Thursday, May 17, 2007

"I'm Melting, I'm Melting"

So said the wicked witch of the East, in L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz, and this also is being said about an area in Antarctica.  Take a look at the alarmist headlines which proclaim “vast regions,” “huge snow melt,” “California-sized area of Antarctica,” etcetera, etcetera.

Upon reading the articles, you’ll find that some areas of snow DID indeed melt in Antarctica in the year 2005, but, you’ll also find that the areas mentioned, re-froze, as reported in the NYT.

Balmy air, with a temperature of up to 41 degrees in some places, persisted across three broad swathes of West Antarctica long enough to leave a distinctive signature of melting, a layer of ice in the snow that cloaks the vast ice sheets of the frozen continent. The layer formed the same way a crust of ice can form in a yard in winter when a warm day and then a freezing night follow a snowfall, the scientists said.

Additionally, note the use of the word “melting,” and consider that most individuals, upon reading the word “melting,” interpret its meaning as “to disappear as if by dissolving,” like the wicked witch of the East, as Merriam-Webster defines the word (see 2.b), rather than understanding that the “melting,” as happened in Antarctica in 2005 and so breathlessly reported by the media, was simply an alteration of the snow (see the primary definition (1.) of melting in the Merriam-Webster link).

And last but not least, note the comment buried at the end of almost every news article I read regarding this “melting” of Antarctica.

It is too soon to know whether the warm spell was a fluke or a portent, Dr. Nghiem said.

A “fluke or a portent?” For the global warming alarmist faithful, the Antarctica story is a portent, and Dr. Nghiem is the prophet.

Quote above taken from the New York Times story titled Analysis Finds Large Antarctic Area Has Melted.

Posted by John Venlet on 05/17 at 04:19 AM
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