Climate scientists have deployed all kinds of instruments to assess the state of Arctic and Antarctic ice, and it’s quite a gloomy story. Glaciers are thinning, and they’re being undermined by warm ocean water. Catch the whole story here:
One other thing: when I was watching this on youtube, there were a lot related videos on the sidebar, and I watched a few to get a feel for what the “other side” is saying. They’re terrible. The video above explains that they’re using satellite and overflight imaging, they’ve got submersibles looking at the underside of the glaciers, and they’re making detailed reports of changes in ice volume. I watched a denialist video that looked at the most superficial data, the surface extent of sea ice, and gleefully announced that Antarctic sea ice expanded during the winter, and contracted during the summer, therefore the stupid scientists were full of shit.
Yeah, it still gets cold in winter and warm in summer, therefore global warming is a hoax. And some ranting denialist is specifically telling us to ignore the scientists and their data.
Oh, well. For some perspective, there was also a video that declared they had proof of openings at the north and south pole that led into the hollow earth. It was about as credible as the claim that glaciologists are full of shit, the ice is expanding.
Our esteemed host has apparently not even read Pellucidar by the noted naturalist Edgar Rice Burroughs.
Someone named “Burroughs” would certainly know about holes in the Earth, y’know!
Of course there are openings in the Earth at the north and south poles. How else would the axle fit?
The more sophisticated bullshitters are actually pointing to the slightly positive annual trend in Antarctic sea ice extent as evidence.
The sea ice extent trend is in fact increasing. But that, of course, does nothing to show that the globe isn’t warming. It’s an anomaly, just like the occasional glacier that is growing while most are retreating. AGW deniers love anomaly hunting:
http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/anomaly-hunting/
It’s a favorite tactic of all science deniers, who love to point at the 90-year old man who is still around despite smoking his whole life and say, “See, this ‘smoking causes cancer’ business is a hoax!”
Increasing Antarctic sea ice is a “hot” cryo-science topic these days, with multiple causes proposed. For instance:
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/zhang/Pubs/Zhang_Antarctic_20-11-2515.pdf
Hey, you just said upthread that it’s snowing in Minnesota, so I don’t believe this.