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Arctic Ice May Melt By 2040
Dekortage writes in with a new study by the National Center for Atmospheric Research suggesting that the North Pole may be clear of ice in summer as soon as 2040, decades earlier than previously thought. From the article: "'As the ice retreats, the ocean transports more heat to the Arctic and the open water absorbs more sunlight, further accelerating the rate of warming and leading to the loss of more ice,' Holland said in the statement. 'This is a positive feedback loop with dramatic implications for the entire Arctic.'"
Does this mean the sea level will rise some?
Bite my shiny metal ass.
That is great news!
This is a tipping point. It doesn't matter if global warming is manmade or a natural cycle. Cutting your carbon emmissions will not stop this feedback loop. Once reached, this feedback loop will continue until all the ice is melted during the summer, and there is NOTHING we can do about it with current technology.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Arctic Ice May Melt By 2040
Posted by kdawson on Tue December 12, 2117
I've already started buying beach front property in Nevada.
With all that ice melting the conveyer belt will stop and create super cold "hurricanes" ... I thing I recall watching this one.
... hoping for some choice beachfront property!
Time to start buying land in Florida...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Do tell, what is so hard to comprehend here? Sea ice has been retreating at an ever-increasing rate. This is well documented.
They may have to replace all those plastic palm trees with real ones.
Who can even make heads or tails of all this global warming stuff?
We get reports like this, within a day of getting reports like cows cause more greenhouse gases than cars, planes, and all other forms of transportation put together
Say what you want, but I'm quite skeptical of their ability to accurately forecast this stuff...haven't there been sensationalist reports like this for the last 40 years? All of which were disproven when more accurate methods of forecasting came around?
Move along... never seemed more relevant.
Yes, which means the same mass takes more volume. When submerged ice (the majority of the ice in question) melts, it becomes more dense (same mass, less volume) which means it actually LOWERS the water level. Add in the amount of ice that is above water in the Artic channel, and the total change in water levels will be negligible.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
La'Niña.
its cheap only in your dream...the British have already sent agents to lay their flag there...
--Ram
Ever notice how people that are skiing wear sunglasses?
That's because ice reflects sunlight.
Take all the energy that the polar regions reflect because of sunlight, and instead add it to the ocean in polar regions.
That's the math they're saying they did, and the answer they came up with is : the polar cap melts fast!
If you don't want to buy it, do a counter study. As is, their results seem fairly clear and robust. Not saying that they're exactly right, but a counter argument needs to be more then you saying "NOOOOOOO".
My only concern is will the emperor penguins be effected by this? Like which pole are they on anyways?
I'll never understand the hysteria over rising sea levels. So a few beachouses will get flooded, boo fucking hoo. Relocate, problem solved.
Am I the only one who notices that as soon as Zonk goes "off duty" for approving front page articles, the quality of the articles themselves immediately improves?
and all my low cost realestate in northern michigan will go way WAY up as people look for living in the climate they enjoy... florida and southern locations will become too hot, the rich will move north into my wide open arms selling rare 1/4 acre plots for $190,000 each (I paid $75,000 for the 1000 acre location that butts a lake and has a river through it)
Muahahahahaha!
come my rich idiots, I have your dream community waiting for you!
I've heard that even though it is calving a lot of icebergs these days, it's getting enough snowfall that the total ice in the antartic is actually increasing. It's just increasing in a different place than the icebergs are coming from.
Besides, once you melt the ice there isn't much land left, and it's not very good real estate. But at least there is land under all that ice and snow, unlike in the arctic.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
With the reduction of Green House gases that began in the early 21st century, the rise in global temperatures has abated. But that has some folks in a bad spot.
In the last 60 years, after the permanent sea ice melted in 2040, dozens of thriving communities have taken hold in the previously uninhabitable northern areas of Canada and Siberia. With the opening of the sea lanes all year long, milder winters and downright balmy summers, these areas attracted millions of people seeking a new way of life and a return to nature. The last census counted over 20 million living along the Canadian and Siberian coasts.
Now, with global temperatures returning to 20th century norms, these communities face the bleak prospect of being cutoff from the outside work for more that 9 months out of the year.
Economic loses are estimated to be in the trillions.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
We are supposed to be hit by Asteroid MN4 between 2035 & 2037 and it is all George Bush's fault!!!
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Ahh another global warming story.
Await the dozens of posts by global warming denial zealots on why this is all natural and actually good news.
What does that have to do with it?
If I'm bleeding to death, the fact that the knife wounds are bleeding out faster than the gunshot wounds, and the fact that in the past I've gotten nosebleeds, so its not unusual for blood to be coming out of my body isn't really all that important. Dealing with the blood loss is.
HELLO? CAN ANYONE SEE THIS?
I'm writing from the future to tell everyone that the polar ice caps melted in 2045, and Atlantis was found underneath what was once called the North Pole. The earth's magnetic poles are in the middle of swapping, so it's about 135 degrees Fahrenheit there today.
Good news, though: Duke Nukem Forever is being released next year!
If this turns out to be true then those guys with comments like "I will be dead anyway before the environment changes significantly" do really have something to worry about.
Also it's estimated that two-thirds of the coral reefs will be gone in 30 years which is about the same timescale as the melting of the ice in the article.
I may win lottery within next two decades...
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
Dial 1-800-ALQ-AEDA and ask to speak to the Number One Mr. Big Guy about global warning.
Your efforts are appreciated.
Patriotically,
Kilgore Trout, ex-patriot
"This is a positive feedback loop"
Well, if it's positive, then it's good, right? Nothing to worry about here, folks. Good job.
OMG! Wau!
Cows recycle carbon that originally was taken out of the exact same atmosphere by the plants they eat. The problem with petroleum usage is that it reintroduces carbon that has been out of the cycle since (largely) the Carboniferous epoch (roughly 300mya).
The carbon effect of Cows is like trying to fill a bucket by taking water out of the bucket... and pouring it right back in.
In any case, how does your argument about cows having a significant effect have any bearing on the argument relating to ice melting??? Is the fact that cows create methane (which is a greenhouse gas) going to slow down global warming?
Adapt or die.
I gots my SUV and Pickup, nott'un is rong here!
They paid a shit-load for that ocean front property. If the waterlevel rises, not only do they lose their property but the regular joes behind them will see quite a windfall. If they can afford the new taxes.
Blar.
We'll just got more ice from Halley's comet, thus solving the problem once and for all
Did you get that thing I sent ya?
Time to finalize my business plan to sell fridges to Eskimos.
who's laughing now?
In a statement released this morning, the United Nations Committee on Climate Change blamed the problem of global warming primarily on the gaseous emissions of a Joliet, Illinois resident. Hans Zimmer, the committee chairman, issued a dire warning: "The UN is extremely concerned about William Lockwood's flattulence and its effects on the environment." Forty-two pages of charts and graphs detailed the devastation done to the Earth's protection from the Sun's deadly rays. "When Mr. Lockwood emits a typical expulsion", Zimmer explained, "it causes a hole in the ozone layer the approximate size of a snooker table."
"Jeepers creepers", continued Zimmer.
Lockwood refused to comment on the UN allegations, but did ask where the nearest bathroom was, because (in his words) he needed to "go blow some mud".
I mean, people spent alot of dough on beach-front living. WHat happens when the mean old sea rises?
Do they still own the land, but have to build on stilts? Snce the beach would back up, that would suck for beach-goers, eh?
I think the answer should be "Tough Titty", and they take a huge loss.
But, since rich people tend to own this land...they'll lobby the gov't and we will all reimburse these poor rich people for their lost property.
Wow...pretty cynical today!
Blar.
That had to be the second worst movie ever made, right behind this one. Then again, I haven't seen Gigli, which was the previous record holder for worst movie ever, from what I understand.
why would you buy florida swamp land?
Funny, I was told in about 1980 that we had about 40 years of oil left. Presumably that was based on the known reserves and usage at the time.
Cool, polar ice gone within my lifetime. Assuming I live to the ripe old age of 84 that is.
"I bow to no man" - Riddick
I assure you my comprehension of high school physics is not in question ;) My ability to express that knowledge using the english language (I claim Pascal as my native tongue :P) can most definately be questioned.
If you melt _only_ the sumbmerged ice, the water volume will decrease. If you melt _only_ the ice above the water, the water volume will increase. Obviously this is not actually possible to do, I was attempting to express that the melting of ice over water does not matter as the total change is negligable. But if you melt ice that isn't supported by water, the total water volume will increase.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Comments? Excuses? Or do you give a crap sitting high and dry in Oklahoma?
What an asshat.
I can think of a counter argument.
The Gulf Stream is partially fuelled by the temperature gradient oop north (I'll be lazy and admit I forget the details) and has apparently already declined recently. This should kill it altogether. In the past, the North Pole being ice free has triggered ice ages.
How? Once the ice is gone, the sea can evaporate more easily which increases precipitation in the far north. A lot of this is snow. Eventually the icecap reasserts itself.
Apparently there was a time in the very distant past where the oceans were almost totally iced up, something made possible by the then alignment of the continents. This can apparently not happen again the way things are now.
Mielipiteet omiani - Opinions personal, facts suspect.
Back in my day, we had Polar Bears in lower Michigan! I didn't hear anybody complaining when the Arctic ice expanded to take up over 1/2 of the northern hemisphere!
All kidding aside folks, isn't it possible that global warming is a natural phenomenon, and this type of thing has happened hundreds of times over?
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
I love the headline. Looks like a description of rearden metal from atlas shrugged.
Remember, alien UFOs may land tomorrow as well.
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
I'm sorry, but I cannot decode this metaphor.
since I am 60+ and live in great white north I'd like it warmer here and I'd like it now. probably won't be around for arnie geddon. bring it on ;D
A man spends the first half of his life accumulating stuff, the second trying to get rid of it all.
HELLO? CAN ANYONE SEE THIS?
nope... I'm afraid we can't... perhaps you can try using a larger font size in your next post?
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
My beach-front property on Baffin Bay will probably start to draw American and Ottawan tourists, with their pasty-white skin and bottled water.
... I will be wealthy beyond imagining!
But wait! I will corner the market on suntan oil and insect repellent before the wave of pale Southerners hits
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
Slashdot editors might dupe this story tonight by 20:40
Ever notice the color of clouds, they're white. More water in the oceans, warmer oceans = more clouds. You think this might be some sort of "balance"??
Nooo, we can't have balance, and we can't include other factors in discussing global warming because the great mind of Al Gore says so.
More clouds = more rain, especially in deserts which will cause the desserts to bloom with all sorts of folliage and the great Sahara Forrest will be born, causing the CO2 levels to plummet, causing a huge global cooling period called an "ice age", somewhere in the next 5k-10k years.
The ice packs of the arctic will increase causing Al Gore the XXXXIV to scream about global cooling from the "new White House", on the NSS GEORGE H BUSH, DC (Floating capitol city of United Pan American States).
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
You want to talk about details? Let's talk about The Conveyor. As the ice melts in various locations it's going to change the conveyor, ultimately stop it and maybe even make it run in reverse. Global weather is going to be completely confused when/if this happens. The climate will probably shift everywhere but along the equator.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Because not all of the ice is floating. There is a significant amount of ice in the Greenland Ice Cap. Melting of this will cause the sea level to rise. Interestingly, it will also cause Greenland itself to rise by a small amount due to the release from the weight of the ice. There is also non-floating ice on the Canadian Shield islands. In addition, if you assume that melting of the Arctic ice cap will be accompanied by at least some melting of the Antarctic cap, there could be a sea level rise of from a few meters to several meters. This is enough to cause a severe disruption of human populations.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
When water warms up, it's volume increases. Same thing happens, for instance, when you boil water. (That actually accounts for most of the increase in the water-level). Remember also, that not all of the ice is floating in the water.
But wait, there's more: when the temperature increases, there will be more rain. Prepare for floods, mud-slides, hurricanes fed by increased heat, and so on. I mean, come on, New Orleans already got flushed away, which city do you think will be the next? Los Angeles (which, by the way, sits on _sand_)? New York?
Oh well, maybe you stupid yanks will get lucky. But maybe you won't...
It physically can't be different.
True, but it will be hanging out with that extra water from Greenland.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Buy Arctic beachfront property for future resorts when the weather becomes nicer. The only problem is predicting where the shoreline will be with rising water levels :-(
a grand utopian, he specualted that this would happen, he said that afterwards it would produce a halo effect too
he also thought we could run a world without money too
so w/e
back in the day we didnt have no old school
I do not think you should start looking for land in Florida. If (I stress IF) the ice melts by 2040 then all the water stored in the ice will have to raise the sea level (I do not know how much) but with the highest natural elevation of Florida (Britton Hill) being only 345 feet, or 105 meters for everyone not in the USA, most of that state will be under water (maybe a new place for the coral reefs to grow and the Manatee to thrive) I think this is great as we read earlier today about all the new species of life living up north I would love to go SCUBA diving there to check them out. But wait now that cows are the cause of global warming (or at least more responsible for it then us mere mortals) we should immediately eradicate them from the face of the planet if we are ever to survive until 2050. Maybe that will slow this global warming down and with the removal of the harmful cow all the PETA people will stop bitching about abusing animals by eating them. We can all then be forced to be vegetarians (as there will be a major lack of red meat) So everyone will be happy (except the cows and the environmentalists as they will be pissed they are either dead or another species is now extinct and of course the Hindus will be mad because the cow is sacred oh and pregnant woman need red meat for the proper development of the baby's brain) Maybe this is what happened to the dinosaurs.... our cavemen ancestors realized that dinosaur farts were the cause of global warming... so they killed them all.. but that caused an ice age due to lack of methane being introduced into the atmosphere. Crap can't win this any way you look at it someone will always be upset.. except the guy in Michigan selling his beach front property for lots of $$
My fat white Republican Libertarian ass does not care. Screw the earth. I'll be dead by then.
And it's also well documented that ice is increasing in areas like Greenland. This is more global warming alarmism that we'll all be laughing at in 2040, just as we laugh at the "global cooling" of the 1970s where scientists actually recommended melting the polar ice caps!
"Sufferin' succotash."
Where did you pull that from? While that scenario would be nice, the chances of it happening that way are practically zero. Try another:
In the last 60 years, after the permanent sea ice melted in 2040, continued violence on the Canada-USA border have finally led to military intervention to force the Canadian government to keep the border open to refugees from the lowlands of Florida and the East Coast, now numbering in excess of 20 million. Meanwhile, the loss of the Greenland ice sheet, besides contributing significantly to the rise in sea level, has dumped millions of tons of fresh water into the North Atlantic and slowed subtantially the Gulfstream Current. While winter temperatures in northern Europe never reach the extremes they used to, the lack of warm offshore currents mean that summer temperatures now rarely increase beyond 50F, and for a large proportion of Europe the heating bills are becoming impossible to keep up with. Rumors abound of an impending UN intervention force destined for Zimbabwe, known until the late 20th century as the food bowl of Africa but economically ruined in recent years by a series of corrupt presidents, in order to secure additional agricultural land and allow a desperate last attempt to halt the northern progress of the Sahara.
Both these scenarios have an equally improbable liklihood of occuring. The overwhelming likelihood is something in between.
If the North Pole melts alone... Then no.
But Chances are that Greenland will almost melt in the process.
Therefore we will notice an increase in sea level if the Arctic ice melts but it will be due to Greenland ice melting.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
isn't anyone worried about the antarctic? If it warms up there, more and more fools will make expeditions there, and awake the Old Ones!
You'll be so old our children will have to cook your corpse a while longer to make it easier on the teeth. Hmmm... Maybe they'll just have to kill you, and leave you out to rot a bit. Then you'll be soft and juicy. I mean, the climate surely will allow for much faster decomposition.
...while all that ice melts, it lowers the salinity of the oceans, thus displacing warm currents from where they are to somewhere else, thusly altering the global train of weather systems, thusly contributing to a "little ice age", reinforced by CO2 in the stratosphere?
Sounds paradoxical, but that could be one outcome of losing the polar ice cap... an ice age.
http://www.discover.com/issues/sep-02/cover/
Personally, I think we'll see just that -- a little ice age lasting a century or two. The scary part is, according to some, we could see this in our own lifetimes.
Oh well. I used to live in North Dakota. Bring it on.
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
The liberal moonbats are at it again. They're using all this "science" to provide us with "answers" about things which are essentially unknowable. And why? It's a vast liberal conspiracy that is meant to try and gain the hearts and minds of the weak willed and fey. But we modern conservatives are made of stern stuff!! We don't need "science" to tell us about the world around us. We use what's right in front of us: reality. If global warming WERE happening, which it isn't, it should be warmer outside today than it was in the past at this time of year. And even then, those liberals spin everything and flip-flop. You tell them that it's actually colder and they say that's a sign of global warming! What tricksters!! Well thankfully, the world has joined the conservative party and after the landslide win for Bush in 2004, it's obvious that things are NEVER going back. Don't believe in the lies that the liberals tell you or try to scare you with. It's purely scare tactics of a dying belief system. Instead, accept that as rugged individualists, we in the conservative parties will triumph over any adversity. We are strong. We are adaptable. Even IF global warming were happening WHICH it isn't, business would build special suits, vehicles and housing and create new materials to live on a hotter planet. The market will decide! And besides, my Enron stocks are way up there today. Thanks Cheney! :)
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
I hate Grammar Nazi's
Actually, arid regions will tend to become more arid before increased precipitation reverses this trend. You see, when the temperatures go up, already dry land will lose even more moisture (and at a faster rate) due to evaporation. We're already seeing some effects of this in Arizona, where I live; the depletion of the water table due to human and industrial consumption (e.g., chip fabs) only compounds this problem further.
And you're aware that water vapor is also a greenhouse gas, right?
Cloud cover might increase planetary albedo enough to offset some of the loss of ice and snow, but clouds are by no means opaque to all wavelengths of radiation -- and clouds are a lot less dense than sheets of ice.
Psht. Yeah. We gotta stop that.
If you'd like to do some of the experiments discussed in the article yourself, the EdGCM project has wrapped a NASA global climate model (GCM) in a GUI (OS X and Win). You can add CO2 or turn the sun down by a few percent all with a checkbox and a slider. Supercomputers and advanced FORTRAN programmers are no longer necessary to run your own GCM.
Unfortunately the ice sheets are not fully dynamic in this model for land ice, but you can see ocean ice retreat significantly.
Disclaimer: I'm the project developer.
Space and Computers.
Bad news for Santa, good news for Lex Luthor?
Land ~~~ = Sinkholes? Ice Just having fun...
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Puleeeze,
You could put 20 million people in 20 million single family homes in just N&S Dakota and not even make a dent in the open land. No reason to invade Canada.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
I mean:
Land
~~~ = Sinkholes?
Ice
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
You seem to know a lot more about this than the real scientists... maybe you should let them know!
Seriously though, you're as guilty as glossing over things as those you criticize. How do you expect these "great forests" to grow without any sunlight because the sky is constantly overcast? How will our crops grow?
But the real problem is, clouds don't just reflect sunlight, they also trap heat. And guess which one they are more effective at? You can take a look at our solar system for a clue: Mercury's peak temperature, despite being very close to the sun, with dark rock, no clouds, and no protective atmosphere, is still cooler than Venus, even though Venus is almost twice as far from the Sun and receives only 25% of the solar radiation. Clouds are part of global warming, not a solution. And even if they were a solution, they would be a very unpleasant one: almost all of our renewable energy is ultimately solar-based.
Random and weird software I've written.
No it is not, according to RealClimate. Snowfall may be increasing at the interior of Greenland, but it's offset by an accelerated dumping of ice into the ocean at the periphery.
From RealClimate:Emphasis added by me.
What about the South Pole? Coz you know... bullets wont kill these Things.
There is possibly large oil and gas reserves in the arctic, all the way up to the north pole. Once the ice is gone, we can move in and start drilling.
uhg, my inability to express this analogy is frustrating me. Your first paragraph is what I was posting about. If the only change enacted on the environment is to melt either the submerged, or non-submerged ice, and no other effect is allowed.
While I was writing it, I was applying the logic such that you could replace the submerged half of the formula with dry land. If you break it out into two sperate formulas (submerged ice melting reduced total volume, non-submerged ice melting increases total volume) and you can assume that the volume of water displaced equals the total volume of the ice above and below the water line, then you can state that: ice that is not submerged will increase the volume of water by the same amount as what it would have displaced if it were partially submerged, and the inverse of that for finding the volume of water displace by the submerged ice. When dealing with the two formulas together, the net change in a controled environment is 0.
Since you can then figure out water volume of non-submerged ice, you can then figure out how much volume you are adding to the water body by melting ice that is on dry land.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Actually, the volume of water decreases up to about 4 degrees C, IIRC. After that it begins increasing again, like any well-behaved liquid should. Not that this changes your central argument in any way.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
The only problem with this theory is that ice floats. It keeps reflecting energy until it is melted past a certain thickness. A little colder and the thickness comes back and so does the reflection. It doesn't stop reflecting all at once. Once enough ice melts, the warm tropic waters will no longer flow toward the poles due to decreased salinity in the ocean (Warm tropical salt water is less dense, and cold polar salt water is more dense. The more dense water drops filling in the void that the warm waters moving toward the poles leaves behind. Cold fresh water will be lighter than the warm salt water, and will remain near the surface at the poles. The cold salt water is more dense than both and will remain near the ocean floor at the poles. This will in effect stop the cyclical action that warms the poles). Without the warm tropical waters melting the polar ice, the polar ice caps will reform and the reflection will begin again.
Yes, we are a few degrees warmer now than we were 200 years ago. However, the 500 years between 1300 and 1800 was the coldest in the past 12000 years (by several degrees), so to compare our temp to that temp doesn't say a lot. (Note that during The Little Ice Age people were freaking out because it was getting too cold, and ice was going to cover the planet if they didn't do something.)
Don't get me wrong, I think we should stop polluting, should plant more trees and chop fewer down, and try to develop cleaner more efficient forms of energy. But I am tired of the "the earth is going to burn up", "NO, the earth is going to freeze", "NO, we are all going to drown" debate.
And all this "information" attempting to scare us into certain political decisions is really taking away from the real political tragedy; that our "representatives" have no clue and are really only representing their bank accounts.
...I will discredit the source rather than consider the report.
I think it's interesting that, for a community that supposedly prides itself on critical thinking, we are so fucking quick to find ways to discredit the source.
Not that this is specific to the parent or global warming; this goes on with pretty much every article that presents something that goes against the Slashdot grain.
I'm not saying the report is right or wrong, but if we discredit everything simply because we see "FOX News" or "Libertarian" or whatever else how does that help anybody?
Which is worse: the idiot who believes everything Fox News says is right or the idiot who believes everything Fox News says is wrong?
2040? I'll still be alive then! So how about a wager? I wager $1000 (adjusted for inflation) that the arctic ice will still be around all through 2040.
I'm quite confident in my wager. History shows that doom and gloom timetables are invariably wrong. Malthus's timetable was wrong. Carson's timetable was wrong. 1970's global cooling timetable was wrong. And this global warming timetable will be shown to be just as wrong.
Any takers? I won't put any money in escrow for 34 years, but I will sign a formal wager agreement.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Also, it wasn't scientists who were talking about global cooling in the 70's. It was some of the same media types who now think that "both" sides of the global warming "debate" need to be discussed. I.e., journalists who didn't understand science, but want to sell subscriptions. I challenge you to find a single peer-reviewed article supporting global cooling in the 70's. In fact, you'll find that scientists in the 70's were already warning about global warming.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
From parent post: The critical point for Greenland is whether the increased rate of glacier motion more than compensates for the greater accumulation on the surface. While the broad picture of what is happening is consistent between these papers, the bottom-line value for Greenland's mass balance is different in all three cases. Looking just at the dynamical changes observed by Rignot & Kanagaratnam, there is an increased discharge of about 0.28 mm/year SLE from 1996 to 2005, well outside the range of error bars. This is substantially more than the opposing changes in accumulation estimated by Johannessen et al and Zwally et al, and is unlikely to have been included in their assessments. Thus, the probability is that Greenland has been losing ice in the last decade. We should be careful to point out though that this is only for one decade, and doesn't prove anything about the longer term. As many of the studies make clear, there is a significant degree of interannual variability (related to the North Atlantic Oscillation, or the response to the cooling associated with Mt. Pinatubo) such that discerning longer term trends is hard.
Emphasis added by me.
I don't know if anybody caught this, but in the article it said the temperature in the Candaian Arctic this past October were 9.3 degrees C warmer than the October average between 1951-1980. Interesting. Why use those years? Why not 1981-2005? Or 1921-1950? It should be noted that the earth was actually COOLING from 1940-1970. I have a suspicion the author of the study is picking a baseline favorable to his conclusions.
but nobody knows what will happen to marine life if we do it: http://www.palomar.edu/oceanography/iron.htm The Iron Hypothesis suggests that introducing enough iron into the Southern Ocean will lead to a marine life explosion that will consume vast amounts of greenhouse gas "give me enough iron, and I'll give you an ice age"
If you haven't noticed dissent is not allowed unless you cannot be refuted. Since this is climate science you can easily be refuted.
similar to stories earlier about the suppresion of science and ideas that refute global warming is what happens to discussions here.
Take a look at Wikipedia. You can find scads of global warming information, all of it leans the same way. Glaciers melting, only the melting ones get expanded story and facts shown. The glaciers that are expanding are totally glossed over. When trying to keep to their agenda anything that would show that their doom and gloom scenario has holes is conviently left out. Then the drive is simply to pile on one more doom and gloom scenario after another effectively smothering the public under so much information that they just accept it. Repeat it enough and it bores the public into accepting it.
Yes global warming is real but not everything that happens rightfully is caused by it nor is it the result of man made activities. Look at the speed of which glaciers suddenly retreated in some areas. A few were stable until the late 80s when suddenly they went into retreat, and not slow retreats. Yet where is the discussion that this is not all the work of man?
We love to delude ourselves that we know all that we need to know on a subject. Everyone likes to look like an expert.
We dismissed ideas in the 80s that were considered near fact. Why cannot we question what is given to us a facts now without being attacked for doing so?
What I want to know is, when will the ice in the antarctic melt? Real estate is just too expensive, we could use another continent, especially once we flood the ones we've already got. d^_^b
Especially because the sea level will only (ok, maybe 'mainly') rise due to the melting of ice on land...
Everyone knows the world is going to end when the Unix epoch rolls over anyways.
If you don't want to buy it, do a counter study. As is, their results seem fairly clear and robust. Not saying that they're exactly right, but a counter argument needs to be more then you saying "NOOOOOOO".
There have been too many external influences upon the surface of the Earth in the past 5 billion years for the icecaps to exist in an unstable equilibrium. If your theories can only account for the icecaps existing in some precarious balance where any disturbance will lead to runaway melting or runaway freezing, then your theories are wrong. More aptly, the probability you are right is effectively zero.
By their existence over time, the icecaps are demonstrably stable. Whether humans yield sufficient climate influence to significantly shift the stable point is a different debate.
If you are concerned about human-instigated climate change, you won't get anywhere convincing people of runaway, chain-reaction, sky-is-falling climate catastrophes. Such claims simply make one look foolish and easily ignorable. Stick to real science and to theories that account for all the evidence.
At current use rates there are two to four centuries of coal in US, China, and Russia. There are plans to build carbon-capture coal electricity plants. However, because they cost more, only a couple of the 150 plants on the drawing boards will be of the carbon-clean type.
I forgot to mention... Dakota was irradiated in a nuclear accident in 2034, by DoE agents performing unsanctioned tests with a new experimental crowd control device.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Let's see, the Arctic starts to melt freshwater into the North Atlantic adding to the fresh water close to the Greenland Icesheets which are already pouring into the North Atlantic. The fresh water, which is less dense than salt water fails to sink, breaking the conveyor currents, which results in less warm water into the North. Less warm water mean less warm air moving north resulting in colder weather in the North which will, in time, freeze leading to new ice on the polar cap.
Not that we will enjoy it too much....
For the sake of Peace, the Sword.
This means the Titanic will be saved! Oh, wait...
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Your numbers are wrong. There are 30 million people in Canada - total. There are likely 50,000 Inuit people total. That said; they're already complaining about longer summers - or shorter winters - and more specifically about lack of goods being transported in the summer because its actually easier to transport accross snow then it is the big bog...
/\/\icro/\/\uncher
The ice floating wouldn't cause sea level changes if it weren't for the fact that sea water is not pure water, it has salt disolved and is thus denser than the ice, so when the ice melts the sea water rises.
A blog about stuff.
"Other scientists say warming is a natural phenomenon that recurs in a cyclical manner over time, or that it is caused by increased activity on the sun." Complete lies. NO scientists say warming is a natural penomenon, no peer reviewed article said global warming was not an issue.
I guess that 40 years ago, it would have been within the knowledge and ability of people to predict that cutting down the forests in Africa would cause a drought. Certainly, it's indisputable that humanly-deforested regions have suffered longer, more severe droughts since being deforested than at any time prior.
In recent years, there has been strong evidence that zooplankton levels are inversely proportional to temperature - cooler weather, more plankton; hotter weather, less plankton.
Does this mean that global warming is real? Define real. The globe is warming, that's irrefutable. Is it caused by human activity? Well, define activity - are you including deforestation, pollution, changes in the biological infrastructure of the planet, etc? Or just a select set of these? Also, and this is the billion dollar question, how much does the cause matter? If the planet is warming to the point where the current life is incapable of survival, who gives a damn about the causes? The latency inherent in the system is on the order of decades to centuries - changing the causes today won't be fast enough to stop the planet overheating, even if all causes WERE under human control. Why not take care of the problem right now and address the causes when we've got time?
I do believe humans are the primary cause, because although natural sources are often much greater, they are much more sporadic and much more regional. Humans have generated non-local sustained inputs, and those simply didn't exist before. Nor is the process linear. Not even remotely close. Saying that X is greater than Y by a factor of Z is only useful if you can use Z to make some useful observation. If the system is non-linear with both positive feedback and negative feedback loops that are themselves non-linear, you have what is known as a chaotic system. Chaotic systems have two properties - they are acutely sensitive to initial conditions, so any error in measurement will explode out of all proportion in almost no time at all, and they are non-differentiable, so that you can't accurately solve any given step even if you DID know the initial conditions. This means that you cannot directly equate human activity with natural activity and hope to get useful results. The best you can do is equate mechanisms and distributions to see what MIGHT be comparable.
However, my opinion of human activity is of no consequence. If humans cut out all pollution tomorrow, we would not start to see the benefits until a hundred or so years after global warming reached crisis point. If you want to do something effective, don't target the stuff that is pointless. Fixing human activity is like re-wallpapering a house that's on fire. Some things can be left to later.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Yep. And the process can work in reverse too. If snow or ice is added, more heat is reflected away, and the rate of accumulation and the area of coverage increases. This is what fuels the glaciation and cooling that comes with the ice ages. So the question is which direction do we want the process to go in. And the answer, is that we want it to go in the direction AWAY from an ice age.
is just like paranoia. It only takes being right once to make it all worth while.
What rubbish. Next you'll be spouting off some nonsense about how the open water in the arctic circle will drastically increase the rainfall in northern Canada and Russia, thus further promoting the growth of plants once the permafrost melts. I just hope you don't try to relate this to the massive amount of methane currently trapped in the permafrost, created from some organic material or other left over from the last time it was above freezing there.
Balance my ass...Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
I've heard that the bottom layer of ice in some of the large shelves has already melted, leading to a significant risk of very large segments of ice sheets sliding into the ocean and melting (and, through changes in ocean temperature and salinity, causing comparatively rapid changes in climate) in the next several decades.
A lot of handwaving centering around the faith that if it is really a bad thing, it will automagically be solved by market action.
With Global Warming(TM), I'm going to make a killing with by investing in what will be coastal property in the soon to be balmy north!
Actually, no. Sea level will still rise: though only by a little. The water from the ice is less dense than the sea water around it because the sea ice typically contains less salt. Hence, more floats up above the water than bouyancy would suggest, which reduces the water level as it gets frozen, and increases the water level when the ice melts again.
l
Search for 'salinity' in http://www.radix.net/~bobg/faqs/sea.level.faq.htm
Simple enough for you to understand?
I admit that cow farts sounds more FOX than the old volcano lie. (volcanoes don't put out much CO2.)
Burning wood, cows eating grass, among other things are basically a balanced cycle.
Using stockpiles of chemicals to make CO2 quickly (hint: the reaction gives off heat.) They'd probably never turn into CO2 and it would take a long time.
It is similar to pumping the well dry before the rain has a chance to replenish it (oh, many places now limit wells because they can go dry.)
How about burning cows and letting the wood fart?
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
-- Time, Monday, Jun. 24, 1974
Yes, folks, scare stories about global COOLING were all the rage in 1974. Even our old boogeyman, the "tipping point" was there:
So yes, if it all sounds familiar, it's because you HAVE heard it all before. And it was just as hysterical then as it is now.
Here's the full article:
http://www.junkscience.com/mar06/Time_AnotherIce Age_June241974.pdf
In times of universal deceit, telling the truth gets you modded -1 Troll
Must admit I accepted this too until the argument was put to me recently. Fact is of course that the ice is fresh water (less dense) than the sea water it floats in. Check out the links posted elsewhere to physorg about this. Archimedes principle is about the force of the ice pushing down and displacing an equal weight of sea water. But since the ice is lower density then the volume of sea water displaced is less than the volume of the fresh water in the ice ... even after melting. So when floating ice melts in sea water the sea level goes up. Check here, not just the reasoning but also the actual experiment to prove it.
Bitter and proud of it.
The ice is melting all over the solar system! No reason to think it's our fault, just natural solar cycles we're not yet familiar with. After all, we only have solid data going back a few decades, after that it gets very fuzzy. (The climatologists don't want to admit it, because then they'd be out of the job.) Those changes happen very slowly, and they've happened many times before our civilization was around to record it. Buy some land in north-eastern Siberia while it's cheap!
That doesn't seem obvious.
Heat can be transfered away much more quickly by the flow of water around the floating ice than it can by just the air around the landlocked ice. I would think that the floating ice would melt much sooner.
The whole global warming IMO is from to much energy being released into our atmosphere. The green house gasses only make it harder to radiate the energy back into space.
Basically, we are using a lot of stored energy and not letting as much energy back out. The base of all energy is heat.
Ways to fix it.
Lots of plants; Stores energy and removes green house gasses from the air. We would need massive amounts of plants to br grown. Such as a garden on top of every building in large cities, lots of parks. And convert deserts into forest.
Move more to renewable energy: Just stopping the use of fossil fuel isn't enough because even nuclear releases stored energy. Although
Stop being so wasteful with energy/electricity/gas: This isn't just using power efficient light bulbs or turning things off when not in use. It also means that things need to be designed to not be power hogs and use to non/almost none when not in use. A phone charger shouldn't feel warm when a phone is not plugged into it.
Put things in orbit to filter out some energy: Basically putting some large mission like object in space to orbit the earth to block/filter some of the light and other energy before it gets to earth. This would be a more extreme measure as it would also limit the amount of renewable energy we have to us. This would also take a good amount of resources, but could drasticly improve the whole earth. Just have an orbit far enough away where you can have a speed that completes it's orbit around earth once a year.
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive
fuck zonk, damn fanboy
I read the article and go, 'pffft they are going to melt so what', when I should really be going 'WOW! Holly Shit, this is massive!!'. I think that with all of the 'end is nigh' press releases I am some what desensitized to it all, I can no longer be bothered deciphering what may or may not be feasible!
First, the ice caps haven't existed for 5 billion years. They certainly didn't exist during the Hadean, when the surface of the Earth was molten. Clearly, the lack of ice caps at one point in history does not preclude their existence later on. And their existence today does not preclude their lack later on. Your argument is flawed.
Second, the known historical extent of the ice caps is far more then is an acceptable range for human civilization, as we see it today, to exist. Have you heard of the snowball earth hypothesis? Even though the Earth may not have been completely frozen, there is good evidence for massive worldwide glaciation.
And, what do you mean by run-away system? This research does not suggest that the melting would continue forever. It does suggest that ice caps may not remain during periods of global high temperature. Examine this page. The Earth's temperature has historically varied between two values, and there is no reason to think that we couldn't see a return to a temperature that precludes polar ice. It's happened before. It'll happen again. And the scientific consensus is that we're speeding it on it's way.
This feedback loop, and the greenhouse gas/temperature feedback loop, make me wonder something: How does such a self-perpetuating mechanism ever get canceled/reversed?
This is kind of a simpler way of asking: We (evidently) know how and why the Earth heats up; so, what makes it cool down?
So far as wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age) can tell me, the answer is, as far as I can tell, "We have no idea." Is that an accurate summary?
- Alaska Jack
i've long since learnt not to believe 3rd and 4th hand interpritations of science. this guy just sounds like he's produced a bogus model in order to get some PR and some funding. this kind of bad science is hurting us.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
the density difference will cause the sea level to rise.
Please learn something about that which you speak.
Are you intentional ignorant, or just stupid?
Sun may explode in next trillion years.
Goten Xiao
Rubber thermonuclear warheads were predicted in an episode of Red Dwarf, as I recall.
Exactly what do you need to become "convinced", and afterwards, what then? If you'd just throw up your arms, then you're not adding anything to the conversation.
Sure, there have been sensationalist *and* rational reports like this for 40 years... and now we're watching the forecasts begin to noticably pan out. The bitch of it is that back when the effects weren't far above the noise level, the powers that be claimed "we don't see it", whereas now they're saying "we can't afford to do anything about it."
Note, the "cow" report is just dealing with methane, not carbon. Its in the nature of combusting hydrocarbons that methane is mostly burned by planes, trains, and automobiles before the byproducts exit the tailpipe, so it doesn't take many farting cows to stay ahead of the curve, nevermind 1.5 billion of them. Methane is a more efficient greenhouse gas, but for overall effect it's outpaced by the sheer bulk of carbon-based gases we add to the mix.
Frankly, I'm pretty sure that the cause of your and very many others skepticism can be traced directly to the PR departments of ExxonMobile and their peers, who have spent big bucks on shills and astroturfing. They picked up their tactics directly from Philip Morris and their peers (using the same PR firms), who succeeded in conning at least a couple of generations of customers that there was nothing wrong with a lifetime of smoke inhailation.
Luke, help me take this mask off
I've noticed that there are certain people (Almost always of the type that read slashdot, intelligent often engineer types) that are triggered by certain topics into discussions that start to remind me of those given by the religious (although these people tend to not be religious and are actually quite logical).
The main subject that really gets them riled is nuclear power. They get extremely upset at the concept of nuclear bans and will tell you, in detail, exactly why no alternative can work.
Another subject (I wonder if it's the same people, or just the same type of people with different trigger subjects) is this "we are changing/aren't changing the atmosphere). They are very passionate about how it's not us changing the world, coming up with a huge volume of reasoning (look around the threads in this discussion for some examples).
A third is free market--how regulation is the cause of all Americas financial woes.
The interesting thing is, in all cases nothing is really lost by being careful and taking some time to make sure we really are right. There is no reason to be so upset by the thought of keeping companies from opening nuclear plants across the US (Well, unless that's what you do for a living), but there are HUGE potential problems if not done correctly, meaning without enough regulation (we've all seen companies cut corners on safety when it effected profits).
Same with the environment. Religious folks aside (that's not the people I'm talking about), why do some people get so insistent that it's not us changing the environment? It might hurt some companies, but just like the nuclear issue, being safe isn't going to effect the vast majority of the people, including the people I've seen make these arguments.
Without getting into the issue at all, can anyone tell me why they feel so strongly for nuclear power, free market, or mans inability to effect his planet.
Now I really don't care about the issues, I know there are sides, I want to know about personal motivations. Do you really think your lights will go out or your bills will be higher without nuclear power? and if so, is that really so important to you to make you evangelic about it?
Same with the subject at hand. Maybe the facts will go one way, maybe the other (Not trying to start a fight, don't care about the facts right now), but what makes your response "Humans didn't cause it!" rather than "Damn, we better do something about it, build a solar shield or something!". (Actually, I'd guess many feel both responses, but always seem to reach for the "Humans didn't cause it" post first.
The only thing I can guess is that these are people of very strong personal morals who, if they felt that they were contributing to such a problem, would have to do something about it, so they convince themselves of a point that lets them do what it is they want to do and not feel guilty. I can see free marketeers doing the same thing--using it as an excuse to not care about others (which they may otherwise have to do) it doesn't apply to the nuclear thing in any way I can see (Honestly, this is the one that truly baffles me)...
Please reply if you have any insight into the issue because it drives me nuts. I'd really like to hear from an x-pro-nuke or x-free marketeer who has done some soul-searching and has some personal insight into why it was so important to them.
Back then it was a very small minority of scientists making that claim, with very little scientific evidence. The media blew it out of proportion. The current situation is more like smoking being dangerous. Every scientistic agrees, there is tons of evidence, and the only dissenting opinions are those of paid shills.
...it may not.
I'd like to nominate this for a really terrible piece of science reporting.
Number of probabilities reported: zero.
Number of fractional changes reported: zero.
I'm quite willing to believe that the loss of Arctic sea ice and the shrinking ice cap are significant and we should be worried (although not, of course, about the polar bears, who have weathered far greater climate fluxuations than this.) But this article gives none of the information that a rational person would require to make a judgment on the issue.
The science on global climate change is imperfect, but certainly not junk. The reporting on global climate change is another matter entirely...
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
Here's the full abstract. Note that 1 of 7 computer models showed total ice melt by 2040... the worst case scenario. Gotta love how the media grabs the flashy stuff. Holland, Marika M.; Bitz, Cecilia M.; Tremblay, Bruno Future abrupt reductions in the summer Arctic sea ice Geophys. Res. Lett., Vol. 33, No. 23, L23503 http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2006/2006GL028024 .shtml
Abstract
We examine the trajectory of Arctic summer sea ice in seven projections from the Community Climate System Model and find that abrupt reductions are a common feature of these 21st century simulations. These events have decreasing September ice extent trends that are typically 4 times larger than comparable observed trends. One eventexhibits a decrease from 6 million km2 to 2 million km2 in a decade, reaching near ice-free September conditions by 2040. In the simulations, ice retreat accelerates as thinning increases the open water formation efficiency for a given melt rate and the ice-albedo feedback increases shortwave absorption. The retreat is abrupt when ocean heat transport to the Arctic is rapidly increasing. Analysis from multiple climate models and three forcing scenarios indicates that abrupt reductions occur in simulations from over 50% of the models and suggests that reductions in future greenhouse gas emissions moderate the likelihood of these events.
Hmmm... I believe we only have to wait 5,000,000,000 years for the sun to burn out.
The IPCC has purposely engineered a massive scientific fraud.
Bah, we'll be uploading by then, no need to re-terraform this planet or fix up mars or Venus, meat sacks are on the way out and their replacement is cross-platform in a very general sense of the word.
refactor the law, its bloated, confusing and unmaintainable.
One of the things that confuses me about tidy feedback loops is that there is no mechanism for their reversal. If the factors that cause increased heat amplify themselves, why hasn't the planet died out from such a runaway loop? Because there are important variables and inputs outside the simplified scope of consideration.
I freely admit I have no idea how well validated their model is. It may be the shit, but it's tackling a formidible set of dynamics. There's nothing wrong with this (that's just science), but it is a bit less than quiet objectivity telling the mass media that X is going to happen. Epidemiologists seem more valid to argue that the H5N1 virus will wipe out a third of the globe (which some have done). Both are suggested by the evidence, but neither are as well documented outcomes as smoking or eating salmonella.
The media loves to seize on scare stories, however, because the public respond to it, so anyone who wants to have their study reported has to punch it up. As other posters have mentioned, each subsequent "boo!" headline desensitizes them to the message.
Part of the message, as I understand it, is that things are already bad, and getting worse. This state of affairs should lead people to activism without reminder. If people were suffering, they would react. Absent current intensity of the problem, one is left convincing people that things will get worse, and relatively soon, because most people aren't motivated by hazy, future problems. Much like it took rising gas prices for people to reconsider their fuel usage, it will take some tangible pain before people do anything about CO2 emissions.
I'll be curious to see what the world is really like in 30 years. I imagine that there will be some warming, with minimal, local effects on overall populations. People will adapt. There will continue to be wars and starvation in various places, and fingers will point in varied directions about it.
Now, if the avian flu people are right, egh...Oh the horror.
Andromeda smashing into the Milky Way
"The coming ice age!" --1975
"Acid rain so bad children won't be able to play outside" --1980
"The hole in the ozone is ONLY getting worse!" --1990
"Bird Flu is the coming pandemic!" --2005
"The debate over Global Warming is over!" --2006
Don't worry about the planet, folks- it'll take care of itself until the nukes roll out, and anything it does, we can't change anyway. Just ask yourself which political party has been behind each of the claims above.
(Think before you vote)
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
and, dammit, where's my Water World?!
Homosapien produce far far more than 18% of the CO2-- we need have less of them!
Seriously, the ways mankind handles livestock is the big problem. The green way will reduce the number of livestock we can have, since we are already too far-- but there are more and more humans who want to eat meat.
I think its unfair comparison with transportation, the numbers do not include the whole end-to-end chain: build, maintain, fuel, disposal, roads, parts.
How about some human population control?
The solution is not to eat less meat, its to stop making more meat than is environmentally sound; if you want cheaper meat lower demand by cutting the population.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
If you search this site, you'll find a post I made years ago predicting this would happen.
I am a genius.
I'm not bragging, I'm just stating facts.
Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
First of all, the worst (worst) movie ever is probably "Manos: The Hands of Fate". The worst (entertaining) movie is generally considered to be "Plan 9 from Outer Space." Gigli isn't even in the bottom 25.
Second of all, I thought The Day After Tomorrow wasn't that bad once you accepted the premise. (And really, the premise wasn't any harder to swallow than 'space empires fighting rebels a long time ago far away'.) The scene with the timber wolves in the frozen Russian cargo ship outside the New York Public Library was almost surreal, and I enjoyed it.
Comment of the year
I have no desire to visit a site where:
- Zonk is involved in any way.
- The managing editors see nothing wrong with the level of bias shown in Zonk's article selection.
I don't watch FoxNews because I'm not interested in only hearing one side of every story. Now I don't read Slashdot for that very same reason. That, my friends, is fucking sad.note: the only reason I noticed this article is because it's linked from antislash.
What is this 'Florida' you speak of?
O.K. so Arctic is loosing ice.
Good. The same happened some 800 years ago, the so called medival-warm-period. It was time of prosperity for europe, and it lasted about 200 years, ending with the chill that is easily seen on paintings of Bruegel (paintings like Winter Landscape with a Bird Trap, but more famous are Peasant wedding and The Tower of Babel) and in literature and so on. In that time, there were no industry or cars to produce changes in the climate, only our sun could do that.
Don't let the fud get in the way of thinking. There will bee nice weather in Siberia, and a water pathways will open between USA and Russia. After all, chinese medival navigators have found no ice around north pole what is documented, but ignored. Visiting of the north pole will be done on sea, and Greenland will finally be green!
I am just wondering, will I have time to see that.
Doing a good job is like spilling coffee on a dark suit, you feel warm all over, but nobody notices.
You know why? Because all the permafrost melting in the Russian "wasteland" permits exploitation of massive reserves of mineral deposits and hydrocarbons. Always watch the money: there is a SHITLOAD to be made out of controlling these natural resources, and mankind does, if one thing is sure in this world, exploit just about any damned thing it can, to the extent of its own demise.
Because admitting we need to be careful is the first step to admitting there is a real problem, and if there's a real problem we all have to face some very uncomfortable changes. Much easier just to ignore it and carry on.
For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert. - Arthur C. Clarke
5 billion is less than a trillion. Ergo, the sun is going to explode in the next trillion years.
Goten Xiao
And, of course, it MAY NOT.
So what?
Well, there goes the neighbourhood, any idea what the effects of all that fresh water would be on the oceans? Desaltation could be a problem no?
If plankton needs salt to survive, and the amount of salt drops due to the increase of fresh water, then that might distrupt quite a big foodchain....
People, the danger isn't that the climate gets warmer, the problem is the effects this will have on the biological lifeforms on this rock in space.
I've always wanted to live on the beach, but Colorado doesn't have many. But now I'll be able to have a nice beachfront retirement home without moving to Florida. Thanks, global warming!
As many have already summarized, I would like to suggest you to stop trolling about global warming.
In other words it may not.
Use hovercraft - buy these from Brits, they don't have use for them any more, after they have finished the underchannel tunnel.
Santa already has a deal in the works with the Norwegians. By 2040 he'll be able to launch enough reindeer to keep up with increased demands from US marketing firms.
"My overconfident [pseudo]scientiest is smarter than your overconfident [pseudo]scientiest - nyeah!"
They always thought the latter, they just cannot hide it in ignorance anymore. It is just that they had no solution back then and still have no solution today. There are other serious reasons for this that goes beyond simple greed. None is THAT blind to think that they are futureproof, not even oil companies.
Reason #1: Our unwillingness.
If "powers that be" haven't had "flowing with the stream", there was imminent danger of global instability and "Mad Max"-like demise of the civilization as we know it. We had a glimpse of how it would look in the beginning during the great oil crisis in 1970's. Going with global warming seems to be a sentient choice, based on given scenarios' outcomes. They have chosen (for us) to adapt to whatever comes not sooner then they(we) are made to, rather then to adapt in advance to "sustainable" life, which may come out as "not enough" in the end. What would people do if you don't supply them with fuel because "there is not enough for everybody"? There would be series of change of governments until there is one that would give in and let people drive their cars till doomsday. Take Brazil: they need Amazon rain forest as much as the rest of us and some more, but they have political pressure from their citizens to allow slash-and-burn irreparable deforestation. For their government, not giving in may mean death sentencing without conviction a lot of people, either killing quite a lot of them off by security forces defending forests or letting them die of hunger, diseases and alcohol and drugs addiction - the three plagues of the poor. Not being in their skin, most of you would probably say "Finish them of. We are all going to die because of them!". Well, in either case they don't want to be FIRST to die, just like none of us wants to. You see, not having your SUV to drive may kill you sooner then global warming - i.e. by not being able to evacuate if need be, not being able to get medical help on time, not being able to walk miles in blizzard to the mall to buy food... speaking of food, what would happen if those agricultural machines didn't get their fuel this year?
Reason #2: Perhaps there is no morally acceptable solution.
In worst case, perhaps the awful truth is most of us (make no mistake... people in third world are not that much of the problem... and they regulate their number "naturally" - i.e. dying of hunger and diseases, there is OTOH too much of middle and lower class consumers who do the main damage to the planet while being too unlikely to drop spoon) will have to die because there is too much of us on Earth already? Then, if you see you are going to lose, why not lose later? In the meantime, some miracle may happen and save you, i.e. there is always hope that some discovery may solve the present problems. Even if salvation never comes, at least none has to pick who lives and who dies (we'll sort it out individually in dire straits as always before... ). So we go ahead merrily and see what happens, who gets picked by the grim reaper.
Reason #3: Things may worsen fast, soon instead of slow, later
Any change we want to make now in our way of living is "too little too late". Paradox is, perhaps it was already so as long time ago as back in 1930s/1940s, when we had more grave danger before us to think about. War didn't just brought us "inventions useful in peace time", it shaped our way of living with them. You can't have completely separate industries for war and peace. War technologies have to be "on standby" during times of peace, not turned off completely. Therefore, what goes in war, determines what we use in peace and vice versa, what we have at hand as civilians is ruggedized and adapted for military use. WWII killed cavalry and have shown limitations of railroads, made star from IC engines and petroleum which are still "indispen
I have been labled as a troll in the past for daring to suggest that all these junk scientists would never create scary situations that need to be studied in order to get funding. I went ahead this time and created a trail. The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) gets its funding from teh federally funded National Science Foundation (NSF). The link here http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/piSearch.do;jsessio nid=83F4C1F20457F86AF555A5B06DE33BB5?SearchType=pi Search&page=1&QueryText=NCAR&PIFirstName=&PILastNa me=&PIInstitution=&PIState=&PIZip=&PICountry=&Sear ch=Search#results
Shows a list of all of the grants the NCAR has received from the NSF. This one in particular: http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardN umber=0612388 Shows that they got a half million dollars to come up with this scare. $436200.00 to be exact. Agencies like this must be funded in order to stay in existence. In order to get funded, they must create a need. What better need that the the whole North Pole melting! The truth is, we have not been collecting data long enough to know what normal is as far as greenhouse gasses or the temperature of the earth. The Climate is going to do what it is going to do. Why waste millions of dollars of taxpayers money to come up with unsubstantiated scares created just to get more funding.
Back then it was a very small minority of scientists making that claim, with very little scientific evidence. The media blew it out of proportion.
Just like today's Global Warming Alarmists.
Every scientistic [sic] agrees, there is tons of evidence, and the only dissenting opinions are those of paid shills.
Absolutely NOT TRUE.
First of all, "every scientistic" does NOT agree (though you haven't stated just what it is that they agree on, I'll assume you're talking about Anthropogenic Global Warming). In fact, the majority do NOT agree.
Second, whether or not they agree is irrelevant. The phrase "scientific consensus" is just as much an oxymoron as "creation science": if there's a consensus, it's not scientific. If it's scientific, it doesn't involve consensus.
Third, the claim that "the only dissenting opinions are those of paid shills" is not only irresponsible, but blatantly offensive. Do you honestly think that by attacking the integrity of any scientist who has ever been paid for zir work, that you can discredit ALL of zir research?
Guess what? The only concurring opinions are ALSO those of paid shills. People don't do scientific research for free. SOMEONE PAYS THEM, all of them.
This kind of ad-hominem attack against any researcher who dissents from the Official Line is one of the most disgusting parts of the whole global warming controversy. As if you can discredit someone's work, no matter how well done, because of who paid for the research.
You are a fool of the first order.
In times of universal deceit, telling the truth gets you modded -1 Troll
"you are prediciting Global Climate Change then ?"
Yes. Like all the other "warm" and "cold" periods that happened long before man stepped up to plate. You believe in OLD EARTH right? Millions of years of warming and cooling, followed by more years of warming and cooling. Some of which happened without MAN involved what-so-ever.
It is only man's ego that thinks he has ANY control over this process.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
just as we laugh at the "global cooling" of the 1970s where scientists actually recommended melting the polar ice caps!
Have you got a link to these "scientists" recommendations? Or are you just full of shit again?
So you agree that the world is warming up and that Global Climate Change is now happenening you just disagree that man is wholly responsible for this ?
You will agree that greenhouse gases must contribute to the Global Climate Change you're predicting so no doubt you will have been one of the first to advocate reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
I expected my rant to get an offtopic, but redundant? Hmph. Are the moderators even trying any more?
Okay, you've mentioned ONE.
But you said They are the same "scientists" who were so prominently skeptical about the "inconclusive" science behind smoking being harmful. Plural.
You still have several dozen people to go.
"will lie in order to persuade someone"
I am not trying to persuade you. I assumed you were the typical head in the sand dumbass, in which case nothing would persuade you. If you wanted to know the truth you would already have found it.
The point is that you were lying.
And the reality is that I DO want to know the truth, which is why I was able to find it. Go ahead, do the research. You'll find out that I'm right and you're wrong.
In times of universal deceit, telling the truth gets you modded -1 Troll
Those poor oil companies, I can't imagine how they can afford to pay anyone for anything. I mean seriously, how could the most profitable corporation in the world afford to pay people to do marketing for them,
That's not the point, and you know it. The point is that there are simply too many global warming skeptics in the atmospheric science community for the oil companies to pay them all off.
You didn't seriously just put Fred Singer in that list did you? The guy who was a senior fellow with AdTI, the known shills who will make any study to show anything you want if you pay them? The one who was the chief reviewer of their report "Science, economics, and environmental policy: a critical examination", which called the mountains of evidence linking smoking to lung cancer "junk science" and attacked anyone and everyone involved in trying to pass laws regulating tobacco? The man who is a researcher with the "independant institute" that is funded by philip morris and exxon?
Yes, I did seriously just put Fred Singer in the list. I had to research your claims before answering (something you obviously did not do) so it took me a while to respond.
Now let's deal with FACTS, shall we?
The guy who was a senior fellow with AdTI, the known shills who will make any study to show anything you want if you pay them?
Uh-huh. In 1994. TWELVE years ago. What AdTI has done to sully their reputation in the last 2-4 years (basically corresponding with the beginning of their Micro$oft funding) does not affect what happened twelve years ago.
The one who was the chief reviewer of their report "Science, economics, and environmental policy: a critical examination..."
Yes, the same one.
I see that you've never actually read the report. I suggest you do. [Hint: you're lying about what it says]
The man who is a researcher with the "independant [sic] institute" that is funded by philip morris and exxon?
What's your point? Does doing science that was paid for by someone that YOU don't like automatically make one a moral failure or something? How about all of the researchers that have been funded by radical Left-wing extremist groups? What about all of the researchers that were funded by the U.S. Government when Al Gore was controlling the purse strings? Why don't any of THEM ever show up on your radar? Hmmm?
All you've done is a pathetic attempt to smear the reputation of a fine, well-respected scientist. Which is, sadly, the modus operandi of the entire Global Warming Alarmist movement.
When you don't have the facts on your side (which the environmental movement never does), then smear your opponents. What a nice bunch of people we're dealing with here. And rational, too!
In times of universal deceit, telling the truth gets you modded -1 Troll
typical density of seawater, from wikipedia, is rho_s ~ 1025 kg/m^3. the density of fresh water is rho_w = 1000 kg/m^3. the density of frozen fresh water (ice) is rho_i = 917 kg/m^3 at 0C.
take any typical floating iceberg made out of fresh water, say it's volume is V_i. so, the iceberg's mass is rho_i V_i and it's weight is g rho_i V_i, where g is the acceleration from gravity (9.8m/s^2).
iceberg floats because it's weight can be offset by displacing a less volume of seawater. in fact, the volume of seawater displaced, V_s, is given by g rho_i V_i = g rho_s V_s, or simply V_s = rho_i V_i / rho_s = (917 / 1025) V_i.
when the iceberg completely melts, its mass (not it's volume) is conserved, so the volume of the melted iceberg, V_w, is given by rho_w V_w = rho_i V_i, or simply V_w = rho_i V_i / rho_w = (917 / 1000) V_i.
we see that while the volume of the melted iceberg is less than the volume of the iceberg, it's more than the originally displaced seawater needed to float it. in fact, the extra volume (which is directly proportional to the change of sea level) is given by rho_i / rho_w - rho_i / rho_s = rho_i ( rho_s - rho_w) / (rho_s rho_w) per unit of volume iceberg, or simply 0.0224 V_i.
we also note that if the iceberg is actually frozen seawater, then regardless of the density of the frozen seawater, rho_w is replaced by the rho_s and hence is no change in sealevel.
ice resting on land (not floating) an additional volume to the sea is given directly by (rho_i / rho_w) V_i = (917 / 1000) V_i = 0.917 V_i, where V_i is, again, the volume of ice melted (though not an iceberg this time)