Omniclimate reports on some interesting findings — revealed at last week's Epica 2008 climate conference in Venice — from a two-mile-deep ice core taken at Concordia Base in Antarctica.

That’s the deepest ice core ever extracted.

The full article by Gabriele Beccaria is available in Italian at this link. Epica 2008 organizer Prof. Carlo Barbante, of University of Venice and Italian National Research Council’s Environmental Process Dynamics Institute, is quoted as saying that the ice core has been taken from

“an area where snow accumulates…25 millimeters per year“

A hidden network of glacial lakes far below the Antarctic surface regulates the motion of the continent's ice rivers, a study has found. When the subglacial lakes overflow, the ice above accelerates towards the ocean.

"It's like putting in a squirt of oil," says Andy Smith of the British Antarctic Survey, who was not involved in this latest study. "The water lubricates the base of the glacier."

What causes the lakes to flood is not known, but researchers watching the movement of ice in satellite images have noticed that the ice appeared to "breathe" in some places, apparently linked to the ebb and flow of water underneath. Now, for the first time, evidence has emerged sub-surface floods can indeed act like a "turbo lubricant" for glaciers.

By tracking both the ocean-bound movement of East Antarctica's Byrd glacier and the events in two lakes that lie beneath it, Leigh Stearns of the University of Maine and colleagues showed that the glacier sped up between late 2005 and mid 2007 – precisely when ice-penetrating radar imagery from satellites showed that both lakes were overflowing.

Climate change knows three realities: science reality, which is what working scientists deal with every day; virtual reality, which is the wholly imaginary world inside computer climate models; and public reality, which is the socio-political system within which politicians, business people and the general citizenry work.

The science reality is that climate is a complex, dynamic, natural system that no one wholly comprehends, though many scientists understand different small parts. So far, science provides no unambiguous evidence that dangerous or even measurable human-caused global warming is occurring.

The virtual reality is that computer models predict future climate according to the assumptions that are programmed into them. There is no established Theory of Climate, and therefore the potential output of all realistic computer general circulation models (GCMs) encompasses a range of both future warmings and coolings, the outcome depending upon the way in which they are constructed. Different results can be produced at will simply by adjusting such poorly known parameters as the effects of cloud cover.

It is disturbing that many recent statements on climate change by influential people are not supported by hard evidence.

For instance, Professor Ralph Chapman's statement that the globe risks a tipping point if emissions are not reduced by 2015 is unsupported by hard evidence, as is David Parker's claim that if we do nothing to reduce emissions, New Zealand could be up to $500 million worse off by 2012.

This is not true because, if we adopt the Emissions Trading Scheme, electricity bills alone will increase by more than $500 million each year.

On Kyoto, lawyer Alistair Hercus recently claimed that "as a country we have to pay". In fact, the Kyoto protocol says nothing about enforcement and as yet there are no international emissions enforcers to act as judge, jury and executioner.

West Greenland Warming: 1991-2004: How dramatic was it? ... and how unprecedented?

Winter Droughts of the Upper Rhine River Basin: How have they varied over the past four and a half centuries?

Winter Floods of the Vistula River: How have they varied over the past millennium?

Engineering Crops to Better Cope With Global Warming: Is it imminent reality? ... or is it merely wishful thinking?

We Live in a Complex World ... and so do Grasshoppers: How does the combination of anthropogenic-induced changes in three environmental factors influence the growth of grasshoppers?

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[H/T to CO2 Sceptics]  Over the last few years, the evidence that sunspots on our sun are directly related to climate change on earth has been steadily increasing.

I explained the exact proposed mechanism in some detail previously. Great work in this field is being carried out by Dr Henrik Svensmark and coworkers in Denmark and elsewhere.

Briefly, the mechanism is that cosmic rays impact on the earth from deep space. These cosmic rays penetrate our atmosphere and lead to the formation of cloud cover. The cosmic rays nucleate sites in the atmosphere, from which clouds form from the natural water vapour.

If one puts a spoonful of coffee powder into a cup of microwaved water, the water forms bubbles of foam on the coffee grains. This is basically the same principle as the cosmic rays forming clouds in the atmosphere.