Antarctic Ice Sheet Collapse

[boarder]

Pretty impressive looking, I for one am not convinced of global warming though, everything goes in cycles and we are lucky that we have had the most stable 10 000 years in earths history.
Still you can't ignore the facts that the global average temperatures have risen since industrialisation 3degrees in Antarctic if im not mistaken, and that CO2 emmisions have been going up and up as we burn more fossil fuels.
But im still not totally convinced.

 

[Tee Kay]

This isn't supposed to happen either:

 

[MobBoss]

Yeah, yeah, we will all be like Kevin Costner in Waterworld eventually...

Meanwhile, its actually snowing its butt off right now out my window as I type this...the first time ever I have seen it snow at this location after Easter...utterly incredible...

 

[BasketCase]

I think I'm just gonna have a seat for this one, and enjoy the fun--the things I normally say in global warming threads are already being covered by other people.

Just for a kick I'll toss out an idea that's gonna really mess things up: some of you are worrying about rising temperatures? Others claiming falling temperatures? I will now destroy the Earth without doing either.

Observe: the Earth's global average temperature, right now, is about 289 degrees Kelvin (10 degrees C). Imagine if every spot on the entire planet was at this temperature? What would happen?

Answer: since the entire planet is now ten degrees above freezing, ALL ICE EVERYWHERE would melt. The result--utter disaster. But I haven't changed the planet's average temperature at all.


Enjoy.

 

[FriendlyFire]

Yeah, yeah, we will all be like Kevin Costner in Waterworld eventually...

Meanwhile, its actually snowing its butt off right now out my window as I type this...the first time ever I have seen it snow at this location after Easter...utterly incredible...

Uh isnt the maxium sea level rise will be 3-4Meter should ALL ice and caps melt ?
We have had an exceptionally warm Autumn here in Sydney.

 

[MobBoss]

Uh isnt the maxium sea level rise will be 3-4Meter should ALL ice and caps melt ?
We have had an exceptionally warm Autumn here in Sydney.

You are forgetting the ice comets that will impact the earth and add even more water to it....

I mean really....

 

[Godwynn]

Global Warming is an incorrect term.

Last autumn we had one hell of a drought. Right now, we are sitting at double the average precipitation for this time of year (20" compared to 10").

Alas, we cannot define CLIMATE CHANGE with one year's observations.

 

[Berzerker]

Mask

I would say it's normal, were it not for the fact that the ice sheet is shrinking every year and the ice lost in the summer is not made up in the winter, as it used to.

"Used to" is called an ice age, thats how ice sheets form and flow - more ice is made than lost. Just how do you think ice sheets melt away during interglacials if they aren't losing more in summer than they gain in winter? Thats cyclical and its natural...

 

[Berzerker]

This isn't supposed to happen either:

How do you know? Do you have a map of the Arctic sea ice for February? Or does showing us a map of sea ice near the height of summer prove something?

 

[Abaddon]

Thats cyclical and its natural...

Yes, but the very convienent pattern that has been followed for the last age isnt following its path this time.


BTW, just to throw a spanner at the works. the World hasn't ALWAYS experienced these cycles, its just in the earths recent history. Perhaps we are moving to a different phase?

 

[BasketCase]

That's not really any help to the issue, because the easy answer is to blame humans. Which is already being done by lots of people.

 

[Abaddon]

Not really, the earth has moved through many different phases since the dawn of time, perhaps we are moving out of the phase of "cyclic iceages"

 

[BasketCase]

.....



From what I've seen of Earth's past history--if that's happening, human-induced global warming just got reduced to utter insignificance.......

 

[Abaddon]

Did I mention we are one of many billion billion planets?

 

[Truronian]

Uh isnt the maxium sea level rise will be 3-4Meter should ALL ice and caps melt ?
We have had an exceptionally warm Autumn here in Sydney.

More like 72 meters.

 

[LesCanadiens]

I think I'm just gonna have a seat for this one, and enjoy the fun--the things I normally say in global warming threads are already being covered by other people.

Just for a kick I'll toss out an idea that's gonna really mess things up: some of you are worrying about rising temperatures? Others claiming falling temperatures? I will now destroy the Earth without doing either.

Observe: the Earth's global average temperature, right now, is about 289 degrees Kelvin (10 degrees C). Imagine if every spot on the entire planet was at this temperature? What would happen?

Answer: since the entire planet is now ten degrees above freezing, ALL ICE EVERYWHERE would melt. The result--utter disaster. But I haven't changed the planet's average temperature at all.


Enjoy.

I hope you realize you just said absolutely nothing of value.

I'm trying to figure out how to respond to some of the others in this thread, but neither have they presented anything of value. All I see so far is a few rebels without causes trying to buck what they perceive as nothing more than a trend by throwing around labels like "cyclical ice age" without elaborating on these claims. I'd like to see some more information rather than just a climate-change-denial circlejerk so I can refute it.

 

[Tee Kay]

Uh isnt the maxium sea level rise will be 3-4Meter should ALL ice and caps melt ?
We have had an exceptionally warm Autumn here in Sydney.

And here in Melbourne.

The sea ice will have little effect on the sea level. It's the expanding of water and melting ice on land that's mostly responsible for the rise.

I'm actually more worried about melting glaciers, since they supply our water, and change in rainfall patterns.

 

[LesCanadiens]

Thats not even close to true, sea levels rose dramatically at the end of the ice age - 66 ft over 2 centuries (and not gradual). And that was just one of many rapid increases in sea level. But as I said, sea levels did rise between 1940-1970 even though we were in a cooling trend. How does that happen? Less evaporation = less rain and snow = less water transfered to ice sheets.

Wait...your assertion is that we're exiting an ice age and therefore sea levels are rising as a result of a natural global warming? The last ice age ended about 18,000 years ago. To be fair, the definition of what constitutes an ice age is very slippery, so no doubt you can just fall back on some extremely lenient definition that conforms to your outlandish statements.

And no, we were not in a cooling period. Mean global temperature continued to rise. Asserting that we were in a cooling period at any point in the 20th century is either a deliberate lie or a willing ignorance of the facts. Temperatures in the 20th century are the highest on record, and the rate of temperature increase in the 20th century is also the highest on record. This coincides with a dramatic increase of CO2 concentrations to about 384 ppm, the highest in observable history (which goes millions of years back). And no, it doesn't count as a cooling period if the temperature fell overnight.

"Deniers"... Thats not true either, we have evidence that the mass extinction of ice age fauna at the end of the last ice age was brought on by a rapid increase in temperatures (ice core and coral data) far in excess of what we've experienced the last 150 years and other evidence of an ice age hitting us ~115,000 years ago within a generation (pollen from France).

No, the rate of temperature change in the 20th century is the greatest on record. Get your facts straight.

I have no axe to grind and I do my research, dont accuse me of being dishonest because I'm not convinced by the doom and gloom predictions of "environmentalists". When Al Gore was on Keith Olbermann, he was given the chance to respond to specific criticisms of his book and Gore attacked his critics instead accusing them of dishonesty. I detect a pattern... You clearly dont know what you're talking about, a 1 ft rise in sea levels cant be matched by nature

Well, obviously you do not do your research, otherwise you wouldn't make such patently stupid claims as "we were in a cooling period."

 

[ainwood]

An ice sheet the size of my state plops into the water?! We must build freezer units down there to stop the ice cap from melting!!

Yeah, but unfortunately the laws of thermodynamics would cause a few problems with that particular idea...

 

[Abaddon]

Not if we make the heat exchange pipes long enough to be used in industry!