Antarctic Ice Sheet Collapse

[FriendlyFire]

Could be a result of ocean currents circulating too much heat too far towards the poles. When you've got warm water near the equator and cold water up north, and you have an intercontinental ocean current (say, the Atlantic Conveyor) that stirs the water around, the result is what.....?

Work it out.

ironicly the hot cold water levels power the atlantic conveyor is on the DOWN side of the belt. what drives the warm water upwards into the straits of dover is actually fresh water mixing in with salt water in the sea.

even more ironic scientist believe should the amount of fresh water from increased flooding and torrentials raised continue to increase there is a chance (small at the moment) of it shutting down the conveyor completely. A far greater chance and what will probably happen is that the conveyor will slow down the flow of warm water.

Hopefully the other engine of the conveyor will pick up the slack unless the ice shelves there shut down that belt as well. Possible only should a massive amount of Frozen "FRESH WATER" effectively clogg the system.

The main problem with your uhhh anaylsis is that the main engine is powered by heavy salinity and light fresh water mixing rather then the hot and cold water temps.

 

[BasketCase]

Fine. So it's salinity instead of heat that POWERS the conveyor.

That is the CAUSE, doofus. I was talking about the RESULT.

George Orwell was more right than he realized. When their ideals are challenged, people suddenly develop this habit of not getting stuff. The above was very clear in my last post, and you still went whiff.

What does the conveyor DO? It stirs up the water. It mixes cold and warm together. What do you get? Medium water up north and medium water down south. When the water up north is medium instead of cold, what happens? Stuff melts.

Moderator Action: Flaming - warned. Keep it civil, please.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[BasketCase]

That's silly. Most people learn when they're five that failure is not a good reason to give up.

Failure is a good reason to not fail next time.

Tell me: do you want me to go on planting trees? I should mention that I do live in a temperate zone......by planting trees I could be destroying the planet as we speak......

Or how about I wait until we humans actually know what we're doing? There's all kinds of research currently in progress on the subject, and I have no objection to that.

So you agree humans can have an effect on global warming?

Undecided.

 

[Truronian]

Tell me: do you want me to go on planting trees? I should mention that I do live in a temperate zone......by planting trees I could be destroying the planet as we speak......

The tree planting thing is quite interesting... I found it's wiki. I don't think replanting trees willy nilly is necessarily the answer, however I am convinced that continued deforestation is exacerbating the situation.

 

[Pokurcz]

I didn't manage to read more than the first page of this thread its just to irritating.

So Ill just point out (even if someone els has all ready) that it is a El Ninia year wich is the opposite extreme of a El Ninio in that whole cycle of global climatic fluctuatins springing from air and sea current fluctuations in the pacific. The Ninio heats the ninia cools. seven yers ago, i believe, there was an El Ninio.

The el ninia is superimposed on the general climatic change and gives the impression of global cooling. It is an abnormality, it has for example given an extremely cool winter in central asia and extremely warm weather in europe.

For example this winter has been the warmest one in Sweden since regular temperature mesurments started in Stockholm 250 years ago. Spring started in february when it usualy arrives in mid april.

So it can be extremaly cold and warm in the northern hemisphere at the same time.

It is but a bit of fluctuations in the slower trend of global warming.

 

[DragonHawk]

A vast hunk of floating ice has broken away from the Antarctic peninsula, threatening the collapse of a much larger ice shelf behind it, in a development that has shocked climate scientists.

AHH we are DOOM !!!!.. quick quick destroy all SUVs... Except, if you buy carbon emission credits from Al Gore's companies (ot their subsidiaries), then you can polute as much as you want.....

 

[BasketCase]

I didn't manage to read more than the first page of this thread its just to irritating.

Trust me, get out while you can. CFC global warming threads are tough territory.

For those few of you still here, I've got more fun stuff.


If the Earth didn't have an atmosphere at all, the surface would be two different kinds of hell: hot enough to boil water during the day, and far below freezing at night. Even though the same amount of sunlight still hits the planet (yes, this is more stuff about where the energy is going).

Add an atmosphere, and you get two effects. First, heat that reaches the surface gets absorbed by the air, slowing its return to space. But there's a second effect. Greenhouse gases that absorb light and heat higher up in the atmosphere--before it reaches the ground--return heat to space faster. Think it through: carbon dioxide absorbs certain frequencies (its absorption spectrum is actually pretty specific) and therefore warms up. Warm air rises, circulating the heat into space.

Different greenhouse gases do this in different ways, but the effects are the same: the gases keep heat out, but the heat that does get in tends to stay in. What did I just describe?

An insulator.

A well-insulated object does what? It absorbs heat from (or loses it to) its surroundings more slowly. A well-insulated Earth will cool down more slowly at night and in winter, and warm up more slowly during the day and in summer. The end result is what?

More moderate temperatures. Mild winters and cool summers. And I already covered what can happen then.


What effects is global warming actually going to produce if and when it happens?

 

[brennan]

You're ranting about irrelevant generalisations again. Oh, and you're wrong in one important respect to boot.

 

[BasketCase]

You say that at everybody you disagree with. Again, glad I discovered this thread in order to find that out.

Anyone got something actually constructive, feel free.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Add an atmosphere, and you get two effects. First, heat that reaches the surface gets absorbed by the air, slowing its return to space. But there's a second effect. Greenhouse gases that absorb light and heat higher up in the atmosphere--before it reaches the ground--return heat to space faster. Think it through: carbon dioxide absorbs certain frequencies (its absorption spectrum is actually pretty specific) and therefore warms up. Warm air rises, circulating the heat into space.

Doesn't most of the heat 'escaping' from Earth escape because of reflection? edit: well, not actually heat, but energy from the sun,

Tell me how a warmer 'higher' atmosphere returns heat to space when space is a vacuum and has no particles to transfer heat to?

 

[brennan]

Isn't Venus your favourite example of a well insulated planet? How's that moderation of temperature extremes working out over there?

 

[BasketCase]

Wikipedia says it's working out extremely well.

Thermal inertia and the transfer of heat by winds in the lower atmosphere mean that the temperature of Venus's surface does not vary significantly between the night and day sides, despite the planet's extremely slow rotation.

"Thermal inertia" being the scientific term for the heat absorption of insulating substances. So, what's causing Venus' night side to stay the same temperature as the day side??? Insulation and stirring. Just like I've been saying.

Doesn't most of the heat 'escaping' from Earth escape because of reflection? edit: well, not actually heat, but energy from the sun,

Tell me how a warmer 'higher' atmosphere returns heat to space when space is a vacuum and has no particles to transfer heat to?

Same way heat travels from the Sun to the Earth??

It's called radiation. Take a look at any infrared photo of the night side of the Earth, and you're SEEING the heat escaping into space. No particles needed.

 

[brennan]

No: Thermal Inertia is an example of Hysteresis.

So you're happy that the temperature on Venus is 'moderate' then? Planning a vacation there soon?

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Same way heat travels from the Sun to the Earth??

Don't you roll your eyes at me little man. I was just asking questions.

You're right it does, radiation slipped my mind. No reason to be a jerk about it.

 

[BasketCase]

Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.

You have done badly unto me. You've been a jerk to me in every global warming thread I've attended.

No: Thermal Inertia is an example of Hysteresis.

Insulation is what produces hysteresis. Wikipedia again:

A system with hysteresis can be summarised as a system that may be in any number of states, independent of the inputs to the system. To be exact, a system with hysteresis exhibits path-dependence, or "rate-independent memory"[citation needed]. By contrast, consider a deterministic system with no hysteresis and no dynamics. In that case, we can predict the output of the system at some instant in time, given only the input to the system at that instant. If the system has hysteresis, then this is not the case; we can't predict the output without looking at the history of the input. In order to predict the output, we must look at the path that the input followed before it reached its current value.

An insulated object takes time to warm up. You gotta look at the history to determine the current state.

You guys are two of the reasons I'm skeptical of global warming. This is like the third time in a row I've stared blankly at the screen and gone "oh, come ON, I can't believe he asked that".


No, not planning a vacation on Venus, but our sister planet, which is at the same time a symbol of love and the physical embodiment of Hell (a splendid bit of poetic truth there), proves my position very clearly. Greenhouse gases exert an insulating effect. The effect of insulation is to slow down and moderate changes in temperature. That's why the surface of the Earth doesn't heat up to the boiling point of water during the day or drop to fatally cold temperatures at night.

None of this has any bearing on whether global warming and a rise in sea level will happen. As I already described, moderate climate can be a bad thing. Polar ice can still melt--it might simply happen in a different way than you expected.

Bitter-cold winters and scorching summers may be the price we have to pay to avoid seeing the oceans rise by five meters.

 

[BasketCase]

So now, everybody has seen the real problem with global warming.

Global warming is right up there with abortion: it carries an extremely high level of involvement with the people who believe in it. Dissidents are not tolerated.

 

[Berzerker]

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

I've come up with what I believe to be a decent analogy to describe the situation: think of living in the Midwest in August - hottest time of the year for most people in the northern hemisphere. But not June 21st, the longest day of the year. The day when the sun is furthest north. Why not? Why does the northern hemisphere get even hotter up to maybe 2 months after the sun's most northerly point?

There is a lag time between the solstice and the real summer heat, and I believe thats true for the Earth's axial tilt. The Earth had a warm period 9-5 k BC which coincided with the Earth's axial tilt reaching its northerly maximum of ~24.5 degrees. Today we're at 23.44 degrees headed for the minimum at ~22 or maybe 21.5 degrees (the numbers and predictions etc vary). That means we're in the August of the longer cycle.

I believe the Earth's orbit right now is at its least eccentric (or near it) and how close we are in summer in the north also factor into this, and those are cyclical too. Astronomers have identified a 30-35,000 year warm period 400,000 years ago with orbital characteristics similar to today.

I'm hoping our pollution does change the pattern... An ice age world sucks. St Pat didn't drive the snakes out of Ireland, and ice age did

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?

Recent geologic history, an ice age 3-4 million years ago is believed to have forced primate populations onto open savannahs and some onto evolutionary adaptations.

 

[Berzerker]

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.

Hey, you figured out how to respond to us - with absolutely nothing of value.

 

[Berzerker]

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?

Wait...your assertion that a 1ft rise in sea levels over 50 years is unnatural was just refuted and this is your response to my rebuttal? Where did I say we were exiting an ice age? Use an actual quote...

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.

What does this have to do with your assertion? And 18 kbp was the ice sheet maximum but the massive flooding associated with the end of the ice age occurred later - between 13-7 (?) kbp. Maybe even as recently as 5,500 bp as Lake Agassiz let go again with one last torrent.

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.

We've been on warming trend for millennia. That doesn't mean we dont have cooling periods, the mini ice age (1350-1810?) is sandwiched in between a warm period around 1000 AD and today. How do you think climatologists refer to periods when we dont warm as fast or cool down if not a cooling period?

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.

When did records start How much of Greenland is...green? Apparently enough of it was green for the Vikings to make a go of it. But they abandoned Greenland around the time the mini ice age started. And 30-40 years qualifies as a cooling period so we aint talking about overnight.

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

That record has been expanding thanks to the research of paleo-climatologists, and they've detected evidence of a massive double digit rise in NA temperatures coinciding with the mass extinction of ice age fauna in NA. So what record are you using? Thermometers? The northern hemisphere warmed quite a bit when the mini ice age ended so I dont even accept that assertion.

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

I've done enough research to know climatologists refer to cooling and warming periods... And we were in a cooling period from 1940-1970. If you cant discuss the issue without calling me a liar, just go away. I'm not your teacher and feel no obligation to continually correct your mistakes while being called ignorant and dishonest.

Here's

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/world_warmth.html

your chance to do some research

 

[Berzerker]

Unless tha atlantic converyer shuts down then we would have expanded ice as heat would remain trapped around the equater. As colder winters leading to hotter summers produces a net total negative.

It doesn't shut down, it migrates south - thats the theory, but its based in part on the belief the belt shut down ~11.5 kpb (Younger Dryas) or something when Lake Agassiz flooded the Hudson and N Atlantic. There's problems extrapolating from that event, sea levels were much lower and the flooding more rapid.