Let me give you just one fact. Al Gore says the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets will melt and cause sea level to rise 20 feet, putting the present-day populations of Manhattan, Shanghai, Bangladesh and other coastal regions at risk. The official scientific consensus, represented by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, says that over the coming century the contribution of these two ice sheets to sea-level rise will be not 20 feet but 2 inches; that in each of the past four interglacial warm periods sea level rose to a height five metres above its present level, and did so without any influence from humankind; that sea level will do the same in the present interglacial period; but that it will not rise by 20 feet for several millennia. Indeed, the UN says the probability that our activities make any difference to sea level is little better than 50:50. So, on the scariest of all the "global warming" scares - sea-level rising and displacing hundreds of millions - Al Gore is exaggerating 120-fold, or almost 12,000 per cent. He does not represent the scientific mainstream consensus, but instead speaks for a small, fringe group of politically-motivated scientists. - Lord Christopher Monckton.

I. Introduction

In 2007, the heat has been turned up at the Poles. Not by climate change, but by climate alarmists: “Greenland is melting into the sea, Antarctica is soon to follow, sea level will rise by several meters this century. Polar bears will become extinct. Permafrost will melt. Methane will be released. Warming will accelerate.” So the litany goes.

But are things really so? Should school children fear a devastating rise in global sea levels? Will we soon mourn the passing of the polar bears? Will changes in the climate of the Polar Regions lead to ecological and biological devastation? The answer is resoundingly, No! Not according to current observations. Not according to our knowledge of the past. Not according to our best understanding of the future.

Polar bears, as a species, have survived through periods in the past lasting several thousands of years in which Arctic temperatures were significantly higher and Arctic sea ice was significantly less than conditions currently. Their existence today is the strongest testament to their ability to adapt to a changing climate.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projects, in its just-released Fourth Assessment Report, a median sea level rise throughout the 21^st century of just 14 inches. If the current inputs from Greenland and Antarctica simply reflect natural variability (there is evidence to support this possibility) and/or short-term accelerations, then future sea level rise may even be less.

This paper examines the evidence supporting a non-alarmist view of climate change science, with special emphasis on the polar regions, both the Arctic and the Antarctic. Evidence is presented suggesting that the near term impact of future climate change on the polar regions of the earth, and the rest of the Earth at large - although detectable - will be modest. While this evidence may not be the type that is splashed across the evening news, it is nevertheless a more realistic assessment of the of the Earth’s ever dynamic and variable climate.

II. Greenland Ice Sheets: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

Greenland’s glaciers and ice fields respond to climate changes by advancing and retreating. During rapid warm-up in the early 20^th century, Greenland’s glaciers recessed significantly from their extended locations at the end of the Little Ice Age. Currently, many of Greenland’s glaciers are no shorter than the limits established during the mid-20^th century.

The existence of the Greenland ice cap is actually a geographical and climatological anomaly, as Greenland sits too far south to have as much snow and ice as it does (about 5% of the world’s ice, enough to raise sea level about 23 feet, lies atop Greenland). Compare the southern portions of Greenland, which lies beneath nearly a mile of ice, with say the European capital cities of Oslo, Stockholm, and Helsinki, which lie roughly along the same line of latitude.

The reason that Greenland currently has so much ice and snow is the altitude and geological formation of the central plateau. More than a mile thickness of ice sits atop all but the coastal portions of Greenland and this enormous mountain of ice serves to make its own climate. Due to its elevation, the surface of Greenland’s central ice cap is some 20 to 30ºF colder than it would be if there was no ice at all. And further, this mountain of ice perturbs the atmospheric circulation and spins up weather systems producing ample precipitation from the moisture supplied to it by the warm Gulf Stream waters. Together, the enhanced precipitation and increased elevation maintain Greenland’s ice cap—a remnant of the last ice age.

But this does not imply that Greenland’s ice cap and glaciers are immune to climate changes. Greenland ice sheets respond to temperature (and precipitation) changes, just like ice everywhere else. When the temperatures local to Greenland warm, the ice load on Greenland generally shrinks, and vice versa for periods of cooling. A complicating factor to the ice/temperature relationship is precipitation change. Warming temperatures also tend to lead to increased precipitation, which, over the inland of Greenland, usually means more snow (and thus ice accumulation and lower sea levels). On the other hand, more precipitation falling as rain along the continental margins enhances melting (and ice loss).

The behavior of Greenland ice sheets to climate changes appears to be well-established in the scientific literature, dating back to the mid-1940s and even earlier—before climate changes potentially induced by anthropogenic activities were possibilities. Prominent climatologists of the time had clearly documented a series of glacial advances and retreats in Greenland since the end of the last ice age, some 12,000 years ago. The most readily detectable of which was the rapid and large-scale pullback associated with a warming climate after the end of the Little Ice Age in the mid-19^th century. Earlier 20^th century warming was well documented, as was the accompanying glacial retreat, sea ice melting, permafrost recession, and shifts in biology (including the northward expansion of the ranges of plants and animal species). It is interesting to note that back then the warm-up was termed a “climate improvement.”

Here is how the noted Arctic climatologist H. W. Ahlmann described his research in an article titled “Researches on Snow and Ice, 1918-1940” written more than 60 years ago in 1946 for the scientific journal The Geographical Journal:

Like the Fröya glacier, all the other glaciers in north-east Greenland have terminal moraines marking their maximum extension in post-glacial times. There is reason to presume that in Greenland, as in Norway and Iceland, this maximum extension occurred in the latter half of the eighteenth [1700s] and beginning of the nineteenth [1800s] centuries. In north-east Greenland, as elsewhere round the northernmost Atlantic, a post-glacial warm period occurred [the Climate Optimum, ~9,000 to 5,000 years ago], during which time the local glaciers disappeared completely or became much reduced in size. The outlet glaciers of the inland ice receded considerably, and the peripheral parts of the inland ice itself grew thinner. After this postglacial warm period, glaciation again increased and, after alternating advance and regression, culminated in the maximum extension of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries [maximum extent of the Little Ice Age]. This was followed by a slow regression, which was interrupted by minor advances, but has increased rapidly during the last decades [1918-1940]. The present extensive regression is due to the recent climatic improvement.

Apart from the proofs of climatic improvement given by these investigations, the following facts may also be mentioned. The experiences of the Russian scientists along the North-East Passage are especially noteworthy. In 1930 the Leningrad Arctic Institute was established, and in 1933 became responsible for the scientific work of the Central Northern Sea Route Administration in Moscow. Throughout the 1939 war the Arctic Institute has maintained seventy-seven scientific stations in the Russian sector of the Arctic. The regular air surveys of the extent of the drift-ice, which are carried out during the summer months, have shown that between 1924 and 1942 the drift-ice was reduced by about 1 million square kilometres. The average thickness of the sea-ice in the Polar Sea has diminished from 365 centimetres at the time of the Nansen Fram expedition of 1893-95, to the 218 centimetres found by the ice-breaker Sedov, which in 1937-40 drifted along a route similar to that followed by the Fram. Two fossil-ice islands in the Laptev Sea have completely melted in recent years, leaving only submarine banks. And finally, the temperature has increased in the so-called Atlantic waters of the Polar Sea as well as in the Kara Sea…

On the basis of the known extension of the drift-ice it is possible to calculate the general distribution of atmospheric pressure. The direction of the ice-drift is parallel to the isobars, and the speed of the ice-drift is inversely proportional to the distances between the isobars. The Arctic fauna has followed the climatic change, and both fishes and fowl are now found much farther north than formerly. The southern limit of permanently frozen ground in Asia has moved many kilometres farther north, and the Spitsbergen period of navigation has lengthened considerably. From 1909 to 1912 it lasted ninety-five days, but in 1930-38 it had increased to one hundred and seventy-five days, and in 1939 to as many as two hundred and three days (from April 29 to November 17). This part of the Arctic may, without exaggeration, be said to have experienced a climatic revolution.

Again, the above passage was written in 1946, describing the events associated with a warming climate that had little if anything to do with human activities in that it occurred during a period prior to a significant atmospheric build-up of carbon dioxide from the combustion of fossil fuels. It demonstrates that rapid and significant climate swings can and do occur naturally and that elements of the earth’s natural systems react accordingly.

Thus, changes in both the cryosphere and the biosphere that have been associated with the current warming period (beginning in the early-1990s in Greenland) are neither extraordinary, unprecedented, nor unanticipated, despite often vocal claims, by scientists, environmentalists, politicians, and the media, to the contrary.