Slashdot Mirror
Newly Discovered Meltwater Streams Flow Beneath the Antarctic Ice Sheet
The Telegraph reports that previously undetected streams of meltwater have been observed beneath the Antarctic ice sheet. "The streams of water, some of which are 250m in height and stretch for hundreds of kilometres, could be destabilising parts of the Antarctic ice shelf immediately around them and speeding up melting, researchers said.
However, they added that it remains unclear how the localised effects of the channels will impact on the future of the floating ice sheet as a whole. The British researchers used satellite images and radar data to measure variations in the height of the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf in West Antarctica, which reveal how thick the ice is." The paper itself is paywalled, but the abstract is available online.
"newly discovered" != "new". Those streams may have been there for millions of years. They certainly were there when the continent was free of ice.
I know, the correlation/causation comment will come up, but you would never know the water temperature unless you got in the water and feel it for yourself over 2-3 decades of actually being in the water and knowing when to get in. I wouldn't call 250metres a stream, but other noticable thing is the way the weather has changed from a smooth transition to summer where it gradually got hotter to bursts of weather change where you will suddenly get days of really warm weather in winter and then back to cold and visa versa in summer.
I regularly goes for a swim or a surf on the east coast of Australia and for the last decade years the water has been really cold during seasons where I used to notice it was pretty warm. It has altered my whole habit of surfing. I used to go into the water around September and now it's late October. I love the waves but the goolie shock is just to severe. My mates would say the same thing and often the comment 'at least we know where the ice caps are melting to' would come up.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Well, if it's increasing in surface area, but decreasing in mass, that would be a problem.
I think the concern they're trying to address is the same as one of the arctic ice concerns.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outburst_flood
I'm not saying that it's possible, or even probable. It's just an example of what destabilized polar ice can do. There's a whole lot of mass there.
Remember, the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami was caused by a 1,000 mile long rift shifting by 50 feet over a few minutes. If a sufficiently sized chunk (or chunks) of ice moved enough, there could be catastrophic effects for boating and coastal areas.
The long-term sea-level rise will be slow, and civilization will change around it. The short term effects of such events can be fast and catastrophic.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
This. God, please, someone mod that up.
You can't just assert that all Republicans are automatically wrong by virtue of being Republican, nor can you belittle those with whom you disagree by asserting some sort of rusticity implying a failure to grasp reality, if you want to effect any change in America. You have to present arguments that support your points and provide others that refute your opponents' points, and most importantly, you have to do so in a way that your audience understands and finds credible.
One of the principal points of good rhetorical training is to understand that, if you fail to convince your audience, it's not your audience's fault: it's yours. If they aren't listening, you aren't presenting your arguments in a credible fashion. If your audience is poisoned against you by those who call your data into question, you need to find a better way of demonstrating your position; try describing the methods more comprehensibly and illustrating them in vivid detail and ways that make sense to them. Use rhetoric: your opponents are, and they've apparently kicked your ass enough that half the country doesn't believe you despite the evidence you have (and that you didn't explain well enough).
The biggest mistake the left makes is assuming that the right is uneducated. They are not uneducated: don't think that the Republicans don't go to college. They are educated differently, and they often are well-educated in rhetoric, law, and business. The left gets a different education, and the scientific left dwells in clouds of numbers and graphs while the right kicks their ass on the ground amidst the plebs. They argue cases and sell products. They preach. Boy, do they preach. They know how to convince, which is why you see so many demagogues on the right (talk radio, op-eds, and TV talk shows being great examples). If anything, they're better at speaking than the left (probably why they mock Obama for his teleprompter use, or OWS members for their total failure to say anything comprehensible). Really, the right is just better at explaining, in terms that everyone can understand, what they think.
The people who automatically assume that anyone who doesn't buy a story because he is irrevocably lost or stupid -- those people are not going to win a fight no matter how much data they have. It's not enough to do research: research is a tool that an orator can use, but only one among many. Curling up into the fetal position and blaming your audience is not one of those tools.
It's common knowledge that, unlike the arctic, Antarctic ice has been increasing.
As is often the case this common knowledge is actually a common misconception. While the sea ice is increasing, the land ice is shedding mass at an accelerating rate. Since the sea ice is already in the sea, it does not affect sea levels at all. Thawing land ice does increase sea levels, since it introduces water to the sea that used to sit on land.
The mean annual surface air temperature of the Antarctic interior is -57C. Surface melt refreezes rather promptly. But ice is great insulation, and geothermal energy comes up from the Earth to melt the bottom of the ice sheet. This meltwater flows in streams and rivers across the world's largest continent until it becomes the world's largest rivers, inevitably finding the sea. This should be obvious.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Fat cat scientists? Are you a fucking idiot? Check out the fat cats around the world - multilmillionaires, billionaires.
Bill Gates - computer scientist or businessman?
Businessman.
John Key, prime minister of New Zealand - scientist, or businessman?
Businessman.
Obama - scientist?
In fact, if you could list the scientists who are "fat cat" millioniares, I'd quite appreciate it. I'm waiting....
No. But you're not trying to convince "the universe" to start spending out enormous quantities of money to "solve" a "problem".
You're trying to convince other people, some of whom may disagree with your position. And overtly acting or implying that they're morons tends to make it quite difficult to open their purse strings. Even in the face of potential disaster.
Remember, this is science, not math. Climate change is not as simple and straightforward a proof as "1+1=2".
As such, a modicum of eloquence is required.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
The extent of sea ice during the winter seems to be growing, but the total MASS of ice, sea and land, continues to shrink. You're the propagandist.
15 years of no warming despite CO2 emissions continuing
Convenient use of a record high as your starting point. Care to redo your calculations with any other window? Maybe, say, a 20 year window? Or even a 10 year window? What about a 12 year window?
greatly increased Arctic Ice coverage,
[Citation needed] and [Confusing a rebound from a historic low to slightly less historic lows with an increase over average].
increasing Antarctic ice thickness
[Confusing weather with climate] and [Lack of understanding of ice formation]
increasing Antarctic sea ice coverage
[Cherry-picking specific regional ice data points] and [Mistaking surface for volume].
no observed retreat in Himalayan glaciers
[More reading needed]. See also http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v4/n3/abs/ngeo1068.html
I'm just the guy who has been making physical chemistry arguments that show that CO2 has no net effect on the heat capacity of the atmosphere for the last few years
... which has nothing to do with the problem of CO2 trapping IR, or with why the atmosphere is heating up.
arguing instead that what warming we saw was from increased water vapor emissions, which maintain a tight equilibria with their rate of emissions
Water vapor cannot drive long-term heating. A single cold-spell will remove water vapor from the air, which will reduce temperatures, which will remove more water from the air.... Water vapor is the result of warming, not a forcing.
thus the lost decade global growth lead to a lost decade of warming
The global economy was working in overdrive until 2000-2001, and again from 2005 to 2008. Your own data calls you a liar.
bringing AGW idiots to take because they are ignoring the real threat from CO2--ocean acidification and the collapse of already overstressed fisheries.
I'm glad you'll find that all kinds of scientists, but especially marine biologists and oceanographers would love your help in spreading message. Care to sign up maybe with an organization like NOAA or the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute?
But hey, let's all ignore physics
Says the guy who mistakes anecdotes for data, cherry-picks his time frames, misunderstands the overall and problem and thinks that he has a better understanding of physics than Physicists.
Tell you what, write a paper about your insights, and if you're right, the Nobel prize in a few areas is yours. How is that for an incentive to go show up all the AGW believers? You'll be right up there with Galileo, Kopernicus, Pasteur, and a few other up-enders of the consensus.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.