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Ice-Free Summers Coming To Arctic
rocketjam writes "CNET reports that researchers from the University of Arizona and other universities have concluded that the Arctic will likely see ice-free summers within a century due to the increasing rate of global warming. The melting will raise ocean levels worldwide, flooding coastal areas where a substantial proportion of the world's population live. The increasing rate of ice melt is already having an impact on people and animals in the Arctic. Currently, researchers cannot foresee any natural forces that will counteract the trend."
Well, the melting of the Arctic ice cap would be annoying to several dozen polar bears, and it will have a very strong effect on Greenpeace members. As to its effect on sea levels, that's something a little less strong.
For something to float, it must displace an equal mass of whatever its floating in. By definition, the north polar ice cap is displacing exactly its own mass in water. If it were to melt, the displaced water would take exactly the same amount of volume as the submerged ice. This would cause the world's ocean levels to rise by the exact amount of zero plus the volume of several dozen annoyed polar bears.
Now, if the Antarctic ice cap were to melt, we'd be in a world of hurt. The southern ice cap does not float in water, it is on top of land which means that the entire volume of any melted ice is added to the seas.
As far as its immediate effect, salinity in the local area would be impacted if we say, microwaved it away from space in the span of a month. And although IANAOS (oceanographic scientist), if it were to slowly melt away over a century, the salinity shouldn't be a factor. And if it becomes a factor for some reason, we have time to dump barges of salt.
Of course, there is always the outside possibility of the lowered salinity disrupting the gulf stream and turning the entire earth into an ideal habitat for the polar bears, who experience a rapid genetic mutation from the additional UV radiation from the depleted ozone layer and hunt mankind to extinction for getting them all wet in the first place.
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The most conspicuous signs are the recent claim by the U.S. that the North West Passage constitutes international waters, followed by Canada and Russia both claiming sovereignty over their respective northern lands to the North Pole. The U.S. commercial interests would be well served by having open shipping across the north during the summer months. This summer the Canadian Navy sailed into Hudson Bay to fly the flag.
Personally I think the Canadian north in summer is adequately protected from intrusion by mosquitos and black flies in numbers not even a google plex could account for, and they're really big too.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
Here a a few stats from a quick Google search or three-
The total area of Greenland is around 2,175,600 km2 (840,000 sq mi), of which about 84 per cent, or some 1,834,000 km2, is ice cap.
The average thickness of the Greenland ice sheet is over 2000 m.
The area of the oceans is what, 360,000,000 km2?
Melt all of Greenland's ice and is that 10 meters?
Ouch. Er, glug...
George Orwell mentioned in a column (http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/O /OrwellGeorge/essay/tribune/AsIPlease19441103.html ) that melons grew freely in England between 1600 and 1650, and asks whether the climate could have changed that much in three hundred years since they wouldn't do that in 1944.
We might be returning to the way things were, instead of having an Unprecedented Catastrophe.
That's total bunk. For example, what would happen if by some magical means an enforceable decree came down that said we're eliminating all carbon-based fossil fuels by August 28, 2015?
What would happen is that you'd see one of the largest economic booms in human history. Anything that forces people to get off of their butts and work ends up having a positive effect on the world's economy, whether it's all-out global war in the 1940s or having to kludge the dates on most business software in the 1990s. This would be no different.
This is called a feedback effect; specifically, a negative feedback. However, the fact remains that there are many of these feedback effects, and nobody is quite sure whether or not the negative feedbacks will outweight the positives.
An example of a positive feedback? Well, ice is highly reflective. Seawater is not. As the ice melts, the Earth will reflect less sunlight, causing more warming to occur. Another one is that as temperatures rise and sea algae (the largest consumers of CO2 and producers of O2) die off, less CO2 is consumed, producing a greater greenhouse effect
The sad truth is that nobody knows how these feedbacks will even out, and whether or not the positive feedbacks will outstrip the negative ones.
No comment.
Isn't the icecap frozen fresh water? Maybe someone who really knows can tell us if it makes a difference that it is frozen fresh water floating on salt water.
Yes it does matter. While it is generally true that ice does not change the level of the water it's floating in as it melts, it isn't quite true if the ice contains a different concentration of salt (after it melts) than the water.
Here's a thought experiment:
Fill a water balloon with fresh water and freeze it. Drop it into in a bucket of water from the ocean. The ice inside the balloon floats, just like ice that is not in a balloon, because ocean water is 2.5% denser than fresh water, and fresh water is roughly 10% denser than fresh ice.
Now wait until it melts. Soon the water balloon is full of fresh water again. Has the level of the ocean water in the bucket changed? No. There has been a phase transition inside a floating body, changing its density, but as long as 1. it still floats and 2. its mass hasn't changed, the water level in the bucket doesn't care. The only thing that matters is the mass of the object (i.e. the mass of the displaced salt water), and the fact that the object continues to float.
But if you look at the balloon of meltwater floating in the bucket, you'll notice that it isn't totally underwater. The water line forms a little coin-sized circular "island" at the top of the balloon. This is because the bucket has ocean water in it. If the bucket had fresh water, you wouldn't see a part of the balloon sticking up above the water at all. The balloon might even sink.
Now rip the balloon. This will affect the water level. Why? Because when the balloon breaks, that little crescent of water, that was previously sticking up above the water line as an "island", isn't held together by the balloon anymore and it's free to spread across the surface of the salt water in the bucket, raising its level. Really, the salt water level isn't rising- the shape of the floating object (a blob of fresh water) changes, so that there's a layer of fresh water on top of the salt water. But we say that the water level rises anyway.
Again, if the bucket had fresh water, this wouldn't happen, because the balloon would be totally underwater even if it were floating and there would be no "island".
Remember it's only a tiny little bit of water in the island, and the amount is determined by the density ratio between the fresh water and the ocean water. The density of ocean water is about 2.5% higher than that of fresh, and that determines the extent of the balloon's rise above the water level.
This doesn't take into account secondary effects- we haven't taken into account the effects of mixing. The water might shrink a little bit as the brine and fresh fractions mix. (Similar to how mixing one part alcohol and one part water yields slightly less than two parts of 100 proof, because the water and alcohol molecules fit into each other somewhat.) But physical effects like that are not predictable by a thought experiment, and I'm guessing in the case of fresh vs. salt water that they'd account for much less than a percent of a volume change from what we'd expect. So to an elementary first-order approximation, we'd expect the water level of ocean water to rise when fresh ice melts in it.
How much will it rise? Probably by an amount equivalent to approximately 2.5% of the volume of the total fresh meltwater, divided across the entire surface area of the salty ocean water.
Ice on land is far more threatening to global sea levels. The effective meltwater contribution from landed ice is 100% by weight, not just a few percent as with floating ice.
Your suggestion that environmental catestrophe is our "desired conclusion" is equally puzzling. It would be my preference if human activity were not causing climate change. However, it's not up to me to decide how nature operates. And that's why I, like other scientists, believe that what's really important is determining the truth.