Global Humbug VI.1

In my post of April 7, 2010, "Global Humbug VI-Finis," I said it was my last word on the subject. In retrospect, that was an unwise commitment. The subject continues like "The Immortals" with no sign of abatement, so to assert closure is unrealistic. However, I have said in the seven "Humbug" posts much of what I have to say of substance on the subject insofar as the science is concerned. But every once in awhile something pops up that is irresistible. This is one of those instances.

An oft-cited "evidence" of global warming and its dire consequences is the melting of the Greenland and other glaciers and the resulting rise in sea levels. In 2007, the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warningly predicted that the seas would rise 7 to 23 inches by 2100, inundating many coastal areas and islands, due to glacial melting in Greenland and parts of Antarctica. This was based on satellite measurements of the heights of those glacial areas, which were decreasing.

I have long maintained that the so-called "science" of global warming is biased and reflects a movement towards world governance, led by the U.N. After all, if this dire world-wide threat is to be stopped, the entire world must work and sacrifice together under central (read U.N.) control, although said sacrifice seems to be focused mainly on the U.S. and other "wealthy" nations like China and India. (Our share is estimated at $143 billion by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.) I did not anticipate the blatant fraudulent activity of major climate research facilities, called "Climategate", although I was not surprised.

The general sloppiness of much of climate research was graphically dramatized by the recent (September) announcement in the journal Nature Geoscience that previous estimates of glacial ice loss should be reduced by at least half. Those original estimates failed to account for a known phenomenon called glacial isostatic adjustment.

Large areas of the Northern Hemisphere were compressed under the tremendous weight of the great Ice Age glaciers that reached thicknesses of one mile. When the Ice Age ended and the glaciers melted, the Earth's crust began to rebound. That rebounding is still occurring. As the crust under North America rises, it pulls down other areas, including Greenland. (They were pushed up during the Ice Age.) Thus, the measured drop in the height of the glaciers is at least partially accounted for by this subsidence phenomenon. (I've always acknowledged that some long-term warming is occurring, just that it's much less than predicted and accounted for by natural cycles instead of "carbon footprints.")

Thus, the scary prediction of widespread coastal inundation is ... well ... all wet.