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Jim Motavalli

Jim on FOX (again): Seas still rising

Fox Business News' Neil Cavuto had me on again to talk about climate change. But the "smoking gun" that some say makes climate scientists look like flip-floppers is really much ado about not much.
Mon, May 18 2009 at 12:02 PM EST
Read more: ANTARCTICA, CLIMATE CHANGE, GLOBAL WARMING

So Neil Cavuto had me on Fox Business News a second time to talk about climate change. Here’s the video:

 The first time I was on, as you may recall, the subject was a report that sea ice is thickening in Antarctica. It is, and scientists are trying to explain it, but it hardly sends global warming science into a tailspin.
 
My return visit to Fox headquarters in New York was triggered by another seeming assault on the fortress that is climate science, this one also relating to Antarctica but about sea-level rise. A paper in the May 15 issue of Science, co-authored by Jonathan Bamber of the Bristol Glaciology Center in England, predicted that in the event of a total and cataclysmic meltdown of the West Antarctic ice sheet, seas would rise 10 feet instead of the previously assumed 20 feet.
 
Now let’s get this straight: The Science paper did not say that sea-level rise itself would be half what scientists had previously said (though some misleading headlines implied this). It relates only to the contribution by the West Antarctic ice sheet, and it said that all the ice would likely not collapse into the ocean—parts would remain grounded on the continent. That collapse should not be underestimated—West Antarctica holds 90 percent of the world’s ice—but it is hardly imminent. Our children and their children will probably have other things to worry about.
 
When and if the sheet does collapse, the effects will be most strongly felt in the southern Indian Ocean and the coastal U.S.—much of Southern Florida could disappear, says a University of Toronto/Oregon State study cited in Science Daily—but how it would unfold and when are still the subject of much debate. As the New York Times’ Andrew Revkin (who wrote a May 15 story on Bamber’s study) put it to me in an email, “This study was expressly a thought experiment about the worst-case, long-term outcome. The big question remains totally unanswered.” There’s a lively debate on all this at Revkin’s blog here.
 
Climate skeptics are not going to find a smoking gun that will “prove” that global warming is (to quote Senator James Inhofe) “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people”) but absent that they want to just make climate scientists look like flip-floppers. But this study is probably not the best vehicle for such a mission.
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Comments(10)

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Posted By Global Changes - Thu, May 21 2009 at 8:01 AM EST

change

When are FOX going to realize that the world has changed. Ignorance just doesn't cut it anymore. We ignored the problems in the banking system and look where that got us. We cannot ignore climate change

Posted By Leigh - Fri, May 22 2009 at 6:44 PM EST

headline

No need to insult Democrats about the banking thing. Of course we cannot ignore climate change. That is why we must look at all data, not just the stuff that shows warming and glacial retreat, but the stuff that shows opposite trends as well. Ignorance doesn't cut it anymore, so stop regurgitating the mantras of the ignorant.

Posted By Anonymous - Wed, May 20 2009 at 5:05 PM EST

An incorrect truth?

I dont understand Fox or anyone that sticks his or her head in the sand. If they would take a look around and see all that is going on now, droughts, floods, reduced crop yields around the world. Take a look at these links ocean is not rising the land is sinking.

http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/news/environment-news/s...

.... More

Posted By EastSideChick - Tue, May 19 2009 at 5:06 PM EST

so glad

Jim sounds like he really read the report all the way through and understood it instead of just picking and choosing what he wanted to hear/promote. Way to go, Jim.

Posted By Keith - Tue, May 19 2009 at 4:32 PM EST

Seriously?

A continuous campaign by FOX and its commentators to un-educate people and stop progress in this country. It's incredible how short-sighted they can be; how does Cavuto thinks those trillions would be spent? In ice makers? It'd be all an investment in scientific research, technology innovation & development, regulation, etc. which at the ends translates to education, jobs, healthier products and environments, economic growth, better living standards, i.e PROGRESS! That word that used to be.... More

Posted By Leigh - Fri, May 22 2009 at 6:46 PM EST

It would be great...

...if all of those things that you listed could happen, but the people elected Obama, so there is little chance of that.

Posted By larrydalooza - Tue, May 19 2009 at 11:41 AM EST

Religious Left

The idea that humans MUST be affecting something so let's go find it... is what drives all this "climate change" nonsense. Yes, we could use less people and we should be clean and efficient... but, for cripes sake, the crying wolf crap is getting old.

Posted By tom - Tue, May 19 2009 at 10:40 AM EST

It's not Fox...

...It's POX Network. A Pox on the truth.

Posted By DMW - Mon, May 18 2009 at 9:39 PM EST

OMG such ignorance

Neil Convuluted should be his name. Arrogant, stupid and proud. Fox - the network of simplicity. He's worried about the costs we're incurring now? The guy just doesn't get it.

Posted By Leigh - Fri, May 22 2009 at 6:48 PM EST

Sarcasm is funny.

Many people actually would agree with that supremely ironic statement. That is the scary thing.

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