Global Warming Past The Point of No Return

mad_goldfish writes "The UK's Independent is running a front page story today on a scientific report claiming that global warming is now unstoppable, after measuring changes in the level of ice in the arctic." From the article: "The greatest fear is that the Arctic has reached a 'tipping point' beyond which nothing can reverse the continual loss of sea ice and with it the massive land glaciers of Greenland, which will raise sea levels dramatically. Satellites monitoring the Arctic have found that the extent of the sea ice this August has reached its lowest monthly point on record, dipping an unprecedented 18.2 per cent below the long-term average." Either way, someone wins a bet.

Comments

Greenland Ice Sheet

[molo]

According to wikipedia, the greenland ice sheet, if fully melted, will raise global sea level by 7.2 meters (23.6 feet). This would put large portions of many coastal cities underwater.

Fortunately, there are other factors that should mitigate this, such as increased mass of the antarctic ice sheet due to increased moisture levels. See sea level rise.

-molo

Re:Climate Change Objections, Simplified

[e1618978]

No matter how much oil you personally burn, the total global human population will use a fixed amount of oil (we use as much oil as you can pump out of the ground, and we have reached the point where it is very hard to use more oil). So conservation does not help global warming, it just lowers the price so that the Chineese can burn more, and it discourages alternative fuel research. For the good of humanity, it is important that you burn as much oil as you can afford to, in order to bump up prices and encourage alternatives to oil. If consumption is really high, we will switch to other sources while there is still a lot of oil in the ground. Worst case is conservation that keeps the price of oil low enough so that we pump and burn all the oil available to us over the next 50 years.