Off topic - Blink and it's gone !

It's a mainly cyclic thing. We appear to be back to the Arctic Sea-Ice coverage of the mid 1950s, and it's fairly much in line with the scientific predictions of when it would reach its minimums again.

The cycle, some seem to think, is due to the slow 'wobble' of the planet, which is why Antarctica is being blessed with much colder temperatures than of recent times, and far greater sea and land ice levels at the same time as the sea-ice disappears in the Arctic.

Much as I love Richard Branson, I fear he is either being suckered in to the rich-man's frenzy of the moment (fear of Global Warming), or he has worked out a way to make money out of it. Watch to see if he offers 'solutions' that involve us paying more green taxes or a 'company' he has an involvement it, receiving huge income for some sort of green initiative payout.

Unfortunately, 'Climate Change' is a huge money-spinner right now, whereas those outside the frenzy don't really get a lot of money for questioning the 'frenzy', as was proved by the leaked 'Climategate' emails between those wishing to 'control' the science.

I must say i was quite surprised also that Richard Branson has got envolved in global warming scare story spreading. I would have though it could potentially backfire as he does after all , own a major airline , and we all know aircraft pump huge amounts of carbon dioxide straight into the atmosphere at height. Playing with fire you might say. Nun the less , i am also a fan of Richard Branson - i see him as just an ordinary nice bloke who happens to have made a lot of money.

As predicted , this story has now made the mainstream TV news. It was one of the lead storys on tonight's BBC 6 o'clock news, complete with a full video report including 'compelling' evidence that it's happening http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19508906

The same 'compelling evidence' that even NASA has just admitted was due to storm and weather patterns in the Arctic causing accelerated ice drift southwards and therefore encountering faster melt. It can all be explained by weather cycles, nowt man made or man contributed to.

It's all a bit like the methane scare. The global warming religion was telling us about how the world would end from the release of methane as part of the melt. It turns out the methane is constantly venting itself via the sea-bed and not coming from reduced ice at all.

Whoops. Nothing to see here then. Cue the next scary story!

Christopher England wrote:

Sea level rises for two reasons. The one they use to try to scare us being when ice on top of land (like most of the Antarctica) melts and rolls into the sea. Then, you are effectively adding water to the sea, so the level must rise. Although there are always glaciers somewhere melting and slowly dumping water into the sea, we are currently also going through a phase where temperatures are at their lowest for a very long time and ice/water retention is extremely high across the Antarctic. Therefore the water goes back up in the air from the sea as water vapour and is then 'snowed' back onto the land where it stays.

The second and main reason why sea levels rise is because of the warming of the water. It expands as it warms. The oceans are major heat sinks and are essentially where energy from the sun gets 'stored' in order to then act as part of the climate system.

Even so, the reality is that sea level hasn't increased by much more than between 1 and 3 millimetres in the last 50 years. And those measurements depend on who you listen to and what their agenda might be. Interestingly, different parts of the planet seems to be seeing different levels, indicating more that the earth structure or shape is changing as well as the sea levels.

As we enter a period of cooling due to the lack of sunspot activity, sea levels should contract a bit as the amount of heat they are storing reduces slightly.

Christopher England wrote: