Phil Chapman is a geophysicist and astronautical engineer and the first Australian to become a NASA astronaut writing in the Australian.  He continues alarmingly…

“The next descent into an ice age is inevitable but may not happen for another 1000 years. On the other hand, it must be noted that the cooling in 2007 was even faster than in typical glacial transitions. If it continued for 20 years, the temperature would be 14C cooler in 2027. By then, most of the advanced nations would have ceased to exist, vanishing under the ice, and the rest of the world would be faced with a catastrophe beyond imagining“

Which brings to mind Robert Frost’s wonderful poem:

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Update Jan 13th 2008:

• Snow in Baghdad for the first time in living memory!
• The heaviest snow in Iran for a decade
• National Geographic is also reporting that heavy snow and cold weather has also affected Afghanistan, India, and several Central Asian countries

And here we have some climate change protesters outside the State House in Annapolis chilling out:

Well in fact that is exactly what has been happening if we are to believe the data from the European Space Agency’s (ESA) ERS-2 satellite. There is a BBC report on the findings here.

Of course against this we have to consider that the satellite measurement of sea level is extremely tricky. Also it may well be that a sea level fall in the Arctic is “just” a local phenomenon. Elsewhere sea levels may be rising – and indeed a collation of satellite measurements is thought to indicate a global rise of 3.2mm per year from 1992 to 2006.

But then the forecasts for rising sea levels are so apocalyptic they seem to leave little room for falling levels anywhere! For example, writing in Science Express (December 2006) Dr Stephen Rahmstorf from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research is predicting a sea level rise of between 0.5 to 1.4 metres above 1990 levels by 2100.

Well it seems to me that taken overall the measured rate is lagging significantly behind this predicted rate. And in the Arctic the Gods of the sea level just don’t seem to be playing ball and would appear to be completely deaf to the AGW agenda!

However recently it seems to me we have not heard too much about the ozone layer issue. Perhaps that is because it had been thought that the problem was going away. The “hole” was thought to be repairing itself or at least stabilizing.

Now it is back on the radar. It seems that scientists at the European Space Agency are reporting that 2006 saw record losses of ozone over the south pole.

What caught my eye however was the conjectured explanation: Far from global warming being to blame, on the contrary, it is thought that record cooling is the culprit!

“Such significant ozone loss requires very low temperatures in the stratosphere combined with sunlight. This year’s extreme loss of ozone can be explained by the temperatures above Antarctica reaching the lowest recorded in the area since 1979″

This from ESA’s atmospheric engineer Claus Zehner (see here and here)