02/25/08 Throwing ice on global warming

Farm and Ranch February 25, 2008 Last summer the mainstream media made a lot of noise about the melting Artic ice cap and the potential extinction of the polar bear. Global warming was called the culprit. Dr. Art Douglas, retired professor of atmospheric sciences at Creighton University, who spoke recently in Spokane at the Pacific Northwest Farm Forum, says this winter has seen a major cool down across the Artic. Douglas: "The sea ice which had record withdrawal last summer, in fact it was the lowest amount of sea ice on record in the Artic, now suddenly has filled up all the Artic on down the east coast of Siberia all the way into portions of China, Korea and actually into some of the bays near Beijing." So what does this expansion of Artic ice say about global warming? Douglas: "It is an episodic type phenomenon in which we do have long periods of warming and or cooling and the net result is that the sea ice is going to respond. It is a little too soon to see how thick that sea ice is going to be up there to see if we have reversed this trend or if it is just one cold winter and then maybe in the future we are going to start warming back up. That is really hard to tell." Douglas does add that most people have probably not heard that the last winter in Antarctica was also severely cold. Douglas: "This cold water situation in the Antarctic region allowed some of the most extensive ice we have ever seen on record down there in the southern hemisphere. So not everything in the world is necessarily pointing towards global warming and the loss of ice throughout the world." I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.