It’s a two-fer. Yesterday we learned that the upcoming ice age is what we really have to worry about. Today, in spite of more than two decades of horror stories about the animals killed by the selfish, heartless, SUV driving humans, we learn that global warming is actually good for animals.
Just one short month ago we were told by Lewis Smith, Environment Reporter for Times Online that a rapid rise in global warming is forecast:
The oceans are losing the capacity to soak up rising man-made carbon emissions, which is increasing the rate of global warming by up to 30 per cent, scientists said yesterday.
… Ian Totterdell… said: “This is the first time we have been able to get convincing evidence that a change in the uptake of CO2 by the oceans is linked to climate change.
“It’s one of many feedbacks we didn’t expect to kick in until some way into the 21st century.”
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
But wait! Lewis Smith, Environment Reporter for Times Online, now offers us hope. Wildlife flourishes on melting ice!! Who knew! After all these years… after polar bears, courageously clinging to life on a melting iceberg, condemned us for the eeevil abusers we are… it turns out that it’s good to melt icebergs.
Icebergs released into Antarctic waters by global warming are hotspots for wildlife, researchers have found.
The break-up of Antarctic ice shelves has increased dramatically the number of icebergs and they have proved an unexpectedly rich habitat.
Nutrients released into the water by the melting ice promote the growth of phytoplankton, which attract krill, which are then preyed on by bigger animals such as whales.
Sea areas that would normally be barren – up to two miles (3km) from the icebergs – have become rich in animal life, including a variety of fish.
Among the birds observed by scientists from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, in the US, were Cape petrels and Antarctic fulmars. Penguins, whales and seals are attracted by the krill and fish.
Almost 1,000 icebergs were counted in 4,300 sq miles (11,000 sq km) of the Weddell Sea, and scientists calculated that overall they had increased the “biological productivity” in nearly 40 per cent of the sea.
Life thrives in such quantities around the icebergs studied that the researchers describe them as free-floating estuaries.
“We envision free-drifting icebergs in the Weddell Sea as hotspots of continual micro-nutrient release that sustain the accompanying attached and pelagic communities,” they say in their report, published in the journal Science.”
We’ll really miss that wonderful global warming when the new ice age arrives, crops freeze, and we all starve or freeze to death.
Quick, save the planet! Buy an SUV and go on a road trip!
Seriously – notice the tone of the two articles. I’m picking on this writer because of the contrast of the two articles, but compared to some of the other articles I’ve read, they’re actually relatively even-handed. For global warming reporting, anyway. But the first is ominous. Change is coming. Faster than expected. The reader will conclude that global warming is bad. There’s really no balancing information within the article. The second article is considerably more positive. And it doesn’t even address two decades of guilt-tripping toward anyone who runs an air conditioner. No comment on the contrast between this and literally hundreds of articles about how bad global warming is for animals. This article is, pardon the pun, a real sea change. But the change goes unacknowledged. Why?
Others posting on global cooling: Rightpundits, Global Cooling Must Be Stopped (great comments on that post, too!), Committees of Correspondence, The Great Global Warming Swindle Update
Trackposted to Outside the Beltway, The Virtuous Republic, Perri Nelson’s Website, Right Truth, Big Dog’s Weblog, The Pet Haven Blog, Stuck On Stupid, The Amboy Times, Leaning Straight Up, third world county, stikNstein… has no mercy, Nuke’s news and views, Pirate’s Cove, The Pink Flamingo, Church and State, Right Pundits, Blog @ MoreWhat.com, DeMediacratic Nation, 123beta, Adam’s Blog, On the Horizon, Webloggin, The Bullwinkle Blog, Cao’s Blog, Colloquium, The Florida Masochist, Conservative Cat, Diary of the Mad Pigeon, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, The World According to Carl, Blue Star Chronicles, High Desert Wanderer, The Yankee Sailor, and Gone Hollywood, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.
The Oceans cannot handle a 3% addition to CO2?
Then why pray tell was the temperature about the same as today 450 Million years ago when the CO2 level was ten times what it is today?
Graph Here
Indeed. You’d almost think they were just trying to scare the bejeezus out of us on the basis of… nothing at all.