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Greenland Is Getting Darker
sciencehabit (1205606) writes "Greenland's white snow is getting darker. Scientists have generally attributed that darkening to larger, slightly less white snow grains caused by warmer temperatures. But researchers have found a new source of darkening taking hold: impurities in the snow. The new darkening effect could easily add 2 centimeters to the projections of 20 cm sea level rise by 2100—and perhaps more if impurity levels grow with time."
And Leon's Getting Larrrrrrrrrrrrger
Of course they will grow. As snow melts the impurities at the top get added to the impurities deeper in the snow.
The only thing that can reduce it is if the melt water floats/washes the impurities way.
As long as China insists on NOT using their pollution controls (they built them on new plants per the treaty with japan, but japan forgot to require china to turn them on; besides as we have seen with their money, they really do not care about treaties; only winning a cold war ), this pollution will continue.
And yes, the pollution really carries that far. 10-15% of the western America's pollution is from China.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
yeah, I hate science too. They try to force evolution, vaccines and all kinds of crap on us, but it is clear to me that we two understands this much better than they do.
Maybe we should call it Brownland in a bit. Or, eventually, Blackland.
Thinking about it, if that global warming keeps going, maybe Iceland should start pondering a new name, too...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Scientists have generally attributed that darkening to larger, slightly less white snow grains caused by warmer temperatures.
Actually I cannot believe that scientists are that stupid. Maybe they should visit here in Winnipeg Canada where we see this every year from the tonnes of sand they put on our streets in the winter. As warmer temps rise the snow banks go from white piles to brown/grey mud piles and as more snow melts the darker it gets and the faster it melts.
No wonder people doubt climate change when scientists say things like this.
The only thing that can reduce it is if the melt water floats/washes the impurities way.
Actual in 90% of the time this is not the case, we get rain in the spring with the piles of mud and all it does is causes the snow pack to compress more (unless the snow pack is already compressed).
Try looking up albedo, then performing some calculations to figure out how changes in the albedo changes changes the local temperature. Finally use that change in temperature to figure out how much ice will melt. While your results won't be as good as those produced by experienced research scientists, the basics are well within the grasp of someone with a high school education. Indeed, it is a common exercise for first year students in the physical sciences.
Once you've done that, you'll be better equipped to assess whether or not this is a climate lie.
would get an extremely prolonged growing season
Except for the part in the middle of the summer where the heat kills off all your corn, so you get two short growing seasons, and shorter fall/winter growing seasons. Enjoy your stunted corn and tomato-sized jack-o-lanterns.
The chronically uninformed and uninformable* will find some way to deny this is happening.
* - people who feel that their ignorance outweighs the knowledge of any scientist and so nobody with an IQ over 125 has anything to tell them.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
Cannot figure out if you're being serious or not ..
Am fairly sure no-one is spreading sand across Greenland, in the same way they do on the streets of Winnipeg Canada [sic].
Well China is number one in CO2 emissions but per capita you're correct the US is higher per capita than China in CO2 emissions. Now, GHG is one variable in the multidimensional entity you reference but also look at PM10 concentrations which really can screw up your health and surprisingly, Mongolia is the worst at 284, China 82, the US 18. But there are worse offenders such as Saudi Arabia 108, Botswana 199 and I was surprised to see the UAE at 132. Living in those places will definitely shorten your lifespan.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
With all the money that has been spent on global warming/climate change with little to no results do they think the American public will keep pushing billions their way with no results
All that moneyspent on climate change? The fossil fuel industry receives more subsidies than renewables by a wide margin (70% of US energy subsidies goes to fossil fuels).
Maybe if we didn't give the fossil fuel industry hundreds of billions of dollars every year it would be easier to meet emission targets?
Mmmmmm stunted corn....
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Particulates from coal-burning, wildfires, dust storms, volcanoes, Etc all contribute to the darkening of the snow. This is true thruout the northern temperate and arctic areas, not just Greenland.
Did you actually read the wiki article to which you linked? As stated in TFA, "...many of the "subsidies" available to the oil and gas industries are general business opportunity credits, available to all US businesses." The value of subsidies specifically targeting fossil fuels is only a small fraction of the total subsidies received. If you take away the subsidies available to all businesses we can just lower emissions by crushing the economy at large. I'm sure Silicon Valley would love to see the R&D expense credit go away in the name of eliminating fossil fuel subsidies.
As I said in a follow-up comment as I forgot to quote it first time:
Fossil fuel subsidies reached $90 billion in the OECD and over $500 billion globally in 2011.[1] Renewable energy subsidies reached $88 billion in 2011.
Whatever the source of that money, we are currently spending over 5x more on fossil fuel than on renewables which makes the argument that we're spending a lot of money on renewables and not seeing much in return pretty moot.
Will they have to rename the country Dark-Greenland?
Well, since the last ice age it's something like 450 feet higher but since the Great Melt its been rising at a pretty steady rate. Certainly over the last several centuries it's been a fairly constant rise. Nothing to do with "AGW". It's just natural variation.
The primary cause of glaciers shrinking is particulates in the atmosphere. This has been reported many times, but it doesn't fit with the whole Global Warming sound bite so it's generally ignored.
And Florida would totally disappear! Anyone else feel like going out right now and lighting off a coal seam?
Groucho
Tubby or not tubby. Fat is the question
No. You can only shoot the ones that voted for AGW deniers, or didn't vote at all.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
It's as if the earth never has experienced higher temperatures before and survived.
I don't think any scientist, or thoughtful person for that matter, questions whether the Earth will survive. Of course it will. Their real question is whether the changes will cause a great die off in humans and animals. Some animals will undoubtedly thrive in the new environment but humans, probably not so much.
people who understand the the amount of captured energy is going up?
and where do you get the 1.1 mm from?
http://www.ipcc.ch/publication...
"From 1950 to 2009, measurements show an average annual rise in sea level of 1.7 ± 0.3 mm per year, with satellite data showing a rise of 3.3 ± 0.4 mm per year from 1993 to 2009,[6] a faster rate of increase than previously estimated"
" With all the money that has been spent on global "
what do you mean all the money? hardly any has been spent dealing with the issue.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
> Try looking up albedo
Sorry that's too sciency. Don't you have anything at the hurr-durr level?
thegodmovie.com - watch it
No wonder people doubt climate change when scientists say things like this..
I'm just guessing here based on nothing but a few decades of involvement in the scientific community, but I'd say it's pretty likely that a) the scientists in question have thought of your objection already and b) they have quantified the relative contributions from increased grain size vs increased dark pollutants.
What would be incredibly stupid is assuming that people who study this stuff professionally can be out-thought by a random Internet commenter who has just encountered the question for the first time.
But just in case, let me ask you: what is the quantitative relationship between grain size and reflectivity of snow? Please respond with a graph or formula. You must have access to this information to judge the relative importance of grain size vs pollutant cover, and it would be a positive contribution to this discussion to share it.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
I was just picturing jets spraying out heavy metals and nanochips and radioactive compounds, and then the HAARP broadcasts frying all those nanochips, and so on, and thinking "That's the stupidest conspiracy evah!"
Who is John Cabal?
And yet if we don't control our CO2 emissions the end result will be an increased strain on our civilization which is likely to cause more wars anyway. For instance one factor in the Syrian conflict is the drought that Syria has been going through for the last 3 years. The chances are good that global warming is part of the Syrian drought. The effects of global warming won't always be directly visible as a cause of things like this but it's likely to be a factor and it's likely to get worse as global warming marches on.
Keep in mind the article is talking about Greenland only. The 20cm figure doesn't include expected melt from Antarctica and other glacial sources or the expected rise from thermal expansion.
Helium does disappear from the planet. The rest of your rant was just pathetic. You are lazily trying to explain why your wasteful lifestyle is acceptable, when anyone with half an ounce of grey matter can instantly see it for what it is.
Most wars are ultimately about resources. The changes caused by global warming are subtle enough that someone like you can easily argue they are natural occurrences in the short run but as time marches on they will become more and more obvious. Expansion of the Hadley Cells and more desertification in the descending legs (where Syria is located) is an expected result of global warming.
Nationalism or religious intolerance is the excuse you hear but more often that's a cover for resource competition. It's a lot easier for demagogues to whip up the population when resources are short.
Energy is a fungible resource. It's not necessary to produce it with fossil fuels or nuclear power (and I'm not anti-nuke but it is one of the more expensive ways to produce power). Getting off fossil fuels may necessitate some changes to our lifestyle but I don't believe it has to be any worse than we have now, just different.
Most economic analyses I've see show it will be much more expensive in the long run to not do something about global warming than it will be to do something about it.
I think we can factor in the cost of the Iraq war as an Oil subsidy, and the cost of the Afghanistan war as a subsidy to a gas company. The day after the Production Sharing Agreements were signed in Iraq with the same deal the oil companies had before Saddam kicked them out was the day we agreed to "stand down when they stood up."
If we look at more of our wars of choice as methods of reducing the costs of resources, the subsidy to energy companies would be in the trillions. Nobody is invading nations to steal their sunlight yet.
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