Antarctica might go green say scientists (only 2km of ice and 50C of warming to go)

More great journalism from The Guardian:

Climate change is turning Antarctica green, say researchers

Or maybe it isn’t. Check out the brave actual prediction:

“Antarctica is not going to become entirely green, but it will become more green than it currently is,” said Matt Amesbury, co-author of the research from the University of Exeter.

Can I just say, the mean thickness of the Antarctic ice sheet is 2.16 km. I don’t know many plants that grow through one meter of ice.

Scientists studying banks of moss in Antarctica have found that the quantity of moss, and the rate of plant growth, has shot up in the past 50 years, suggesting the continent may have a verdant future.

There is more chance that Santa Claus will move in.

Maybe scientists will engineer frost resistant plants that survive at minus fifty. Right now, tonight, the centre of Antarctica is only five degrees below that.

Fifty years from now, plants that survive minus 50 will have a home…

Spot the out-of-date, old cherry picking:

In the second half of the 20th century, the Antarctic Peninsula experienced rapid temperature increases, warming by about half a degree per decade.

Nobody mention that in the last 20 years the Antarctic Peninsula cooled by almost 1 degree.

News from 20 years ago? Call the Guardian an “oldspaper”.

So some bits of moss are growing on some corners of Antarctica. Should we thank the blob of superheated magma lying underneath?

All stories on Antarctica

9.7 out of 10 based on 75 ratings

137 comments to Antarctica might go green say scientists (only 2km of ice and 50C of warming to go)

  • #
    David Maddison

    The assault against the scientific method continues to grow thanks to two generations of people that have now been dumbed down by the education system throughout the Western world.

    472

    • #

      Yes, we have a new way of education, bypassing the tedium of adulthood, skepticism, experience and observation.

      The corporate media quotes a shill with a degree…and then we know that Antarctica will turn green, just about everything is a Russian plot, and we’re off to Mars. It must be so.

      Now eat your insects.

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    • #

      Can you be specific about how the scientific method was assaulted in this case?

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      • #
        sophocles

        Weren’t you watching, Gee Aye?

        Tch! Careless of you.

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      • #
        Peter C

        You can look up the article yourself Gee Aye

        However in terms of unscientific method I would cite this example of unwarranted speculation and unreasonable projection beyond the provence of the observations.

        “The likelihood of this happening is very much an uncertainty, but remains a very real possibility, which is understandably concerning,” said Thomas Roland, a co-author of the study also from the University of Exeter. “Should this occur, it would further transform the face of this remote, largely pristine and very iconic region.”

        Also reliance on computer models to forecast the future;

        The team also used models to explore what the future might hold for the continent,

        Many a scientist has come unstuck by predicting the future. They should have learned by now.

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        • #

          The likelihood of the possibility of someone being very much a manipulator and a shill – understandably concerning should this occur – is made very much less uncertain as soon as you hear or read that word “iconic”.

          But “iconic” is just the sprinkles on the fairy bread. That whole paragraph quoted by Peter C is an absolute classic of academic trickiness.

          I’m tempted to call it iconic.

          50

        • #
          Allen Ford

          “The likelihood of this happening is very much an uncertainty, but remains a very real possibility, which is understandably concerning,”

          It’s also unlikely and uncertain, but possible, that the change in hue will be blue, not green. Imagine the hysterical headlines if this were to occur, “Antarctica is likely to become more blue, or not. This has nevah, evah happened before. It’s much, much worse that we evah thought!

          I, personally, would prefer to see a blue Antarctica than green.

          20

      • #
        Fred Streeter

        Although members of the research team contribute to the BAS “Polar Science for Planet Earth” research program, the study seemed OK to me. (But, hey, I’m not a scientist!)

        I appreciate that it might well be impossible to extract ‘local’ forcing of the peninsular climate change from the ‘global’, but a nod in the direction of volcanic activity’s possible contribution (even if only to dismiss it) would have been nice.

        10

    • #
      Geoffrey Williams

      Thiry six years ago when I first came to Australia I was an avid listener to the Science Show on ABC radio. Over the years I became aware of the politicization of the programme as the message became one of more government funding for reseach and university science places etc for young people and less about the science. It was the start of the rot. Today it is all about the money and continuation of funding for beaurocratic jobs and desktop science. Real science takes a back seat.
      GeoffW

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      • #
        Peter C

        The last time I listened to the Science Show on the ABC, Robin Williams decided to interview and show case Stephan Lewandoswky. They both agreed the Climate Deniers are unworthy idiotic brainless troglodytes.

        50

  • #
    Leonard Lane

    This is some cherry picking of information to deceive the “reader.Spot the out-of-date, old cherry picking:

    In the second half of the 20th century, the Antarctic Peninsula experienced rapid temperature increases, warming by about half a degree per decade.

    Nobody mention that in the last 20 years the Antarctic Peninsula cooled by almost 1 degree.”

    Well, Claimed warming last half of 20th century ~=+0.5c , and last 20 y ~=-0.5c.
    Looks like a wash to me. Same rate of increase in last half of 20th century and about the same rate of cooling last 20 y. And same rate of warming and cooling while CO2 showed steady increase. Seems as if no influence of CO2 on temperature for about the last 3 score and 10 y.
    Shakespeare certainly did have a flair for words. “Much ado about nothing” and “Tempest in a teapot”. And Walter Scott “Oh, what a tangled web we weave…when first we practice to deceive.”

    380

  • #
    AndyG55

    “and the rate of plant growth, has shot up in the past 50 years,”

    Extra atmospheric CO2 will do that to plants. ! 😉

    332

  • #
    AndyG55

    I think I read somewhere that University of Exeter receives more “climate” funding than any other university in the world. Its Richard Betts and CRU territory.

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  • #
    AndyG55

    They are probably looking in the Deception Island area, where volcanic activity creates pools that are like hot spas.

    http://c8.alamy.com/comp/AE70W7/tourists-enjoying-hot-springs-on-beach-of-deception-island-in-antarctic-AE70W7.jpg

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  • #
    Rereke Whakaaro

    Scientists studying banks of moss in Antarctica have found that the quantity of moss, and the rate of plant growth, has shot up in the past 50 years.

    Having these “scientists” standing around, watching the plants grow, for 50 years, seems like a wonderful service to mankind. It stops them doing something that might endanger the populous.

    I presume that they can convert a “shot up” into a metric measurement that the rest of us can understand?

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    • #
      John Smith

      “the rate of plant growth, has shot up in the past 50 years”
      That’s just terrible.
      Anthropogenic life.
      It must be stopped.

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    • #
      Graeme No.3

      Rereke:

      Shot up is an adjective, which can mean good or bad e.g.
      Our funding has shot up means good.
      The level of climate hysteria has shot up means good.
      Disbelief in Global Warming has shot up means bad.

      Note that shot down has the reverse meanings.
      Our funding was shot down means bad.
      Our hysterical claims have been shot down means bad… etc.

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      • #
        Rereke Whakaaro

        Thank you for that explanation.

        But I am still a little confused, regarding who does the shooting. 😉

        90

        • #
          sophocles

          But I am still a little confused, regarding who does the shooting. 😉

          The 3% of Klimate Sky-intists who were left out of the 97% (to be able to make the 97%).

          They’re the ones nobody knows about.
          You shouldda real-iced that. 🙂

          40

  • #
    Oliver K. Manuel

    Thanks, JoNova, for reminding us of the delusional thinking of those who lost contact with reality.

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    • #
      Oliver K. Manuel

      There is but one universal problem, and one universal solution:

      https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10640850/Universal_Problem.pdf

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      • #
        Oliver K. Manuel

        Aston discovered powers beyond the dreams of scientific fiction in 1922, before humans had evolved to the stage of social maturity to accept and use these incredible powers to benefit humanity:

        https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10640850/HIGHER-POWERZ.pdf

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        • #
          Oliver K. Manuel

          Twenty-three years after Aston’s 1922 discovery, powers beyond the dreams of scientific fiction were used to destroy Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 & 9 Aug 1945:

          _ 1. Was it necessary for frightened world leaders to unite nations and national academies of sciences on 24 Oct 1945?

          _ 2. Should the UN continue building an international web of deceit to control and protect mankind from selfishness?

          _ 3. Do we now have the social maturity to use powers beyond the dreams of scientific fiction to benefit all society?

          _ 4. Must tyrannical world leaders continue building the international web of deceit to control and protect humanity ?

          I don’t think so, but these are the types of questions President Trump’s advisors should now be asking and researching.

          10

    • #
      Oliver K. Manuel

      I am encouraged by Jon Rappoport’s effort to use logical analysis to understand how and why humanity was enslaved after WWII.

      This may be a logical response to the last paragraph of Aston’s 1922 Nobel Lecture, agreeing to

      1. Sacrifice the benefits to humanity of abundant nuclear energy

      2. Save the world from possible worldwide nuclear annihilation

      https://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2017/05/19/my-logic-course-as-a-tool-for-the-mind/

      10

  • #
    FrankH

    “There is more chance that Santa Claus will move in.”

    Well he’ll need somewhere to live when his home at the North pole melts, won’t he? 🙂

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    • #
      Bobl

      He might decide to retire to the Bahamas though, only so much snow and ice a Santa can take…

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      • #
        Greg Cavanagh

        Where will the elves take their holidays then?

        40

        • #
          sophocles

          Where will the elves take their holidays then?

          Antarctica?
          The South Pole would be a real change.

          31

        • #
          Allen Ford

          The reindeers will also have to come. Don’t forget the reindeers, otherwise the fauna will be out of balance!

          10

    • #
      Glen Michel

      Well me boy you can help with the relocation of the Polar bear population.Thats if you’re aware that these creature inhabit the northern cryosphere.

      30

      • #
        sophocles

        That will require relocating all the harp seals, too, otherwise the Polar Bears will starve. 🙁

        You can’t expect them to immediately recognise penguins as breakfast lunch and dinner when they’ve evolved over the last however many million years to hunt harp seals. Penguins don’t carve breathing holes in the ice for the bears to hide beside.

        A penguin peddling across the ice on its belly could out distance a roly poly bear … That could be a good occupation for some greens and retired klimate sky-intists: retraining polar bears to hunt …
        🙂

        The orca might find the challenge of preying on swimming polar bears interesting. They use surplus sealions as tennis balls. I can just see them trying that with a fluffy white bear …

        50

        • #
          ROM

          sophocles @ #8.2.1

          That could be a good occupation for some greens and retired klimate sky-intists: retraining polar bears to hunt …”

          I do like your mix of “greens” and “klimate sky-intests.”

          If the polar bears didn’t get some serious tummy maladies from that diet mix, that diet would surly ensure that the polar bears remained healthy and could be kept in good enough condition to run down the fastest greens and klimate sky-intists in the bears “re-training to hunt” program.

          Of course I could have the meaning of your sentence construction and semantics interpreted ass about face here but the inferences are quite plain I think!

          🙂

          10

  • #
    AZ1971

    These theoretical possibilities trivialize the importance that science is supposed to have in generating policy, supporting research, and finding the truth. I am growing weary of the extreme scenario being used as an implied inevitability and therefore, why we must take action now to avoid it.

    Antarctica “going green” lies somewhere in the 101000 to 1010000000 standard deviation range.

    182

    • #
      el gordo

      Yeah its way out in left field, but do you accept that human induced CO2 is making the world a warmer place?

      44

      • #
        PeterS

        Perhaps we are making it a slightly warmer place by various means but the theory that humans are inducing a global warming catastrophe has about as much validity as the flat earth theory. In other words they are unscientific and no one has produced any real evidence to support them. In fact there is much evidence to show such theories are false.

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        • #
          el gordo

          If we take the global warming catastrophe out of climate change will they stop building wind and solar farms?

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          • #
            PeterS

            “They” being who? If we wanted to control the world’s climate to any significant degree, do it safely and for the good of all we would need to pour trillions and trillions of dollars into a research program that would make going to the moon look like child’s play. Placing an impost, tax or whatever you want to call it on fossil fuel energy sources is like drilling a 54mm whole in your head with a hole saw from Bunnings to stop a mild headache.

            80

            • #
              el gordo

              I was referring to the pseudo Marxists who control our lives at every level of government up to the UN.

              The only way to bring about the collapse of AGW is through an enlightened media, which would require a serious drop in temperatures and extreme weather events.

              61

              • #
                PeterS

                That would help to some degree but don’t forget “they” were screaming out the end of the world is coming last century due to global cooling. They could do the same, and I’m sure they would. The only “fix” at least for the medium to longer term is to have a financial and economic crisis much like the Great Depression to force people to refocus on what’s really critical. History shows we humans learn our big lessons the hard way, and even then we forget those lessons eventually.

                60

              • #
                el gordo

                We fundamentally disagree and if I had half an hour we could discuss The Third Way and why there won’t be an economic collapse, and I’ll remind you that economic depressions don’t always lead to war,

                The 1890s depression in Australia was a very creative time in our history, a recognition of who we are as a nation state, an outpost of Empire.

                22

              • #
                PeterS

                I didn’t say economic depressions always lead to war. In any case Australia suffered a deep recession in the 1890s as a result of overseas investors reevaluating their returns on investments. After the speculation boom of the 1880s, the collapse in the 1890s was very severs as bossiness and people lost everything. Property values didn’t reach the highs of the 1890s until 1950s! The same sort of thing will happen again eventually once our current property bubble bursts, among other things. Then and only then will the great climate change scam and hoax will be dumped as people focus on more critical things, such as how to survive in a major economic downturn. Saying there will never be another economic downturn let alone a really serious one is beyond fanciful.

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              • #
                Ted O'Brien

                E.g. There’s nothing pseudo about them!

                30

              • #
                el gordo

                ‘It is easy to confess Marxism. But Marxism is not a confession of faith. Marxism is even more than a set of doctrines. Marxism is the only scientific method of investigating social matters.

                ‘To be a Marxist means, not only to have read “Das Kapital” and a few other books, but to be able to apply the Marxian analysis to living and therefore continually changing social conditions.

                ‘He who knows how to apply this analysis correctly, and whose correctness of analysis has been proven by subsequent events, is a true Marxist. He who only mimicks the methods of Marxism, he whose conclusions are being repudiated by the course of events, is a pseudo-Marxist.’

                Moissaye J Olgin 1925

                21

            • #
              el gordo

              ‘I didn’t say economic depressions always lead to war.’

              No.

              Here is a sobering thought.

              http://www.afr.com/personal-finance/the-great-australian-property-crash-of-1891-why-it-could-happen-again-20151207-glh724

              21

            • #
              sophocles

              …is like drilling a 54mm whole in your head with a hole saw from Bunnings to stop a mild headache.

              Ah, I have some first hand … ah … experience with those hole saws. The headache would be safe.

              30

            • #
              GoFigure

              Actually Obama’s EPA administrator admitted to congress that if we spent the necessary funds (admittedly trillions of dollars) the net result would be a drop, in the out-years, by 1/100 of one degree. Meaningless. However, it’s a guarantee that spending even just a few trillion on this hobgoblin’s fantasy would bring on some REAL problems.

              10

      • #
        Mark

        No! We may be adding to the concentration of CO2 but that is the limit. Human input looks to be 4% of total 0.04 x 400ppm or 0.04×0.0004=? ?=0.000016 or 16ppm…and CO2 has what effect on the atmosphere? How many orders of significant figures below zero must we go?

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  • #
    AndyG55

    If they held an election in the Antarctic, it would almost certainly go Green. !

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  • #
    Dennis

    Maybe it has been inhabited by Greens.

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    • #
      PeterS

      Given their track record, such as the Copenhagen climate summit debacle when they were snowed in for a while the concentration of the Greens at Antarctica would make that place even colder that it already is.

      71

  • #
    Neville

    In 1912 Sir Douglas Mawson was able to film an ice free Commonwealth bay. But recently the “ship of fools” was trapped and locked in solid by the ice and had to be rescued at great time and expense.
    This is the same Commonwealth bay in 1912 and you can see clear water everywhere in the video. When are they going to wake up?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-9yJ6-6aEs

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    • #
      el gordo

      It depends a lot on the currents.

      On 3 February 1774 James Cook reached latitude 71°10′ South at longitude 106°54′ West.

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    • #
      Dennis

      They insisted on continuing their barbecue on snow and ice and ignored the ship’s captain calling them to board ship.

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    • #
      Graeme No.3

      Neville:

      Am I wrong, I understood that they couldn’t get closer in their ship than 100 kms.

      10

  • #
    toorightmate

    The Antarctic pineapples and mangos are delicious.

    90

  • #
    Ruairi

    The Antarctic will likely stay white,
    Unless struck by a meteorite,
    As all green plants would freeze,
    At minus fifty degrees,
    In Centigrade or Fahrenheit.

    300

  • #
    Neville

    Two recent studies of west Antarctica show that there is nothing unusual about recent temps.
    The Steig study over the last 2,000 years and the Thomas study over the last 308 years prove that modern temp changes ( warming and cooling) are normal and have occurred many times in the past.

    http://www.co2science.org/articles/V17/N17/C1.php

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  • #

    Appropriate that Exeter Uni and the Grauniad would be attracted to Deception Island.
    An active caldera that regularly erupts, rich source of nutrients, about a million chinstrap penguins, seabirds, yep that’s going to produce areas of mosses and lichens. 62°S. I used chicken-sh!t paint to “age” stonework repairs at 52°N, but could not produce an effect like that. Impressive.

    120

  • #
    Griffo

    Are there any spare Mooses in Alaska that could be shipped down to keep this rampant moss and lichen under control?

    100

  • #
    Konrad

    There’s a funny thing in the article published on ABC website today. It says

    We don’t have many coastal proxies and so they show great potential for places which lack weather stations, which is most of Antarctica

    and just a few lines later

    Annual temperatures in the region have increased by up to 0.56 degrees Celsius per decade since the 1950s.

    So they admit they don’t have weather stations in Antarctica and have to use proxies but at the same time they know the rate of warming with accuracy of one hundredth of a degree. That’s interesting.

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    • #
      Glen Michel

      Heuristic thinking.

      20

    • #
      John F. Hultquist

      interesting

      Great word. It can be used in many instances.
      Ex: Your brother-in-law shows you a picture of his mother.
      She looks like Frank Zappa.
      You say: That’s interesting.

      40

  • #
    TdeF

    I doubt there will much pressure to allocate building blocks for housing.

    The total population below 50 degrees South is under 4,000 even in Summer and 1,000 in Winter. In the Northern Hemisphere you have a all of Scandinavia, half of Russia, half of Canada and all of Alaska. Scotland, iceland,.. Perhaps a fifty million people and wildlife, especially in the long days of summer.

    The Warmist myth that the South Pole is just like the North Pole only South is absurd. Even the total population South of the Tropic of Cancer is a mere than 2% of the world. We in Australia share this half of the globe with no one much and the idea that Antarctica is melting or ‘Greening’ is just absurd. It is just too cold. A desert. There are no animals. The penguins on the warmer edges might like it though. The odd whale.

    Worst of all for a relocating Santa Claus is that there are simply no elves. Far too cold and no social life or reindeer or anything else. Absolutely no elf services.

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    • #
      TdeF

      Consider how different the Southern half of the globe was considered to be

      and then the concept of Australia

      Terra Australis (Latin for South Land) is a hypothetical continent first posited in antiquity and which appeared on maps between the 15th and 18th centuries. The existence of Terra Australis was not based on any survey or direct observation, but rather on the idea that continental land in the Northern Hemisphere should be balanced by land in the south.

      This theory of balancing land has been documented as early as the 5th century on maps by Macrobius, who uses the term Australis on his maps.

      Now however we have ‘scientists’ who tell us that the poles are identical, that the sea ice is melting in Antarctica, that the place is warming precipitously. The Ship of Fools expedition under Prof Turkey from the Climate Change Research Centre cost us millions. I guess that is what Climate Change Research centres do. Cost us millions for nothing.

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      • #
        TdeF

        After five years of Latin, I had not really picked up the words for North, South, East and West.
        According to Google Translate they are North, medianam, orientis, occidens. Three have stayed with us.
        However there are alternative words for South, meridies, auster, cancer, austeilus (South or Southern parts)
        So Australia really can mean Southern Land in Latin. Odd though that Cancer is used for South too, instead of the Tropic of Cancer but this may have more to do with the constellation.

        My point though is that Australia is all there is. Apart from New Zealand and a few islands and bits of Terra del Fuego and even the Hobart at the southern most tip of Australia 43 South is far closer to the equator than Moscow with 11 million people. Or London at 51 North or Paris at 49 North. It is a lot colder down here than people think, despite the intense blue skies.

        60

        • #
          TdeF

          I had read that Australia was named by Matthew Flinders around 1800 who produced a map with the word on the continent for the first time. However the concept of Terra Australis had been around for 1300 years as hypothesis, much like Atlantis. It was so isolated though that the dominant animals were marsupials until the arrival and trapping of aborigines some 50,000 years ago trapped by warming and rising seas. Plus their dogs. That was a shame for the giant marsupials though. Now a mere 30 years we are being told to flee because we suddenly are going to be inundated. No one except insurance companies and Climate Change opportunists see that as real.

          50

          • #

            Matthew Flinders was an amazing young man. It’s hard to believe what they (him and George Bass) did in those days when the colony of New South Wales had only just begun. Flinders arrive here in 1795, and hooked up with another young man, the Surgeon George Bass, and they, umm, did a little sailing together. George was 24 and Matthew was 21.

            The rest, as they say is History.

            See this early Post of mine with more information.

            Australia (Part 5) Young Men In Boats

            Tony.

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            • #
              TdeF

              Great story. Thanks. People were more practical then, far less academic but then the politicians were different too, people who did something and learned about life before they became politicians.

              Also given the alternatives, going to sea in a boat at 14 would seem a far better life than the workhouses or mines or laboring on a farm with no automation. You also could travel, something denied most people who never left their valley or saw the ocean.

              Even in my father’s day in the 1920s, proficiency, intermediate and leaving were appropriately named advanced education. Matriculation was something you did at university. I remember having to wait two full years before I could matriculate at 18. Never underestimate a 14 year old, protected as children today until 18. We have developed these ideas of childhood, a concept largely foreign to the middle ages.

              50

              • #
                TdeF

                People went into trades as apprentices at 13 and 14. Proficiency. Intermediate was the additional year.
                Leaving was the end of school at 15 or 16. Higher school levels did not exist.
                Most soldiers were well under 20 years old even in WW2 but in the 18th century, commissions were sold to the privileged few. For Bass to make surgeon was a great accomplishment as such commissions were not done on merit unless the person was exceptional.

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              • #
                RoHa

                14 is a bit old to start a career in the RN. Many boys were 11 or younger.

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              • #
                RoHa

                I don’t know why everyone is so interested in Antarctica. From what I have heard, outside the research bases the food is dreadful, there is no beer, and there are no bar girls. The weather seems to be a bit crummy as well.

                Far better to leave the place alone.

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              • #
                TdeF

                Great place to pick up chicks, but you might end up with a penguin.

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              • #
                Yonniestone

                I once picked up a chick from Antarctica called Adelle but she turned out to be a warmist so I flipped her off……..

                60

              • #
                ROM

                I wonder how many 14 year olds today would be able to let alone willing to do this roughly 180 kilometre mail run [ one way ] and then return, all alone as a 14 year old and usually far from any help and all on horseback.
                And continue to do it every week for eight years across the very sparsely settled western Victorian Big Desert scrub lands before the country was opened up.

                Pine Plains to Kow Plains Mail Run

                Death of Mr. O’Sullivan
                A Mallee Pioneer Passes.

                After a lingering illness, extending over several months Mr. Owen O’Sullivan (who was familiarly known as Hughie) breathed his last at his residence, Ryan Street, Rainbow, on the morning of Friday March 19th 1929. Deceased who was 59 years of age was born 1870 at Linton near Ballarat, and attended school at Happy Valley Wycheproof.

                Shortly after leaving school at the age of 14 years, he accepted a contract to carry mail from Dimboola to Cow Plains, the journey there and back occupying a week.
                Leaving Dimboola at an early hour on Saturday mornings he would travel via Jeparit to the Lake Albacutya Station (at that time the property of the New Zealand Loan and Agency Co.) the first day, resuming the journey on the second day he would reach Pine Plains Station owned by Mr Septimus Miller) arriving at Cow Plains Station (the property of Dugald Macpherson) on the third day.
                The return journey occupied three days the same stopping place being observed.

                [ map of route across the Big Desert and the now Wyperfield National Park of western Vic. ]

                Deceased followed this occupation for several years the track from Jeparit northward skirting the eastern side of Lake Hindmarsh, a three chain road west of Rainbow town common and continuing in a north-easterly direction leading to the Albacutya Station.
                Deceased frequently referred to a sensational experience he had near Antwerp in 1889, when returning with mail from Cow Plains.
                On the outward journey there was no indication of rain, but shortly after leaving Jeparit a heavy downpour set in and increased in severity during the next couple of days causing the Wimmera River to overflow its banks, with the result he had to swim across the flooded road. Fastening the mail bag to the horses head he assessed the task of leading the animal by the reins and after an exciting struggle in the swirling stream the deceased and his horse reached terra firma in safety.
                Subsequently the deceased lived with his parents at Lake Hindmarsh near Jeparit. He acquired a mallee block about three miles north of Rainbow, where he successfully followed agricultural and grazing pursuits for many years.

                Kow Plains Homestead and Cowangie 1859 – Today

                Antwerp is where I spent my first ten years on my old mans farm. Dimboola was my home town.

                30

            • #
              el gordo

              Tony you may have missed this Mt Piper story.

              http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=5125

              Its just up the road from me and I’m not happy.

              30

            • #
              Peter C

              they, umm, did a little sailing together. George was 24 and Matthew was 21.

              Well they were both young and both in the Royal Navy; Rum Sodomy and the Lash and all that.

              According to Mathew Flinders; “There was a time, when I was so completely wrapped up in you, that no conversation but yours could give me any degree of pleasure; your footsteps upon the quarterdeck over my head took me from my book and brought me upon deck to walk with you …”
              http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/09/22/1032055035554.html

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                Peter C

                As Tony recounts George Bass was a naval surgeon. This was revealed to the medical officers of the Victorian Port Division over 20 years ago at our annual dinner held at the HMAS CERBERUS naval base, Westernport Victoria.

                HMAS Cerberus was originally named the Flinders Naval Depot. It is situated on Westernport Bay, Victoria. A silver statuette of Mathew Flinders stands at one end of the dining room in the wardroom of HMAS Cerberus.

                Westernport Bay was named by George Bass during his whale boat voyage of 1797. It was the most westerly place he reached before he had to turn back due to lack of supplies.

                We navy doctors thought that George Bass deserved more recognition. Maybe the Navy depot should have been named after George Bass. After a prolonged fund raising a silver statuette of George Bass was commissioned to stand at the other end of the dining room. The statuette is about 32cm high and was deliberately made slightly taller than the Mathew Flinders statuette, since George was notably taller.

                To help fund the silver statuette in the wardroom another 20 statuettes were cast in bronze from the same mold and sold to private collectors. I hold No.5. The statuette stands on a wooden plinth about 6cm high made of westernport acacia. The statuette is inscribed on the base George Bass 1721-1803. The date of George Bass’ death is unknown since he disappeared on a private voyage of his own instigation into the Pacific Ocean. His ship was the good ship Venus.

                One problem for our committee was to find an authententic likeness for George Bass. No one painted him during his lifetime although a portrait was made after his disappearance. This formed the likeness for the statuette as well as as the 50 cent coin in Australian circulation.

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                Peter C

                Correction.

                George Bass 1771-1803.

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        Dennis

        Similar to climate change personnel at the BoM, remember the inquiry ordered by the minister and the following management acknowledgement of errors and omissions in climate change weather reports that did not match BoM historical record data?

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    Mark M

    Weather forecast for
    Vostok Station (Antarctica)
    Friday 19 May 2017, 18.00 hrs: -53°
    https://www.yr.no/place/Antarctica/Other/Vostok_Station/

    It must be that extra carbon (sic) .8° warmth wot does it, says the 97% consensus science.

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      TdeF

      A nice day really. The 97% is the proportion of people who agree with each other by eliminating those who do not. Which makes you wonder how 3% can disagree but there is always someone who ticks the wrong box.

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    This is a critique of the news article masquerading as a science critique.

    The actual published paper is here http://www.cell.com/current-biology/pdf/S0960-9822(17)30478-5.pdf

    It is quite detailed so I can see why no one here has tried to understand it.

    Nobody mention that in the last 20 years the Antarctic Peninsula cooled by almost 1 degree.

    well the scientific paper does. So crappy journalism as usual about science. So what?

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    • #

      maybe this is what you are looking for. From the paper…

      There is no doubt that biological responses to temperature vari-
      ation on the AP have been rapid and that large shifts in the ranges
      and growth rates of mosses and microbial communities can be
      expected if recent rates of temperature change increase, as
      predicted, even recognizing the current reversal of warming in
      this region [1, 4], and associated environmental changes such
      as glacier retreat [31] continue.

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        el gordo

        ‘The regional sensitivity of moss growth to past temperature rises suggests that terrestrial ecosystems will alter rapidly under future warming, leading to major changes in the biology and landscape of this iconic region—an Antarctic greening to parallel well-established observations in the Arctic.’

        Global worming alarmism is corrupt science.

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        Mary E

        My main issue with the news being spread is the implicit understanding that the Antarctic is greening – which many readers (most?) of the non-scientific literature will accept as the great mass of ice and glacier is greening, not a few sun-soaked and slightly warmer bits of rock well north of the continent itself.

        I wonder if any of the increased growth rate could be based on having more nutrients from prior growths available? A building up of the soils sort of thing. And with mosses that are adapted to live in such cold environments, a tiny touch of warmth could set off a huge (relative) growth spurt.

        In my searching, earlier, for the original paper I came across two others that seem to have been ignored.

        https://academic.oup.com/aob/article-abstract/119/1/27/2404567/Passive-warming-reduces-stress-and-shifts
        and
        https://revchilhistnat.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40693-016-0061-y (Our results suggest that the lack of sexual reproduction in these Antarctic mosses is not adaptive but is constrained by current environmental conditions and that ameliorating conditions, such as increased temperature may affect sexual reproduction in many Antarctic mosses, altering moss population genetics and dispersal patterns.”)

        Both of which took a look in the same general area and deduced that the mosses do indeed manage to recover from cold-stress and reproduce better if a tad warmer.

        Which would lead me to believe that at some point in the past it WAS warm/warmer in the area, or else the mosses would not be there at all.

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      Peter C

      So crappy journalism as usual about science. So what?


      So What? Well the Scientific Authors are complicit in the creation of the Crappy Journalism.

      “Antarctica is not going to become entirely green, but it will become more green than it currently is,” said Matt Amesbury, co-author of the research from the University of Exeter.

      “This is linking into other processes that are happening on the Antarctic Peninsula at the moment, particularly things like glacier retreat which are freeing up new areas of ice-free land – and the mosses particularly are very effective colonisers of those new areas,” he added

      “Because we have got this wide transect now and all of the [sites examined] are showing the same response, consistently over that 1,000km transect, that makes us much more confident that it is a response to temperature change,” said Amesbury.

      “The likelihood of this happening is very much an uncertainty, but remains a very real possibility, which is understandably concerning,” said Thomas Roland, a co-author of the study also from the University of Exeter. “Should this occur, it would further transform the face of this remote, largely pristine and very iconic region.”

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  • #
    tom0mason

    Antarctica might go green?

    Maybe we need more fools in more ship visiting this area of the planet because as we know more people in one area doesn’t affect the local weather/climate that much… http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2006GL027927/full

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    David Maddison

    We should be sending penguins to the Arctic and importing polar bears to the Antarctic, just for fun.

    In fact, an eco-loon suggested introducing penguins to the arctic to feed the starving polar bears, because – climate change.

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    • #

      you nailed that one. And what did you think of their method of measuring microbial productivity? It looks to me quite sensitive to interannual variations.

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    • #
      TdeF

      That’s an old suggestion from my neighbour. Penguins do not exist in the Arctic. So thousands of ravening 4 meter one ton polar bears in Antarctica feeding on chicken but there would be plenty of Polar bears. The Greens should love it. The same neighbour has a similar solution for the problems in the US and South Africa, but it is all too practical and logical, which means unacceptable.

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    Geoffrey Williams

    Matt Amesbury from the University of Exeter – why didn’t he go the ‘whole hog’ and announce Antartica to become the future food bowl of the world?! Whom do I buy land from?
    GeoffW

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    Comment @ WUWT, 18/15/17 , 2.01pm on the Antarctic Moss article.

    ‘The three new sites range in latitudes from 65.3 to 61.1 degrees. These are subarctic (sub-Antarctic?). They not inside the Antarctic Circle (which begins at ~66.56 degrees south.) The prior study location (Lazarev Bay) was inside the Antarctic Circle. Here is that study, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982213008348

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      TdeF

      Murmansk in Russia has a population of 300,000 people at 66 degrees, 33′ North, precisely on the current arctic circle. Nice summers. Maximum recorded of 33C. Minimum recorded -40C.

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      • #
        Geoffrey Williams

        Tough people to live under such extremes!
        GeoffW

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        • #
          TdeF

          True, but I experienced the same in Colorado from an appalling winter to a worse summer. 80C swings are amazing, the spring and autumn hardly exist. We are supposed to panic over 1C change in an average? At least as most of Colorado is above a mile high, you do not have to worry about sea rise from the massive 1C change.

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  • #

    While volcanism as an all-purpose explanation for past climate trends is the last refuge of the alarmist, there is not much doubt about the role of volcanism on the Antarctic Peninsular. We have the evidence, nobody denies it…we just don’t mention it in polite consensus company. There may be additional reasons for the meltiness there – winds, currents, oceans and continents being rather large and complex affairs – but with “science” obliged to fit every event to a faddish green narrative one runs out of trust.

    Cordilleras, active volcanism and massive sub-glacial ash deposits in the vicinity of PIG aside, there’s a lot of ice in the Antarctic right now, with a slight overall increase in the last thirty years. Not enough? Too much? There’s been more, there’s been less. Take your pick.

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  • #

    Date of comment edit-18.05/17.

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    Neville

    The Thamban study of a part of E Antarctica covered the period of recovery from the depths of the LIA.
    Over the last 470 years there has been a small warming trend of about 0.6 c per century but the slight recent warming is not unusual when compared to hundreds of years ago.
    There are many periods from the study showing similar and warmer conditions than slight recent warming. Just check the graph of temp changes since about 1710 and you’ll see many periods that were warmer than today. So once AGAIN WHERE is the IMPACT from increased co2 emissions since 1950? BTW 1950 is the IPCC’s choice, not mine.

    http://www.co2science.org/articles/V15/N1/C2.php

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  • #
    pat

    and the antidote to all this warming – CO2 markets – aren’t working!

    18 May: CarbonPulse: Carbon market expects to avoid Trump backfire -survey
    Most global carbon market participants don’t expect the Trump presidency to directly impact international emissions markets, according to an annual survey by Thomson Reuters, although more respondents than before said CO2 markets are doing little to cut emissions…

    18 May: Energy Voice: More than half of carbon industry believes Trump will withdraw from Paris Agreement
    by Stuart Monteith
    Over 700 people, ranging from traders, company officials and government officials from several continents gave their views in the Thomson Reuters Survey.
    The results showed that 51% believed that President Trump would withdraw from the climate change pact.
    Just more than 20% felt there was an “even chance” and 26% said he would not withdraw.
    Nearly 90% of respondents believe that Trump will reduce the 2025 climate change targets, and 96% think that the Clean Power Plan will be scaled down…

    The report, by Reuters, said if the climate summit in Paris was the key carbon related event in 2015, the election of Trump as US president was the “defining” moment of 2016…

    The report states: “…“With a complete change of direction in the White House, the question is now whether the Sino-European climate alliance will be capable of securing the momentum in international climate negotiations.”…
    https://www.energyvoice.com/oilandgas/americas/139757/half-carbon-industry-believes-trump-will-withdraw-paris-agreement/

    can’t find this survey yet, but have another Thomson Reuters report which i’ll post in a separate comment.

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    pat

    ***what a job title Nixon has!

    17 May: ThomsonReuters: Thomson Reuters Launches Latest Greenhouse Gas Emissions Report
    Demonstrates critical link between sustainability and growth in Global 100
    The report was written in collaboration with CDP, an international not-for-profit organization holding the world’s largest collection of self-disclosed corporate environmental data, and BSD Consulting, a global sustainability consultancy, with key contributions from Baker McKenzie, KPMG and State Street Global Exchange…

    ***Tim Nixon, Head of Sustainability Thought Leadership, Corporate Responsibility & Inclusion at Thomson Reuters, and co-author for the report commented, “A significant finding of this report is there is an increasing correlation between sustainability and growth. Committing to rigorous decarbonization will not adversely impact financial gain and will positively increase shareholder value over the long term. This argument is critical to ensuring that the Global 100 remain committed to operating responsibly.”…

    In collaboration with CDP, data for the report was gathered from publicly available GHG emissions data from businesses and from estimates either from CDP or Thomson Reuters environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) research data. Thomson Reuters ESG research data gathers standardized, objective, quantitative and qualitative ESG data from an estimated 5,000 publicly listed companies.
    View the full report here (LINK)…

    About CDP
    CDP, formerly Carbon Disclosure Project, is a founding member of the We Mean Business Coalition…
    https://www.thomsonreuters.com/en/press-releases/2017/may/thomson-reuters-launches-latest-greenhouse-gas-emissions-report.html

    May 2017: PDF: 19 pages: Thomson Reuters: GLOBAL 100 GREENHOUSE GAS PERFORMANCE
    NEW PATHWAYS FOR GROWTH AND LEADERSHIP
    BY DAVID LUBIN, JOHN MOORHEAD AND TIM NIXON
    P3: A GROWING SIGNAL FROM INVESTORS
    The 100 companies4 named in this report have a unique opportunity to lead and keep the world within 2 degrees C of warming. These companies are particularly important because the Paris climate treaty is unlikely to provide a viable solution to climate change without their leadership…

    An investor’s perspective on carbon-intensive business models
    Mark McDivitt, Managing Director, Head of ESG Solutions, State Street Global Exchange, part of a firm with $28 trillion in assets under custody and administration and $2.5 trillion in assets under management, offers the following observations from an investor perspective on carbon-intensive business models…READ ON
    http://sustainability.thomsonreuters.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Global-100-Greenhouse-Gas-Performance-New-Pathways-for-Growth-and-Leadership-2017.pdf

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    pat

    18 May: CarbonBrief: Robert McSweeney: Antarctica’s high elevation is slowing rate of warming, says study
    Temperatures in the Arctic are increasing around three times as fast as the global average, yet the pace of warming has been much slower at Earth’s other pole.
    A new study, just published in Earth System Dynamics (LINK), suggests the difference might – in part – be down to the great heights of Antarctica’s land surface.
    The soaring mountain ranges and thick ice sheets put Antarctica’s average elevation at more than two kilometres above sea level. In contrast, the Arctic is predominantly ocean, covered by sea ice a few metres thick…
    The results suggest that warming in the Antarctic could speed up in the centuries to come as the ice sheets flatten out as they melt…

    The author of the new study, Dr Marc Salzmann from the University of Leipzig, tells Carbon Brief that the high land surface of the Antarctic might be an “important piece of the puzzle.”…READ ON
    https://www.carbonbrief.org/antarcticas-high-elevation-is-slowing-rate-of-warming-says-study

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  • #
    Bobl

    If I double my income am I rich? Well actually that’s just a well known example of the fallacy of relativism. It depends on what my salary was before I doubled it.

    If I have 1 square mm (1mm x 1mm) of moss and I come back next year and there is 9 square mm (3 x 3) mm of moss that’s an “explosion – moss has grown nine times” when actually it’s extended just 2mm. Another abuse is CO2 relativism where 360-410 pm is 14% growth rather than 0.036% to 0.041% a growth of 0.005%. Temperature anomalies where an anomaly of 0.1 going to 0.5 is five times increase rather than 288.1-288.5 or 0.4 Dec in 288 (0.13%) increase and of the order of the temp increase expected between daybreak and 10 minutes after daybreak in summer.

    Relativism leads to heated discussion about how many fairies dance on the head of a needle. It is wrong to infer anything from relativistic statements about small quantities.

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    pat

    18 May: UK Times Editorial: Gagged Science
    The government cannot hide behind purdah rules to muzzle independent experts
    Scientists, with few exceptions, are not civil servants. Their expertise may embarrass politicians but that is a reason to air it, not suppress it. Scientists do not belong in “purdah”.
    None of this should need saying, but the enforcement of purdah rules under this government has acquired a troubling momentum that has taken them into territory where they do not belong. This month reporters seeking comment from the Met Office on a story about the slow-down of global warming in the first decade of this century…
    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/gagged-science-vsmrjbj9r

    further detail found at Carbon Brief:
    The article points to an incident this month where reporters seeking comment from the Met Office about the slow-down of global warming in the first decade of this century were told that none could be offered in case it was seen as political. A separate article in the Times details how several senior scientists sitting on government advisory panels have told The Times that the regime meant they could not speak out on issues such as climate change and air pollution. In a letter to Sir Jeremy Heywood, the cabinet secretary, a dozen organisations, including the Royal Institution, the Royal Statistical Society and the British Science Association, have sought clarification about the rules amid fears that the guidance is being applied “in an ad hoc and arbitrary way which is not in the public interest”.

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  • #
    Egor the One

    Antarctica to green up ? Is there no limit to the lies being propagated by the CAGW gang ?

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  • #
    JohnSoldier

    But to put all this into perspective let’s see what it would take to melt the Antarctic ice cap (90% of the world’s ice).
    Over the Antarctic ice cap the air temperatures are:
    Winter: -40 to -70C, Summer: -15 to -35C.
    For warmer air to cause the ice to begin to melt the air must be warmer than the ice (0 to -5C) so any warming would need to increase the global air temperatures by tens of degrees C, not the ½ or 1 degree we are warned about.
    It’s hard to see that happening!
    Alternatively,
    Total mass of the ice sheet = 27.5E+15 tonnes (the SG of ice is 0.917)
    To melt the entire ice sheet would require = 965.3E+16 MJ heat energy.
    If we took all the world’s known reserves of fossil fuels (oil, gas, coal, etc.) and focussed all that energy onto the ice sheet it would yeild only 2.87E+16 MJ (and these reserves will last us for hundreds of years at current consumption rates.)
    If we were silly enough to squander all our energy reserves right away and we focussed all that energy onto the Antarctic ice sheet it would melt only 1/336th portion of it (or 0.3%) and then we wouldn’t have any energy left to keep warm, or cook, or communicate, or travel, etc.
    I don’t think your seaside property is at much risk, do you?

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  • #
    Neville

    Both UAH V 6 and RSS V 3 and 4 show no warming for the south polar region since DEC 1978. This is nearly 40 years and again proves that there has been no warming in the lower troposphere over Antarctica.

    https://kenskingdom.wordpress.com/2017/04/15/the-pause-update-march-2017/

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  • #
    Neville

    Check out the RSS tool for south polar region in TLT V 3 and RSS V 4 TTT and TMT. In fact RSS V 4 TMT shows cooling of minus -0.02 c a decade over 38+ years.
    Here’s the link. http://images.remss.com/msu/msu_time_series.html

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  • #
    Neville

    The Royal Society graphs for Greenland and Antarctic models of SLR attribution effectively confirms a deceleration over the next 300 years.
    Don’t forget these are all the models used for compiling the rate of SLR until 2300.

    http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/roypta/364/1844/1709/F4.large.jpg

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  • #
    el gordo

    Breaking Nooze

    ‘An emissions intensity scheme could become official policy of the NSW Nationals on Friday, a move that would represent a split from the federal leadership and a challenge to the Turnbull government’s climate change agenda.’

    SMH

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  • #
    el gordo

    Dragon Skin Ice in Antarctica is rare and I think it might be a regional cooling signal.

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-06/dragon-skin-ice-sighted-in-antarctica/8502156

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  • #
    jorgekafkazar

    I don’t know many plants that grow through one meter of ice.

    That’s because you’ve not heard of the schuss yucca plant. A trip to the Google will yield a plethora of information, as well as a lot of it. I have little doubt, based on early reports and a model I wrote on the back of an envelope on the way to Gettysburg, that the schuss yucca can easily penetrate a meter of ice. QED, the science is very, very settled. Robust.

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  • #
    Beliaik

    Off topic, but how do I send a tip to Jo?

    I recently used FOI to ask the ABC for a list of climate articles written from the sceptical perspective to show their diversity. They found none, but commenters at Catallaxy thought of two.

    The full yarn is here http://catallaxyfiles.com/2017/05/19/guest-post-beliaik-theirabc-diverse-views-and-the-foi-act/ It’d be excellent if Jo and any other interested bloggers ran it, too.

    Cheers, Beliaik
    (Giving politicians stomach pain since 1982)

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      Yonniestone

      The responses from their ABC exhibit a breathtaking array of bureaucratic waffle that would do the ATO proud, your intestinal fortitude is admired and needed, well done sir.

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    • #
      GD

      Yes, well done, Beliaik! That’s a ‘gotcha’ if ever there was one. Tony ‘Q&A’ Jones would have been proud of that one. Except, obviously, he wouldn’t, given the subject matter.
      Can you send this to the newly installed ABC CEO, the one who said he can’t see any bias at the ABC?

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  • #
    Uppyn

    When you compare figures 2 and 3 in the publication I observe the following:

    Most parameters show a considerable reduction in value after 1960 or later. By using the change point method it appears that only upward changes are detected as a change. Downward changes are not detected. An average is then calculated after the time of the change point.
    Figure 3 appears to use the same method. The averages before and after the change point are shown, entirely ignoring changes post 1960.

    This strikes me as possibly introducing temporal bias post 1960.

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    pat

    Beliaik’s story at comment #42 on Catallaxy Files is terrific. congrats for pursuing this matter & hope u take it further.
    not exactly CAGW-related, but interesting nonetheless:

    read all:

    19 May: Australian: Darren Davidson: ABC stands by Google news advertising tie-up
    A defiant ABC has defended a ­decision to spend taxpayers’ money on funding a nationwide online marketing campaign with Google to push commercial media outlets out of search results during federal budget week.
    The Australian conducted ­internet searches in all six states using popular news-related search terms, and found the ABC was outbidding commercial news ­organisations in ad auctions ­operated by AdWords, Google’s powerful ad-selling software…
    The ABC statement added that AdWords campaign helped the public broadcaster reach “younger” people amid fragmenting ­audiences in an era of “fake news”.
    “It remains the most cost-effective way for us to reach lighter digital audiences and is consistent with our charter responsibilities.”
    The ABC was last month accused of “undercutting” commercial rivals by trumping Australian Associated Press to supply outdoor advertising firm oOh! Media with syndicated news feeds.
    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/abc-stands-by-google-news-advertising-tieup/news-story/b1d1cc7ae9119b62c4f43d09a568e378

    19 May: Guardian: Gareth Hutchens: Plutus ATO fraud probe: wages at up to nine government agencies affected
    As many as nine government agencies may be involved with the payroll company at the centre of a $165m tax fraud investigation, Labor senator Doug Cameron has said.
    Cameron said on Friday he had been contacted by contractors working for eight federal and state government departments, the ***ABC and private companies such as Telstra and Fujitsu, who said their pay had been affected by the scandal.
    He said contractors working for the departments of immigration, foreign affairs, social services, defence and industry, as well as the NDIS and ***ABC, had all been affected…
    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/may/19/plutus-ato-probe-wages-at-up-to-nine-government-agencies-affected

    ***ABC fell for “FAIRY TALES”! just as they have with CAGW:

    19 May: UK Register: Simon Sharwood: Plutus Payroll clients and staff fell for plausible business model ***fairy tales
    Free payroll service claimed to make money with commissions and short term loans
    https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/05/19/plutus_payroll_fallout/

    UK story on 8 May! don’t recall anything in our MSM that early!

    8 May: UK Register: Simon Sharwood: Plutus Payroll says deal with Australian Taxation Office may be close
    First ray of light for ~1,000 contractors who’ve gone without pay for weeks
    https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/05/08/plutus_payroll_says_deal_with_australian_taxation_office_may_be_close/

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    Neville

    Ken Stewart has updated the UAH V 6 temp data and all regions and graphs are shown. OZ has been cooling in the LT for more than half the record.
    Of course the SP region has been cooling slightly in the LT since DEC 1978.

    https://kenskingdom.wordpress.com/2017/05/19/the-pause-update-april-2017/

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    pat

    I have a comment in moderation which begins: “Beliaik’s story at comment #42 on Catallaxy Files is terrific”.

    round-up of just some of the major MSM pushing the Antarctic greening story. (ABC’s coverage has already been provided in the comments).

    Climate change making Antarctica greener
    NEWS.com.au – ‎5 hours ago‎

    Antarctica is greening due to global warming
    NEWS.com.au – ‎6 hours ago‎

    Antarctica turning green as climate change takes hold, says scientific study
    CNBC – ‎2 hours ago‎

    Climate change is making Antarctica greener
    CBC.ca – ‎20 hours ago‎

    Climate change could one day make Antarctica a forest again, research suggests
    TVNZ – ‎12 hours ago‎

    Climate change could one day make Antarctica a forest again, research suggests
    TVNZ – ‎12 hours ago‎

    then there’s this, read all:

    18 May: Daily Caller: Michael Bastasch: NYT Claims Antarctica May Be Undergoing ‘Unstoppable Disintegration’
    Gillis paints a dismal picture of global warming’s impacts on the South Pole: “A rapid disintegration of Antarctica might, in the worst case, cause the sea to rise so fast that tens of millions of coastal refugees would have to flee inland, potentially straining societies to the breaking point.”
    “Climate scientists used to regard that scenario as fit only for Hollywood disaster scripts. But these days, they cannot rule it out with any great confidence,” Gillis wrote…

    In fact, eight paragraphs in Gillis admits there’s a “frustrating lack of information” when it comes to Antarctic ice sheets. Ten paragraphs into the story, Gillis writes that the computer forecasts he mentioned earlier “were described as crude even by the researchers who created them.”…
    http://dailycaller.com/2017/05/18/nyt-claims-antarctica-may-be-undergoing-unstoppable-disintegration/

    above links to:

    18 May: NYT: Antarctic Dispatches Part 1, 2, 3
    Antarctic Dispatches is a three-part series from the seventh continent. Written by Justin Gillis. Maps and graphics by Derek Watkins and Jeremy White.

    MEANWHILE, the only media coverage of the why Antarctica is not warming study linked in comment #31 is:

    Antarctica’s high elevations explains the continent’s slower rate of warming
    UPI.com – ‎19 hours ago‎

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      Yonniestone

      I believe an small army of Pat’s would take down any politicised bureaucratic regime on persistence alone, thank you also.

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    uppyn

    Did anybody request the raw data from the writers? In their description of the method it looks like they used a pretty standard R package to do the change point analysis and I would not mind doing it myself.

    00