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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.
Karma: SELECT `karma` FROM `users` WHERE `userid`=138474;
I can see it now, given the remarkable anti-intellectualism sweeping the nation (and Slashdot recently) we are going to be seeing comments here like "Awww, them dang scientists. What do they know? There is no evidence for global warming just like there is no evidence for evolution. (or is that evulushun?)
Seriously though, the hurricane bearing down on New Orleans right now should give folks something to think about with respect to global warming. Specifically, the higher the water levels, the more potential damage that could occur from smaller storms. The big ones, like Katrina will deliver even more damage further inland than ever before. So, the evidence is mounting to the point where even the Bush administration is having to acknowledge that global warming is a reality.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
As the escaped penguins in Madagascar said when reaching the wind-blown South Pole, "This sucks!"
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Queue up the crazy Republicans claiming global warming doesnt exist in 3.... 2.... 1....
Seriously though, the hurricane bearing down on New Orleans right now should give folks something to think about with respect to global warming.
Yes, indeed, it causes us to think about what it was like before Global Warming, when there were no hurricanes.
Global warming is as much a reality as global cooling, which happens quite frequently in the very short term past hundred years. The earth's climate fluctuates quite rapidly from year to year. CO2 levels fluctuate quite rapidly from year to year. It's a fact of the earth's geological history. What you fail to understand is that knowing global warming and cooling exists is completely different from suggesting that global warming is caused by man's exhaustion of carbon stores.
I am defenseless. Use your button. Mod me down with all of your hatred.
I predict that with the increasing trend of global climate change ( note, not global warming which is a stupid idea that only works in theory ) the arctic will freeze solid!
Warm surface currents will be disrupted by increased higher lattitude heating and this will cause lower warm water circulation to the Arctic and during winter when no solar radiation is possible to provide other warming. The pole will be colder than ever.
In other news... MIT launched a course in advanced FUD studies for their buisness students
XML - A clever joke would be here if
www.climateark.org/articles/1999/sunsmayp.htm
The above link is one of the many sites that have for a long time been casting doubt on global warming. It appears that sunspots may have the strongest effect on the planet's climate.
Didn't we just have a bet between two groups of scientists about the climate being cooler in twenty years. I remember that in the seventies we were worried about global cooling.
As others have pointed out the ocean levels won't rise from the Artic ice cap melting but the greenland glaciers melting will raise it by several feet. Glacierial ice is the big risk. Just the fact any of it is melting should a massive wake up call. Obviously the scary one woulf be the Anartic glaciers melting but that seems unlikely anytime soon. I beileve that would raise levels a 150 to 200 feet. More than enough to make Florida disappear entirely.
I think the real problem is when the weather swings the other way and we're all huddled round the nearest space heater and claiming the global cooling researchers are full of it.
Solar activity cycles? I heard a scientist from NASA say that we are on the high end of a cycle of solar output. In 100 years it is just as likely that we'll be on the low end of solar output.
I heard, (hearsay evidence, so check it out for yourself.) that their are paintings made in Holland from a few hundred years ago that show people ice skating on a river that doesn't freeze over now. That river was also never depicted as having frozen over before those paintings were made.
There are many variables that effect our environment. While we make an impact, and we should strive to lessen our impact... One scientists study... or a group of scientists work... should be taken with a grain of salt.
Bush, acting without the approval of his cabinet or advisors, pledged 100,000 GE air condititioners to recool the region. Go ahead, mod me -1. I dare you!
Remember, the ability of an object to float is not (directly) related to its density. Its related to its ability to displace water and its mass. The reason submarines float (or sink) is because their shape displaces a greater mass of water than the equivalent mass of water that would fill their volume.
If you take a piece of steel and put it in a bucket, it sinks and raises the volume of the bucket by the volume of the steel. Take that same piece of steel and form it into a boat hull and it will float -- and the volume of the bucket will increase by exactly the same amount even though all of the steel is not submerged.
Karma: SELECT `karma` FROM `users` WHERE `userid`=138474;
Someone has already explained that the arctic icecaps will have little effect on sea-levels because floating ice displaces exactly it's volume of water. But I have heard (and correct me if I'm wrong here) that the rising temperatures could have a huge effect on sea levels, because as the water heats it expands a little. Multiply that by a gajillion times and you'll see venice sinking quicker than a lead zeppelin!
Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
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
Uh, no.
Sea levels would stay the same.
The surface level in the Arctic would drop to sea level, rather than being slightly above it as it is now.
Hmm, I was certain that there'd be a healthy (er, unhealthy) amount of people ignorantly crying "FUD!" by now... they remind me of Eddie Izzard's comedy routine about how Britain ignored the rest of Europe... "No, no, no I can't! (sticks fingers in ears) la la la la la la la la!"
-Vendal Thornheart
So the question is how to strategically pick investments that will pay off with the trend. Sounds greedy and selfish but the tragedy of the commons will not be denied. So ideas
- Short ski resort stocks in fringe areas.
- Short insurance companies since hurricanes will tend to be more prevasive
- Short northern europe in general since the gulf stream will cool the area
- Buy energy stocks as more energy will be required to cool and heat with more temperature extremes
- Buy Wind, Wave, Solar, Nuclear energy stocks as the public will eventually demand more emphasis on non-green house gas sources.
Any other ideas?Firefox users get Hot Sauce at a discount.
People are going to say that it's possible that global warming isn't a result of us humans and that it's a natural cycle of the planet. You're right, it might be a natural cycle of the planet, but that doesn't mean it's a good thing. Nature has killed off 90% of the ecosystem in the past (Permian to Triassic period). That aint exactly a good thing people.
And even though there's the possiblity (I won't go into how likely it is) that it's natural, shouldn't we do our best to counteract it's effects as much as possible? Even if it is natural? Because if it isn't, we might have a really big problem on our hands.
Or we can play the blame game, and argue whether it's man's fault or nature's fault, and possibly not pass on a liveable planet to our future children.
I have read that Mars is also going througn a period of glabal warming right now. If that is the case the only thing that affects both mars and the earth is the Sun. So more than likely that this is a issue with the sun putting out more energy now than it has in the recent past and this too will probally right itself with the sun cooling down in the next couple of hundred years.
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.
I cried real tears when Li Mu Bai died.
Actually, large amounts of money could be involved. No ice means new shipping routes. There's already a war of words brewing over land up there.
because we continue to pump seawater into oil wells to make them more productive. As the wells produce less, they require more water to increase the pressure to extract the oil. For the moment (my "moment" I mean the next 100 years) it's a beautiful 0 sum equation. Once we run out of oil (100 years), and the greenhouse gasses decrease (75 more), and the polar caps reform (yet another 75), we will be looking at all sorts of new real estate..... Oh yeah, COBOL will still be around.... :)
Scientists can say that global warming is happening. Fair enough, they probably know their stuff.
What they can't say is *why* it is happening, and what if anything we can or should do about it. Who is to say in trying to reduce the effect we won't speed it up or make it worse?
Which isn't to say that we shouldn't study or try to understand it, but headings like this one don't help. What we need is properly funded research and a good sit down and think about it without trying to raise money and further careers through fud .
> and the volume of the bucket will increase by exactly the same amount even though all of the steel is not submerged.
umm, you were good up to that point, the floating metal ship should displace more water, than that sunkin ship (not much though.) example, If you were to place a very dense piece of metal on top of that Ice, it may submerge the entire glacier, but if that very dense object then fell off that glacier, the glacier would rise, and a much smaller displacement would rest on the ocean floor.
(best example would be a rock under the water level in the glacier, when it falls out, the glacier would rise, no more water is displaced from the fallen piece because it was in the water already.)
I think it would be possible if their is alott of heavy stuff on the ice, that falls to the floor, for a net lowering effect.
How do we know?
Please stop talking about the subject until you know the answer to that question. (I assume that you don't from your "Has anyone looked at the larger trends" comment, and yes, they have.)
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...
GWB will simply cut more high-end taxes, make the high-end deathtax cut(but with subsequent increase on the middle class increase) permanent, and pay 50B to Halliburton to rebuild the dikes in New Orleans, and then to drain it. Problem solved.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Even in the article title it says "Sunspots may play role in global warming". How the h*$$ did you get that this article is casting doubt on global warming? It flat out states that global warming is occurring, but with possible influence from the sun. But nowhere does it say that global is not occurring.
What is sick is not that you were modded up, but that somebody on fox is reporting exactly what you are saying.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
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.
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
That's neither "by definition" nor in actual fact; significant parts of the ice in the arctic rest on solid ground. When that ice melts, it will raise the sea level. It won't be anywhere near as dramatic as when the southern polar ice cap melts, but it will have an effect.
Clearly this process is currently beyond ability to predict, so this is an adjustment, not a warming.
Furthermore, this process is too complex to be naturally occuring, so some intelligent hand must be guiding the temperature changes.
I really think they should be teaching Intelligent Thermal Control as an alternate theory is school science classes.
Finally, the economic change - read as depression - that would come from doing "drastic" things stands a good chance of killing as many people as climate change might.
There is not an iota of evidence that reducing carbon emissions would lead to a depression. Quite to the contrary: it is quite clear that an aggressive move to energy efficient technologies would create new jobs and growth, and would lower operating costs. Scrapping the energy inefficient technologies of today and building new power plants and factories is probably the best thing that could happen to the US economy.
The only people who stand to lose are the people who have large investments in current, inefficient technologies.
First off, we just don't understand what is happening or why.
I'm sorry you haven't been paying attention, but we do understand what is happening and why it's happening.
Unfortunately, if we are in a position where human-added CO2 is the root cause of all of this, we cannot afford the luxury of these kinds of measures. Sure, they might have some effect and that might help. But if we're the cause of climate change, far, far more drastic measures need to be taken right now.
As comparison with other Western nations alone shows, the US could easily cut its CO2 emissions in half without any decrease in its standard of living; quite to the contrary: a serious program to do that would increase the standard of living and create jobs.
Furthermore, if you think you can't "afford" that level of change, what do you think loss of what is probably going to be 50% of the currently inhabited area of the US is going to do to quality of life? Because that's what's going to happen if the trend continues.
Secondly, the third-world countries would bitterly oppose anything that cuts them off from the developed world or limits their exploitation of fossil fuel energy.
They sure do, because the message we are sending right now is that we want to limit them while continuing our wasteful energy use, since our negotiating position is to use our current, wasteful usage as the basis for future budgets. I suspect developing nations would easily agree to a uniform global per-capita energy and fossil fuel budget.
Humidity is measured as "relative humidity". That is because warmer air can hold more water in it. If the global temperature were to rise, the amount of water in the air (think clouds) will go up. Is this more or less than the expansion of the water in the oceans?
So there is a chance that the oceans could stay level or even go down as the global temperature rises.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Formed into a ship and floating, it would displace enough water to support it's weight. Since steel is about 8x as dense as water, it would displace approximiately 8 cubic meters of water.
(I'm ignoring the density of the air, which is small enough to pretty much ignore this demonstration. And steel is more like 7.85 times as dense as pure water, but the exact figure will depend on which steel, how salty the water is, the temperature, etc. 8 is close enough.)
However, the original poster's point is correct when referring to ice, because the density is generally constant. A steel boat is different -- the density of the steel part is much higher than the density of the part filled with air.
That, and polar bears are mostly water, with a density close to that of water, so really any effect they'd have either standing on the ice or swimming in the water would be minimal. :)
the whole "it's natural" versus "it's manmade" discussion is pedantic and boring
we can seed the oceans with iron and suck out carbon dioxide
and we can belch out enough burning whatever and push in carbon dioxide
the point: stop talking about blame, start talking about controlling the thermostat
if hurricane katrina in new orleans right now isn't argument that people should control the environment for the sake of:
1. the economy
2. the population
3. the environment
4. the ecosystem
i don't know what the heck is
the argument is dead people: who is to blame for global warming?
who cares
let's just start seeding the dead areas of the pacific with iron and start controlling the thermostat and cooling things down
are you worried about species of plankton in the dead areas of the south pacific?
good for you
i'm worried about the whole planet, so who cares if you can't keep your eyes on the big picture
the earth might have gone hot and cold a lot of times in the past
but now it's blanketed in supposedly "intelligent" lifeforms
supposedly intelligent because we haven't seen if we can stop bickering about pointless esoteric minor issues and start just fixing the dang problem, whoever is to blame, because our survival is in balance
prioritization, it's a funny concept
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"Ice is less dense than water, so we might even see sea levels *decline*"
Un-fucking believable. An entire thread of people who can hold forth about global climate change, when they can't even read a map!
For the geography-impaired in the audience: Greenland, Baffin and Ellesmere islands are really fucking big. And guess what? They're mostly covered with ice. Which might just melt, too.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
(assuming that global warming is fact, which all proven scientific evidence shows it's not)
I see. And of course you have links to back up this assertion from respected peer-reviewed journals?
I could understand if you had asserted "mankind is not the direct cause of current global climate change." That's something that is quite disputed by various climatologists; so one could be forgiven for ill-advisedly "picking" a side. The problem though, is that your assertion that "all proven scientific evidence shows it's not" (i.e. global warming is not occuring) is absolute bunk.
That global climate change is occuring is a forgone conclusion, the data clearly shows trending towards average global warming and increased atmospheric co2. Current science is focused on change rates; specifically problems involving sampling history, techniques, statistics and force modeling. Without solid data and working representative models, it's very difficult to put forth a sound cause-hypothesis.
[Gaffen, D et al - Multidecadal Changes in the Vertical Temperature Structure of the Tropical Troposphere, Science vol 287, 18 Feb. 2000]
[Hegerl, G.C. and J.M. Wallace - Influence of Patterns of Climate Variability on the Difference between Satellite and Surface Temperature Trends, J. Climate vol 15, 2002]
A fine /. tradition passed on by our forefathers.
Crank up the sun a notch or two. Take temperature readings.
Will you see higher daytime temperature, higher nighttime temperatures, or both but with daytime predominating?
Common sense tells you the same thing that math would tell you. The sun warms us up in the daytime.
Now try a different thought experiment. Imagine that someone's changed your atmosphere so that it insulates better against heat radiating into space. Will you see daytime temperatures go up more, or nighttime temperatures go up more?
That's right -- you'd see more change in nighttime temperatures.
Guess what we're seeing in contemporary measurements?
Well, IF we lose the ice caps, which is entirely plausible, and IF the gulf stream doesn't turn off producing an ice age, then you could see the sea level rise by quite a bit. They were saying one foot over the next century, but some wit here on Slashdot pointed out that the mass of ice on Greenland alone would increase the surface level by 42 feet or so. I don't know if I buy THAT, but let's have some fun with it anyway.
I live in upstate New York, at 210 feet above sea level (God, I love the Catskills!). Being a mountain dweller, I can look on with some amusement as all those stuck up, smug folks down in NYC find out what it's like to live in Venice. Also, I can go on vacation in Venice, right here in New York, which is nothing to sniff at. Instead of gondolas, we'll probably get gypsy cab drivers in Zodiacs flying down the block at forty miles an hour yelling "GET OUTTA THE FUCKIN' WAY YOU PIECE-A-SHIT!". VERY entertaining.
While us East Coast types will take refuge in the mountains, as no doubt will our Californian counterparts (they'll benefit because the earthquakes will be underwater, thus causing great waves for all their surfer population and stealing business from Hawaii) I think the relatively dumber central and southern states are going to have a rough time.
First of all, the Mississippi is going to flood all the way up to Illinois or thereabouts. The Gulf of Mexico is going to be a LOT bigger. Texas is basically gone, folks (Hooray!). New Mexico has some high ground, so maybe it'll be an Island state. And Arizona has the bottom tip of the Rocky Mountains so everyone can head up to Flagstaff with the hippies, which isn't that bad a fate. Phoenix was too damn hot anyway.
The Southeast will probably be gone, but nobody will notice. Hawaiians will just wait for the volcanoes to grow another few dozen feet, no big deal there. Throw a few virgins in, please the fire gods, the mountain grows, and Bob's your uncle (as the British say).
Big changes, big changes. Should be interesting!
Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!
But then again there doesnt appear to be any really consensus on what is happening with the world... is it global warming, is it cooling, is it pollution-induced or hell, even pollution stabilised!
Depends on where you are looking for consensus. Oreskes (Science 2004 (vol 306, p1686), studied 928 peer-reviewed papers on climate change published between 1993 and 2003, and found "near universal" consensus. In the specialist community, there really is no dispute, global mean temperatures are rising, and anthropogenic sources of C02 are a likely major contributor to this.
Of course once you enter the world of politics and ideology such consensus is a little more difficult to find. On the other hand if you want to find folks with their heads in the sand, you'll be in luck.
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
Something I don't understand about the people arguing that sea levels won't rise when the temperatures of the earth's atmosphere rises, is that they are completely ignoring historical evidence. We have a bullet-proof geological record that shows the sea level going back and forth all through the history of our planet, and that the water has been up high when the atmosphere has been warm, down when it has been cold. Is it the continental ice? Volume changes of the water because of changes in temperature? Salinity? We can't be 100% sure, but there sure aren't many other possibilities to explain the changes.
Melting icebergs may not be the major factor, but continental ice sure as hell must be.
What about world jump day? all that is neeeded is for 600,000,000 people to jump at the same time in july of next and we can fix global warming. check it out and sign up!
-1: flamebait should really be -1: inciteful
Funny I thought that a few of the Vikings were disapointed at the lack of emegration to the rather pleasent climate of Iceland, primarily because the name sounded cold; so they decided to name cold glaciated Greenland, Greenland to make it sound more inviting.
OBTW my grapes grow just fine in Michigan, which has a thriving wine industry as well as New York, both of which have far harsher winters than the British Isles. Those same Viking named the more northern Nova Scotia, Newfoundland area Vinland, or land of grapes.
Personaly I look at it as the Earth has one main input of heat energy, insolation, and one main output of heat energy direct radiation and when all is said and done, the equation will reduce to either the logistics equation, or something quite close and anybody whose played with fractint knows how that equation graphs out! I would not be at all surprised to find that our climate is in a double-bifricated area of the graph slightly beyond a chaotic band. Because of sensitive dependence on initial conditions, we'll never know where we are going, and it's also impossible to go backwards too.
I'll have a lot more faith in the computer models when somebody announces that they have a GCM that doesn't require the numbers to be fudged to keep the model from becoming a permentant Ice-ball.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
True, if you do that with a glass of water, there won't be much difference. But try it with a 14,000 foot (the average depth of the oceans) column of water and there will be some difference. But the primary reason ocean levels are expected to rise is still the landlocked ice (glaciers, primarilly) melting. Although this will be somewhat offset by the increase of evaporation due to the higher temperatures. Unfortunately this increase of evaporation will lead to superstorms unlike any hurricane we've ever seen. (Or maybe fortunately if you happen to be a misanthrop.)
I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman
Could be the "Cancun" of 2020 at the rate things are changing!
"There is not an iota of evidence that reducing carbon emissions would lead to a depression."
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See late 1970s stag-flation in the United States.
Wikipedia will help you understand:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stagflation
Oil, like food and land, is a critical component of today's economy.
It's less critical than it was (as measured by carbon intensity), but it's still important.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/ggrpt/trends.htm
That's not to say that we can't do more to reduce carbon emissions, but with temperatures falling in some places, there is still some wiggle room vis-a-vis global warming and human causation:
http://michiganimc.org/usermedia/image/2/large/Cl
But, given that many in the international community want more action from the United States on this issue, and in general there is distaste everywhere for dumping tons of waste into the atmosphere, there is some room for hope, including the North Eastern United States pact on emissions:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/25/nyregion/25air.
As well as a similar plan for the Pacific costal states of California, Oregon, and Washington also in the works.
http://www.ppionline.org/ppi_ci.cfm?knlgAreaID=11
In general, there is a self righteous feeling amongst non-Americans (especially from pro Kyoto treaty Europeans), but keep in mind please that very few European nations are even meeting their Kyoto targets:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,1
Those nations that are meeting the targets are in deep recessions (including Russia):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3702640.stm
Kyoto is a 'first step', but many nations supporting that first step aren't actually taking it, making it "a tale, Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing." [Macbeth Act 5, Scene 5]
The real key is reducing our economic carbon intensity (generating more money with fewer carbon emissions). We in the United States are already doing that quite well.
Can we move faster? Yes. And we will, if by hook and crook, including regional emissions limitations, higher international oil prices, and a general shift in our economy away from manufacturing and oil consumption.
But arrogant attitudes about 'excuses and misinformation' miss the real point.
The world will not get better through technology. We must seek to be better people.
Don't forget Antarctica too! That's a continent completely covered in ice... kilometres thick in many places!
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.
Good logic here, but the model is much more complex. It's not so much about water levels as it is about energy.
With that much water being warmed up, there's a lot more activity in the biosphere, which changes many, many things. During the 1400's, altered weather patterns in combination with high tides created storms which ravaged population centers all along England's and Europe's coasts. And this was during a period of mini-ice age cooling, not heating.
It'll be interesting to see how we are affected.
-FL
I do too, which is why I asked the initial question. To me, getting to the truth in the global warming debate means two things: (1) demonstrating that it's real, and (2) determining the cause. Sadly, I feel that these two things have been linked together by most scientists, in part because they can use their theories to get grants. Personally, I'd like to see a lot more published on actual temperature fluctuations without the requisite "and here's why we think this is happening" noise that comes along with it. Then we can take each theory and apply it to the data to see if it fits.
What's really a shame in all this is that many scientists believe that in order to get any funding for their project that they have to make as loud a noise as possible. It's much like the news media that uses disaster to sell newspapers. How about doing global warming research in the same way that we've handled the ozone hole? Get some real data that the problem exists independent of any speculation, make the link between freon and ozone destruction, then give people suitable (but solid) deadlines for replacement.
If you don't want crime to pay, let the government run it.
Bet you want to know how deep you'll be after all that melting ... above or below sea level?
Americans can get a rough idea of this by looking at http://www.placenames.com/us/ and selecting your state, county, and city. The approximate altitude is shown at the top of the city's page.
Now, if you happen to live by a hill just over the hundred foot level, maybe you'll get lucky with some beachside property in your neighbors' drowned yards. ...of course, it is far more likely that you'll be near the water level with miles of docks and the like between you and the open ocean, which would probably be far colder than it is now...
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
Why must it be solved by regulation, when it can be solved through brute-force engineering?
The problem is that the earth is retaining too much energy from the sun. So far, everyone has been talking about working to reduce the tendency of the earth to trap that energy. But that is not the only possible solution to the problem; you could also reduce the energy influx.
My cut is that cutting greenhouse gasses by any significant measure is politically infeasible. Kyoto wouldn't be enough even if it were universally adopted and actually adhered to (fat chance if you ask me). There are too many vested interests for significant reduction in the near term, although in the long term the growing scarcity of fossil fuels will drive the change to alternatives. The changeover will be rapid -- within two decades -- when it happens, but barring catastrophe (say, WWIII fought over oil supplies) that kind of economics will not kick in for another 20-30 years. So we're looking at 40-50 years before we might possibly see that kind of solution really get started, and the effects will take decades more to be noticable.
I think it's a fair guess that the warming trend will go nonlinear before then and we'll need to find a way to rapidly cool the planet (more on why in a minute). The obvious thing to do is to reduce the amount of solar radiation hitting the planet.
Most people don't realize it, but we have the technical capability to do that today. We could, for instance, fire reflective particulates into orbit; this would be the least expensive solution to the problem. A more expensive, but much more flexible, solution would use orbital shades. These would allow us to vary the amount of radiation reaching the planet by changing the aspect of the shade relative to the sun.
Engineering solutions like this are much more politically feasible and, perhaps more to the point, can damp the warming process almost immediately rather than requiring decades as would a reduction in greenhouse gas emission. Such a solution would be expensive, but expensive on the order of low trillions of dollars even using today's lifting systems, and we can do much better than rockets if we are going to have to spend that kind of money anyway.
In any case we're going to have to find some kind of solution that works very rapidly because the problem with global warming is not limited to rising ocean levels over the next century. The real issue with global warming that nobody really talks about is that hurricanes are going to start becoming really destructive. The warmer it gets in here the larger the hurricane formation zones grow and the more frequent and more violent the hurricanes will become. That, too, is a nonlinear effect. The only way we're going to stop it is by cooling down those formation zones, and the only near-term feasible solution to that is to damp solar energy coming down right on top of those zones.
Regardless of the reason we eventually decide to do something real about global warming we can be pretty sure based on history that we will sit around doing nothing until the cost of sitting around doing nothing exceeds the cost of doing some really big, complicated project to fix the problem. Then we'll pull out all the stops and spend whatever it takes to pull off the project. We humans do that kind of thing all the time; for an example, look up the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal.
Besides, wouldn't the glitter of city lights back from orbiting reflectors look really cool?
jim frost
jimf@frostbytes.com
The topic in question here is whether or not the Arctic ice cap melting will bring the level up, not the Antarctic. As has been said before, Antarctic ice is on a land mass, therefore it takes up no mass in the ocean. The north pole, however, has glaciers floating in seawater, so the displacement is already present. The north pole is the one experiencing controversial warming, not the south pole.
Contrary to your belief, warm water does not expand. Frozen water, however, does. Ever wonder how gigantic rocks get huge cracks in them? Water will run down into tiny crevices when it's warm, then freeze and when the ice forms and expands, the rock will crack open.
Try this for a funtime science experiment. Get a bottle of water, empty milk jug, whatever, and fill it to the absolute top. Screw on the lid. Now, shove it in the freezer. In a few hours, the ice will remove the lid. Why? Because water expands as it freezes. Voila.
I'm sure some of you have accidentally left beer bottles in the freezer and opened it up hours later to find a nice, frozen beery mess. It's happened to me at least twice.