jfuh

Depends on how far back you go. It is quite unlikly however that the north pole had ever been ice free in the last several mellenia or at least for as long as humans had been roaming the planet - which is the only real relevant time period to us.
So that 65 million years ago Antarctica and the artic were tropical swamps is utterly irrelevant. We don't have giant lizards roaming the planet today.

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The facts and science of the theory of anthropogenic Global warming

Cataclysmic 7.9 earthquake in China, how to donate to the relief fund.

P/N

It's not "utterly irrelevant" at all. It would be just one more way to debunk global warming as man made. And don't get the wrong idea here, I believe we are experiencing global warming, but I'm not buying into the theory that man is the primary cause. Are we polluting the earth? Absolutely we are, but what influence that has on global warming as a whole has not been proven without a reasonable doubt.

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"The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help." - Ronald Reagan

jfuh

How is it proof against global warming? That it's happened before naturally hence it's natural now?

Yes, anthropogenic global warming actually has been proven to a very high confidence using the scientific method. That natural warming has occured in the past is by no means disproving that the current climate is being anthropologically impacted - nor does it prove that it is.

UtahBill

Cruise ship operators should be lining up customers to visit the NP, maybe even charter boat operators as well, so we can fish there. It may happen only once in the next century, but you can bet someone will find a way to make money on it....

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The Age of Reason doesn't have to be a thing of the past.
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Diogenes

Plows, Plagues, and Petroleum: How Humans Took Control of Climate by a career climatologist claims that anthropogenic global warming began some 6,000 years ago with the discovery of agriculture, and that the methane production which began with rice paddies in India and Asia is the mechanism that is holding back the onset of the next ice age.

He also notes that the overall trend is planetary cooling. There was no permanent ice cap at all until the one formed in Antarctica some 14 million years ago. The first ice age (a Northern hemisphere phenomenon only; there isn't enough land in the south) occurred 2.75 million years ago. There were 40-50 ice ages over the next 1.8 million years, with no permanent arctic ice during the warm periods. The length of the cycle more than doubled 900,000 years ago, from around 41,000 years to about 100,000 years. It is only during this latter period, less than a million years, that there has been permanent ice in the arctic.

I've never seen these claims anywhere else but Ruddiman at least makes a calm and reasoned argument for them, which is in sharp contrast to the shrill hysteria of the OwlGore apostles.

There is no science, none at all, which quantifies the human contribution to climate change. And there is no science, none at all, which quantifies the benefits to be gained from any of the proposed remedial measures (like Kyoto). The hubris of those who think they can significantly change the course of cosmic events like climate change rivals the hubris of King Canute and his royal edict commanding the tides.

WI Crippler

An ice free North Pole doesn't really mean anything drastic. You have to think, all that ice that has already melted, and where is the catastrophe? If there is only a scant few inches left, then why, after the melting of all the other inches or feet, is there not a considerable change in anything really? If the last few inches melt off this summer, nothing bad will happen.

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"Fatigue makes cowards of us all" - Vincent T. Lombardi.

UtahBill

Yes, as it is floating ice. If all of it worldwide melted, sea levels would not increase much. The more serious ice melt issue is when a glacier melts.

jfuh

Both of you are thinking only of the immediate effects of the ice melting - which in this case I assume you are relating to rising sea levels.
However that is not the problem. The problem is with radiation absorption and the feedback of such absorption.
Ice and snow reflect radiation back into space where as deep water ocean will take it all in. This feeds back onto itself and contributes then to dramatic changes in weather patterns as well as ocean currents.
That is the cause of concern that is where the big problem lays with a melted arctic as well as the very fact that the arctic melting correlates well with predicted models of precisely what would happen as a result of global warming.
This is but the prequel of what's to come.

Gladiator

The Only thing that seemed understated in Al Gore's Movie, AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH, was his presentation of data on the North Pole. Al Gore stated that he had gotten permission to state previous secret info, that the North Pole had had some 30 feet of ice, when the US submarines first started going under the North Pole, in the 1970's or so. And that in 2006. when An Inconvenient Truth was released, the North Pole had only 4 feet thickness of ice in large areas.

The melting of the North Pole will not raise the sea level very much, as already mentioned, because most of the ice is already displacing water of almost the same volume. After seeing the movie, I remember thinking that the North Pole should be entirely gone in a few more years.

The flow of cold water that cools the undersea geisers may be altered by the absence of the North Pole. Currently, Cold water from the poles flows down to the deep ocean floor, over the undersea geisers, and geiser water, heated by Magna under the sea floor, is cooled. The surface temperatues of sea water above 500 feet deep, may increase faster, if Geisers are less effectively cooled.

60% of Earth's surface is covered by ocean water of more than one mile deep. Man does not have a real good idea of the water and magna flows at pressures of greater than 2000 Pounds per square inch, below one mile deep oceans.


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How did Our Oil get under Their Sand?

Gladiator

Who will organize the Going Away party for the North Pole?

Maybe Obama should choose Al Gore for his Vice President. I have confidence that Al Gore could organize a fitting tribute. Fireworks, Band Concerts, etc. Maybe sight-seeing boats. Convert all Coast Guard Ice Cutters into party boats for folks to take pictures of the disapearing North Pole.

I saw a nice computer simulation on CNN, an hour ago, of the disapearance of the North Pole. The North Pole starts melting on the edges, and finally the middle is gone.