And this is your evidence for Global Cooling? Nothing more than temporary and anecdotal, the kind that Fox News belches out as rebuttal to the real evidence and the prognostications which logically follow. Do you have kids, grandkids? If so, be afraid. Be very afraid when you watch the smokestacks. The closed atmospheric system did not evolve to sustain the sudden insult of Man's despoiling.

Of course, temporary and anecdotal is EXACTLY the sort of evidence the media and climate alarmists have been trumping up for thirty years, even as they squelched all contrary evidence. Well, this is something not so temporary -- the Antarctic ice mass has been growing for thirty years, to the point that it is now at record levels. As for prognostications, how about the prognostications made by the likes of Al Gore in 2008 that the The Arctic would be free of ice by 2013. In fact, the Arctic ice field has grown over 50% in the last year. In fact, Arctic ice is at 7.3 million square miles once again and is close to the 7.6 million square miles that it was thirty years ago

This must be good...it drew two "Ones"....It's my theory that the one voter is some poor dyslexic soul, who's got the voting system reversed

I'm going to give you two 5s for pacing and how funny, but, I'm only going to give you one 5 because Harry Belafonte is a commie and would not appreciate this one little bit.

This is not the first nor the last time both a merchant ship and an ice breaker got caught in thick ice. Your conclusions on global warming denial based on observation alone are not scientific. The ice has been melting at record levels and has been breaking up, spreading out over a much wider area and sometimes taking the local animals with it, i.e. plight of the polar bears. I think that you should consult Greenpeace, NASA, EPA, and other organizations that monitor the earth. Lennie boy, you Reppies are living in denial. A single ship story means nothing when there's so much accumulated evidence of global warming and an impending global catastrophe for our generation and the next to come. Wake up, man!!!

"The entire North ‘polarized’ cap will disappear in 5 years." -Al Gore in 2008.

This is not the first nor the last time a leftard has pretended the delusional myths of their apocalyptic eco-fascist cult are at all scientific, nor made factually false assertions such as Al Gore's there. (The U.K.'s leftard rag The Guardian likewise asserted that a billion people would die of global warming by 2011.) The accumulated evidence is that the vast majority of you cultists don't even believe in your own Chicken Little story, as you go jetting around to conferences in your C02-spewing private jets and rolling huge fleets of C02 stretch Limos around the streets of the cities you afflict with those conferences, and living in massive C02-spewing energy-wasting McMansion's like Al Gore's. You alarmist hypocrites assert that we "Reppies" (though 45% of America now identifies as Independent) are "living in denial" for not believing your blatant lies. The operative word for us reality-dwellers is "living." Not one single person has ever yet died of global warming, though I wouldn't be surprised if you alarmists have assassinated someone for showing you up. You goose-stepping greentards are getting desperate as your prophecies of climate catastrophes and mass die-offs continually fail to materialize. (The ice at the poles and the polar bear population as a whole, in fact, have GROWN over the past decade. Wrong again, liars!) GreenFreaks, Not American Spacemen Anymore, the Eco-fascist Parasitic Alliance and all other greentard government-growing alarmist cults are no scientists, and you're not spewing their lies out of any genuine concern for our well-being. Say hi to Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Pol Pot, Kim Jung Il, and all the rest of your fellow Global Governance wannabes when you arrive where it's not just globally warming, but UNIVERSALLY warming, greentard goose-steppers!

The Antarctic is a continent of ice surrounded by cold water. The Arctic is a semi-enclosed ocean, almost completely surrounded by land. Steadily warming land and sea temperatures have had a visible impact on the Arctic, with the extent of its ice sheet reaching record lows in recent years.

The loss of ice in Antarctica does not appear to be as dramatic and it is even increasing in places, leading some to believe this means global warming is not occurring. Wrong! The Arctic is warming much faster than the Antarctic because it’s an open ocean surrounded by continents When people talk about an increase in Antarctic ice, they are actually talking about sea ice in certain regions, which is completely different from continental ice. Warmer oceans help melt the ice and make it thinner, which has been observed in the Arctic. In Antarctica it’s more complicated. It is losing continental ice while sea ice has been increasing by about 1% a decade -- and this increase is actually attributable to global warming, as we shall see. Studies have found Antarctica has lost about 100 billion tons of continental ice a year since 1993, causing the global sea level to rise by about 0.2mm a year.

There is high confidence that ice shelves around the Antarctic peninsula continue its long-term trend of retreat and partial collapse that began decades ago. But this loss, caused by warming oceans, has been countered by an increase in ice in the Ross Sea region. This is the result of a range of factors, including climate change. There has been an increase in snowfall in parts of the Antarctic, especially the east Antarctic where the ship is. That increase in snowfall can be attributed to warmer temperatures, and the accompanying higher humidity. It’s a pretty basic principle of science that increased air humidity causes rain if it’s warm enough, or snow if it’s cold enough. It’s very cold in the Antarctic, so it snows.

Contrary to some of the more outlandish claims made by climate change deniers, the ship was not suddenly enveloped by ice due to rapidly plummeting temperatures. It was pinned by ice carved off from the Mertz glacier, a well-established ice formation. In the last few years, the ice near where the ship is bogged down has become less accessible. This will eventually break up and move away, depending on wind patterns, storms, tidal activity and ambient temperatures. These are variable, local conditions.

There are still gaps in scientific understanding of the Antarctic, mainly around the dynamics of ice sheets. This understanding will be improved by rigorous analysis of gathered evidence. It’s unlikely a single ship getting stuck in ice will cause a major deviation in researchers’ findings.

According to data from September 18, Arctic sea ice extent was about 1.97 million square miles, which is well above the level observed on the same date the year before, YET STILL WELL BELOW the 1981-2010 average. The Arctic is warming at nearly twice the rate of the rest of the globe.

As has been the case in recent years, the sea ice at the end of the 2013 melt season was unusually thin, which makes it more susceptible to the influence of weather systems. That year, weather patterns in the Arctic were more favorable for maintaining more of the ice cover than during the past few summers. But the thinness of the sea ice also indicates that it won’t take much to reach another record low in future melt seasons.

Basically last summer was a bit colder than we've seen the last several years. Even though the ice was likely thinner the past winter than the winter before, according to estimates from CryoSat, the relatively cooler summer was able to keep more of that thin ice around. So what we have is a blip in an inarguable long-term meltdown of the Arctic ice sheet.

After reading the vicious political rant of "unfactual & disproven," the subsequent calm explanation by Adam Spencer is a breath of fresh (warm) air.

You've done it again CML-555! How you generate such controversy over your topics is amazing and inspires me to write yet another military parody! I was thinking of the ice and it occurred to me that the Soviet Typhoon subs were designed to sit under the ice for up to a year on the floor and then after ascending, break through and launch their missiles! The massive tonnage of the Typhoon with its use of titanium and vanadium in the hull can smash through any amont of ice at either pole. As for global warming... ??? I don't really believe it and it doesn't matter anyway about future generations as the world population by 2050 is estimated at 12 Billion and the main resources will be largely depleted. Just feeding that mob will be tough enough, so expect a comeback for bicycles and mopeds for transportation and fuel cell tech. I live in Sacramento, Ca. which has plenty of electric cars as well as bicycle tech (motorized or otherwise). I am too much of a man to return to motorized bikes (1979), so I will die with a full-sized motorcycle belching smoke at 11.5:1 compression ratio vs 8.5:1 Harley :)

So, Adam Spencer, the Arctic was at record lows in recent years which of course, scientifically "proves" that global warming is real. Amazingly enough, when I counter that the Arctic ice is now almost back to the level it was thirty years ago, this "proves" that I know nothing about science, because I am using anecdotal evidence. So, when you point to the ice melting it's "climate", when I point to the fact that the ice is back to levels seen in the 1980's it's "weather." And when you speak of records low levels of ice, what is your starting point? Is it a record for the last millenium -- probably not, seeing as how Greenland was once called Vinland by the Vikings, who found the climate suitable for agriculture in the 11th century.... .... And the sea levels are now rising at a rate of .2 millimeters per year due to Antarctic ice melt, you say? Seeing as how there are 25 millimeters per inch, that would translate to a 1 inch rise in sea levels every century. And I'm supposed to be alarmed and support policies that will impoverish our nation on account of this? ....... And as long as we're talking about increase in sea levels -- in 1991, the IPCC (Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change) your go-to, unimpeachable scientific authority that you libs try to use to browbeat skeptics into submission, predicted a 120mm rise in sea levels by 2014, which was off by a factor of five, so far. Oh, but when we "deniers" point this out or talk about the E-mails that point to the IPCC conspiring to supress "inconvenient" data, you try to shout us down. It's exactly this sort of thing that's destroying your credibility

Well, Rob, I'm not really trying to stir up these sh*tst#rms. Until these trolls started plague-ing the site, I'd only stir stuff up perhaps 10% of the time, and generally it was against MP. Now every thread is all-out Lennieskrieg. You know, I had 58 comments on the "12 Days of O-care" thread, which, near as I can figure from a brief search of the Author pages, is one of highest # in the past five years. Oh, and BTW, who is this CML character you keep referring to -- (chortle)

Lennie, please state your source(s) for your statement which is central to your polemic, viz., "the Arctic ice is now almost back to the level it was thirty years ago." The statement is simply false; if it were true, there would be little attention paid to the issue of global warming.

Scientists use two basic kinds of measurements for sea ice: extent and thickness.

Extent:

Since 1979 (my "starting point") it has been possible to monitor sea ice by satellite. We now have more than 30 years of reliable information on the extent of the sea-ice cover. The images show that the extent in the summer is 30% smaller than it was at the beginning of the 1980s.
The extent during winter has diminished by about 10%. In September 2012, the ice extent broke a new record: it was the smallest sea-ice extent measured since 1979. Compared to the average extent (1979-2000), the sea ice had diminished by 49%.

Thickness:

The thickness of the sea ice has also changed. Scientists use the terms first-year ice and multi-year ice. Multi-year ice does not melt away during summer and therefore it can grow to be as thick as 3 to 4 meters. However, the ice is now getting thinner, and the ice cover that forms during winter consists increasingly of first-year ice.

The measurements of sea-ice thickness are not as precise and reliable as the information gathered on sea-ice extent. The reason for this is primarily that it is difficult to obtain good data. However, The Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI) has developed a new method, whereby observations and data from satellites can be used to calculate a precise measure of the sea-ice thickness in all of the Arctic.

Source: Polarportal.org. If you impeach my source as being "liberal," I will include you with the likes of "unfactual & disproven" and no longer try to have rational discourse on this thread.

You want "rational discourse" in a song parody comments section? Hoo boy, have you come to the wrong place, Adam! Of course, "rational discourse" with greentards who can interpret ANY statistic (legitimate or otherwise) to say that Earth is going to fry unless we "unscientific" rabble stop thinking for ourselves and give up our liberties to a bunch of wealthy elitist fascists (such as Al Gore) is pretty much impossible; and nobody much DOES pay any attention to your pathetic efforts to scare us about every little change in the weather anymore, because our predictions keep coming true and yours don't. There has been no global warming apocalypse, is no global warming apocalypse, and will continue to be no global warming apocalypse. Game, set, and match, liars. Now go crawl back under your rock.

Hey, u & d -- In that iconic picture of evolution, showing a procession of hominids, you're the one on the far left, aren't you?

I just had a general Q? for the Greenies about global warming. It would seem that the far-Left and fanatics pick the Artic and Antarctic as frequent examples of this warming trend caused by man-made emissions into the atmosphere but ignore other areas completely. What about Russia that is the coldest nation on earth? Their northern coastline is NEVER totally free of ice year-round and their temps remain constant for that severe winter that lasts most of the year. WHY doesn't global (key word) warming affect the ice in their seas and the avg temp year round in their nation? Also, Africa remains hot and goes through the same cycles- shouldn't that and central Australia be burning up? Australia has some really bad fires each year... but so does California (seems half the southern state is burning each year) and those are considered normal. Where is the global impact? And why has no apocalypse happened as Al Gore predicted many years ago? Or are they gonna do the scientific time re-set again like they do with the age of the earth and the universe's creation??? Granted, air pollution is proven and deadly and has killed people... but has anyone really died of global warming? Any cites from a reliable source of scientific accuracy? Conspiracy sites do not count nor any DEM leftist green wacko sites. Btw, I remember the DEMs in junior high talking about synthetic fuel options and openly asking my teacher WHY German coal hydronation was not being used as we had a 300 year coal supply and Nazi Germany ran 85% off synthetics in WW2!!! He had no reply and now it comes to light that in Texas a German hydronation plant was moved there and ran for 10 years after WW2. Texas A&M retained the findings on microfilm and stored it as THE US ARMY took all the rest of the files and handed them over to the big oil companies to be buried. The Germans operated 16 coal hydronation plants and all were dismantled by the Allies. German synthetics also included synthetic rubber and synthetic lubricants for all mechanical devices. So that is why I do not trust anything the US Govt. and Armed Forces claim about any military or spin-off tech from the Reich. Why did it also take Ford until 1983 to produce the 10th Gen aerodynamic Thunderbird and Probe IV test model? The Germans had a civiian test model aerodynamic car with a drag coefficeint of 0.11 pre-war!!! That was better than the Mercedes-designed 1940 LSR T-80 which had a drag-coefficeint of 0.18!!! What I'm saying is that we've been lied to for decades after WW2 about science and advancements, of what was and was not possible for each time period. Now we're being warned about impending disaster over a myth that is over-hyped by the Greenies and adopted by the Democratic Party. Refuting it isn't denial, it's common sense!!! CML is right :)

LL: citing another mythological icon to prop up your own failed mythology? How appropriate: just as there's no Piltdown Man and no Tooth Fairy, there's no Global Warming.

Small error in my last comment- should read coal hydrogenation instead of hydronation! Back in the day it was simply coal gasification ;-)