Lake Superior is warming and losing water. Since 1979, the average water temperature has increased 4.5 degrees, and in some places the surface temperature has reached 75 degrees. At the same time, Superior‘s level is lower than it has been in eighty years. Scientists, however, are mystified. While global warming climate models predict increasing evaporation rates due to the shrinking winter ice cap, those models also predicted more precipitation in the region as global warming continues. It hasn’t happened, and theories are running wild.
Cynthia Sellinger, deputy director of the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory in Ann Arbor, believes the model discrepancy might be caused by a residual effect of the 1990′s El Nino.
Perhaps tiring of stepping on pieces of broken climate models, journalists themselves have begun seeking out alternate explanations for explaining climate change.
Ted Sietsema, a retired guy smoking a pipe in a pub who was interviewed in the same AP news story, went on record to say: “Don’t give me any that global warming stuff. That water is going west.” Sietsema believes the government is secretly draining the lake to water the arid western states where there is more political clot.
As speculative, and unsubstantiated, as the covert water siphoning theory sounds, it is remarkably similar to the tone scientists are striking as successive climate models fail to support the theory of global warming.
Where once the predictive value of climate models was touted by scientists as forthcoming evidence of anthropogenic global warming, the evidence today suggests that many scientists remain blindly committed to their view, despite the models’ failure.
Jay Austin, an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota at Duluth‘s Large Lakes Observatory, made this revealing comment on the Lake Superior, climate model mystery: “It’s just not clear what the ultimate result will be as we turn the knob up.” That is really the global warming theory: we’re the ones turning up the heat, no matter what the evidence shows.
Yet, a genuine attempt to prove a theory is an attempt to falsify it, and a genuine attempt to hold on to a prejudice is evident when scientists discard evidence that refutes it.
(read about it here in CNN.com)
About David Dansker
David Dansker - writes commentary and articles covering various topics including ecclesiology, eschatology, and theology. His focus is on those issues that deal with heresy, harlotry, and the apostasy. You may reach Mr. Dansker at:
david@thenewsbeats.com
The News Beats
The Lake Superior issue is better understood than you make it out to be- both reduced winter ice cover and higher water temperatures lead to greater rates of evaporation, lowering the lake levels over the last several decades. A sustained drought over the last 12-15 months has exacerbated a long-term trend towards lower levels.
While certainly the models used to predict future climate are not perfect (nor does anybody claim them to be), they do all consistently predict significant atmospheric warming. Precipitation patterns are currently more difficult to predict for a given specific region. However, there is nothing inconsistent between the observed trends in Lake Superior (lower water levels and higher water temperatures) and the current state of global climate modeling.
My comment, with regards to not knowing what will happen, was in reference to biogeochemical cycles in the lake, not the physical response, which are much better understood.
Jay Austin,
Thank you for taking the time to provide this guest commentary, and elaborating on your remarks as reported in the source news article. As for the accuracy and reliability of climate models, as your host, I am pleased to give you the last word here.
David