According to many scientists, clouds are the wild card in regulating temperature as greenhouse becomes more robust. Not surprisngly, the article doesn't say anything about whether they have increased in coverage over the Arctic. My position is that elevated greenhouse has no direct effect on convection as this is controlled by the sun. As temperatures increase at high latitudes, you'd expect cloudiness to increase with the increase in humidity. That's only logical...regardless of cause.

I fear that our host left a mistaken impression with her excerpt -- here are the next few paragraphs:

With NASA reporting that 2005 was the warmest year on record worldwide, the debate over global warming marches on, but not here. The American and Canadian scientists at the Eureka Weather Station in the northern Canadian territory of Nunavut, like the Inuit who are seeing their native habitat thaw, are beyond questioning the existence of climate change.

"If we compare the debate over the theory of evolution with the debate over the theory of global warming -- global warming's a whole lot more certain at the moment," said Jim Drummond, a University of Toronto physics professor and chief investigator for the Canadian Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Change.

"By and large," he said, "we are not now arguing about whether global warming is going to happen; the argument has turned to: How big is it going to be?" (emphasis mine)

Laura, if you have the technology, I really think you need to revise your thread-starter. As is, you have seriously misrepresented this story.

Brookline Tom

I'm sorry you feel I misrepresented something from the article. My thread title was simply a play on words, and the quote is about the cloud research specifically, not about global warming science in general. If you read the last two lines of my entry, you'll see I said "The article also describes the impact that warming which has already occurred is having in Nunavut and other Arctic regions."

I'm glad you read the article. I hope everyone who reads my blog reads at least some of the articles I link. They offer far more information than the limited snippets I provide.

Listing the canards:

"families back home are forced to eat store-bought food that is costlier and less healthy." Less healthy than eating a vegetable and fruit-free diet of whale and walrus blubber? Yeah right.

"The permafrost � ground that is continually frozen for at least two years � is thawing, imperiling polar bears and forcing other animals to migrate farther north." Meanwhile increasing the time for harvests, hunting animals that prefer weather and who will wait longer before migrating south, etc. etc.

"There's a point where animals can't change fast enough, there's a point where plants can't change fast enough, so they'll either compete it out or go extinct." Yes its true that animals cannot adapt to any change at all just like all the skunks, squirrels, birds and other animals that haven't been able to adapt to urban environments. All true, all true.

"Studies show that average winter temperatures have increased as much as 7 degrees in the Arctic over the last 50 years. The permafrost � ground that is continually frozen for at least two years � is thawing, imperiling polar bears and forcing other animals to migrate farther north." No, the studies haven't shown that for the arctic. They may have shown it for certain areas in the arctic, but not the entire arctic. And two years of warming does prove climate change. Also I believe there are studies showing that about 1,000 years ago, (my timeframe may be off; think Lief Erickson) Greenland was actually green and not an ice covered rock. Once again there is no proof that we aren't simply coming out of an ice age.