Wednesday, August 29, 2012

And of course I was right again



Marc "Moron" Morano, climate denialist and mental contortionist extraordinaire, also one of the world's most dislikeable human beings, had to try and reassure his gullible misled flock that the Arctic sea melting disaster unfolding in day-to-day slow motion up polar way is "nothing unusual".   Now, given that there has been some pretty darned good explication of what's going on by some pretty noted scientists, his attempt is sadly pathetic. 

However, he also fulfills my prediction, previously fulfilled by Anthony "Clueless" Watts (Up wit Dat?), that the denialist hordes would use the mid-August summer storm as a major explanation for the record, ignoring/overlooking/misguiding/misrepresenting the state of the thin Arctic ice pack, which made it vulnerable to the summer polar cyclone.   I predicted it on Twitter, as noted in my "I knew it, I knew it" post earlier this week, and Morano delivers in spades.

The thing is, they wouldn't be good little predictable denier liars if they didn't use this event as an excuse to assuage the slightly alarmed minimum mentalities of those that they regularly and guiltlessly mislead.  But that doesn't mean that I approve.


Don't Panic! Arctic Ice Hits 'Record' Low!? Climate Depot Explains Arctic melting hype

And here's where the ace moron goes all in for the storm:

And the reduction was aided by a super storm this year. See: Did 'The Great Arctic Cyclone of 2012' reduce sea ice?: 'Neither Borenstein nor NSIDC's current announcement mentions the massive Arctic storm that broke up huge amounts of sea ice, making this new record low possible...' & See: Reduced sea ice extent due to storm? The ice loss was mainly in the Chukchi Sea, where the storm was. The storm brought warm water to the surface  

In the above, he's quoting Anthony Wattsless, because it's difficult for Morano to actually connect individual thoughts in his braincase. But he did use the adjective "super", as one hyping such cause would be expected to.

Was the storm really that big?  Well, it was "unusually strong".  Super?  That's a stretch.  Kinda like the difference between a Cat 3 and a Cat 5 hurricane.  But the thing is -- increasing intensity of summer Arctic storms is a consequence of global warming, too.  (Click that to go to the article).  Oh, did the denier leaders MISS that little factoid?  Sure shootin', they didn't mention it at all !!!  

So we have what the scientists characterize as floating in the warmer Arctic Ocean waters: "slushy" ice, not the hard multi-year ice present in much greater volumes in years past, making it vulnerable to increasingly intense Arctic summer storms -- due to the warmer Arctic waters!  

Here's how it goes:
"Gradually warming waters have driven storm tracks -- the ocean paths in the Atlantic and Pacific along which most cyclones travel -- northward. We speculate that sea ice serves as the 'middleman' in a scenario where increased storm activity yields increased stirring winds that will speed up the Arctic's transition into a body of turbulently mixing warm and cool layers with greater potential for deep convection that will alter climate further," said Hakkinen. "What I find truly intriguing about confirming the link between the rise in storminess and increased sea ice drift is the possibility that new sinks for carbon dioxide may emerge from this relationship that could function as negative feedback for global warming."

That's what I call (but they don't) a death spiral, a combination of negatively reinforcing factors forcing the system in one direction -- toward zero.  Great.

So there you have it, dear readers -- an amply fulfilled prediction.  Sad that it had to be about a subject as dire and inescapable as this.

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