Antarctica's sea ice drops to an 'alarming low' for the third year in a row, scientists warn
Here we go again: The ice loss is almost entirely in Western Antarctica, which is known for subsurface vulcanism. And volcanic eruptions are unpredictable, which is what they found. Nothing to do with global warming
Antarctica's sea ice has dropped to an 'alarming' low during the southern hemisphere's summer, scientists have revealed.
Ice surrounding Earth's southernmost continent now measures less than 772,200 square miles (2 million sq km), or about the size of Mexico.
Worryingly, this is the third year in the row that this figure has fallen below this threshold, according to the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC).
Less sea ice can threaten habitats for penguins, seals and other Antarctic animal life, and also contributes to a rise in global sea levels.
Unfortunately, it follows a record-breaking low for Antarctica's sea ice during the winter as well.
What is sea ice?
Sea ice is simply frozen ocean water. It forms, grows, and melts in the ocean. It floats on the surface of the sea because it is less dense than liquid water. In contrast, icebergs, glaciers, ice sheets, and ice shelves all originate on land.
Sea ice is estimated to cover around 7 per cent of Earth's surface and about 12 per cent of the world's oceans.
The lion's share of sea ice is contained within the polar ice packs in the Arctic and Southern oceans.
These ice packs undergo season variations and are also affected locally on smaller time scales by wind, current and temperature fluctuations.
Walt Meier, a senior research scientist at NSIDC, said experts 'don’t yet know the full reason' why sea ice is now at a record low, although 'global warming certainly could be a factor'.
'It appears that warm ocean temperatures are important, but other factors may be in play, including wind patterns,' he told MailOnline. 'We have only 45 years of high quality data, which still may not capture all of the variability in the Antarctic sea ice.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-13126187/Antarcticas-sea-ice-drops-alarming-low.html
******************************************************UK: Met Office concedes UK storms are not getting stronger ... but refuses to retract false climate claim
Press Release
London, 23 February - In response to a complaint by independent climate researcher Paul Homewood, the Met Office has acknowledged that “there is no evidence yet for an increase in wind gust strengths, although these are projected to increase with future climate change.”
Yet despite this confirmation, the Met Office still refuses to retract a false claim made by one of its senior meteorologists on BBC Radio 5 last month, that storms in the UK are getting "more intense" due to climate change.
The Met Office has already admitted, following an FOI request, that it has no evidence to support the claim. Indeed it provided its own recent reports which confirm no upward trend in wind speeds since 1969, and that several storms in the 1980s and 90s were very much more severe than anything seen since.
The Global Warming Policy Foundation is calling on the Met Office to stop prevaricating over evident misinformation by retracting the false claim and providing the public with the true facts.
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WHO Demands Global Meat Consumption Ban by 2025
Wacky!
The World Health Organization (WEF) has just upped the ante with its globalist “Net Zero” agenda by demanding that the general public must be banned from consuming meat and dairy products by 2025 globally.
The head of the United Nations “health” agency, Tedros Adhanom, declared in a statement that citizens around the world must begin the shift to plant and insect-based “foods” in order to “save the planet” from “global warming.”
“Our food systems are harming the health of our people and planet,” he said.
“Food systems contribute to over 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions and account for almost one-third of the global burden of disease.”
He estimates that eight million lives could be saved each year with this one change. Although shifting away from red meat has been recommended for many years for health reasons, his motivation here appears to be purely environmental, with a context note on a video of him declaring the war on meat noting that climate change “refers to long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns, mainly caused by human activities.”
https://evol.news/news/who-demands-global-meat-consumption-ban-by-2025/
**********************************************Spending Hundreds of Millions to Make a 0.1 Percent Difference to the Great Barrier Reef
By Peter Ridd
Hard-working Aussie fishermen, and all the people who depend on them, are about to suffer severe restrictions on their production. And all based on dubious science.
The barramundi fishery mostly operates in the creeks and rivers, or very close to shore. Our out-of-touch government ministers have never explained how catching a barra in a creek somehow damages the Reef, which is far from shore—mostly 40 to 100 kilometers (25 to 62 miles).
But worse is to come as governments cast their net further afield.
As part of the UNESCO demands, the federal government has announced that it is now restricting fishing in the southern Gulf of Carpentaria to “save the Reef.”
That area of the Gulf is 700 kilometres from the Reef and on the wrong side (to the west) of Cape York Peninsula. How can catching a barra near Mornington Island affect the Reef? Was this really demanded by UNESCO or is it being used as a convenient tool by our government to further enforce extreme green environmental policies?
If killing the barra fishery seems like a scientific folly, the recent letter from Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek to UNESCO asking that the Reef not be listed as endangered contains an even bigger indication that the government, and the science institutions upon which they base their dubious decisions, have lost the plot.
Ms. Plibersek’s letter proudly states that government schemes costing hundreds of millions of dollars have stopped 140,000 metric tonnes of sediment reaching the Reef from farms and cattle stations in the last decade.
That 140,000 figure sounds like a lot of mud. But in a decade, the rivers in question carry roughly 1,000 times more sediment than that out into the ocean.
So, they reduced the sediment to the Reef by a meagre 0.1 percent—and they made it a big deal!
Before I was fired by James Cook University after calling for better quality assurance of Reef science, my group worked extensively on the impact of sediment.
We invented some of the instrumentation for doing this work. We took more measurements than all the other groups combined. We showed that mud almost never reaches the Great Barrier Reef, which is far offshore. And even when it does, it is in minuscule quantities for only short periods of time. Even the inshore reefs, such as around Magnetic Island near Townsville, are barely influenced by mud coming directly from the rivers fed by tropical monsoon rains.
Government-funded scientists and managers have thus spent hundreds of millions to make 0.1 percent difference to a non-problem.
We must hope that they do not try to scale-up their effort and completely solve a problem that does not exist. At this rate, it would cost roughly 10 percent of Australia’s yearly GDP just to manage this one environmental factor.
Strangely, Ms. Plibersek conveniently forgot to mention that data from the Australian Institute of Marine Science show that, since records began, the reef has never had more coral than in the last two years. People might think that Ms. Plibersek was on UNESCO’s side and doing their bidding.
The time has come for a forensic audit of the science that is being used to smash the livelihood of hardworking Aussie farmers and fishers. The government is in effect picking off industries one at a time in a classic “salami” tactic.
The Australian Environment Foundation is organising a coalition of affected small industries to fight back, and top of the list is to audit the science.
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Jim Hansen and his twin
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