'World News' Rediscovers Global Warming

     It might seem like a non-issue. With the stock market way off its 2007 record highs and banking institutions failing in the midst of a presidential election, global warming alarmists have toned down their pleas for economy-killing greenhouse gas emission regulations.

     But ABC’s “World News with Charles Gibson” is attempting to keep the issue in focus. Gibson’s Oct. 16 broadcast raised “new concerns” about climate change.

     “New concerns today about climate change,” Gibson said. “In its annual arctic report card, the government says the ice in Greenland is melting at a record pace. Twenty-four cubic miles of ice disappeared in 2007.”

     To put it in perspective – Gibson illustrated for viewers just how much ice 24 cubic meters is.

     “That’s equal to the amount of water consumed in Los Angeles in an entire year,” Gibson said. “Air temperatures in Greenland have risen nearly five degrees, adding to the number of days when melting occurs.”

     What Gibson omitted from his report is the study he was citing – “The Arctic Report Card” from the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory in Hanover, N.H, - says the ice loss isn’t all attributable to climate change.

    According to an Oct. 16 McClatchy Newspapers article by Robert Boyd, the report’s authors attributed the changes to both global warming and variations in ocean currents and winds above the Arctic Circle.

     “Global warming by itself wouldn't cause this much sea ice loss,” James Overland, one of the report’s authors said to McClatchy. “Nor would changes in wind and ocean currents alone.”

     In January 2008, Greenlanders were noting the increase in ice in some regions, according to a Jan. 16 article in The Copenhagen (Dk.) Post.

     “On Disko Bay in western Greenland, where a number of prominent world leaders have visited in recent years to get a first-hand impression of climate change, temperatures have dropped so drastically that the water has frozen over for the first time in a decade,” the article said.  

     “The ice is up to 50cm thick,” Henrik Matthiesen, an employee at Denmark’s Meteorological Institute, said to the Post. “We’ve had loads of northerly winds since Christmas which has made the area miserably cold.”