Great news, if true

"The Arctic as we know it may soon be a thing of the past," says Eric Post, associate professor of biology at Penn State University.

I'm skeptical of Professor Post's belief that the weather in the Arctic will be toasty anytime "soon;" but I certainly hope that he's right. Just imagining all that land up in the north of Canada that will "soon" be toasty enough to produce amber waves of grain has me tempted to reach for a box of cereal.

But I was a bit surprised by another assertion included in the article about the discoveries of Post's team.

According to Science Daily: "The scientists found that the increase in mean annual surface temperature in the Arctic over the last 150 years has had dramatic effects."

I'm hard pressed to understand how the actions of man could be, like, totally, responsible for starting the Arctic to warming 150 years ago in light of the fact that man didn't really start producing significant CO2 until, like, many years after that. Could it be that Professor Post is one of those global warming deniers who admit that other factors might have something to do with the climate?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090910142348.htm