Here's a riddle for the skeptics?

Question

Ok, whether you believe it's anthropogenic or not (and it is), global warming is happening. I've been reading a lot of questions that point to Antarctica and saying that there this year saw a record growth in area of the Antarctic ice sheet (not to be confused with the ice pack).
So, here's a riddle for you. Can you think of a reason why the ice sheet could grow to a record size in the face of global warming?

Dana, maybe I didn't make it clear enough but I'm referring to sea ice. The ice cap is whole different riddle.

Kirk, for the planet there is no idea temperature. For our economy and the present earth's the correct global temperature is within a couple of degrees of what we experience today.
As for volcanoes, I’d like you to back up your statement because you are wrong.

Ben O nice try, but there are presently no anomalies with the eccentricity of the planet to explain this. Another thing to be pointed out is that I am referring to the sea ice around the Antarctic continent.
One thing I will ask you Ben O is if as you say clouds are forming over the Antarctic, were is the moisture for cloud formation coming from? The atmosphere in the Antarctic during winter holds very little moisture and would require considerable warming form clouds. Are you suggesting that the Antarctic continent is warming therefore increasing cloud cover? Does this mean that with increased clouds it is snow more frequently therefore increasing the seasonal thickness of the continental ice cap?

Answer 1

Oh, sea ice. Well, the explanation appears to be extremely complex.

The model shows that an increase in surface air temperature and downward longwave radiation results in an increase in the upper-ocean temperature and a decrease in sea ice growth, leading to a decrease in salt rejection from ice, in the upper-ocean salinity, and in the upper-ocean density.

The reduced salt rejection and upper-ocean density and the enhanced thermohaline stratification tend to suppress convective overturning, leading to a decrease in the upward ocean heat transport and the ocean heat flux available to melt sea ice.

The ice melting from ocean heat flux decreases faster than the ice growth does in the weakly stratified Southern Ocean, leading to an increase in the net ice production and hence an increase in ice mass. This mechanism is the main reason why the Antarctic sea ice has increased in spite of warming conditions both above and below during the period 1979–2004 and the extended period 1948–2004.

http://climatesci.colorado.edu/2007/08/08/antarctic-sea-ice-trends-a-guest-weblog-by-ben-herman/

Did you follow all of that? Simple right?

Yeah, those climate scientists are clearly idiots.

Answer 2

It would seem that, as nobody predicted the growth in Antartic ice, any theory would be somewhat speculative and a modification to the existing climate models.

This isn't my field, but, since you asked, the Antartic is land and it's in the south, whereas the Arctic is ice and in the north. Perhaps one of the following is contributing.

Perhaps the earth is changing the eccentricity of it's orbit such that the earth is closer to the sun during the northern hemisphere summer.

Perhaps warming has caused increased cloud cover which cools the antartic while increased ocean currents warm the arctic, but as the antarctic is land, it is less affected by ocean currents.

Answer 3

It was colder down in Antarctica this year, that's why the Ice Sheet got bigger.

The thing is, I feel they are being misleading when they call it Global Warming. They should actually clarify and state the truth that The Average Global tempature has increased slightly. And did you know that they only collect those tempatures from specific areas? I wonder if it would be true if they took all tempature readings from every weather forcast throughout the world and averaged that out and graphed that. In stead of only the areas they choose to study?

Linlyon, snow doesn't create Ice, especially on what is already a body of water, in which her question is refering to. In fact Snow acts as an insulation on new ice, making it harder for ice to solidify. In fact you need Cold Clear conditions to form good solid pieces of ice, not snow.

Answer 4

melting ice adds more fresh water to the sea reducing salinity of the sea in the area of of the melting land borne ice with the result that the sea water will freeze at a warmer temperature than before.
although anthropogenic effects are undoubtedly contributing to climate change (possibly by as much as 1%)you cant deny that the current warming trend began around 13,000 years ago. ice cores show greenland once warmed as much as 15 degrees in a 10 year period, this was thousands of years before we could have possibly have had any effect. how does your blind religious fervor explain facts such as these away.
or are your facts just made up from whole cloth as you go along as with your savior mr. Gore

Answer 5

The 'Milankovitch Cycle' plays a roll in that the sun moves away from one pole towards the other as the earth's tilt slowly changes.
http://www.homepage.montana.edu/~geol445/hyperglac/time1/milankov.htm

But from a recent web page:
http://www.global-warming-and-the-climate.com/global-warming-climate-change.htm
"NEW! Shocking climate revelation! The sea ice extend around Antarctica reached a record breaking large size of 16.2 Million square kilometers in late September 2007. While the climate Orwellian inspired corporate news media during the same time covered extensively news of a new low artic sea ice record made by a sea ice monitoring NASA satellite which have monitored the sea ice of both poles since 1979, no coverage of the made sea ice record around Antarctica can be found in any news media, but here."

Also view the first graph on that web page - note the air temperatures correlation with El Nino and La Nina = it's the oceans that drive the World's Climates!!!!!

Answer 6

No riddle. Ice can only form when it's cold. If it's cold, then it can't be warming. Since Antarctica is part of the planet, then the effect isn't global.

Only mystics can prove something is true by using contradictions.

The warming has stopped, the climate is cooling, it's not man that can control the climate, it's the Sun that does so.

Answer 7

Those that believe that man is capable of warming our climate are, to put it bluntly........arrogant buffoons (case in point....Al Gore.....he is both arrogant, and a buffoon). Question for you.......What is the ideal average temperature of our planet, and how do you measure it? The U.N. panel for climate change has purposely cooked the books in their reports. It has been well documented that the authors of this report omitted or downplayed important historical data such as the medieval warming period. One point that I like to point out......in the areas of Europe that glaciers are receding they are finding villages, mines and signs of agriculture. Greenland is called Greenland for a reason. At one time most of Greenland was farmed, and fed much of Scandinavia.
But the biggest ***** in the armor of the man-made global warming theory is the computer models that are used to form future predictions of global warming. The green house gas that exists in the highest concentrations is water vapor. Water vapor can not be figured into the computer models because it is to dynamic. The importance of this is quite simple. The roll that water vapor plays is as an atmospheric coolant.
Besides, the best meteorologists in the world can not reliably predict weather patterns beyond a couple of days, yet we are expected to believe that the U.N. panel can predict the weather 10, 50 even 100 years out..........that alone should trigger the old B.S. alarm in reasonable people.
The true agenda of the Kyoto protocols is a discussion for a later date(hint:it has nothing to do with global warming)

Edit
One major volcanic eruption puts more junk into the air than mankind can in 100 years.........but I forgot man-made global warming is responsible for volcananic eruptions, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes..........since none of these happened before man.

Edit 2
When Mount Pinatubo eruped in 1991 it was estimated that the eruption(s) emmitted at least 250,000,000 and possibly as much as 450,000,000 tons of junk in the air, a large part of which was sulfur dioxide, and carbon dioxide, both of which as I understand it, are green house agents.
Ok this number may not make up for all of man kind's history, but it was enough to COOL the planet in a measurable way.
So when a volcano erupts, the green house agents cool the planet, but when man causes green house agents to be emmited, the planet warms........makes sense to me. It was as much the reaction of the green house agents in the atmoshere as the ash (equal blame) that caused the cooling.

Edit 3
Ok now I have given the answer to the best of my ability concerning volcanoes, but please address the fact that water vapor in the atmospere is not considered in any model. This by far is the most important of all green house gasses, as the concentrations of water vapor are greater than all other green house gasses combined.
And if there is no ideal temperature, then how do we know that the earth, and by default, mankind is in peril?
These two points alone are the ones that need to be answered.

Answer 8

Global warming began at the end of the Ice Age and will continue no matter what anyone does.

Answer 9

Ok.......so if it's anthropongenic or global warming or both. And if you want to believe in either one or both FINE.
I happen to believe both are probably happening at the same time.........or COULD happen at the same time.

What I don't understand about some people who deny the fact that daily constantly we are putting tons of crap into the air ALL over the world. Are people denying that FACT? Those people who are denying that fact are the ones denying that something bad such as anthropogenic cannot EVER happen. We can just go along doing what were doing and nothin bad is going to happen IS THIS WHAT YOU WANT EVERYONE TO DENY and just overlook and keep doing the things were doing to this planet. Is that it???
NO!!!! Something will happen if we don't get a handle on what were putting into the air. PERIOD. And if we don't try to do something to at least slow it down it will get worse and there will be no turning back and fixing it. And if we aren't going through a global warming thing right now. Well some day we will........AND WON'T THAT BE JUST A WONDERFUL FRIGGIN DAY WHEN THAT HAPPENS, NOT JUST LIVING THROUGH GLOBAL WARMING BUT ANTHROPOGENIC WARMING ALL THE TIME ON TOP OF THE GLOBAL WARMING........."SOUNDS LIKE ONE HECK OF A HOOT DOESN'T IT"?????

I'm really tired of those of you who want to deny that we people have and still do screw up this planet, even when there's proof of what were doing to it you still want to put your hands over your ears and shut your eyes. THAT'S WHAT'S REALLY LAME the people who shut there ears and eyes and don't want to except the responsibility of there actions, of all of our actions. THAT'S TOTALLY LAME. And I'm tired of trying to put it right in some of your faces to make some of you see that and to at least wake some of your sad as*es up to these facts!