Global Warming, the Internet...

 

[jva]

Arctic Sea Ice about to hit ‘normal’ – what will the news say? Watts Up With That?

To me: this puts alot of the claims about Global Warming/Climate Change as questionable.

I think there are several things worth noting.

Firstly, this is a regional phenomenon, and therefore doesn't say much about the global trend. Anthropogenic global warming theory does not predict uniform warming throughout the globe.

Secondly, the phenomenon of thickening of an ice sheet is not by itself inconsistent with warming. Increases in ice masses in the face of actual warming are typically seen as a result of increasing precipitation. I don't know if that's the case here, but I'm just sayin' ...

Thirdly, even from the figures in that post that deal only with the last couple of months or years, it is quite apparent that there is a lot of short-term variation and to me this does not look like an unusually big bump. This is a much longer term trend of Arctic ice coverage, from NSIDC:

Finally, here is what it looks like today, seven weeks later (19-05-2010):

http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover.uk.php