Antarctic ice at all time high: We have more to learn, says boffin

Climate scientists have confessed they are baffled – yet again – by another all-time record area of sea covered by ice around the Antarctic coasts. "What we're learning is, we have more to learn," said Ted Scambos, lead scientist at the US National Snow and Ice Data Center, announcing the latest annual sea ice maximum for the …

[TheVogon]

Re: @Vogon

"Got a peer reviewed article on that? l'inq please."

http://www.pnas.org/content/111/34/12331

[David Pollard]

How come they aren't screaming 'No Need To Panic'?

Maybe the researchers who have been looking at this are wondering about the relationship between increases in winter sea ice and the droughts that have been seriously affecting large areas of Australia in recent decades.

Trolls are apparently endemic there too.

http://watchingthedeniers.wordpress.com/2010/03/23/lies-damned-lies-and-statistics-how-australias-denial-movement-cant-read-a-map/

[Jason Bloomberg]

[e-mail]

1) Everything is fine and we have nothing to worry about.

2) It's all gone wrong and there's nothing we can do about it.

3) It's all gone wrong but we can do something about it.

What worries me is that it could be 3 but we won't do anything because people choose to believe it's 1 or 2.

It seems the only thing we do know is that we don't know. We are gambling with some pretty big stakes here and I am always concerned when anyone won't accept they may be wrong.

[beast666]

Re: [e-mail]

What worries me is that governments absolutely believe its 3 when the facts are that its 1.

Billions spent, energy prices through the roof. And for what?

I repeat again. Global temps haven't increased in 18+ years despite CO2 climbing steadily.

Again. Why should we tax carbon (Co2)?

[Jason Bloomberg]

Re: [e-mail]

What worries me is that governments absolutely believe its 3 when the facts are that its 1.

Well if they are wrong we will have wasted billions and incurred huge costs for no gain. If you are wrong we'll be dead :-)

And that is why people are naturally cautious, because they don't want to be fatally drawn to the wrong conclusion. I don't know the answer and am not as certain as you are that the facts prove it is 1. I wouldn't want to stake my life on it yet, and less so would want you or anyone else to stake my life on it.

[Ru']

Re: [e-mail]

If you are wrong we'll be dead :-)

That escalated quickly; climate change may adversely affect many regions but I can't see it killing many El Reg commentators.

Or do you mean by the time anything noticeable happens we'll be long gone (natural causes)?

[TheVogon]

Re: [e-mail]

"I repeat again. Global temps haven't increased in 18+ years despite CO2 climbing steadily."

You keep saying that - but it's demonstrably not true as a quick look at any long term temperature record demonstrates. 18 Years ago was an exceptionally warm El Nino year and taken in isolation you might conclude that there had been only a little warming between now and then (but not none at all), however when you look at a larger data set, the continuing trend is clear.

http://scienceblogs.com/significantfigures/index.php/2013/04/02/three-iconic-graphs-showing-the-climate-fix-were-in/

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/global/lo-hem/201408.gif

The extreme level of obtuseness required not to realise this from only the most basic of research tells me that either you are incredibly gullible, or you are trolling...

[beast666]

Re: [e-mail]

You are in denial.

If you trace back from the present you will find that you can go back 18 years and find no warming.

This is a fact.

Go back 30 years and you will indeed find warming. But this is not my assertion.

It is indeed demonstrably true. (18+ years of flat temps)

You Sir are the troll for not accepting my assertion and the facts and continuing to use weasel words.

[TheVogon]

Re: [e-mail]

"If you trace back from the present you will find that you can go back 18 years and find no warming."

Nope - we find a small increase. As per your graph.

"Go back 30 years and you will indeed find warming. But this is not my assertion."

So you admit that you make a meaningless assertion with cherry picked figures that don't reflect the longer term trend. Glad we cleared that up.

[Fading]

Re: [e-mail]

No Statistically significant warming - ergo you cannot differentiate it from zero (allowing for errors etc.)

[Killing Time]

Re: [e-mail]

' What worries me is that governments absolutely believe its 3'

Governments don't absolutely believe its 3, politicians are more cynical than that. Governments are judged on, among other things, job creation.

Technology is enabling higher power generation with less manpower, coal fired stations require a larger investment in manpower for fuel handling due to its lower energy density (shipping to site, processing, handling onsite). Think uprated CCGT's, nukes etc, increased automation means manning levels remain the same as the previous generation or even a decrease.

Large nationwide installations of wind generation or PV creates high value jobs in the construction or installation sectors and finally in the ongoing service and support sector, all paid for by instigating a tax on the end user under the auspices of saving the planet.

For a politician what's not to like? its a win win situation, they create the jobs and are outwardly seen to be caring. I haven't seen a political party yet which openly manifests to knock this model on the head.

[John Riddoch]

"We have more to learn"

Cynical translation: "Give us more funding!"

[Tom 13]

Re: "We have more to learn"

There's nothing cynical about telling the truth.

Although on a Page article that's brings out the Warmist trolls, you will collect a lot of downvotes.

[Anonymous Coward]

I come to these threads

For the intellectual level of the debate, and am never disappointed, though my sarcasm meter may go off the scale.

In other news, scientists do science. Who would have imagined that?

[Jeremy Clarkson]

and on that bombshell...

Global warming is crap. I've been saying it for years.

[beast666]

Benefits of rising CO2...

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/07/08/deserts-greening-from-rising-co2/

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is a nice look at recent years with El Nino peaks removed that indicates the trend: https://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/04-s-atl-ind-w-pac-ssta.png

Warming has slowed a bit in the short term, but this is no more exceptional than previous historical variations - the level of CO2 in the atmosphere is still increasing and therefore so will the temperature.

The impact of this on the climate will of course be varied. It might indeed occasionally make deserts wetter / greener, but overall it's most likely to be rather unpleasant through increases in extreme weather - that we can already see - and of course in rising sea levels.

[Fading]

Surface temperature response is only....

One way more energy in the system can be arranged. Given the atmosphere can contain H2O in all its states simultaneously - an increase at surface level in average kinetic energy is very unlikely and would only occur in the simplest of systems. So no "whilst the level of CO2 in the atmosphere is still increasing" it doesn't follow that "therefore so will the [surface]temperature."

[Tom 13]

Re: with El Nino peaks removed

NO! NO! NO! NO! And I say again NO!

When you are doing REAL science you don't get to remove actual data that disagrees with your theory! This is the fundamental problem with your Warmist cult.

[catprog]

Re: with El Nino peaks removed

Lets try an experiment. We get the following data 1 ,1 ,1 , 1 , 1 ,1 ,1 ,1 ,1 , -100.

According to you their has been an large decrease in the data. If I know why that last one was an outlier I can say in general the data is stable. (Comparing like to like)

[Tom 13]

Re: Lets try an experiment.

Except your experiment does not correctly reflect the data set. The data set is:

55, 55.1, 55.2, 55.3, 55.4, 55.4, 55.3, 55.4, 55.4, 55.3, 55.4, 55.3, 55.4

and you're throwing out all the 55.4s as outliers.

[Stuart 22]

Car Bonne Tax

I'll believe it all when Osborne starts giving tax breaks to high polluting CO2 gas guzzling flash motors. Oh, hang on hasn't he being doing just that with removing planned hikes to fuel duty?

More wheels, less bedrooms wins votes. Bit sad innit?

[russell 6]

As the article says, there is still a lot to learn. At the same time we need to look after our home, it's the only one we have.

[mamsey]

Interwebs

I'm personally in favour of the statement 'It's the Interwebs that are causing global warming", as when I was a young lad, before the advent of the Interwebs, I seem to remeber that it was the coming of the next ice age that was all the rage...

[Pope_Algore]

The Man Made Climate Change Religious Cult

It takes a lot of faith to believe in the man-made climate change religious cult. Or maybe it's more of an ideology? What it is NOT, is science. The climate changed and dinosaurs were wiped out. The climate changed and Ice Ages came and went. Followed by global warmings that melted them.

And yet we're supposed to believe that humans are changing the climate THIS TIME? And the only solutions are higher taxes, less freedoms (except for the uber-Leftists, who must lord over the peons, of course), and going back to Stone Age living conditions?

When I see Al Gore and the Hollywood gang riding bicycles, selling their private jets, and living in shoebox-sized apartments, I may start to believe in their hoax.

[HopLobster]

Re: The Man Made Climate Change Religious Cult

No climate change is supported by the science. The atmosphere and the oceans are not too big to fail. Scientists do not follow an ideology, they observe, model and make predictions from their models.

There are many suggested solutions, not all include higher taxes and less freedoms. We should support an increase in new nuclear build and increased research into new nuclear with the goal of construction of a new fleet of molten salt thorium reactors.

[ReduceGHGs]

This will no doubt be used by some as an excuse to reject the current state of climate change science. They'll grasp at ANYTHING to prop up their baseless opinions! The fossil fuel industry loves the gullible people. Learn more about climate change. Google: NASA Climate Change Consensus

[scarshapedstar]

Surface area != volume

If the author believes that it's impossible for a reduced actual volume of total ice - you know, the important part - to coexist with a larger thin layer of sea ice, he must be perpetually BAFFLED when he opens a seemingly large bag of potato chips to find that it's only about 1/3 full.

Speaking of, if the author sends me $10,000 I will reciprocate with a box containing $1,000,000. Don't bother actually counting them all; the box will have a transparent lid through which an upper layer of bills will be visible, which should suffice as proof that the entire box is full of money!

[lucki bstard]

How about this summary:

- Models are not accurate enough

Like every simulation the information that can be extracted from it is limited to the information that can be entered into it. Accuracy is hence limited to the information entered, is it possible to influence the outcome by the information selected to be entered, yep it is.

- Accuracy of interpretation of results

Interpretation of results is fundamentally flawed. Raw data is not flawed interpretation is.

- Climate change has morphed to become a religion

Either you accept one side or the other, and both sides have evangelical preachers. Look at the comments on this article alone, is it possible in this rational age to have a non partisan discussion on climate change. Nope not really.

- Can you trust a scientist?

Before you read a paper first thing to do is check to see who has sponsored the research. That tells you the bias and so far I have not seen an article from a scientist who is not reliant on sponsorship (University/Think tank/ Government, etc); are the results independent of the sponsorship? No way not if the scientist ever wants to work again.

The answer

- Stop worrying, your opinion is just that and will not be taken into account by the groups who decides what is happening and what will be done about it.

- Use the extra ice in your drinks

- Emulate Bacchus

[Anonymous Coward]

Global Warming is OVER!

Let's face reality. Human-caused global warming is a fiction.

There is no supporting evidence for a warming effect, and if anything we are heading for really cold weather. The scientists who filled their rice-bowl from the gullible need to be moved on.

[Apul_MadeeqAoud]

Oh, I thought this was a case of irrefutable science with clear results.

While the scientists continue learning, maybe the greater lesson to be learned by the general community is that scientists often have a greater sense of confidence and urgency in their proclamations than warranted.

[wolf359]

Duh!

Lets see...we think that after keeping records for a couple of hundred years, that we have the climate of a planet that has been around for at least 4.5 BILLION years figured out?!?! We don't even know what caused the last ice age to end, other than we think it is an ongoing cycle...maybe it was caveman SUV's or maybe it is a solar cycle we haven't even discovered yet (after all the sun is the single most prominent factor other than the long term carbon cycle to our climate). If we can't figure out accurately what the weather will be like next week, how are we going to figure out a climate that has cycles of tens of thousands of years or longer?

Maybe if we are still around when the next ice age ends, we'll have some idea of how the climate of our world really works.

[mike.f]

What is the Earth doing?

I think a problem with the way climate change predictions are done is that they do not take into account what the Earth itself is doing. I'm not talking about some kind of Gaia-type conciousness, but the Earth as a dynamic system that reacts to changes.

We know about the effect of ocean currents in the Atlantic, in fact we depend on them to keep North America and Europe temperate. But we know so little about other ocean currents, or even why they are there at all! Recent news was about "Sea Monkeys" and their possible effect on large ocean currents: http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/journal/pof2/26/10/10.1063/1.4895655

Researcher's surprise over the increase in sea ice just underscores their lack of an accurate model of the planet, if such a model is possible.

But I think we are in for more surprises as time goes on... the planet is dynamic.

[slotowner]

Snow?

I would guess that the Antarctic is growing because of more snow. We know that warmer temperatures mean more moisture in the air & it might mean that the moisture reaches deeper into the Antarctic where it can accumulate & expand the glacial ice sheets. My guess is the current models expected the excess moisture to still be frozen & fall into the ocean or fringe ice prior to reaching the glacial zone. During prior warming periods of the Earth, there was not a continent located over one of the poles & continents handle precipitation very differently from oceans.

Let's hope that the Earth remains more resilient to excess heat & CO2 than we thought. Expansion of the Antarctic ice does a lot to negate the melting of the Arctic.

[Jamie Shannon]

The Failure of "Climate Science"

"This failure of reality to match up with climate modelling ..." I presume this putting the cart before the horse was intentional on the part of the author. In any case, it accurately sums up the state of so-called "climate science". As a scientist, one develops models that explain reality. One does not build a model based on pet assumptions and desired outcomes and then complain when reality doesn't fit your world view. The very foundations of anthropomorphic global warming are based on a fairy tale. The earth's atmosphere does not work on the same thermodynamic mechanism that a greenhouse does, and there are no analogous effects that are common to them. The green house theory is a fairy tale we tell school children because it is conceptually more palatable. It has no basis in real thermodynamics. Even IF a greenhouse model were applicable, "climate scientists" continue to ignore that fact that water vapor is the driving force in temperature in such a model. CO2 exists in what are essentially trace amounts in our atmosphere. Human contribution to that trace is 2 orders of magnitude less than the total CO2 concentration. The proposition that this less than trace amount of CO2 is somehow the driving factor of global temperature is a thermodynamic absurdity.

[Adrian Midgley 1]

amount area depth extent...

3 are different and one is poorly defined.

[Leslie Graham]

The earth is losing a trillion tons of ice per year:

- 159 Gt Antarctic LAND ice volume.........McMillan el al, GRL (2014)

+ 26 Gt Antarctic SEA ice volume............Holland et al, J Climate (2014)

- 261 Gt Arctic sea ice................................PIOMAS

- 378 Gt Greenland, Enderlin et al.............GRL (2014)

- 259 Gt other land based glaciers............Gardner et al. Science (2013)

TOTAL ICE LOSS PER YEAR = 1,031 Gt.

In fact, even the increase in seasonal Antarctic sea ice was predicted by Manabe et al 1991, nearly 25 years ago so t osay 'scientists are baffled' is ridiculous.

And, of course, the melt is accelerating as global temperatures continue to rise. And make no mistake - the laws of physics did NOT magicaly cease to apply to the radiative properties of the CO2 molecule in July 1998 no matter how much the carbon corporation's propaganda machine tries to insist they did.

Between 1997 and 2003 Greenland was losing ice at 83 cubic kilometres a year. From 2003 to 2009 it was up to 153 cubic kilometres a year.

Last year, using 14.3 million data points across Greenland collected by CryoSat, the research team were able to show it was up to an extraordinary 378 cubic kilometres per year - nearly 5 times faster than just a decade ago.

If you think that's bad - or even if you don't - check out Antarctica.

Antarctica is also losing ice mass at an accelerating rate.

The 159 Kt loss reported by the McMillan el al study is the long term average which obscures the detail.

Between 1992 and 2001, ice was melting from the two main ice sheets at a rate of about 64 Gt a year.

From 2002 to 2011, the ice sheets were melting at a rate of about 362 Gt a year – an almost six-fold increase.

With 362 Gt of ice sliding or melting into the surrounding sea it's hardly surprising that there is an extra 32 Gt floating around is it?

But the ice melt is the least of the problems that global warming is causing.

Far more immediate will be the crop losses due to droughts and floods and the damage to the global economy - as we can already see. Well - most of us can.

[Leslie Graham]

Standard 'denial for beginners' nonsense.

The warming has accelerated over the last 17 years - the deniers trick of selecting the RSS surface temps only graph and the one that doesn't even include the Arctic at that, let alone the oceans - and then cherry picking the very peak temperature of the Super El Nino year of 1998 as the start point for a statisticaly meaningless time period.,.... I mean really?

You really seriously believe that the bulk of the world's people are so stupid they are going to fall for THAT!

It's just insulting. Apart from this obvious and transparant attempt to deceive its moot anyway as both 2005 and 2010 were hotter than even the Super El Nino year.

Globaly, 2014 is, so far, the hottest year on record.

"...An unprecedented rise in global ocean temperatures contributed toward making the summer of 2014 the hottest on record, according to a report published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA. The reading puts the entire year on track to become the hottest ever since records began.

From June through August, the average global temperature was 62.7 degrees Fahrenheit, which is 1.28 degrees higher than the 20th-century average. The global sea surface temperature was 1.17 degrees Fahrenheit above the previous century's average of 61.4 degrees, breaking the previous all-time high set in June. This, according to the report, made not only the month of August the hottest August since records began in 1880, it also made the summer of 2014 the hottest ever.

The report stated that record-high temperatures were reported not only during the summers in the northern hemisphere, but also during the winters in the southern hemisphere during the months of June, July and August. During these three months, the winters in the southern hemisphere were the fourth warmest on record.

http://www.ibtimes.com/summer-2014-was-hottest-ever-noaa-report-1692348

At least try to come up with some new rubbish. These same old discredited and thousand-times-falsified myths and memes are no longer irritating - they're just boring.

[RealFred]

The big problem, you are using averages. How about using proper statistics. As the paper says, scientists have a lot to learn. This whole Global Warming fiasco will eventually result in the failure of people to trust science.

[Daggerchild]

"This whole Global Warming fiasco will eventually result in the failure of people to trust science"

Until then this is great for making people proudly display their true mental capabilities. Much data! Very logic! Great appreciate!

[Anonymous Coward]

Really, we have had satellites for measuring "global temperature", whatever that exactly might mean, for the past how many years?

http://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/

I realise the warmists don't like Dr. Spencer, however, the data sets he and others maintain from the satellite record are the best we have, and not really hotly disputed (there is a lot of work done insuring their accuracy), compared to the fairy tales made up by "scientists" "correcting" the historical thermometer records (mostly up as it turns out).

The graph is upwards as one would expect, as we exit an ice age. The Mk.1 eyeball suggests less than .5C degree warming during the 35 year period of the satellite record, nothing too astonishing here - certainly no indication of Thermogeddon (tm)

[Daggerchild]

"The Mk.1 eyeball suggests less than .5C degree warming during the 35 year period of the satellite record, nothing too astonishing here - certainly no indication of Thermogeddon (tm)"

What is the current definition of 'Thermogeddon' with regards to temperature increase btw? e.g. at which point do we start losing islands, or how many islands do we need to lose before you think it's just 'bad'? (assuming you didn't live on those islands, or had any interest in their species)

Also, how many years before 'Thermogeddon' would we need before we'd have to actually do something? Maybe we should plan ahead, just in case?

I notice a lot of insect species habitable zones moving north (bummer if you're on an island, or your forest won't move with you), and a few rotting ex-permafrosted mammoths. The drunken forest is particularly strange - imagine spending your life growing in frozen ground, and then one day it's mush? The retreating glaciers rapidly vomiting ancient relics that are now quickly rotting in the open is also a pity. Don't have to worry about kooky icemen discoveries now!

Still, all that's only .5C eh? I'm sure nothing else will mind this increasing destabilisation - all this extra energy in the system makes it a devil to predict don't'cha know! Seriously, why bother trying!

[Philip Lewis]

@Daggerchild

"Thermogeddon" is generally (by me) deemed to be a time series temperature graph showing runaway positive feedback - something rather like the infamous "hockey stick", which was in fact contrived to demonstrate exactly this.

It is this particular "feature" of global temperature which is the underlying thesis of the entire AGW community - the problem is that the observed data do not show this to be true in the satellite era, which is now well into its 4th decade.

.15C p.a. is slight, and an increase not inconsistent with what one would expect when observing the geological record.

What 'people' see though, is local changes in weather patterns, and being morons, they extrapolate this to the entire planet. This is what you are doing, when you imply that local changes have caused local fauna to adapt. It is also true as well where I happen to live, where the particular pollen to which I am allergic arrives earlier than it did 50 years ago. These are local events, they are not global events. It IS getting warmer, ever so slightly on average every year, and it will likely continue to do so until whatever causes ice ages happens again.

Warmer is better for life, we live in a benign climatic period in geological time.

You, and I, are so amazingly unlikely, that we should try to live and enjoy our one chance at this, and stop stressing about the universe doing what it does. Humanity didn't cause the last ice age (or end it) and it won't cause the next. Neither will it precipitate Thermogeddon.

[Jim Birch]

FFS. Stop trying to explain complex processes with one line answers.

The original article was bad science already but some of the commenters have taken things to a completely new level.

1. Antarctic ice is always melting. Basically snow falls on the continent then the ice gradually flows to the edges of the continent and then melts. It may melt on the land, it may form ice sheets over the sean and melt there, it may break off as icebergs, float away and melt. It is not about to stop.

2. This means that fresh water is being added to the sea at the edges of the continent. What happens to this fresh water is complex. There is a lot of mixing but this depends the weather. Anyone who has a one line answer is wrong.

3. The net gain or loss of antarctic ice is the snowfall minus the melt. This is a simple mathematical result but it seems to be too much for some posters. How they think they could possibly understand climate change without being able to do simple maths is beyond me. Even if there was a net gain in Antarctic ice there would still a massive amount of melt occurring.

4. In fact, there is good evidence for a net loss. This is calculated from measurements of the change in ice thickness made with satellites. It would be impossible to calculate accurately by measuring ice flows and melt without a mass of data points that we don't have.

5. The formation of sea ice is complex. It is not simply a function of temperature, or temperature and salinity. The wind and ocean circulation play a major part. Some weather patterns are clearly much more conducive to sea ice formation than others. The actual processes and drivers of sea ice formation are not fully understood. Current models are not perfect. Research is continuing.

6. Global warming is a potential cause of changes in weather patterns. Thus global warming could actually result in more sea ice. It could also result in less sea ice - as would be expected from a simplistic look at temperature increase alone - however, it depends how the patterns actually change. Year to year variations in Antarctic sea ice extent are quite large and can't be explained by simple temperature variations.

7. The presence of sea ice itself also changes the weather patterns by altering the energy exchanges at the air-sea boundary and by reflecting sunlight back into space. These changes in weather patterns will in turn affect sea ice growth. Some of these feedbacks will be positive and some negative.

8. Even if global warming has never happened, has stopped or is paused as some deniers claim, this would still not explain the record sea ice extent. You would need to look for changes in weather patterns and ocean circulations for an explanation.

9. If global warming is occurring it won't mean it gets hotter everywhere, every bit of ocean warms up, and there is less ice everywhere. This is only the average result not what will happen everywhere. It's a complex system with lots of feedback, both positive and negative. In addition, global warming would change circulation patterns that have major impacts on local conditions. So we should expect deviations from any trend, and various places and times.

10. The appearance of more sea ice does not prove that global warming is not occurring. It is an interesting anomalous data point and should help to improve our understanding the processes of sea ice formation.

Bottom line: Sea ice is not temperature.

[Anonymous Coward]

Congratulations to all involved!

Well, I for one think The Register has achieved exactly what it set out to do today. Well done.

[Anonymous Coward]

Area =/= volume

So the surface area increased, but the volume is still decreasing.. and this is 'proof' that global warming isn't true?

/fp

[Jtom]

Gotta laugh

It's amusing that even when the experts say they don't understand what's going on, those who belong to the Faith of Global Warming insist they do.

Here, I'll add some fuel to the fire. If you look at the RSS temperature data

ftp://ftp.ssmi.com/msu/graphics/tlt/plots/rss_ts_channel_tlt_southern%20polar_land_and_sea_v03_3.png

You will see that Antarctica has been gotten steadily colder (by a trivial amount) since 1979. There is also no evidence of surface melting. Finally, the increase in sea level rise has been slowing, not increasing which was expected by accelerated ice melting throughout the world.

So if Antarctica is melting, what's melting it, and where is the water going?

[Faux Science Slayer]

We live in a false paradigm reality....

bounded by faux science, fake history, filtered news and financed with a fiat currency. Visit FauxScienceSlayer site for articles on the LIES of Carbon climate forcing, 'sustainable' energy, 'peak' oil and the big bang. Monarch-monopolists control our government, media and major corporations and depend on endless deception, end feudalism.

[Hubert Thrunge Jr.]

The climate has changed up and down for millions of years.

People used to migrate to work around it.

Now we build expensive settlements and sit there like King Canute.

Global population is more of a problem for the planet than climate change (which I do not deny, nor care about - it happens). The human race needs to stop breeding - cold hard fact.

Adapt or die.

[Hans 1]

I love it when bunches of boffins all over the world argue about something ... and on el'reg we have some very knowledgeable scientists who are wasting their time in IT when they could solve this whole problem.

New flash! Nobody knows exactly what will happen, our models are not very good.

This does not mean, though, that we can go on and pump more CO2 into the atmosphere, sorry. we need to find clean energy sources. Energy to use and abuse as we see fit; if it has no consequence on the planet/climate/health, we can.

As for the deniers and believers, we have no f'ing clue, so stop arguing.