Palin is Walking on Thin Ice

Written by: Cole Diamond

On September 6^th 2015, Sarah Palin had an interview with CNN where she talked about Obamas visit to Alaska and about climate change, particularly glaciers. Sarah Palin is the former governor of Alaska, and was John McCain’s vice president. The interview with Jake Tapper, a CNN anchor talked with Sarah about climate change. Sarah Palin brought up glaciers and how Obama only referenced one glacier that was shrinking but didn’t acknowledge any of the growing glaciers. She talked about the cyclical cycle and how she doesn’t think the changes in the weather have anything to do with man. In the interview Sarah Palin said:

“I take changes in the weather; the cyclical changes that the globe has undergone for – since the beginning of time, I take it seriously, but I’m not going to blame these changes in the weather on man’s footprint. Obama was up here looking at, say, the glaciers and pointing out a glacier that was receding. Well, there are other glaciers, though, that are growing up here. And he didn’t highlight that, but he used glaciers as an example.”

With Sarah Palin’s claim in mind we will look over a couple of her main points that she mentioned in her interview. Sarah said she takes the cyclical changes seriously so we will go over what a cyclical cycle is and if it supports what she is trying to say. Sarah doesn’t think “man’s footprint” has anything to do with changing weather but scientific data has something to say about “man’s footprint.” Let’s also take a look at glaciers, is that one glacier that Obama pointed at the only glacier that is receding? According to Sarah it is.

Sarah said in her interview that she takes the cyclical changes seriously. What is the cyclical cycle? In this setting Sarah may be talking about the Milankovitch Cycle. The Milankovitch cycle is a cycle that a mathematician and astrophysicist has created whose name is Milutin Milankovitch. It is a mathematical theory for climate. It explains how the earth’s orbit and its rotation on its axis has been triggering ice ages and warmer weather. It is believed that as the Earth’s orbit changes, the amount of sunlight that hits certain areas of the earth or certain latitudes determine whether or not the earth is in an ice age or a warm period. More sun in the northern latitudes mean warmer earth temperatures. When the sun is not as strong in the northern latitudes the earth is in an ice age. There are three main important forces that will cause the earth to go through these different cycles. Eccentricity, obliquity, and precession are the different cycles. The eccentricity cycle happens about every 100,000 years and this deals with the earth’s orbit around the sun. It basically means the earth spends less time around the sun at certain parts of the year. The farther from the sun the less heat the earth gets and the colder the planet is. The obliquity cycle happens about every 41,000 years and this is the earth’s tilt on its orbital plane. If the earth has the northern half pointed more at the sun, then more ice melts on the northern half of the planet. On the opposite side, the earth will cool if the tilt is going the other way. The precession cycle occurs every 26,000 years and this is a tidal driven cycle, the moon and the sun influence it. The pole that is closer to the sun will have a warm summer and a cold winter while the opposite pole will have a cold summer and a warm winter.

Milankovitch Cycle Image by Hannes Grobe

Within Sarah’s quote she says that she doesn’t blame changes in the weather on “man’s footprint,” we all know what greenhouse gasses are and where they come from. Manmade greenhouse gasses are absorbing the heat from the sun and holding it in the earth’s atmosphere warming the planet. With this going on the weather is going to change and is already changing. Higher temperatures mean worsening disasters, warmer weather holds in rain which means dry areas get drier and wet areas get more wet. Dryer areas mean more droughts and fires that can become disastrous and the wet areas will flood more. The more disasters there are the more they will cost. From manmade machines there are more emissions that can directly affect the climate but in a way that is surprising, emissions can directly attack the oceans. The oceans are becoming more acidic which means the animals that have shells like crabs, lobsters or any sea creature with calcium carbonate shells are at risk. The acidic level of the oceans can eat away the shells and leave the shellfish vulnerable. Corals are at risk of this also, without corals the oceans will lose their brilliance and the other organisms that rely on the corals for food or homes will suffer also.

The Muir and Riggs Glacier showing the impact of climate change. Images taken by Natasha.

     Glaciers are an important part for research of climates from the past. Taking ice cores from glaciers and ice caps gives researchers an idea of what the atmosphere was like and the climate from thousands of years ago. In Sarah Palin’s interview she mentions that there are “glaciers growing up here” referring to glaciers growing in Alaska. In a study from the University of Alaska in Fairbanks and other institutions they showed that Alaska has lost over 75 gigatons of ice every year from 1994 to 2003. A gigaton is a billion metric tons. As the ice melts the water levels rise. In Alaska 98% of the glaciers have thinned and are receding. In other countries across the world including North Asia, Northwest Canada, Russia, it is projected that they will lose up to 80% of their glaciers by the year 2100.

Looking back at Sarah Palin’s interview quote about climate change we know from scientific data that man’s footprint is having a big impact on the earth’s greenhouse gasses and the weather. The Milankovitch cycle that Sarah may have been meaning when she said the cyclical cycle may be the best evidence of global warming and cooling. It is up to the readers to determine if the Milankovitch cycle theory is a determining factor of global warming and cooling. It is hard to not see that a giant piece of ice (a glacier) is shrinking and disappearing. Somebody should show Sarah Palin that 98% of the ice in Alaska is receding and melting. Is the Milankovitch cycle causing the earth to heat up? Is the earth heating up because of “man’s footprint?” Is climate change and global warming a combination of the two?