I'd assume that it's an average of maximum thickness year to year.
In other words, the average of the maximum thickness each year from the 1950s until now is 1.67m, which admittedly doesn't tell you if it was thicker recently or in the 50s, just that one or the other pulled it about 10% lower on average than this year.
I'd be more interested in the effect of that energy no longer existing in the atmosphere... what if we destroy the Ionisphere by accident? We'd be stuck with nothing but line of sight and sattelite communications. What is if prevents certain types of clouds from forming which turns certain parts of the world into deserts?
We harvested the energy in hydrocarbons, and then discovered later it had implications. People propose wind power (which would harvest energy from our weather) without any implications considered should we produce all of our energy that way. When will humans learn to think before they act?
I think that has something to do with the idea that governments operate under force of law. People are trained to be pacified by the authority of force of law. People readily resist, and have shown to be readily resistant to, the same tactics without the power of force of law.
In other words, government's oppression comes with an inherent ton of acceptance that doesn't occur in non-governmental structures. It's an ideological point, not a fact, so you don't have to agree, but it doesn't change the reality that only Libertarians seem to grasp the inherent oppression of political process.
"Liberals" seek government surveilence to "protect" people from themselves. "Conservatives" seek government surveilence to "protect" people from terrorists.
"Libertarians" seek citizen surveilence to protect people from their government.
Say what you will about the "craziness" of this or that Libertarian idea... they correctly understand that no matter who's in power, they're always trying to screw you.
I'm not a biologist or ecologist, but doesn't the ocean food chain start with algae? And don't algae produce oxygen from CO2 instead of sequestering it like phytoplankton?
Can't we fertilize parts of the ocean for plant growth instead?
The way to fix it, basically, is massive socialism to carry people through the hard times of losing most of their retirement, their houses, and their jobs. We can move back to a more capitalist system in the future if it ever looks like a good idea.
Let's ask the Germans how well that worked for them in 1932...
Three expansions at $10 a piece, so about $30 for all of them, or about average to below average for the "full" expansion, with the bonus that you don't have to pay for parts you don't want.
Ice ages happen regularly, on the order of tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of years, along the lines of Milankovitch cycles. The Isthmus of Panama formed once, three million years ago.
While an ice sheet on Antarctica began to grow some 20 million years ago, the current ice age is said to have started about 2.58 million years ago. During the late Pliocene the spread of ice sheets in the Northern Hemisphere began. Since then, the world has seen cycles of glaciation with ice sheets advancing and retreating on 40,000- and 100,000-year time scales called glacials (glacial advance) and interglacials (glacial retreat).
*sigh* It appears that once again, Slashdot has tried to avoid the meta-argument I pose in favor of disecting the randomly posed scenarios which I used to create such an argument.
I believe the phrase is... "Move along, nothing to see here"...
You completely missed the point, which was not "I think global warming is stupid and the sun is responsible", but rather "I think it's stupid that we create a theory, provide no cause and effect relationship, gather data that shows effect, the proclaim cause while something else may be going on".
I'm going to laugh my ass all the way to the grave if global warming activists kill us all because of an understudied field of science (ecology) led us to ignore other possible cause and effect relationships.
And I took special care to not invalidate global warming in my post. So don't get your panties in a twist, I haven't rained upon your parade.
Ah, it seems you have some information that is not mentioned in wikipedia. Oh, wait. Citation needed. Too bad.
Normally I don't reply to people who reply to my comments, but I really must know:
Why in the world would you start your quest to prove me wrong on a corrolary point by quoting an article about a man-made structure constructed some 2 million years after the geologic event I was referring to?
I've noted this a couple of times, and every time I'm modded down or ignored in the circle-jerk of "open ideas" that is any Slashdot comment section.
I find it incredibly arrogant that people attribute symptoms that are several levels removed from the "cause" to a model like global warming.
This has nothing to do with whether or not I think global warming is real or not... as far as I know, the reality of CO2 retaining heat in labs is very well studied.
The thing is that before we paid much attention to this stuff, there was ONE real model that predicted a global temperature increase: global warming. It was not ignored before because "the man" was trying to hide science, it was ignored because there was NO effort to show an actual cause and effect relationship.
But eventually we got such sensational anectdotal information that the science of global warming was assumed. This becomes embarressing when things like the carbon retention of the Sahara are studied, as we discussed weaks ago, and suddenly billions of tons of carbon disappear from the air in our models, but the temperature hasn't changed at all.
I think it's one of the surest signs ever of our arrogance as a species that we had ONE well studied theory predicting temperature change, and when it did, we attributed it to that theory without much in the way of a causal relationship study.
The reason this worries me is that, while fighting pollution and emissions is never a bad thing, we could very well be ignoring the elephant in the room, simply because the global warming discussion has become so political, (and that's the activists faults, not the scientists). What if, although our carbon certainly doesn't help, most of this is due to cyclical sun output? No matter what we do, we would be screwed then, and we'd be focusing on the wrong questions.
You know what caused the onset of the iceages? North and South America connected at Panama, cutting of the Pacific-Atlantic currents, which cooled the entire Northern Hemisphere. I fear we may be missing something equally as subtle in our hunt to show how wrong those big, ugly troglodytes in the [insert commodity] industry are, and it's being enabled by our need as a species to vindicate ourselves at the expense of accurate information. (See: Bush)
Actually I fully supported the war, though I think it's been mishandled. That doesn't mean I can't appreciate the realities of where we are now however, no matter how much happenstance is involved.
Slashdot Mirror
While slightly off topic, it's one of the more even and provoking "armchair" analysis'(?) that I've seen on the subject.
I'd assume that it's an average of maximum thickness year to year.
In other words, the average of the maximum thickness each year from the 1950s until now is 1.67m, which admittedly doesn't tell you if it was thicker recently or in the 50s, just that one or the other pulled it about 10% lower on average than this year.
Davis is not in central Antarctica. Nice try though.
I think it goes without saying, but NEVER cross the plasma arcs!
I'd be more interested in the effect of that energy no longer existing in the atmosphere... what if we destroy the Ionisphere by accident? We'd be stuck with nothing but line of sight and sattelite communications. What is if prevents certain types of clouds from forming which turns certain parts of the world into deserts?
We harvested the energy in hydrocarbons, and then discovered later it had implications. People propose wind power (which would harvest energy from our weather) without any implications considered should we produce all of our energy that way. When will humans learn to think before they act?
WHOA!
You live in the whole USA?!
I'd like to point out that your generation are the ones making these rules for the rest of us...
Just sayin'.
Yes, that's right. Only those who post online with perfect spelling have valid points.
I think that has something to do with the idea that governments operate under force of law. People are trained to be pacified by the authority of force of law. People readily resist, and have shown to be readily resistant to, the same tactics without the power of force of law.
In other words, government's oppression comes with an inherent ton of acceptance that doesn't occur in non-governmental structures. It's an ideological point, not a fact, so you don't have to agree, but it doesn't change the reality that only Libertarians seem to grasp the inherent oppression of political process.
No surprise there.
"Liberals" seek government surveilence to "protect" people from themselves. "Conservatives" seek government surveilence to "protect" people from terrorists.
"Libertarians" seek citizen surveilence to protect people from their government.
Say what you will about the "craziness" of this or that Libertarian idea... they correctly understand that no matter who's in power, they're always trying to screw you.
Right... but algae is the basis to all deep ocean foodchains I thought, so there has to be some kind of acceptable algae...
...with algae?
I'm not a biologist or ecologist, but doesn't the ocean food chain start with algae? And don't algae produce oxygen from CO2 instead of sequestering it like phytoplankton?
Can't we fertilize parts of the ocean for plant growth instead?
Let's ask the Germans how well that worked for them in 1932...
Three expansions at $10 a piece, so about $30 for all of them, or about average to below average for the "full" expansion, with the bonus that you don't have to pay for parts you don't want.
You mean your 25 cents.
*sigh* It appears that once again, Slashdot has tried to avoid the meta-argument I pose in favor of disecting the randomly posed scenarios which I used to create such an argument.
I believe the phrase is... "Move along, nothing to see here"...
You completely missed the point, which was not "I think global warming is stupid and the sun is responsible", but rather "I think it's stupid that we create a theory, provide no cause and effect relationship, gather data that shows effect, the proclaim cause while something else may be going on".
I'm going to laugh my ass all the way to the grave if global warming activists kill us all because of an understudied field of science (ecology) led us to ignore other possible cause and effect relationships.
And I took special care to not invalidate global warming in my post. So don't get your panties in a twist, I haven't rained upon your parade.
And for extra credit see here.
Normally I don't reply to people who reply to my comments, but I really must know:
Why in the world would you start your quest to prove me wrong on a corrolary point by quoting an article about a man-made structure constructed some 2 million years after the geologic event I was referring to?
I've noted this a couple of times, and every time I'm modded down or ignored in the circle-jerk of "open ideas" that is any Slashdot comment section.
I find it incredibly arrogant that people attribute symptoms that are several levels removed from the "cause" to a model like global warming.
This has nothing to do with whether or not I think global warming is real or not... as far as I know, the reality of CO2 retaining heat in labs is very well studied.
The thing is that before we paid much attention to this stuff, there was ONE real model that predicted a global temperature increase: global warming. It was not ignored before because "the man" was trying to hide science, it was ignored because there was NO effort to show an actual cause and effect relationship.
But eventually we got such sensational anectdotal information that the science of global warming was assumed. This becomes embarressing when things like the carbon retention of the Sahara are studied, as we discussed weaks ago, and suddenly billions of tons of carbon disappear from the air in our models, but the temperature hasn't changed at all.
I think it's one of the surest signs ever of our arrogance as a species that we had ONE well studied theory predicting temperature change, and when it did, we attributed it to that theory without much in the way of a causal relationship study.
The reason this worries me is that, while fighting pollution and emissions is never a bad thing, we could very well be ignoring the elephant in the room, simply because the global warming discussion has become so political, (and that's the activists faults, not the scientists). What if, although our carbon certainly doesn't help, most of this is due to cyclical sun output? No matter what we do, we would be screwed then, and we'd be focusing on the wrong questions.
You know what caused the onset of the iceages? North and South America connected at Panama, cutting of the Pacific-Atlantic currents, which cooled the entire Northern Hemisphere. I fear we may be missing something equally as subtle in our hunt to show how wrong those big, ugly troglodytes in the [insert commodity] industry are, and it's being enabled by our need as a species to vindicate ourselves at the expense of accurate information. (See: Bush)
Actually I fully supported the war, though I think it's been mishandled. That doesn't mean I can't appreciate the realities of where we are now however, no matter how much happenstance is involved.
Nice.
Except that the original assertion was that poor little Iran has no way to make electricity for itself. Which is patently false.
The discussion had nothing to do with whether or not we import LNG.
I said oil products, which includes natural gas, which by itself constitutes almost 20%.
But hey, these are just statistics, right? Define it however makes you right, it's what everyone else does.
So unusual that 20% of American electricity generation comes from oil products! Outrageous I tell you.
I expect strategic strikes from Israel from the air during the next presidency, which might lead to all out war, but I doubt it.