Slashdot Mirror
Huge Freshwater Bulge In Arctic Ocean
New submitter turkeyfish writes "UK scientists are reporting today in the journal Nature Geoscience that a huge bulge of freshwater is forming in the Western Arctic Ocean caused by a large gyre of freshwater. The gyre appears to indicate that the ice is becoming thin enough over the Arctic Ocean that the wind is beginning to affect the motion of water under the ice. A sudden release of this water or its emergence to the surface will greatly accelerate the melting of the remaining polar oceanic ice and likely alter oceanic circulation in the North Atlantic."
Will liberals stop at nothing to destroy the American Way of Life?
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
Melting sea ice won't lead to a significant increase in ocean levels, it's the land ice you have to worry about.
No, that is not the question.
The question is, what could happen, how likely is it, and how would it affect us.
I don't know if you are being a denier, but I'm now getting more tired of hearing from the "I don't have to care if it's Nature" crowd as I am from the "Oh no we are hurting Gaia, humans deserve to die out" crowd.
Why can't we all agree that shit is happening and we should investigate what to do about it?
-- Braden's law of data: All data spends some of its lifetime in an excel spreadsheet.
Read more about the thermo-haline cycle on Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermohaline_circulation.
I'll only start worrying if this gyre starts to gimble in the wabe.
Well, not yet, and that's from somebody who thinks that anthropogenic climate change is probably a true hypothesis.
For one thing the thinning or melting of sea ice itself has no direct effect on sea level -- just like melting ice cubes don't change the level of water in a glass. The picture the article paints is far more complex. In a nutshell, thinning Arctic ice may allow winds to mix colder surface water with warmer deep water. This would cause more ice thinning faster than changes in the atmosphere (if any) could drive change. Any effect on sea level would be indirect.
What I'm much more concerned with is human responses to this development -- or rather *political* responses. Russia is making territorial claims in the Arctic Ocean based on some creative interpretation of international law, because they think that climate change may open the Arctic to resource exploration. If they find oil up there, there could be a polar conflict between Russia the US and strained relations between Canada and the US.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I don't even need to read the article to recognize the flaw in your thinking.
Wind blows water in the parts of the ocean not covered by ice. That water pushes on other water, which is under ice. Tada! Wind affects water under the ice, no magic required!
It is the breaking of the well established currents.
More water in the system will destroy some of the well established ocean currents that drives the weather on the planet and have caused some stability for the last 15000 years or so.
Wealth will be measured using much different metrics.
Like how many canoes you own.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Ice occupies more space than water. Melting of sea ice results in a drop in ocean levels, not an increase. only melting of land based ice results in a rise in sea levels.
But ice also floats on water. If you have ice floating in a glass of water, and the ice melts, the level of liquid stays the same.
But salty water is more buoyant than freshwater! So the icebergs would sit a tad lower as the salinity of the water decreases.
But TFA says it's mostly caused by the wind gyre that sucks everything up with a low pressure system. And the main effect has nothing to do with rise or fall of ocean levels, but with ocean currents that keep the North Atlantic relatively warm, but could plunge it into an ice age if the currents reversed (as was the case during the last ice age). Fun and amazing stuff.
What happened in that movie was that the resulting super hurricane created an enormous low pressure cell which pulled extremely low temperature upper atmospheric air down to the surface.
This does not seem to contradict some observed "fossil" data, which shows mammoths frozen solid with food in their mouths. (Sorry, can't find a suitable citation. Most reports of this finding are from old field journals in the 1600s to 1800s.)
(Word 'fossil' in quotes, since subjects are not actually fossils, but chryopreserved corpses.)
I don't know if a reversal of the north atlantic current would do what was depicted in that movie, but there is evidence of previous cataclysmic and sudden climatological events in earth's history.
Personally, I prefer to think that if anthopogenic co2 is not responsible, it certainly can't be helping things any given what we do know. Eg, if you are genetically type 1 diabetic, eating super fatty foods and becoming obiese doesn't help you very much, and can compound the problem. (Because then you get type 2 on top of the type 1.)
We can control the amount of co2 that mankind releases, and not so much what nature releases with volcanism, etc. As such, if we are to try to mitigate the problem, anthropogenic sources are the first target of interest regardless of ideological position on the matter. (Unless you choose to ignore over a century's worth of scientific inquiry into the greenhouse gas nature of that particular compound.....) limiting and attempting marked reductions in such emissions would undeniably be a good thing, in terms of postponing a hypothetical carbon dioxide cascade scenario from occuring. (The arguments over source just limits how effective such measures might prove to be. If most of the problem is anthropogenic, such reduction could postpone indefinately, and if the bulk is natural, we might just stave if off a few decades. Something to consider when chosing to blame nature for this problem, as the implication is far more dire in the long term. Regardlss, limiting the rate using the variable we *can* control is simply a good idea, given the currently available information.)
I can't think of any other potential driving factor for such extreme climate changes without including major greenhouse gasses, such as co2, methane, and water vapor.
The cessation of the north atlantic current would deffinately change the weather in europe and north america, since warm, moisture rich air wouldn't get pushed to europe (europe would get much colder and drier) and cold, nutrient rich north ocean water wouldn't make its way into the caribbean, greatly impacting the food chain in that region, among other things.
The impact on climate, though, is dependant upon how long the current is suspended, the outcomes of snowfall in suddenly much chillier areas altering wind patterns, and the amount of water vapor staying in the atmosphere from equatorial regions taking over/enhancing the effects of co2 levels.
I don't know if the cessation of the NA Current would initiate a chain reaction or not, but it certainly would decimate many human industries, ranging from fishing to farming. That alone makes it a "bad thing" worth worrying about.
Right. The Greenland glaciers melting may be bad. Now, would you so kindly tell me how a fresh water plume will affect glaciers ON LAND?
noone would need to tell you what will result when that happens - if you had used your brain to think this more than just 2-3 seconds.
freshwater plume forming means that there is some source that is supplying that freshwater. freshwater, therefore, will grow unless the current trend changes. and when it grows, it is going to affect EVERYthing in that ecosystem. especially arctic is populated and dependent on endless plankton that would not take the transition from salt water to fresh water well. ALL of these creatures and the higher ones are parts of the climate there with their activity and byproducts. and when the sea gets affected with that ecosystem change, it will also affect the land microclimate.
Finally, I thought it was CO2 from our SUV's and coal fired plants causing glaciers to melt. Now it's fresh water?
so, in light of the above, just stop posing funky statements without thinking for a few seconds.
there is no easily detectable dynamic of CLIMATE CHANGE. the climate, will change with average global warming. other than the measurable average global warming of a mere 1-3 degrees - which is so pathetic a difference in daily life that you would not feel it by the way - it is a totally chaotic system ; because the average 1-3 degrees worldwide is the result of all temperature averages averaged worldwide - from minus 50s to high 50s.
there is no telling what will happen to your microclimate in your locale as the globe warms up on average. you may remain unaffected, or get hit by freak weather or conditions.
Read radical news here
Climate change is real, global warming is real and the cause for this is real. This has been established by practically all scientists in the field. Denying it is as futile and idiotic as the few that still refute the theory of evolution based on their personal religious or political ideas.
Just curious... Can you tell me how many of these scientists predicted a fresh water plume, stirred by iceberg moved by high winds, would cause more ice to melt? I can't seem to find that prediction anywhere. I did, however find that high winds will cause the water to cool quicker via evaporation, which should have fixed that pesky iceberg problem, made the water saltier, thereby fixing that overabundance of fresh water problem that started this whole discussion. That was on the Wiki page for Thermohaline circulation. It says, "Wind moving over the water also produces a great deal of evaporation, leading to a decrease in temperature, called evaporative cooling. Evaporation removes only water molecules, resulting in an increase in the salinity of the seawater left behind, and thus an increase in the density of the water mass. In the Norwegian Sea evaporative cooling is predominant, and the sinking water mass, the North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW), fills the basin and spills southwards through crevasses in the submarine sills that connect Greenland, Iceland and Great Britain. It then flows very slowly into the deep abyssal plains of the Atlantic, always in a southerly direction."
Also, is CO2 the only gas stored under glaciers? I mean, if the atmospheric CO2 concentration at the time the glaciers formed was so high that releasing a fraction of that gas would be enough to heat the world... wouldn't the planet have been too hot to form these glaciers in the first place?
I'm not trying to be smart ass, but if you don't question, you never learn. And you never EVER give up your freedom of the word of someone else without at least asking a few questions and pointing out gaping logical holes.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/earth/geophysics/question473.htm
The main ice covered landmass is Antarctica at the South Pole, with about 90 percent of the world's ice (and 70 percent of its fresh water). Antarctica is covered with ice an average of 2,133 meters (7,000 feet) thick. If all of the Antarctic ice melted, sea levels around the world would rise about 61 meters (200 feet). But the average temperature in Antarctica is -37ÂC, so the ice there is in no danger of melting. In fact in most parts of the continent it never gets above freezing.
At the other end of the world, the North Pole, the ice is not nearly as thick as at the South Pole. The ice floats on the Arctic Ocean. If it melted sea levels would not be affecteÂd.
There is a significant amount of ice covering Greenland, which would add another 7 meters (20 feet) to the oceans if it melted. Because Greenland is closer to the equator than Antarctica, the temperatures there are higher, so the ice is more likely to melt.
The numbers here are likely to be more accurate:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg2/en/spmsspm-c-15-magnitudes-of.html
The complete melting of the Greenland ice sheet and the West Antarctic ice sheet would lead to a contribution to sea-level rise of up to 7 m and about 5 m, respectively [Working Group I Fourth Assessment 6.4, 10.7; Working Group II Fourth Assessment 19.3].
Yet another source: http://nsidc.org/cryosphere/sotc/sea_level.html
Antarctica and Greenland, the world's largest ice sheets, make up the vast majority of the Earth's ice. If these ice sheets melted entirely, sea level would rise by more than 70 meters.
Your move. Let's see what asshole you pulled this "not more than a foot" number from.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
The fact that there was someone there to look at the formation of the plume means that it is not entirely unexpected, as in "someone got their project funded, and thus made a reasonable case for it".
Of course this would be found/discussed in fairly technical papers. If you trust journalists to do science reporting right, I have a bridge on the Moon to sell.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0924796395000062 for example dates from 16 years ago.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1034/j.1600-0889.2001.530504.x/abstract is from 11
years ago and directly related. Hint: sciencedirect or google scholar are a better way to get scientific information/papers than plain google.
Predictions are rarely that specific. They're not going to tell you that's there's a fresh water "plume" as TFA so indicates. What predictions do is give you trends, and the effect of these trends on the overall system. The predicted effects are also not specific, but instead the prediction of more trends.
Reality is a little different. There's a lot of noise in the system. The variances of what happens and is expected to happen can be extreme. But the average--the predicted trend--will remain barring unaccounted for variables that may make things much worse or much better. This plume may be a part of the trend. Or it may be one such deviation from the system. Or it could be an unaccounted for variable that's about to accelerate the glacial melt timeline significantly.
Only time will tell whether the initial predictions still hold after this. And if the data doesn't support it, it will be revised. But I can't imagine that 20+ years worth of data supporting the predicted trend will be outright reversed by one event. To even fancy such a notion so would be wishful thinking indeed. More likely, things will either get a little better, or a little worse.
Of course, there actually is a point of no return that we are quickly approaching, and even if things go better than expected for us and the predictions are on the high side, we'll still end up there if we don't change our lifestyles. There's a huge amount of methane stored in the Siberian tundra. Methane is a much worse greenhouse gas than CO2. It's a missile compared to the bullet that the trapped CO2 in glacial ice would be. As the tundra begins to defrost, methane gets released into the atmosphere. When the climate reaches the point where the permafrost is no longer permanent, no amount of CO2 emissions cuts will be able to prevent the sudden release of greenhouse gas into the environment. And at that point, everyone might as well start staking their turf on high ground.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
If all of the ice on Greenland and Antarctica (and other lesser ice caps) were to melt it would cause a bit over 200 feet (~65 meters) of sea level rise. However, it would take thousands of years for all of that ice to melt The ice on Antarctica averages ~7,000 feet in depth and it's up to ~12,000 feet in places so it won't melt that fast at any temperature that still supports humans living on the Earth. Current estimates for sea level rise by 2100 are in the 3-6 foot range. 20 feet above the current level isn't inconceivable in 2200.
Regarding what it would take to melt all of it, a paper out recently said that the big ice sheets started to form when CO2 levels dropped below 700 ppmv maybe 30 million years ago. We are currently at ~390 ppmv, up from 280 ppmv in 1830 and ~320 in 1960. At the current rate we would hit 700 ppmv in less than 200 years.
(Undoing moderation to post this)
IPCC 3 WGI Chap 11 Table 11.3 estimates a 61m sea-level rise if all of Antarctica melts, and 7m from Greenland. This could take 1500 years, though other factors like lubrication might speed this.
It's also worth noting that sea levels have already risen 120m since the last glacial maximum.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Not to be a total dick, but they weren't telling you that "sky is falling" as you are pretending. At least not the credible sources.
They were telling you, and everyone else who listened that this is a self-feeding accelerating process with a known effect in the end however. So when you see evidence that supports the claim like the OP, it gets harder and harder to claim ignorance. Other then by using strawman argument, like you did.
Of course, given the modern trend of "give me everything now, fuck the future", who really cares?
Except Gore never lied about inventing the internet.
You're right, of course -- but the denialist side wins the argument anyway, because now we're no longer discussing global warming, we're discussing a politician's history and alleged misdeeds instead. Any discussion that ends up on a completely different topic counts as a tie, and ties count as a win for the status quo.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
I'm not a climatologist so take this with a grain of salt. First off the models are VERY complex and there are subtle interactions arising here and there that weren't predicted in any of them. Then again you don't need to know your skin will brown in the oven to figure out that staying in it just might be bad. The data is in and the consensus is rather clear from what I've read. Exactly how things will happen is still being debated but we can already see the effects: extreme famine in Africa, increase in severity of storms in the southern U.S. and Caribbean, high heat summers in Europe (that kill a fair number of people). Personally, I see it in a simple way:
1. Climate change will be as bad or worse than predicted and we do nothing - basically we create our own nasty future and the next generations get our mess dropped in their lap and who knows we just might even wipe out our own species but hey at least we got that new ipad.
2. Climate change is not as bad as we think and we over-react in moving to a more localized and carbon neutral economy - this MAY create a short to medium term financial constriction for the time we are doing it but when the change has been made it most likely will increase the productive capacity since there will be less waste and more efficient energy usage as a result.
I really have a hard time seeing terrible fallout from this in the long term unless of course you happen to be an oil company.
You mention that you are giving up your freedoms to the government to battle climate change. What freedom exactly are you giving up? To be honest I've seen a lot of freedoms in the U.S. given up to "keep us safe from terrorism" which seems a side effect of the U.S. middle east policy. It sure seems to me that if we didn't need oil from the middle east tensions would most likely decrease there and maybe, just maybe we can get some freedoms back (say like the freedom to go through an airport with dignity in tact and without your wife/mother/daughter getting molested or the freedom to not be arrested without warrant and tossed in some foreign prison, you know things like that). Climate change would most likely be battled through regulation on energy/transportation/other energy consuming industries. How exactly will that impinge your basic freedoms or do you have a right to cheap foreign goods?
Isn't it odd that there would be oil anywhere near the poles? It would mean that area had to have had a massive amount of plant and animal life there at some point in the past. Exactly how hot was the Earth back then?!
Two reasons -- one, land masses move. The physical rock under the poles are part of the contentinental plates that used to be near the equator, which is why there's so much oil sands in Canada. Secondly, there are two "normal" states for the Earth -- frozen (30-40% ice coverage) and hot, with conditions like you see in equatorial regions today everywhere, with no permanent ice. The reason we have ice at the poles and warm everywhere else is because right now we're in an interglacial period *in an ice age*. It is a *weird* condition, historically. Now, its entirely plausable that the "global warming" is working to keep us from slipping out of the interglacial period -- we're already significantly beyond the point where most of them appear to have ended in the past. So that's arguably a potentially good thing. Humanity spent most of its existence during the glacial periods, but the planet sure can't support 7 billion people that way.
A bigger concern is if global warming was to tip us *out* of the existing ice age. Humanity *hasn't* lived through a warm period on the Earth. In fact, large mammals in general haven't. No one is particularly sure if the planet can support *any* people that way.
But in either case, there's oil at the poles because that land was near the equator when the deposits that turned into oil were layed down.