International Polar Year

antarctica_radarsat.jpgThe IPY is underway, a two-year study of the Earth’s, the Moon’s, and Mar’s polar regions. This is pretty exciting stuff, and I am sure that large quantities of data on the warming of the planet will come out of it.

This means scientists from all countries will be flocking to the poles in droves the next two years. So you will see stories about ice caps retreating, and dramatic predictions of polar bears dieing, as this video from JPL demonstrates.

While there is little doubt that the planet has warmed significantly during recent decades, there are large questions remaining. How much does man contribute? Will it continue at current pace? Neither question has been answered definitively yet.

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Sifting through the data the IPY provides is going to prove difficult, because the media will print everything indicative of man-made global warming, and nothing contra-indicative. The evidence will be there to demonstrate both theories, as we have seen from the Larsen B ice shelf collapse fable, and sometimes when the evidence is not there, we will see it manufactured, as we see from the “Bush caused Katrina” fable.  (Ok so it’s a parody site 🙂 )

However, the blogmind knows all and never forgets anything so expect a lot of good analysis and debate from both sides over the next two years on the net; here I will do my best to contribute.

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