Big Lizards:Blog:Entry “Russia - Trying to Annex Arctic

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August 1, 2007

Russia - Trying to Annex Arctic - Had to Plough Through Deep Ice!

Hatched by Dafydd

I was reading about Russia trying to annex a large chuck of the North Pole, when I was struck by this passage:

In an unprecedented and potentially perilous mission, veteran Arctic explorer Artur Chilingarov will descend 14,000 feet in a deep sea submersible and drop a Russian tricolor cast in titanium onto the seabed.

With Russia’s northern rivals, all eager to extend their own Arctic ambitions, looking on uneasily, two Russian ships reached the North Pole after ploughing their way through deep ice for over a week.

But lo! Haven't we been told for several years now -- and not just by Al Gore -- that global warming has caused the ice in the Arctic to melt, break up, and leave huge, ice-free passages all the way to the North Pole? Why then did the Russkies have to crash their way through thick, frozen H²O?

But maybe they didn't really mean that. I read further...

Global warming has given renewed impetus to the race for control of the Arctic.

Melting ice sheets could open up the fabled North East passage, the quest for which claimed countless sailors’ lives, for the first time.

The route, which could dramatically cut the length of a journey from Europe to Asia, could become navigable to commercial traffic within eight years.

So there you have it from the Telegraph's mouth: There is no Northeast Passage; the ice hasn't broken up; people are simply hoping that it will, because if it did, it would vastly increase the world recoverable oil supply -- and also make a big positive difference in shipping time.

In other words, here is another wonderful benefit from global warming -- that alas we don't get, because there is no significant global warming. Prompting me to repeat my plaintive cri de coeur for the last decade:

Anthropogenic global warming... yet another broken government promise.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, August 1, 2007, at the time of 1:54 PM

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Comments

The following hissed in response by: cdquarles

:).

Dafydd,

Interestingly enough, there is evidence that the raw temperature data, used by AGW high priests to perpetuate their false religion, has enough error of measurement that there may not have been any net warming since the 1950's.

But wait, there's more. Since the sun is a variable star, there is evidence that solar output has peaked with the last sunspot cycle such that we will be entering a cooling phase like the one from the 1940's through the 1970's.
In addition, the recent positive PDO (Pacific Decadal Oscillation) and positive AMO (Atlantic Multi-Decadal Oscillation) will switch back to their negative phases in the next 10 to 20 years, amplifying the cooling. Finally, the famous assertion that pre-Industrial age CO2 levels of approx. 290 ppmv are the result of cherry-picking by a meteorologist named G. S. Callendar, who followed the work of a physical chemist named Svante A. Arrhenius who analyzed CO2 in ice cores. You might find this paper interesting, as well as this one.

The above hissed in response by: cdquarles at August 1, 2007 8:35 PM

The following hissed in response by: LarryD

Since CO2 levels have been mentioned, it turns out that North America is a net sink, at least for the years of 1988 to 1992. (Hat tip to Randall Hoven at American Thinker.)

"The terrestrial uptake in North America is at least partly due to regrowth on abandoned farmland and previously logged forests (30, 31). Numerous field and laboratory studies have suggested that terrestrial uptake is currently enhanced by anthropogenic nitrogen deposition [0.2 to 2.0 Pg C year-1 globally, with much of this in the Northern Hemisphere (33, 34)], CO2 fertilization [0.5 to 2.0 Pg C year-1 globally, with most of this in the tropics (33)], and global warming [mostly in the north temperate zone (8, 35)]. On the other hand, warming might also have reduced terrestrial uptake by enhancing decomposition (29, 36)."

The above hissed in response by: LarryD at August 2, 2007 7:18 AM