The fifth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was released last week, saying that global warming is occurring without a doubt, and human activity is extremely likely to be the cause. Greg Laden shares a number of graphics from the report, summarizing "It is getting hotter. It is getting wetter, or dryer, depending on where you are. And the big ice hat our planet wears is falling off." Peter Gleick collates a number of excerpts related to water on Significant Figures, which say that there are likely more regions getting more rain than less; the frequency of heavy precipitation events has likely increased in Europe and North America; and monsoons will likely become more intense, widespread, and long-lived. And on Stoat, William M. Connolley writes that estimations of polar ice loss have been significantly improved by the orbiting satellites of GRACE, which yield detailed gravity maps of the Earth's surface.
Posted to the homepage on October 1, 2013.
So I read that the big ice hat is falling of. I checked Antarctic ice area to see what it's been doing, and I found that it's been steadily increasing for at least the past 30 years, with this year being the highest in the records. Does this mean it's been getting colder for the past 30 years? If not, then increasing Arctic ice can't be used to demonstrate warming.
R. James, I don't know where you are getting your data from. The artic ice are is definitely not increasing and this year is well below the average.