Results of two studies linking biofuels and global warming are being questioned. Meanwhile, new evidence has cast doubt on claims that the world's ice-caps are melting. New satellite data shows that concerns over the levels of sea ice may have been premature.

It was feared that the polar caps were vanishing because of the effects of global warming. But figures from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show that almost all the "lost" ice has come back. Ice levels which had shrunk from 13million sq km in January 2007 to just four million in October 2007, are almost back to their original levels. Figures show that there is nearly a third more ice in Antarctica than is usual for the time of year.

The data flies in the face of many current thinkers and will be seized on by climate change sceptics who deny that the world is undergoing global warming. A photograph of polar bears clinging on to a melting iceberg has become one of the most enduring images in the campaign against climate change. It was used by former US Vice President Al Gore during his Inconvenient Truth lectures about mankind's impact on the world. But scientists say the northern hemisphere has endured its coldest winter in decades. They add that snow cover across the area is at its greatest since 1966.
The one exception is Western Europe, which has - until the weekend when temperatures plunged to as low as -10C in some places - been basking in unseasonably warm weather. The UK has reported one of its warmest winters on record.

Meanwhile, scientists from several universities and the US Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory are questioning the conclusions and assumptions of two reports that were published recently in the journal Science. The reports were narrowly constructed to demonstrate worst-case scenarios and did not examine all of the facts.
Dr. Michael Wang of Argonne's Transportation Technology R&D Center and Zia Haq of the DOE's Office of Biomass Program say that there has been no indication that US corn ethanol production has so far caused indirect land use changes in other countries because US corn exports have been maintained at about 2 billion bushels a year.

While scientific assessment of land use change is needed, Wang and Haq say conclusions about green house gas emissions and biofuels based on speculative, limited land use change modelling is misguiding.
Dr. Lou Honary, Director of the National Ag-Based Lubricants Center at the University of Northern Iowa says the reports are overly simplistic, don't take in many related factors, and cause misconceptions. Michigan State University's Dr. Bruce Dale agrees with Honary and says there are strong reasons to question the assumptions, data and comparisons made in these two papers.
David Morris of the Institute of Self-Reliance, a former member of the Advisory Committee for Biomass to the Departments of Energy and Agriculture, finds many contradictions in the reports: "The report notes that the vast majority of today's ethanol production comes from corn cultivated on land that has been in corn production for generations," Morris says. "Since little new land has come into production, either directly or indirectly, the current use of ethanol clearly reduces greenhouse gas emissions."

These findings are at odds with the legislature in California to force the teaching of global warming as science in California. Children have to watch the Al Gore movie as if it is real even though a judge found about 20 factual errors in the movie. The biggest is that the Artic ice cap is melting and will flood the East Coast. With news that the ice cap is back to where it was and even thicker than before, it is no wonder that Americans are turning away from science and towards the Bible, if this is the best science is able to do.