Heartland Institute Responds to $5,000 Bounty for Climate Skeptics

“The true issue of contention between alarmists and skeptics is whether the Earth is likely to warm in such a rapid and catastrophic manner as to justify the economy-killing solutions advocated by global warming alarmists. I will personally pay a $5,000 bounty to the first person who can deliver verifiable evidence that 95 percent of qualified American scientists believe human-caused global warming is occurring in such a rapid and catastrophic manner as to justify the economy-killing solutions advocated by global warming alarmists.”

A Tale of Two Poles | Kaleidoscope - UAB Campus News

One other bit of recent news is the meager long-term growth of Antarctic sea ice, despite the fact that the waters around the continent are warming at record rates. How can this be? One would imagine that as ocean temperatures rise, scientist would observe a shrinking ice mass.

The answer has to do with stratification. The Southern Ocean has both a layer of cold water near the surface and a warmer sector at a deeper level. As the general rule goes, warm water rises, leading to ice melt near the surface. As the disintegration continues, there is an increase in air temperatures, which triggers more snow and rain to fall. The added precipitation causes the cold surface layer of the ocean to become less dense and more stratified, or separated, from the warmer water below. Since less mixing of the two layers occurs, less warm water rises to the surface. The result is less sea ice lost – in the short term, though. As the world continues to warm, the water will be unable to support such an abundance of ice, and more thawing will ensue.
Clearly, the phenomena in the Arctic and the Antarctic yet again demonstrate the fragile lattice that is our planet. And that lattice is breaking.