Why Mitigation Should Not Be the Climate Change Policy of Choice (Even if it’s a Real Problem)

AMS [American Meteorological Society] Policy Statement on Inadvertent Weather Modification Illustrates Fuzzy and Flawed Thinking on Public Policy

By Indur M. Goklany

The AMS has a new policy statement on Inadvertent Weather Modification (H/T to Prof. Roger Pielke, Sr., 11/4/2010). In this post I will not address its recommendations. I will, instead, focus on fundamental flaws in its two sections on mitigation and adaptation which, in my opinion, are related since they flow from a common misconception error in its policy “analysis” of global warming.

Read the rest here: LINK TO: Why Mitigation Should Not Be the Climate Change Policy of Choice (Even if it’s a Real Problem)

From: Watts Up With That

With a rapid onset – the strongest La Niña since 1955-56

NOTE: 10+ (2010) on the image ..

I should also note. The ice in the Arctic is growing rapidly…. and… the Antarctic which should be starting to lose sea ice right now……. is GAINING sea ice.

Sea Ice News #26

I hope you enjoy it.

Part 1

This documentary describes effects of the last ice age – the Laurentide – on Upstate New York. This segment is an overview of Upstate’s geological and ecological history. It includes a fossil-hunting expedition to Quarry Farm by a paleobiology class at Elmira College. Quarry farm is the famous American humorist Mark Twain’s 19th century summer home near Elmira, NY.
Excerpted from the television documentary “Footprints of the Ice Age: The Laurentide Ice Sheet in Upstate New York” produced and narrated by Michael S. Ameigh. This program premiered on WCNY-PBS Syracuse, NY April 19, 2009.

Part 2

This segment describes the region near Olean, N.Y. not covered by the Laurentide Ice Sheet during the last ice age. Featured are rock formations from the Pennsylvanian period, outcrops that are unique in all of Upstate New York. Segment was videotaped at Rock City Park: http://www.rockcitypark.com

Part 3

This segment describes the Finger Lakes, a series of deep valleys in Central and Western New York dammed at the north end by glacial deposits left when the Laurentide Ice Sheet retreated from the region approximately 10,000 years ago.

Part 4

This segment describes the Ontario Lowlands region between Oswego and Rochester, NY characterized by the presence of thousands of drumlins, eskers and kames, remnants of the last ice era in Upstate New York. Chimney bluffs along Lake Ontario’s eastern shore are presented in detail.
Excerpted from the television documentary ‘Footprints of the Ice Age: the Laurentide Ice Sheet in Upstate New York’ produced and narrated by Michael S. Ameigh.

Part 5

This segment describes the Rome Sand Plains near Rome, NY formed by glacial outwash from ancient Lake Iroquois when ice dams collapsed at the end of the last ice age. Rare ecology includes wild lupine and Frosted Elfin butterfly

Part 6

This segment describes the region near Altmar, NY that includes a pristine ice age aquifer characterized by bogs, kames and kettle ponds that contain rare ecology including carnivorous species of plants that ingest insects.

Part 7

This segment describes the immediate aftermath of the retreat of the Laurentide ice sheet during which large ice era mammals became extinct. Featured are exhibits at the Museum of the Earth near Ithaca, NY http://www.museumoftheearth.org/ New York State Museum at Albany http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/ and Schenectady Museum http://www.schenectadymuseum.org/. Gilbert Mastodon site images from http://www.geo.cornell.edu/mastodon

LINK to the second set of 7 videos to complete the series of this presentation.

The camp here, 600 miles from the South Pole, is called WAIS Divide, named for its place atop a regional divide of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. In January, 45 scientists, technicians and support staffers labored here at a cost of about $3 million for the season. They worked around the clock, inside an icehouse, probing a plateau of ice so thick that the continent sags beneath its weight.

The first samples already reveal intriguing evidence of climate complexity. In ice layers attributed to the Middle Ages, when Europe was unusually warm, the team found surprisingly high levels of carbon black particles, or soot. Levels were found to be twice as high as during the more heavily populated and industrialized 20th century, says geochemist Ross Edwards at the Desert Research Institute in Reno, Nev.

Overlooked in climate projections until recently, carbon black is a powerful warming agent. The soot, scientists speculate, came from giant wildfires that likely occurred in Australia and South America. So much soot could have raised temperatures.

Preliminary tests also showed that soot levels dropped during the cooler centuries after the Middle Ages, a period known as the Little Ice Age.

LINK
Mining for Cold, Hard Facts
Scientists Probe Antarctic Ice to Settle Climate Debates

This could well prove to be Mann Eating Stuff. The MWP in Antarctica.