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Ward Hunt Ice Shelf Breaks In Two
heidi writes "CNN has this story on the breakup of the largest ice cap. A permanent feature for the previous 3,000 years, it has broken into two pieces. "The Ward Hunt Ice Shelf, on the north coast of Ellesmere Island in Canada's Nunavut territory, broke into two main parts, themselves cut through with fissures. A freshwater lake drained into the sea, the researchers reported.""
How much more serious of an issue would this have been if a shelf of the same size broke off in Antarctica (where the ice is anchored to land) than in the Arctic (where it was floating before and thus won't raise sea levels)?
So global warming is still a myth ? Let's try to keep it that way.
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
No, global warming is simply something that happens... The earth gets warmer for a few millenia, then it gets colder for a few millenia.
Shit happens.
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
Give me a break, we did not cause the ice age, we did not cause the previous warm age, until we learn to create our own environment and destroy the natural one we will always be at its mercy.
The fabled Northwest Passage is at hand, reducing voyages from Europe to Asia by 5000 miles.
It's been sought by adventurers and explorers for hundreds of years, and only now is the northern boundary of the American continent becoming free of ice to allow passage. No longer will the Panama Canal or Cape Horn be the only routes between the Atlantic and the Pacific.
Not all changes are bad. Sometimes the world actually changes for the better, contrary as this is to the worldview with which we have been indoctrinated.
No.. global warming is not a myth, there is solid data to show that the averge global temperature is rising.
What isn't certain is WHY.
Is it "greenhouse gassses"?
Is it that humans are generating more heat through burning of fuels, and throwing off the balance? IE: even if "green house gasses" were brought to 100 year ago levels, temps would still rise
Is is that the Earth is going through a "warmer" part of the Galaxy/Universe?
Is it that there is some change in the Earth's core causing more heat?
Is the Sun putting out more energy on some long period that we don't yet know about?
Is it all those satellites that capture energy that normally passes the planet and direct some of back at us?
It it aliens beaning an interplanetery "slow death ray" at us?
Is it something else we can't think of yet?
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
On the global scale, I'd agree that the volume of seawater may be too large. But, is it possible that a localized event (like this one) could disrupt part of the system? Think of it this way: My mass and volume are much smaller than that of a large truck, but I can cause a disruption to that large system by tinkering with the battery and/or alternator. Is it possible that the influx of freshwater in this area can have an effect on the global process? I honestly don't know, but my hunch is that it may have some effect, even if only slight.
"It's too bad stupidity isn't painful." - A. S. LaVey
Even if the pollution our industries create isn't causing this, plenty of reasons to not dump pollution into our environment exist. It's obvious, really. The debate over global warming can be a sort of smoke-screen obscuring the simple truth: don't sh*t in your own backyard. And when you think about it, it's all our backyard.
Here's another good one: EPA definitely full of sh*t
On the geological timescale, 3000 years of solid Ward Hunt Ice Shelf is really just a little blip.
Yeah, and the rocks really don't care if they're above or below water.
I, on the other hand...
This is not a good development for the ecosystem of our planet.
First, I must mention that those who rush to blame anything and everything on climate change are just as irrational and stupid and those who rush to the assumption that climate change has nothing to do with anything. Both assumptions are erronous, unlearned, and emotionally modivated.
What we need to do hear folks is educate ourselves. As one who has done a fair amount of reading on the subject, I can assure you that although the world isn't going to end tomorrow, the effects of climate change (and man's contibution to climate change) are well worth taking seriously. Instead of blowing it all off as has been done with this subject on this forum in the past, I think we all need to grow up and at least seriously consider the very real possibility that this is in fact a very real problem and that perhaps we should rethink our dependence on fossil fuel and the rest. Because let me tell you folks, if it's half as bad as many scientists predict it is, we'd better get moving on this right now!
So please put aside your impulsive reactions for a bit and go out and learn more about this subject. It's important enough to offer it the benefit of the doubt.
I, too, spent some time with geology and I prefer the "pack up the coastal cities scenario" to the "Snowball Earth" scenario (or even an ice age on the magnitude of the last one, for that matter).
In short, it's postulated that a "snowball Earth" occured approximately 600-700 million years ago (shortly before the Cambrian explosion) where glacial ice spaned from the polar regions to the equator. Several theories have emerged to explain this but they all revolve around the idea that something happened to cool the Earth (e.g. severe drops in the levels of greenhouse gasses) which lead to more land being exposed which in turn lead to a lessened absorption on solar radiation which lead to even lower temperatures, more land being exposed, even less solar radiation, etc, etc, etc.
Seriously though, I don't think we fully understand the role that natural forces such as tectonics, volcanism, and global weather patterns play in the Earth's climate. While it's pretty obvious that polluting the atmosphere is a Bad Thing, our contribution is probably just a drop in the bucket.
Besides, even if we do screw things up so badly that we suffocate ourselves, the Earth has shown a remarkable resiliency in it's geologic past. In a couple million years, things will be pretty much back to normal and the race of uber intelligent cockroaches will be wondering how these silly bipedal organisms in the fossil record went extinct. ;-)
Has anyone found a before/after map of what happened to the shelf? That "90% of the shelf is gone" doesn't mean much without a sense of how big it was to begin with...
Coincidence.
There are a lot of other graphs that show similar growth rates.
To state that the increase in CO2 is undeniably causing the increase in temperature is just bad science. There's no evidence to back it up. We need experiments and more data before any sound scientific conclusion like that can be made.
In my list I mentioned at least four very plausible reasons for global temperature rise that do not depend on an increase in CO2. Environmentalists continually shout about the GhGs because it's easy to make slogans out of and it furthers their agenda.
I have no agenda but to get at truth. In my experince, accepting the first piece of data that fits your assumptions is not the way to get at truth, but a way to sell books and get on the 6:00 news.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
Therefore it would seem to me to be reasonable to state that greenhouse gasses seem a likely cause and take action to reduce them while simultaneously doing more research on the subject to figure out what the cause is for sure.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
Very nice graph. It does make me wonder however, how does it correlate with, for example, the temperature peak during the medieval warm period when temperatures were on average a degree C warmer than today?
Personally, I dont think CO2 emissions really make a big difference. Even if we did manage to completely stop all CO2 emissions (which I think we should do anyway) we'd still get global warming. Historical temperature data tends to point out that we're not even in a very warm period for the moment, and with or without human interference we'll get far larger variations than we've seen the last century.
So, not buying that beachfront property might be a good idea. You never know when mother nature will conspire to make your house an experimental submerged water dwelling.
The fact that temperature changes coincide with increasing levels of a known greenhouse forcing gas, is actually fairly pursuasive. Or did you mean 'mere coincidence.' ;)
To state that the increase in CO2 is undeniably causing the increase in temperature is just bad science. There's no evidence to back it up. We need experiments and more data before any sound scientific conclusion like that can be made.No serious scientist is arguing 'undeniability.' The large majority of scientists, however, are pursuaded that anthorpogenic carbon dioxide (and other gases) are making a major contribution to the observed climatic changes.
You are simply wrong about a lack of experimental data. The greenhous forcing potential of CO2 has been recognised since the time of Avernius. The mechanism by which heat is trapped (it's actually diffracted), is also well known. What is more the various indicies of heat forcing potential for CO2 and other 'greenhouse gasses,' has been quantified.
On the balance of probabilities, it seems to me that right about 10-20 years ago we should have stopped buring the planet's carbon sinks and moved over to nuclear.
I have no agenda but to get at truth.If that is so, the best starting point would be the The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change site. Providing, of course you prefer a scientific gloss on the issue rather than an ideological one.
All this "Save the environment" stuff is bunk. What people are trying to save is themselves/the human race.
Regardless of what humans do, short of blasting Earth in to tiny bits, the environment will be fine. In the geologic/astonomical timescale we are insignificant to the planet, and this global warming thing is like a small pimple you had back in 7th grade on Wednesday night.
The environment is self healing. If we cause it to get too hot (and I'm not sure we're responsible), humans and a bunch of other life forms will die off. Evolution and the geoligic processeses will reform the terrain and biosphere such that new life forms will become prevelant, and perhaps dominant.
The planet seems to have been here for 4.5 billion years, it's traveled trillions upon trillions of miles and been bombarded by untold tons of material large and small. It's been through stages of liquid rock and solid water covering the surface, it likely will go through such stages again.
As for your project, I have a few problems with it:
1. It doesn't seem to incorporate any external changes to the system. ie: it treats the Earth as a closed system and ignores interactions with surrounding space and the local star. At least that's what I gather from the brief reading I've done so far.
2. Its conclusion will be based on the "most popular" result being the most likely. The idea as I see it is: "We'll make a bunch of guesses based on assumptions and very rough modeling, and the most often guessed result is the winner." Sounds a little less than very useful to me.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
To add to that:
The Pleistocene ended roughly 10,000 years ago (which was the last of the great ice ages). What happens when you come out of an ice age? You warm up.
Granted, this is just another one of the many theories around that try to explain for the increase in average temperatures.
We do not know enough about how the Earth handles CO2 to be able to say whether it will get warmer or colder, if it has any impact whatsoever.
The myth about Global Warming
it's in my head
There is a bit more reason to believe CO2 is causing the warmup than corrolation.
Scientists are running climate models on supercomputers, and simulating the effect with and without the human-emitted CO2. When the scientists recommend cutting CO2 emition is desireable it is probably because they have run the numbers through their simulations.
To state that the increase in CO2 is undeniably causing the increase in temperature is just bad science. There's no evidence to back it up. We need experiments and more data before any sound scientific conclusion like that can be made.
Good point.
Let's do a giant experiment using the Earth as a testbed. If the Earth is still habitable in 50 years, you were probably right.
-a
That's funny. And here am I thinking that we here at slashdot are computer savy.
Computers just poop out what you tell them.
If a scientist has a theory about how the C02 levels and puts it into a mathmatical formulas. Then he takes those formulas and puts them into a computer, and then devises a way to make pretty pictures full of colors. Then he runs the simulations and WHALA! They show rise in tempurature due to CO2 levels based on the scientist's assumptions and formulas he created to bolster his argument!
Wow that's proof.
What is interesting about the corolation between CO2 and the earths tempurature is that the increase in activity of the sun shows a 80-90% coorolation thru out history. Sun activity/solar flares/solar wind/brightness increases so do the temp. of earth. And the same goes for less activity on the sun.
Thruought the middle ages we had higher then average world wide tempuratures of a order of 2 degrees higher then they are today.
CO2 didn't have anything to do with it then, it was based on solar activity.
However I suppose that the increase in the activity of the sun in the past 30 years (which increased the temp of the earth for millions of millions of years before mankind) doesn't have anything to do with this rise in tempurature, but it caused by greenhouse gasses.
Yes, technically the environment is "self-healing". It remains to be seen if humankind is.
I'm not exactly sure what your point is? Entropy rules and it's a waste of time to interfere? And you want to argue symantics? Where's the value of such a diatribe?
There has been extensive research into humankind's impact on the global climate. Citing the absence of criteria doesn't invalidate the innumerable amount of hardcore information which indicates that human activities are causing climate change at a radical rate.
The issue of global warming will continue to be debated, but what is the more enlightened premise: assuming our activities have an averse impact and trying to do something about it, or ignoring or discounting the possibility? It seems to me to be a no-brainer.. where is the liability in assuming that this is a serious issue that warrants more attention?
To state that the increase in CO2 is undeniably causing the increase in temperature is just bad science
Well, yes.
However, it is known that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and that we release loads of it every year. There also have been some correlations made, even though they've not yet been proven.
Now, given the potential problems that could be generated by global warming (flooding of coastal cities, alteration and possible destruction of major ecosystems due to changed animal migration or plant survival/dispersal patterns - the latter possibly caused by changes in wind patterns of deep sea current shifts) don't you think it might be a good idea to stop pumping out as much CO2 as we currently to in case it's the problem.
Or do you want to bet the lives of millions (billions?) of people on the case that it turns out not to be the problem?
If you have no idea what the result of a course of action is going to be, but are aware that it might affect the whole planet in a very real and negative way, don't do it!
Please, I don't want to get 20 years down the line, find out CO2 was the problem all along, but that it's too late to do anything about now and is all fucked beyond repair.
Why doesn't the gene pool have a life guard?
The fact that temperature changes coincide with increasing levels of a known greenhouse forcing gas, is actually fairly pursuasive.
In the absence of other factors that may even be true but in the presence of factors like the percentage of reradiated wavelengths being absorbed by atmosphere being already at 100% for the wavelengths absorbable by CO2 mean that CO2 as cause is a poor explainer at best
"The first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is stop digging."
It's actually kind of sad, being that as the Earth warms up, (if indeed it continues) our children, grandchildren, and so on might only be able to see icecaps, icebergs, etc. in their imaginations or in pictures. It kind of makes me want to go visit some of those places before they are gone.. Of course, we probably have another 400 years before there is nothing else to see, but hey... That viewpoint of "you don't know what you've got until it's gone" has creeped up for me.
Indiana Jones
I agree it would be a mistake to say that greenhouse gasses are definitely the problem. However we have a theory about how greenhouse gasses could be causing the problem, and it's something we can take relatively easy steps to correct (as opposed to stopping an alien death ray.)
Therefore it would seem to me to be reasonable to state that greenhouse gasses seem a likely cause and take action to reduce them while simultaneously doing more research on the subject to figure out what the cause is for sure.
Yes, relatively ease, and extremely expensive. It's not reasonable to spend billions of dollars to "take action" on this (or any other theory) without significant scientific evidence that that's the real cause of the problem. Certainly it should continue to be investigated, but we shouldn't have to change our lifestyle for every Chicken Little that comes along!
Just another day in Paradise
Europe experienced a heat wave this summer because a North African warm front jumped north. In other words - local natural climate variation. Just because it is the "hottest" in "recorded history" does not mean it is not "natural." It just means that you've hit the probability bump in the road.
And by the way - CO2 isn't "air pollution."
No, global warming is simply something that happens... The earth gets warmer for a few millenia, then it gets colder for a few millenia.
Well, yes and no... what you describe, the natural cycle of the planet, warming and cooling, does happen.
But, what is ALSO happening, is that humans are creating the Green House Effect. This is due to our releases of gases into the atmosphere.
just because what you describe is true, does NOT mean that the Green House Effect, caused by humans is untrue.
Even though this article says that one of the researches isnt comfortable IMMEDIATELY pointing the finger @ the Green House Effect (GHE) doesnt mean that the GHE hasnt been contributing to warming in Northern Canada.
in short, the GHE *is* warming the planet, AND the Planet's climate cycles.
Why is it up to the environmentalists to show that global warming is happening so that we might try to become more responsible about our energy utilization?
The burden of proof should fall on the businesses and enterprises to quantify how much environmental impact their new factory will produce. Then they can pay for all of the research.
Granted, this makes way for more biased research, but (1) there are ways around this (oversight committees, etc.) (2) the research gets done (3) we're not sticking our heads in the sand, building stuff that reaps resources from the environment, while waiting for some non-profit environmental research firm to finally proove that global warming is happening and you need to eliminate your excess C02 emissions 5 years ago or we'll sink under the sea in 2.
Or do you want to bet the lives of millions (billions?) of people on the case that it turns out not to be the problem?
These are the very thoughts and sentiments that keep environmenatlism from being a real science. It's the science of the alarmist. "Shit! We don't know but why risk it?!" Well maybe because it's inevitable either way, is that a possibility? Or maybe becuase you're claiming to be using science and policy shouldn't matter to the scientist. So what does it do to billions of lives if we stop using fossil fuels and rely souly on nuclear energy and the inevitable return to the pre-industrialized world?
Talk about policy or talk about science but don't mix the two becuase you don't have the science of policy creation yet and so long as you're jumping to conclusions before hand you never will.
If you have no idea what the result of a course of action is going to be, but are aware that it might affect the whole planet in a very real and negative way, don't do it!
Okay, what is the result of using less fossil fuel on the world economy? Details please. How do you fuel the fight against AIDs in Africa? How do you fuel Latin America? Now, not pie in the sky "we'll harness the wind" bullshit, how do you fucking heat homes around the world now?! How do you make hydrogen for fuel cells?
That's your belief. Scientific evidence to support that belief is not in evidence, however.
Despite politically motivated statements to the contrary by some politically funded researchers with obvious interest in spinning things that way, the evidence suggests instead that human action has little, if any, net affect on the global temperature average. Humans produce greenhouse gasses, yes. Humans also do things with the opposite effect. One good volcanic eruption has a lot more effect than years of human activity.
We're in an interglacial period. Icepacks are receding. Natural, normal, and on the whole a good thing for humans and most other species as well. Why people want to spin this as some kind of disaster is beyond me, excepting those with an obvious political motivation of course.
Earths climate is never static. If the icepacks weren't receding, they'd be expanding, and that would be much more like a disaster.
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fixture thats been there for 3K and has grown and shriveled many many times before...this is not a big deal or startling nor does it add or lend any evidence to global warming....
Your argument is very poor. The problem needs to be addressed from a "risk assessment" point of view, where the risk of doing nothing is also taken into account. Your "I believe this is not true, I need more proof" point of view is foolish and short sighted. Decisions are always done with incomplete information, but sometimes the *risk* of doing nothing is greater than doing something. Currently, the odds are pretty good that greenhouses gases are causing global warming (not 100%, but reasonably good - ask any glaciologist about the state of the earth glaciers and you'll get an earful). Therefore, the possible outcomes are:
Action: Do nothing
Outcome: Action: Do something...hopefully in time
Outcome: So if you were in charge, what action would you take to minimize risk? What will the cost be of doing nothing if global warming happens to be true? 10,000 words, due friday!
PCB
'Men never commit evil so fully and joyfully as when they do it for religious convictions.' B. Pascal
Political bias either way doesn't matter. What you've stated is true, but the "facts" are that geologic changes take more time than you account for. What we've seen in the last 100-200 years is simply astounding by geo-time. The amount of time considered here is simply so small that on a larger time scale (5,000-25,000 years) would not ordinarily be noticed.
I suggest you stand back and get a bigger picture of just how long this planet has been in flux. From that perspective you can see that the match head has just been scratched!
+1
The issue is "What, if any, effect has human industry had on the warming effect?" That is the question that people are attempting to answer and truefully we don't know. People point to a study that shows the average tempature rising at an increasing rate over the last 80 years or so when they began the study.
To me, 80 years in the scheme of things isn't enough to say one way or the other. Now we know that we caused the hole in the Ozone layer, and it looks as though the problem maybe starting to correct itself after banning the wide-spread use of CFC's, but its an important lesson: The earth is enduring until the sun gobbles it up in another 4 Billion years or so.
If the north pole ice cap melted, it would not raise the ocean 1 inch since it already displaces its own weight in water. I think the water in a cup and add ice example has been given, now the question is, how much ice is down there in the south pole? People predict horrid flooding of coastal cities, but I have read some documents that say that if all that water is realeased and dispursed throughout the world, it would raise the oceans by only a few inches. Sucks to be you if you own a beach house.
The biggest threat seems to be the breaking of the Atlantic Conveyer with a large influx of fresh water. I think there is some evidence of this happening about 60k years ago, but again I am not a geologist, just an avid reader of things. If that breaks, then a rapid global cooling may take place and the return to a new expansion of the polar caps.
Oh yeah, this would be a good point to note that WE ARE STILL IN AN ICE AGE. There is still ice, isn't there?
As far as weather goes, look at Europe circa 500 AD, a great cooling happened, if I remember my history correctly, that lead to many problems with farming and crop cycles. The other factor is Media. I mean, people really didn't here much about the weather around the world until the last 50 years. How do know that weather hasn't had these odd years with extremes before? Oh wait, I think it has, but there wasn't a media to record and have slow news days with nothing else to bitch about.
Endgame: we need more solid info besides some corralations. There is a famous Missourian named Mark Twain that once wrote, "There are lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics" and that is the truth. Stats can be manipulated like markets. My first thought is usually ignore them as evidence and look at the raw data before drawing conclusions. After the Earth will survive: its mankind that is fucked. George Carlin stated that once, and you know, he's right....
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.