Although Groundhog Day is just a joke but a fun one in small town America, Phil seems to be on the side of the 1% of climate “scientists” who deny global climate change. Today Phil is again sweating it out in June-type temperatures in February. (The photo was from a year when we had snow.)
Climate change genetic bottleneck
By now anyone who isn’t relying on The Bible for their science or relying on energy companies for campaign funds, admits we are experiencing climate change and global warming on a major and dangerous scale.
When we had a few years of normal temperatures in North America all the deniers came out saying they were right all along - of course, they ignored the steady warming of the oceans which cover most of the planet.
The deniers always confuse climate with weather and this Monday one Pittsburgh talk show host (KDKA) pointed out on Monday (when temperatures there were in the high 60’s) that we’ve experienced major climate variations in the past. What he forgot to mention was that those changes killed off many species, including the times when climate change came close to eliminating the human race.
A Rutgers U. study in 2005 found that pre-1492 native peoples in North and South America all descended from only 70 people who survived climate changes since they came across the land bridge from Asia.
The Toba volcanic eruption 70,000 years ago may have triggered a climate change which reduced the entire human population of the earth to between 10-and 30--thousand people.
That has been disputed but other studies show the human population in Africa went as low as 2,000 people over very long periods before recovering in the late stone age.
Yes, the earth has always had climate change, but it also tried to kill off all human life several times. Climate change supporters today don’t claim all life will end, just that many will die and wars will break out as people are forced to leave coastal areas and others suffer from droughts.
Greenland
Despite the name (which was a PR stunt by the Vikings), Greenland is mostly ice covered, with enough water trapped ibn the 1,700,000 square kilometers (656,000 square miles) of ice to raise sea levels by 7 meters (23 feet), not the couple of inches which have been predicted by some.
The problem with Greenland is that the snow and ice are melting at a higher rate in the past few years than ever recorded before.
Ice melt creates rivers which often run under giant ice sheets, lubricating their slide into the ocean.
Isabella Velicogna, a geophysicist at UC Irvine told Science Magazine, "Things are happening a lot faster than we expected."
In fact, the ice is melting so fast that scientists keep losing their sensors which are being swept away by the floods.
The arctic region is experiencing temperature rises twice that of the average but that doesn’t explain all the melting - the latest twist in the climate change picture is the accelerated growth of bacteria and other organisms which are spreading fast due to the warmer temperatures and increased period when there is moisture available.
Although the ice still looks blindingly white, sensitive measurements show the “bloom and soot” algae and bacteria have greatly reduced the infrared reflection from the ice.
Infrared is the wavelength of sunlight which makes the sun feel warm on your skin.
This isn’t a new discovery, explorer Nils A. E. Nordenskiöld (Finnish-Swedish) reported the growth of black bacteria in the arctic 150 years ago.
Another long predicted factor is the way minor melting of the ice changes its shape and increases its absorption of light by up to 10%.
Government moves
What is the Trump Administration doing about this? The Republican party officially denies the truth of climate change, even after New York City subways flooded and rain patterns in California have drastically changed.
Candidate Trump apparently was most concerned about his hair and the way global warming conspiracies from China would not let him use his old hairspray brand.
