Mything in action: Deniers and 'Antarctic warming'

I saw it on Twitter today, so it must be true: several posts in succession, all from self-avowed defenders of the Constitution, liberty, blah blah, etc., to the effect that the "Antarctic has been warming for 600 years."

Hmm, I thought as I added these individuals to my "disappear" list on TweetDeck (a time- and annoyance-saving strategy that makes their future tweets invisible to me), I wonder what that is all about?

As I continued to comb the Web for global warming items to tweet, I came across an article in an Australian publication, Crikey, titled "Antarctic melt alarm as scientists find 'very unusual' warming."  Mystery solved. 

The article's lead paragraph: "Scientists have drilled 364 metres into ice to complete the first ever comprehensive temperature record of the Antarctic Peninsula — and they’ve found evidence of 'very unusual' and dramatic warming over the last century." [emphasis added]

The article goes on to say, indeed, that the peninsula has been warming slowly for 600 years, but takes some pains to explain the reason for concern:

"The research showed that the Peninsula has seen a rapid warming over the past 100 years, but that this has also come on top 600 years of more gradual, natural warming in the region ...

"The leader of the research expedition, Dr Robert Mulvaney from the British Antarctic Survey, said: 'The exceptionally fast warming over the last 100 years came on top of a slower natural climate warming that began around 600 years ago — well before the industrial revolution — so it is possible that we are now seeing the combination of natural and man-made warming in this area.'

"What this means is that climate change is adding significant extra pressure to the Antarctic Peninsula ice sheets that were already seeing some strain from the natural warming in the region." [emphasis added]

Just remove that context and presto, you have a tweet that implies global warming is nothing to worry about, when exactly the opposite is true.

Why now?  Presumably in a transparent and rather desperate attempt to spread a counter to the news that Arctic sea ice melt has hit a new record.

(Disclaimer: I have nothing against the Constitution and liberty--they're great!  But I do wonder sometimes why people act as though they are part of a valiant few who think so.)

Update from the Terra Incognita of rain

"Terra Incognita" is my metaphorical phrase for describing the previously unknown weather (well, unknown at least in the weather records) that is now being brought to us, around the world, by global warming.  Here's a quick update from one part of that unknown land--the rainy one.

A few days ago, Joe Romm's excellent Climate Progress blog ran a post by Dr. Jeff Masters of Weather Underground (wunderground.com) about the new records for rainfall that have been set in the Northeastern U.S. this year.  Dr. Masters emphasized the fact that Philadelphia, which has one of the longest weather records (and therefore extremes that are very hard to top) had set a new record with its rainiest year since the start of rainfall record-keeping in 1820.  But some other numbers in his list of new 2011 records seem to me even more striking.   Here they are:

Williamsport, PA, rainfall records dating from 1895: broke old record by 7.1 inches (180 mm) (11.5%).
Cleveland, OH, records since 1855: broke old record by 8.51 inches (216 mm) (15.8%)
Harrisburg, PA, records since 1861: broke old record by 12.29 inches (312 mm) (20.5%).
Binghamton, NY, records since 1890: broke old record by 16.61 inches (422 mm) (33.7%)

In each case, we're talking about weather records dating back more than a century, and the old rainfall records are not just being surpassed, they're being obliterated.

The bottom line?  Global warming means new weather coming, to a place near you.  It may be hotter, or dryer, or wetter than ever before, but whichever it is, we're off the old weather charts and into new territory.

Wake up, getting late, time to act

David Roberts of Grist, always worth reading, has three posts on global warming in the past few days (1, 2, 3).  All three are really calls to action--#1 concerns just how dire the findings of climate science are and how long we have slumbered, #2 the scale and urgency of what we need to do now, and #3 the error of hoping that moderate, reasonable, reassuring communications will get us where we need to go.

I, of course, endorse his view--what would you expect from a guy with a blog with titled It's Burning? I'm no scientist, but I've read a lot about climate science over the past 20-plus years, and very little of it has been reassuring.  Mostly, it's amounted to the slow piling up of a mountain of evidence agreeing with the basic conclusion that we're dumping heat-trapping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere at a scale that natural systems cannot handle, that the Earth is slowly but steadily warming as a result, and that the scale of the climate system is so large that inertia will guarantee continued warming long after we recognize the inevitable and cut back on the use of fossil fuels.

But I write with respect to #3.  Every once in a while I have a discussion about global warming with someone and I wind up thinking, or saying out loud, "But what if an unreasonable solution is required?  What if the situation is so grave that reasonableness becomes a fatal trap?"  No one ever has an answer--they just shake their heads.  Maybe we've been conditioned by the ending of the military draft, and its implication (hey, war is not such a big thing, just take it easy and someone else will do the fighting and dying)?  Are we so in love with a life of relative ease that we just don't have what it takes anymore to do what it takes?

Because, you know, it's really not that hard to become an activist on this issue. There are organizations out there like Citizens' Climate Lobby and 350 and Climate Reality Project that will keep you informed and take you by the hand and tell you what to say to whom and when to say it, or where to go and what to do, in order to have the most impact. Join them and support them now.  The simple truth is that with respect to the climate, we are facing a very dangerous situation, and it's getting worse every day.  It's getting late to stop global warming and serious disruption of the Earth's climate--maybe too late--but if you and I and thousands of others don't shuck off our laziness, our inhibitions, our fear, or whatever else is holding us back and act now ... we're guaranteeing that it's too late.

P.S. Bonus reading: in this new post The doctor and the life coach: a question for Andy Revkin, Roberts lays out the essential danger of feel-good communications about global warming. Recommended.