Panic In The Ranks

2 Responses to Panic In The Ranks

1. Anything is possible says:

   June 21, 2013 at 4:06 pm

   20th century Arctic sea ice melt (and Antarctic non-melt) – the influence of orbital variations :

   http://journalofcosmology.com/JOC22/Steel_PPPIGW.pdf

   Summary: The increase in mean global temperature over the past 150 years is generally
   ascribed to human activities, in particular the rises in the atmospheric mixing ratios of carbon
   dioxide and other greenhouse gases since the Industrial Revolution began. Whilst it is thought
   that ice ages and interglacial periods are mainly initiated by multi-millennial variations in
   Earth’s heliocentric orbit and obliquity, shorter-term orbital variations and consequent
   observable climatic effects over decadal/centurial timescales have not been considered
   significant causes of contemporary climate change compared to anthropogenic influences. Here
   it is shown that the precession of perihelion occurring over a century substantially affects the
   intra-annual variation of solar radiation influx at different locations, especially higher latitudes,
   with northern and southern hemispheres being subject to contrasting insolation changes. This
   north/south asymmetry has grown since perihelion was aligned with the winter solstice seven to
   eight centuries ago, and must cause enhanced year-on-year springtime melting of Arctic (but not
   Antarctic) ice and therefore feedback warming because increasing amounts of land and open sea
   are denuded of high-albedo ice and snow across boreal summer and into autumn. The
   accelerating sequence of insolation change now occurring as perihelion moves further into boreal
   winter has not occurred previously during the Holocene and so would not have been observed
   before by past or present civilisations. Reasons are given for the significance of this process
   having been overlooked until now. This mechanism represents a supplementary – natural –
   contribution to climate change in the present epoch and may even be the dominant fundamental
   cause of global warming, although anthropogenic effects surely play a role too.

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2. John B., M.D. says:

   June 21, 2013 at 4:06 pm

   Cryosphere Today shows Arctic Ice anomaly becoming more negative, but Antarctic Ice doing the reverse: http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/

   Reply