OK. Glad that's all settled.
Arctic Ice to Last Decades Longer Than Thought?
by leavingwt 41 Replies latest social current
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villabolo
Irony of ironies, look what the fox dragged in.
Greenland, Antarctic Ice 'in Runaway Melt Mode'
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
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WASHINGTON —
New satellite information shows that ice sheets in Greenland and western Antarctica continue to shrink faster than scientists thought and in some places are already in runaway melt mode.
British scientists for the first time calculated changes in the height of the vulnerable but massive ice sheets and found them especially worse at their edges. That is where warmer water eats away from below. In some parts of Antarctica, ice sheets have been losing 30 feet a year in thickness since 2003, according to a paper published online Thursday in the journal Nature.
Some of those areas are about a mile thick, so they still have plenty of ice to burn through. But the drop in thickness is speeding up. In parts of Antarctica, the yearly rate of thinning from 2003 to 2007 is 50 percent higher than it was from 1995 to 2003.
These new measurements, based on 50 million laser readings from a NASA satellite, confirm what some of the more pessimistic scientists thought: The melting along the crucial edges of the two major ice sheets is accelerating and is in a self-feeding loop. The more the ice melts, the more water surrounds and eats away at the remaining ice.
• Click to visit FOXNews.com's Natural Science Center.
"To some extent it's a runaway effect. The question is how far will it run?" said the study's lead author Hamish Pritchard of the British Antarctic Survey. "It's more widespread than we previously thought."
The study does not answer the crucial question of how much this worsening melt will add to projections of sea level rise from man-made global warming. Some scientists have previously estimated that steady melting of the two ice sheets will add about 3 feet (1 meter), maybe more, to sea levels by the end of the century. The ice sheets are so big, however, that it probably would take hundreds of years for them to disappear.
As scientists watched ice shelves retreat or just plain collapse, some had thought the problem could slow or be temporary. The latest measurements eliminate "the most optimistic view," said Penn State University professor Richard Alley, who was not part of the study.
The research found that 81 of the 111 Greenland glaciers surveyed are thinning at an accelerating self-feeding pace.
The crucial problem is not heat in the air, but the water near the ice sheets, Pritchard said. The water is not just warmer, its circulation also is adding to the melt.
It is alarming," said Jason Box of Ohio State University, who also was not part of the study.
Worsening data, including this one, keep proving "that we're underestimating" how sensitive the ice sheets are to changes, he said.
VILLABOLO
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quietlyleaving
Vilabolo the Independent newspaper carried a similar article recently. I'd definitely like to see more attention given to the subject in a rational way rather than in an hysterical way but I guess that isn't always possible once newspapers get hold of stories.
I remember reading an article a while back that because of the lack of sunspot activity the earth ought to be a lot colder than it is. If this is true then there is a short term plus side to warming by manmade greenhouse gases.
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Witness 007
On the graph between 1930-1980 there was a huge drop or stabalizing in temp. increase so what happened? Did the factories have a holiday? "Global Warming" is a New Cult!!!!!!!!!!!
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villabolo
Witness 007: "On the graph between 1930-1980 there was a huge drop or stabalizing in temp. increase so what happened? Did the factories have a holiday? "Global Warming" is a New Cult!!!!!!!!!!!"
Look at Besty's graph. Also, look at my NASA link on the first page with its satellite surveilance time lapse photography of the Arctic ice cap. You have to realize that complex systems like our earth react in complex ways. The burning of fossil fuels started during the industrial revolution and continued throughout the time period you mentioned. We were in a "mini ice age" until 1850 so it is possible that our relentless burning of fossil fuels got us out of that.
Climatologists state that there is a time lag between the release of gases and its effects. One of the reasons being that the oceans could absorb co2 up to a point. A critical mass is reached, like the proverbial straw that broke the camels' back, and then other things happen like temperature rise. It was the 1990s that started setting off heat records one after the other. It was the early 2000s that climatologists and native residents started noticing a persistent pattern of ice glacier and ocean ice shrinkage.
And yet the relevance of this escapes most people including environmentalists. What is happening, particularly in the North Pole is of utmost importance to us not merely because it serves as a warning and proof of Global Warming but because, that shrinkage, by and of itself, could have severe consequences for the entire Northern Hemisphere including the USA. These consequences have little to do with the bugaboo of rising sea levels by the end of the century but with, at some point, a chain reaction of events that will destabilize our weather to the point where we suffer crop failures.
The corn in Kansas just doesn't give a damn as to whether Miami or New York are drowned or not. They care about getting water for themselves, not too little and not too much like the monsoon type rains we've been having. The wheat in the Midwest doesn't care how air conditioned you are but on reliable weather patterns like cold winters-for winter wheat, etc. Farmers have been growing our crops based on predictable weather with some leeway for modest losses. We cannot afford to loose, on a consistent basis, even half of our crops.
This is a basic assesment of what North Polar ice shrinkage would do:
1. The white ice, which reflects light and heat from the sun is giving way to blue ocean which absorbs heat and warmth raising the temperature of Siberia and Alaska and melting their permafrost even further than what it's melting now. This thawed permafrost releases co2 and methane in huge quantities reinforcing the global effects.
2. Irrespective of any further release of greenhouse gases there will be a chain reaction of weather changes such as we're having now.
villabolo
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besty
On the graph between 1930-1980 there was a huge drop or stabalizing in temp. increase so what happened? Did the factories have a holiday? "Global Warming" is a New Cult!!!!!!!!!!!
What graph are you looking at? The NASA graph posted above shows a clear rising trend from the time of mass industrialization to the present. Cherry-picking data that appears to support a viewpoint is a wellworn denier tactic that has been exposed on this board numerous times.
In this case Witness007 you have cherrypicked a set of dates that debunk the denier viewpoint you are trying to support - the graph above shows a rising temperature trend between 1930 and 1980.
DUH. The only cult round here is the excessive use of multiple exclamation points to make a weak argument look impressive.
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villabolo
Another issue worth bringing up on this subject. Global dimming. The burning of coal and oil puts into our atmosphere a wide range of gases and particles. Airplanes also leave a trail of water vapor into our atmosphere. Some of those particles and gases reflect light. This most probably accounts for the fact that many global warming computer models predict that the earth should be warmer than what it is now. A faulty computer model? Yes but only because it underestimates what should be happening by not including the effects of soot and airplane contrails.
This was proven right after 9/11 when all civilian airplane traffic was grounded for a few days. The temperature rose by a couple of degrees and went down again as air traffic resumed.
Then there is the issue of coal and oil as respects to their ability to reflect some of the heat. So far this Ying/Yang duel between warm up and cool down it seems that the warm up side is winning. But what is going to happen if we manage to replace our energy infrastructure with clean energy from whatever source? It's going to get warmer with a lot of wonky weather. That doesn't mean that we should not replace our current system with clean energy. Simple reason being that even if it gets worse it will get even more worse if we do nothing.
villabolo
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beksbks
Then there is the issue of coal and oil as respects to their ability to reflect some of the heat.
Aahh I've read about this. Very scary. We do the right thing, and it's going to actually make it worse before it makes it better. Crazy how we have just sat back and let this happen.
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villabolo
Then there is the issue of coal and oil as respects to their ability to reflect some of the heat.
beksbks: "Aahh I've read about this. Very scary. We do the right thing, and it's going to actually make it worse before it makes it better. Crazy how we have just sat back and let this happen."
Actually beks it may not make things better just bad instead of horrific. In order to make it better we would need more than clean energy. We will need to find a way of sucking out a lot of the co2 from the atmosphere. Sorry to be such a poop.
villabolo
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besty
The primary solution is efficiency.
In the past three decades, electricity per capita has stayed flat in Californian while it has risen 60% in the rest of the country. If all Americans had the same per capita electricity demand as Californians, we would cut electricity consumption 40%. And if all of America adopted the same energy efficiency policies that California is now putting in place, the country would never have to build another power plant.
source: climateprogress.org
Americans need to learn more about the concept of less. Mother Nature will not negotiate 'the right to the American lifestyle'.