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from the did-they-expect-to-find-handwarmers? dept.
OSLO (Reuters) - Natural swings in the Arctic climate have caused up to half the precipitous losses of sea ice around the North Pole in recent decades, with the rest driven by man-made global warming, scientists said on Monday.
The study indicates that an ice-free Arctic Ocean, often feared to be just years away, in one of the starkest signs of man-made global warming, could be delayed if nature swings back to a cooler mode.
Natural variations in the Arctic climate "may be responsible for about 30–50 percent of the overall decline in September sea ice since 1979," the U.S.-based team of scientists wrote in the journal Nature Climate Change.
Sea ice has shrunk steadily and hit a record low in September 2012 -- late summer in the Arctic -- in satellite records dating back to 1979.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Wednesday March 15 2017, @10:20AM
Exactly. Underneath this "feedback loop" assertion there seems to be an underlying assumption that the world is under some kind of obligation to maintain a nice, comfortable, convenient environment for humans. That somehow the laws of physics are conspiring in our favour, which suggests belief in some kind of benevolent deity / gaia figure. Why should these feedback loops all conspire to keep everything at a nice equilibrium and keep Florida above the waterline? The Earth's environment has undergone some radical changes in the past, there's no reason to believe it can't do so again. Reminds me of that quote from Feynman regarding the shuttle disaster: "reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled."