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."

Comments

Won't someone please think of the snowmen!

[SeanTobin]

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.

Re:Won't someone please think of the snowmen!

[Osty]

The only flaw in your logic is that polar bears don't mind being wet.

Re:Won't someone please think of the snowmen!

[CosmeticLobotamy]

There's a VAST amount suspended above sea level. Melt this, and yes, oceans will rise.

What is it suspended by? If the answer is "more ice", then you're wrong. If the answer is "Greenland", then you're right. But from your wording, it sounded like we're dealing with the "you're wrong" one.

Re:Won't someone please think of the snowmen!

[braindead]

If the polar ice and the water around it had the same amount of salt, then you would be correct: the ice melting would not impact the ocean level.

However, when taking the different salinity into account, things change. As you know from Archimedes, the ice is displacing exactly enough water to offset its weight (that is, the displaced water weighs as much as the ice). The thing is, it takes less *saltwater* to do that than it would *freshwater*. So when the freshwater in the ice melts, the levels rise.

If you don't believe me, check this article, it includes a picture from an experiment.

Re:Won't someone please think of the snowmen!

[electroniceric]

While I appreciate your clever use of basic physics, perhaps you might allow some room for the idea that the earth is not completely described by the science you learned in high school.

One important phenomenon, as described excellently by another poster in this thread, is the the fact that ice is much fresher than ocean water, so the overall density of the ocean will (most likely) go down, and voile, sea level rises.

The second, as others have also elegantly pointed out, is that much ice is not currently displacing any water, so 100% the effect of its melting is to increase sea level.

There are non-sea level issues of vast importance as well. Even simple climate models show vast sensitivity to overall earth albedo (reflectivity) and they all show a feedback loop with accelerating warming when a substantive amount of polar ice is loss. The fact that we're seeing this melting now is pretty strong clue that warming is going to speed up.

Also of great importance is the contribution of this new fresh water (and thanks to decreased albedo a great deal more heat absorbed by the earth) to the hydrologic cycle, as water vapor is also an important greenhouse gas. If the melted ice becomes water vapor, you can expect - again - increased rates of heating.

And yes, the poles get less heat from the sun than does the equator - the transport of that heat is the ultimate source of all weather patterns. So a substantial change in that heat balance can cause vast disruptions in weather patterns. In addition the potential shutoff of the Gulf Stream and general thermohaline circulation, there are potential movements of large high and low-pressure patterns that can bring intense droughts and flooding to numerous places, in the same way that El Nino does. And since climate systems are strongly nonlinear, it's very hard to predict where and when those events might occur. The effect could be anything from a little more sun in places to life-threating droughts. Put it this way: if something like the North Atlantic Oscillation can set conditions for a devastating hurricane season in the tropical Atlantic (as we're poised to get), imagine what a climate change several orders of magnitude larger could involve.

You can argue all you like about whether these changes are majority anthropogenic or not, but it is indisputable that our carbon-loading of the atmosphere is like pressing hard on the accelerator when you're going down a steep incline. Carbon dioxide content is a big, big, lever for global climate, and I'm hard pressed to see value of taking the Wile E. Coyote approach to dealing with this particular change in our world.

Global Warming

[BWJones]

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.

Re:Global Warming

[Dare nMc]

> . So, the evidence is mounting to the point where even the Bush administration is having to acknowledge that global warming is a reality.

yes, but they can blame it on asteriods, so we need to build more weapons in space to attack them nasty aliens....

Re:Global Warming

[BWJones]

OK, so all of you knuckleheads that are responding to the parent post by making glib comments about no hurricanes earlier in history...... Read the post! Although I suppose you are corroborating my suspicions of the prevailing wisdom here, please note that the sea levels and flooding due to storm surge and such are what I was talking about. As the overall temperature increases, sea level rises leading to more problems with flooding. I might also say that more than one climatologist has suggested that more and stronger hurricanes might be expected from global warming as well.

Re:Global Warming

[loqi]

Right, humans can't touch nature. That's why we have a surplus of acid rain and a deficit of ozone and passenger pigeons.

Re:Global Warming

[Capsaicin]

You link this hurricane to global warming and I'll do a backflip

Start doing backflips sonny. This particular hurricane cannot of course be specifically blamed on global warning. However, one of the most consistent predicitions of modelling over the last decade and a half has been the expectation of an increase in the frequency and strength of extreme weather events. So we can say that this hurrican is not inconsistent with predicted climate change.

Start paying attention over the next decade or two. When you start getting one in a decade hurricanes several times a decade, or you get 4 or 5 hurricanes per season, you should consider yourself put on notice.

Re:Global Warming

[TekPolitik]

or is that evulushun

No, that's "evil-you-shun". It's obvious really. Evil-you-shun is the work of the devil and was actually devised by al-Quaeda to steer God-fearing Southern Baptist Americans away from their faith. Have you looked at pictures of Charles Darwin and Osama bin-Laden? The beard is a dead giveaway. Plus, have you ever seen them in the same place twice? Think about it.

And of course when faced with evil-you-shun, then as a God-fearing American (and let's face it, if you're not God-fearing you have no business being an American), you'd darned well better shun it.

Re:Global Warming

[Waffle Iron]

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.

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.

Re:Global Warming

[Phleg]

And the fact remains there is a failsafe people forget. Once the earth gets too warm and the seas grow too big... they reflect the solar energy and become.... yes you guessed it ICE.

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.

Walk Like A Penguin...

[__aaclcg7560]

As the escaped penguins in Madagascar said when reaching the wind-blown South Pole, "This sucks!"

the real problem ...

[TheSmokingMan666]

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.

How about?

[DaedalusLogic]

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.

Re:How about?

[trewornan]

It's a well known fact that Europe (and presumably the rest of the world) went through a cold period in the Dark Ages (approx 500 - 800AD). Such periods are common and known as "mini ice ages".

Re:And actually, slightly less

[SeanTobin]

Ice is less dense than water, so we might even see sea levels *decline*

Sadly, no. The difference in density between ice and water is manifested in the ice that is above the water line. Grab yourself a tall clear glass, fill it half way with water and add a big ice cube. Mark the water line. Come back in an hour once the ice cube melts and check the water line. It will be in exactly the same place.

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.

Old News Up North

[Quirk]

In Canada we've had various reports suggesting the coming of ice free summers in the Artic. Inuit have reported seein grasshoppers in the sub Artic, previously grasshoppers have never been seen in the far north.

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.

Investiment Opportunities

[truckaxle]

Global warming is here. There are those who will attempt to disagree but the evidence is growing.

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?





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Que the global warming rants

[aussie_a]

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.

Re:Que the global warming rants

[RexRhino]

The catch is what you mean by "shouldn't we do our best to counteract it's effects as much as possible?".

When people say "shouldn't we do something to stop it?", they really mean "shouldn't we give the government vast new expanded powers to regulate society, because only the government authority is efficient and trustworthy enough to solve the problem of pollution". The concept of massive government regulation and central-planning are implicit in what you are saying, because absolutly no-one of any political persuation wants to stop people from voluntarily acting to stop global warming.

If someone doesn't support the Patriot Act, or G. W. Bush's "War on Terror", that doesn't mean they are a terrorist or support terrorism. It means that: A) They don't think the Patriot Act or the G. W. Bush's "War on Terror" is an effective policy in combating terrorism and/or B) They feel the solution to the problem is worse than the problem itself (i.e. bombing cities, government servialence without a warrent, etc., are actually worse than the terrorist acts they are meant to stop).

When G. W. Bush and right-wing totalitarians stir up sensationalism and fear of an "impending terrorist nuclear attack", they are provoking an emotional response in order to get people to agree to expanded government powers they would normaly be skeptical about. And to squeltch any sort of debate about what we should do about a very real terrorist threat... When people say "shouldn't we do out best to stop terrorism as best as possible" , there is a hidden assumption that there is only one succesful way to combat terrorism, and that anyone who doesn't support it supports terrorism.

And the same thing is true about the left-wing totalitarians. It is clear that global warming is going to be a problem, and by sensationalistic fear-mongering about "impending ecological disaster", they can try to get people out of fear and desperation to agree to expanded government regulation and control of the economy. Instead of having a serious debate about what we should do to reverse global warming... central-planning and top-down government control is presented as the "only solution", and anyone who disagrees with those policies is an "eco-terrorist".

If the so-called enviornmentalists really want to do something about global-warming, they are going to have to stop using global-warming and the enviornment as a pretense for promoting their political, economic, and social agenda. No sane person on the planet wants to wait around for the enviornment to be destroyed. But when the only solution presented to us is totalitarianism (or at least what we percieve to be totalitarianism), you are naturally going to have the resistance and skepticism you see from many people on slashdot. We can read the assumptions in your statements, and those make us very worried.

Re:Que the global warming rants

[shani]

When people say "shouldn't we do something to stop it?", they really mean "shouldn't we give the government vast new expanded powers to regulate society, because only the government authority is efficient and trustworthy enough to solve the problem of pollution". The concept of massive government regulation and central-planning are implicit in what you are saying, because absolutly no-one of any political persuation wants to stop people from voluntarily acting to stop global warming.

Government does, and should, have a role in regulating markets. For instance, the government is responsible for labeling laws, and establishing standards measurements, and (more recently) in mandating industry use best common practices for accounting.

Even the most pro-HMV, anti-abortion, pro-gun, anti-public education Republican would not argue against this. The question is rather what the best role of the government is in the market.

One obvious way to influence the market is to apply the CAFE standards to all cars bought and sold, rather than exclude pickup trucks and SUV's. And in fact, the Bush administration has just last week proposed something like this, although of course in a very slight way designed not to upset major campaign donors at major car-building corporations.

The government can also shift spending away from projects that will encourage greenhouse emission, such as building new highways, to things like providing real alternatives to the car. This does not necessarily mean spending more money, but rather to spend it differently.

A third (and probably most important) way that the government can help is to fund basic (and applied) research to help minimise the demand for CO2-emitting fuel sources. Most likely this will mean research into nuclear power - cleaner, cheaper fission plants in the medium-term, and fusion plants in the long term. Government-funded research is necessary for technologies that have no hope to be profitable in a decade or two. Companies need to make money!

Re:Que the global warming rants

[Gulthek]

Are you suggesting that we, on a human scale, could do something to affect ecosystem change on a planetary level? Ha!

The planet will always be liveable, but it may not be liveable for us.

In fact, all macroscopic life is something of an evolutionary quirk. This planet (and probably any life supporting planet) truly belongs, and will always belong, to the microscopic. Nothing's meeker than bacteria.

Did you know that the fact that Earth has ice at _both_ polar ice caps is an anomoly in its history?

Did you know that Antarctica apparently supported green forests as recently as three million years ago (after the continent was over the south pole)?

Did you know that we live in a remarkably stable period in Earth's climactic history. From ice core samplings we have readings that show _incredibly_ fast fluctation in temperature and we have no idea _what_ could possibly affect the planetary temperature so quickly?

There's a lot we know, but tons more that we don't and it's arrogant to believe that we affect the planet on anything more than a small scale.

Sure the small scale is huge to us and has great implications for our (and that of other macroscopic life) continued health and survival. But the planet is fine.

But not all of the Arctic ice cap is afloat

[erikaaboe]

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...

MOD Parent DOWN, Please

[WindBourne]

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.

Orwell's question

[jet_silver]

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.

Re:Wait for it....

[BigDogCH]

Global warming doesn't exist. There is a lot of evidence that proves it doesn't.

1. It was colder than average at my house for 2 days last week.

2. The planet is supposed to get warmer and colder, it is natural. Just look at the tropical fossils and dinosaur bones in Canada. The temperature changes are natural.

3. Man has only been on this planet for 10,000 years, it says so in the bible. This means the scientific data uncovered about earths climate is wrong. It was probably planted by the devil.

4. It has been cloudy for 2 weeks, how can it be warming with no sun?

5. Doesn't ice expand when it freezes, so melting would lower the sea level right?

6. I have a paintball gun, powered by C02. That stuff is cold! How could it warm the planet?

7. We can't be sure the planet is getting warmer simply because the measurements say it is. Don't cloud the issue with facts.

8. If there is soo much C02 around, then why are my garden plants dead? The extra C02 should make them grow fast. I only got 4 cuekes this year.

9. How can the planet be getting so much warmer when more and more of the world now has air conditioning?

10. If the planet was getting that much warmer, we would see a consistant rise in the stock price of anti-perspirant companies. Us overweight americans are using less deodorant than ever!

you got the facts wrong

[cahiha]

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.

more excuses and misinformation

[cahiha]

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.

Re:more excuses and misinformation

[Otto]

If you had suggested banning cars and substituing electric trolley cars, then I could see your argument, but horses are not a feasible option, and electric trolley cars are.

And where do you get the electricity to run all these trolley cars? Unless you've got some magical source of clean power, you're just blowing smoke. Literally, you're blowing smoke from coal power plants into the atmosphere. Oh, you do know that most of the country's power places are run on coal, don't you?

This doesn't even consider the energy involved in taking a medium sized city and reworking it to be entirely trolley-car (or other electric transportation) based. Or the energy needed to replace all those coal plants with something not spewing pollutants into the air...

A conversion to an economy with a minimal impact on CO2 would not be easy, but it actually would be feasible

At a rough guesstimate, I figure it would take somewhere between 75 to 100 years to complete, with everybody working on it full time. That's to eliminate fossil fuels and coal and such entirely.

And the Mojave desert, e.g., has enough potential solar power for most of the country, and North Dakota has enough potential wind power. (And yes, there are feasible ways to store it....

Unfortunately, there's no feasible ways to transport it. Power lines don't run across the country. It doesn't work that way. Maximum distance you can transmit electricity efficently is only in the few hundreds of miles, and that's not as the bird flies but as the length of the wire from end to end. Do you want everybody to move out west or something?

All that said, it would be a challenge. But don't claim that it's impossible...that just shows you have blinders on. Were I inclined, I could point to a lot of problems with the scenario I suggest. This doen't mean it's impossible, it means it's difficult.

I agree, but I think you haven't actually sat down and worked out exactly how difficult you're talking about here. I mean, you're suggesting that we completely rebuild something like 65% of the country, roughly.

Re:more excuses and misinformation

[Dachannien]

The only people who stand to lose are the people who have large investments in current, inefficient technologies.

That'd be most transportation, utility, and manufacturing companies. And the effect of "losing" is that the cost of production of their goods goes up during the changeover to cleaner production methods. That means that everyone is paying more - a lot more - for the same goods they bought last year, without a corresponding increase in wages. Sales decrease, so profits decrease, so people lose jobs.

All that "extra money" goes into producing equipment that doesn't add anything to the growth of the economy, unless the new methods of production also happen to be more efficient cost-wise (which they aren't, and I think that's the failing in your logic - "cleaner" and "more efficient" don't overlap given technology today, while you were assuming they do).

If, as you say, "an aggressive move to energy efficient technologies would create new jobs and growth, and would lower operating costs," then why aren't developing nations jumping at the opportunity to create this new growth? The reason the US didn't sign Kyoto is because developing nations were made exempt from the conditions of the treaty. They were made exempt because they were viewed as being less able to afford such changes. That flies in the face of your statement that changing technologies is a boon to a nation's economy.

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.

Of course they would, because it uses a faulty metric that's in their benefit. A better measure of what's being done with one's energy consumption isn't per-capita, it's per-dollar-GDP. With that measure, the US is far more efficient than (for example) China and India, whose ability to claim decent per-capita energy consumption is entirely due to the tremendous difference between their urban middle and upper classes and their gigantic rural farming lower class.

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.

The US eastern seaboard isn't just going to roll off into the ocean all in one day, any more than the US is going to switch to nuclear power all in one day. What's more, it's unlikely that, if coastal flooding is going to occur, the US can do anything to stop it. A possible solution is to slowly begin encouraging people to move their homes and businesses inland (we have a lot of space), while building a newer energy infrastructure (nuclear power) as we make that move. The key here is slowly. As long as things are done gradually, the new jobs created by such a program won't be completely swamped by the jobs lost from suddenly shutting off the old infrastructure.

Re:And actually, slightly less

[grcumb]

"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.

Re:And actually, slightly less

[Floody]

(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]

Re:Yeah, but

[orthogonal]

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.

Well, those stupid scientists (what have they ever given us?) think that

if global warming continues to melt major ice sheets, [Britain's] supply of warm air could come to an abrupt end, according to a number of experts.

The Gulf Stream relies on a sensitive "conveyer belt" action, which could be "switched off" - quite suddenly - if it becomes diluted by fresh water from the melting ice-sheets, they claim.

Dr Terry Joyce, an oceanographer from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, US, believes there is a 50% chance of a sudden climate change happening in the next 100 years.

"It will be quick," he says. "Suddenly one decade we're warm, and the next decade we're in the coldest winter we've experienced in the last 100 years, but we're in it for a 100 years."

But of course that's all hogwash! We should listen to Big Oil lobbyist Phil Cooney:

A White House official who once led the oil industry's fight against limits on greenhouse gases has repeatedly edited government climate reports in ways that play down links between such emissions and global warming, according to internal documents.

After a stint doing "editing" for the Bush Administration, Phil's making the real cash now:

A senior White House official accused of doctoring government reports on climate change to play down the link between greenhouse gas emissions and global warming has taken a job with ExxonMobil, the world's largest oil company.

Philip Cooney, who resigned as chief of staff of the White House council on environment quality at the weekend, will begin work at the oil giant in the autumn.

Nothing to see here folks! What do scientists know? They can't even make real money like a good lobbyist. If they're so smart, why aren't they rich?

Trust your President: he knows that global warming is just liberal whining and that we should teach real science, like Intelligent Design, in our public schools.

Re:Yeah, but

[MillionthMonkey]

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.

Sunspots. Suppose solar output changes

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

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?

Re:And here we go again...

[Capsaicin]

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.

Prehistoric change in sea level

[Conanymous Award]

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.

Re:Yeah, but

[Decker-Mage]

No, it is a theory supported by computer models that may or may not have any relation to reality. I've spent my life working in the statistical modeling field and have an extensive background in numerous scientific and damn near every engineering field (see profile) and I can tell you that your model is only a good as whether what it predicts matches reality and exactly how closely.

Current models are all over the place as to what they predict and in almost every case what they predict isn't even close by an order of magnitude to what has happened in that past. Now how are we supposed to rely on models that can't even predict things by a factor of ten? Sheesh, give me a break! Heck, what is even stranger are the journal articles (light reading here) will start with the assumption that global warming is real, find contrary data, and conclude that global warming is real despite the contrary data. This isn't science, it's persuit of funding.

The plain fact of the matter is that to get funding today in various related disciplines to climatology you have to climb on the global warming bandwagon. Sad, but true. It is also interesting that many of the critics of global warming are retired and no longer need funding to persue their interests in the field. In statistics we'd call that strongly correlated.

Now this isn't to say global warming isn't real although I would challenge the notion that it is necessarily related to any man-related activity (that's for another post if anyone is interested). The only constant about the climate on this planet is change and that has been true since it accreted to a planet.

Let Me Educate You (Why Kyoto Sucks and The US OK)

[Doug Dante]

"There is not an iota of evidence that reducing carbon emissions would lead to a depression."

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.html

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/Cli mateGraphAnnArborSourceStateOfFearByMichealChricht on.jpg

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.h tml

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=116 &subsecID=900039&contentID=252175

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/0,12 374,1098635,00.html

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.

Re:Soooo true (NOT).

[mathmathrevolution]

Scientists may struggle for recognition among their peers by exposing the truth in a rigorous framework. You suggest there is money/power/fame for the scientist who upholds the scientific concensus, but there isn't any money/power/fame to be made by expounding commonly accepted theories. There is, in fact, far, far more money/power/recognition to the scientist who can convincingly buck the trend and establishes a more compelling theory.

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.