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100-Sq.-Mile Ice Island Breaks Off Greenland Glacier
suraj.sun sends word of a 100-sq.-mile (260-sq.-km) ice island that broke off of a Greenland glacier on Thursday. "The block of ice separated from the Petermann Glacier, on the north-west coast of Greenland. It is the largest Arctic iceberg to calve since 1962... The ice could become frozen in place over winter or escape into the waters between Greenland and Canada. ... [NASA satellite] images showed that Petermann Glacier lost about one-quarter of its 70-km-long (43-mile) floating ice shelf. There was enough fresh water locked up in the ice island to 'keep all US public tap water flowing for 120 days,' said Prof Muenchow." The Montreal Gazette has more details and implications for Canadian shipping and oil exploration, along with this telling detail: "the ice island’s thickness [is] more than 200 metres in some places... [or] half the height of the Empire State Building." The NY Times has a good satellite photo of the situation.
The average temperature at the peak of the last glaciation was 8-9C colder than the modern era. In one century, the "business as usual" scenario will lead to over 5-7C warming (our current rate of rise is about 2C per century, but not only are emissions rising, but we're currently having to overcome the planet's thermal inertia).
It's not *that* the temperatures are rising that's the problem. It's the *rate* that's the problem.
"I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." - Gandhi
You have an ID that clearly shows you have been around for a long time. Yet you post such an inanely stupid comment. It's like rationalizing that while humans are directly causing thousands of species to go extinct every year (true), everything will be OK because in a few million years they will just evolve again. Do humans have life spans of 1000s of years? We each live on this planet for a finite amount of time. We now find that we are causing changes to accelerate which will cause us great challenges. Where is my arranging deckchairs on the Titanic analogy, I need it again!
Gets used here.... alot.
Arguments both for or againsts a scientific problem should be framed as defendable proofs.
We know that the top of Earth's atmosphere receives 342 watts of energy, in the form of sunlight, per square meter. Note that 107 W/m2 of this energy is reflected or scattered back into space by clouds, the atmosphere, and high-albedo features on Earth's surface. So, only 235 W/m2 (342 - 107) of energy actually make it into the atmosphere, and shines down upon us giving me women in miniskirts and the ability to grow food (both of which are....awesome)
Furthermore, we know that 67 W/m2 of the incoming energy is absorbed by the atmosphere, and another 168 W/m2 is absorbed by Earth's surface. When energy is absorbed, it raises the temperature of the substances that absorb it (the atmosphere and surface of our planet, in this case); this causes those substances to radiate away that heat in the form of IR radiation. We can all agree that these are not simply my opinions right? For those of who are are unfarmiliar, these are called facts, lets keep going.
About 390 W/m2 of IR energy starts upward from the surface, this difference being caused by longwave radiation needing an atmospheric window that does not have a lot of water vapor or gas molocules containing three or more atoms (i realize this is incomplete, i am atempting to simplify). The more of these conditions present in our atmosphere, the harder it is for longwave radiation to escape. So when we spew into the environment, and what we need to agree on is that adding vapor and GHG's to the environment increases the GW potential... right? Keep your fucking anecdotes to yourself, Using these things called facts we can see that keeping equilibrium becomes more difficult when we insist on changing the atmosphere. So don;t tell me you got two colds last year and only on this year so we are getting warmer, or that your uncle your uncles garden got frosted early thid year so we are geting colder. Or about ICEBERGS, this is an atmospheric issue, give me meaningful data about that and i will listen. Anyone who thinks that chnging the composition of our atmosphere will not result in temp change needs to back to school.
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Why is it, when this topic comes up, so many people that are on the side that says human centric global warming is a fact; tend to use the argument that anyone who does not agree with them is a right-wing gun toting SUV driving mentally crippled slack jawed idiot?
Because it's patently obvious that humans are the cause of it. It's just an absurd proposition that there is any other significant cause of climate change. Yes, you would have to be some kind a slack-jawed right-wing gun toting idiot, or equivalent, to think otherwise.
You know all this mess in the gulf that people are hysterical about? Imagine 15,000 other deep water oil leaks of the same size spread out across the oceans, and what kind of hell that would be. Because that's the amount of oil we are burning each year. The idea that burning it all instead of letting it leak makes it all but harmless is madness. Less directly harmful that letting it leak, probably, but still plenty bad.
Just being uneducated wouldn't even be enough to explain it. Take a look at yourself for instance. You "haven't made a final decision yet"? Science doesn't make "final decisions". If new facts come up, scientists change the 'decision'; there is no 'final'. The evidence is so overwhelming right now that really the only way to deny it is to un-scientifically hold out for an absolute... well we can't be 100.0% sure so reserve judgment. Mathematics and religion works on absolutes, not science. So it's not even a question of education or intelligence, it's really a question of whether you have to courage to face the facts or not.
I think really the problem is that the scale of human activity is simply too great for many people to comprehend. People that haven't ever left their own town and aren't worldly just don't have the resources or motivation or fortitude to even contemplate it. So I don't hold out much hope for society to change before it's too late. And it's not too late, yet, but we'll need massive infrastructure changes or something drastic like say a solar shield to keep anything resembling our current climate.
Why do people always talk about whether the earth will survive, or whether it has survived something like this before? Who cares about this rock. Global warming won't kill the earth; it'll be here long after humanity has gone. It doesn't matter whether earth has gone through this before, because we're not trying to save the earth. We're trying to save us.
What matters is whether the current population of humans can survive a sudden, drastic temperature increase, not whether the earth can.