Is the Arctic polar ice cap getting thicker?

One of the main components of the global warming hypothesis is the assertion that warmer temperatures are causing the polar ice caps to melt. Proponents point to measurements of the extent of the polar ice cap in winter and summer over time. This is also the sole basis for the now widespread assumption that polar bears are endangered (when in fact, polar bear populations are currently flourishing.)

But the polar ice cap is a three dimensional structure. With all the attention being paid to the extent of the ice caps, has any attention been paid to their thickness? This applies primarily to the Arctic polar cap which floats over ocean, as opposed to the Antarctic which is mostly on land. If global warming is causing the Arctic ice cap to melt, we should expect that not only would it be decreasing in extent, but it should be getting thinner as warmer ocean waters melt it from below and warmer air melts it from above.

However, data from Arctic measurement buoys does not seem to indicate this. In fact, at least some parts of the Arctic polar ice cap seem to have thickened substantially over the past decade:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/04/09/wuwt-ice-survey-shows-thickening-arctic-ice/

The charts in this article are a little hard to read, but I found the 2007J and 2006C buoy data toward the end the easiest to see the thickening.

Of course, it’s possible that some parts of the ice cap could be thinning while others are thickening. But that fact that any of it is thickening at all does not seem to mesh well with the assertion that the ice cap is melting at an accelerated rate.

Which brings me back to the point I often repeat with regard to climate change. We know that the climate is indeed changing, as it has continually done since the birth of the planet. But given the wide variety of often conflicting climatological data from around the world, anyone who claims to be able to state definitively exactly how it is changing and what is causing it is either a fool, or selling something.

A different perspective on the famous Couric-Palin interview

Next week CBS anchor Katie Couric will be awarded the Walter Cronkite Award of Excellence in Television Journalism” by the USC Annenberg School for Communication. The main reason for the award is Couric’s now-famous interview with Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Filmmaker John Ziegler thinks this is a travesty of journalism, and in his column he argues that the interview was a hatchet job from the very beginning, deliberately edited to make Palin look bad.  He supports his argument with clips from his own subsequent interview with Palin. Ziegler’s main point is that Couric is being honored not for the excellence of her journalism, but because of the left-wing glee over the effect the interview had in damaging Palin’s credibility and halting the McCain campaign’s rise in the polls.

I should note that to date I have seen neither Couric’s nor Ziegler’s interviews with Palin. So I can’t really opine on this too much, other than to say that I think Ziegler is correct in seeing a political motivation behind the award, at least.

“Cap-and-trade” legislation: What the bill would really do

The Wall Street Journal looks at the details of the proposed “cap-and-trade” legislation to limit carbon emissions and finds that the bill covers a lot more than many of us thought:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123933057062907775.html

As usual with this Congress, the bill’s premise – a system that allows companies to trade carbon credits – is only the springboard for a smorgasbord of wide-ranging regulations on all sorts of products. And since Congress has already demonstrated with the stimulus bill that it doesn’t read legislation before approving it, why shouldn’t Democrat leaders feel they can stuff the bill with every nutty enviro-leftist idea they’ve come up with in the last 30 years? Remember, no one cares about the actual science anymore.

You can dish out a lot of punishment to the working stiffs of middle America. But let me tell you, if they pass a law that requires emissions upgrades that triple the price of John Q. Public’s John Deere riding lawnmower, there is going to be hell to pay. A man can only endure so much.