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You know, one thing that really irritates me about stories like the article below is that the media can - and has to - write about them with such breathless disbelief. Like OMG can you believe it?! The Earth is getting HOTTER!! Just like scientists around the planet have been saying for decades!!! And... and that means that cold things melt!!! And... and... and hot things get hotter!!!! EGAD!!! HOW CAN THIS BE??!! JUST BECAUSE IT'S HAPPENING ALL OVER THE PLANET AND HAS BEEN FOR YEARS - YOU MEAN IT'S ALL PART OF A PATTERN???!!!!! OMGWTFBBQ1!11!!
And the reason they have to keep saying it that way is that people in North America really, honestly, and truly believe world-wide climatology is all part of some kind of elaborate hoax. I'm quite convinced that in my grandchildren's time, when most of Africa has been scorched to bare sand, the vast majority of Pacific nations can be found only in history books, and the Rideau Skateway hosts winter skinny-dipping parties in place of Winterlude, the vast majority of North Americans will continue to blithely cling to their mantra of "You can't prove it's all part of a pattern and it has nothing to do with our lifestyle and it's probably just from a volcano and we've just had a couple of unusually warm years that's all and it'll all go back to normal soon and then won't those doomsayers feel silly - here, let's crank up the air conditioning."
Scientists note stunning loss of ice, snow
From elders watching the movement of sea ice in Nunavut to climatologists studying satellite weather maps, people are amazed and alarmed by how quickly spring is coming to the Arctic this year.
Record-warm temperatures have taken their toll on ice cover in Canada's Arctic waters and snow cover on land.
"I've never seen it so wide open this time of year," said Environment Canada's David Phillips, talking about the body of water between Baffin Island and mainland Quebec. "It's just blue, blue as the bluest sky."
It's not just sea ice. Phillips said snow cover is fast disappearing across Nunavut. In Cape Dorset, there is typically 50 centimetres of snow on the ground in May. Now there are just two centimetres. And in Iqaluit, bare ground is exposed everywhere, when typically there is still 20 centimetres of snow cover.
( Read more... )
And the reason they have to keep saying it that way is that people in North America really, honestly, and truly believe world-wide climatology is all part of some kind of elaborate hoax. I'm quite convinced that in my grandchildren's time, when most of Africa has been scorched to bare sand, the vast majority of Pacific nations can be found only in history books, and the Rideau Skateway hosts winter skinny-dipping parties in place of Winterlude, the vast majority of North Americans will continue to blithely cling to their mantra of "You can't prove it's all part of a pattern and it has nothing to do with our lifestyle and it's probably just from a volcano and we've just had a couple of unusually warm years that's all and it'll all go back to normal soon and then won't those doomsayers feel silly - here, let's crank up the air conditioning."
Scientists note stunning loss of ice, snow
From elders watching the movement of sea ice in Nunavut to climatologists studying satellite weather maps, people are amazed and alarmed by how quickly spring is coming to the Arctic this year.
Record-warm temperatures have taken their toll on ice cover in Canada's Arctic waters and snow cover on land.
"I've never seen it so wide open this time of year," said Environment Canada's David Phillips, talking about the body of water between Baffin Island and mainland Quebec. "It's just blue, blue as the bluest sky."
It's not just sea ice. Phillips said snow cover is fast disappearing across Nunavut. In Cape Dorset, there is typically 50 centimetres of snow on the ground in May. Now there are just two centimetres. And in Iqaluit, bare ground is exposed everywhere, when typically there is still 20 centimetres of snow cover.
( Read more... )
