Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
of the big problems facing scientists who
try to predict local climate change. Thus
even if Michaels is right and there was
a mid-twentieth-century global cooling
trend, it would not be an indication that
there was cooling in central Africa. Distin-
guishing between global and local trends is
critical in evaluating global change impacts.
melting of the ice sheets, including the first
recognition (2009) of a net loss of ice from
the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, means that a
sea level rise of one to one and a half me-
ters (three to five feet) and possibly more
will likely be achieved this century. A sixty-
centimeter (two-foot) sea level rise will be
a disaster for the world's developed sandy
coastlines, as would a ninety-centimeter
(three-foot) rise for many coastal cities.
The most absurdly skeptical disregard of
the importance of the world's ice sheets is
that of Holly Fretwell of the Property and
Environment Research Center. In a chil-
dren's topic, The Sky's Not Falling , she states
that the melting of the world's ice sheets
will not have much effect on global sea
levels!
myth : Most of the 625 glaciers under ob-
servation by the UN's World Glacier Moni-
toring Service are growing. According to an
article by the botanist David Bellamy in the
New Scientist (2005), 555 of 625 observed gla-
ciers have been growing since 1980. The ser-
vice's response: the evidence is unequivo-
cal; most of the world's glaciers are melting.
Apparently Bellamy's figures came from
S. Fred Singer's website, but it's hard to
comprehend how such a fundamental and
now widely quoted error could have been
made by a reputable scientist. Bellamy later
recanted the numbers, but the damage was
done and the numbers are still quoted.
myth : The glaciers of Kilimanjaro were re-
ceding when the planet was cooling in the
mid-twentieth century, and therefore the
loss of ice is not due to warming (according to
Patrick J. Michaels of the Cato Institute).
Global temperature trends are not neces-
sarily regional or local trends, which is one
Search WWH ::




Custom Search