An article in yesterday's National Post details record low temps and snowfalls this year in the face of cries of apocalyptic global warming made by that pesky species whose survival must always be viewed as a threat to the rest of the earth - man. From the article:
"...remember the Arctic Sea ice? The ice we were told so hysterically last fall had melted to its "lowest levels on record? Never mind that those records only date back as far as 1972 and that there is anthropological and geological evidence of much greater melts in the past.
The ice is back.
Gilles Langis, a senior forecaster with the Canadian Ice Service in Ottawa, says the Arctic winter has been so severe the ice has not only recovered, it is actually 10 to 20 cm thicker in many places than at this time last year."
If I were pointing to this fact as a proof that there is no overall climate trend in one direction or another I'd be just as dumb as those who show use a picture of a floating polar bear as proof that mankind is burning up the globe. One winter's temp is not any sort of scientific evidence for any kind of long-term climate. But, this winter's cold, and the last 8 years of essentially stable temps should at least be given some attention and explanation by those telling us to buy kayaks so we can get around New York City in 2010. The article put it well:
"OK, so one winter does not a climate make. It would be premature to claim an Ice Age is looming just because we have had one of our most brutal winters in decades.
But if environmentalists and environment reporters can run around shrieking about the manmade destruction of the natural order every time a robin shows up on Georgian Bay two weeks early, then it is at least fair game to use this winter's weather stories to wonder whether the alarmist are being a tad premature.
And it's not just anecdotal evidence that is piling up against the climate-change dogma."
Read the rest here.