Originally posted by jaden101"Sunshine", the NASA images are of the recession of Arctic Ice, not Antarctic.
pay attention sunshine...the ice in the middle is thicker to the same extent the the ice at the edges has receeded...hence the polar caps arent getting smaller by mass
Originally posted by jaden101You're implication that the increase in Antarctic ice is equivalent to the loss in the Arctic isn't supported by the New Scientist article. Where did you derive the 45 billion figure? In case you don't know, Greenland is in the Northern Hemisphere.
strangely enough...they calculated the snowfall to the 45 billion tonnes per year...the same that is melting from the greenland glaciers
Originally posted by xmarksthespot
"Finally, Joughin says that two nearby West Antarctic glaciers are thinning rapidly, so the trend cannot be extended across the continent."
however there is a trend in "permanent" ice and not the so called "floating" ice.
QUOTE=5864331]Originally posted by Hit_and_Miss
oh dear... someone didn't read the fine print!
as the point out in the artical... it could just be a fluke... they didn't wana say that the trend would continue.... [/QUOTE]
Yes.
Why melting is not a threat
While today's balance between the icecaps and global sea level has been relatively steady since about 1000 B.C., it would be careless to assume that this is the Earth's natural state and that it should always be this way. What could happen to climate naturally in the next few thousand years? If the Earth continued to warm and break from ice age conditions, some of the remaining ice caps could melt. On the other hand, climate might swing back into another ice age. (In fact, some of the environmentalists now worried about global warming were worried about another ice age in the 1960s and 1970s.)
In either case, such a change in climate would take thousands of years to accomplish. Note that it has taken 18,000 years to melt 60% of the ice from the last ice age. The remaining ice is almost entirely at the north and south poles and is isolated from warmer weather. To melt the ice of Greenland and Antarctica would take thousands of years under any realistic change in climate. In the case of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, which accounts for 80% of the Earth's current ice, Sudgen argues that it existed for 14,000,000 years, through wide ranges in global climate. The IPCC 2001 report states "Thresholds for disintegration of the East Antarctic ice sheet by surface melting involve warmings above 20° C... In that case, the ice sheet would decay over a period of at least 10,000 years." [31] The IPCC is the United Nations' scientific committee on climate change; its members tend to be the minority that predicts global warming and its statements tend to be exaggerated by administrators before release. Given that the IPCC tends to exaggerate the potential for sea level rise, it is clear that no scientists on either side of the scientific debate on global warming fear the melting of the bulk of Antarctica's ice. Consider also this abstract of an article by Jacobs contrasting scientific and popular understanding:
A common public perception is that global warming will accelerate the melting of polar ice sheets, causing sea level to rise. A common scientific position is that the volume of grounded Antarctic ice is slowly growing, and will damp future sea-level rise. At present, studies supporting recent shrinkage or growth depend on limited measurements that are subject to high temporal and regional variability, and it is too early to say how the Antarctic ice sheet will behave in a warmer world. [32]
This statement alludes to the significant point that the Antarctic ice cap appears to currently be growing rather than shrinking. In fact, were the climate to warm significantly in the next few centuries (not a certain future, but supposing it happened), current models suggest that Antarctica would gain ice, with increased snowfall more than offsetting increased melting.
How much concern should we have about the 20% of world ice outside the East Antarctic Ice Sheet? Some sources have recently discussed the "possible collapse" of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS). It is suggested that this sheet (about 10% of Antarctic ice) could melt in the "near term" (a usefully vague phrase) and raise sea level 5 to 6 meters. Current understanding is that the WAIS has been melting for the last 10,000 years, and that its current behavior is a function of past, not current climate. [23] The abstract of an article by Alley and Whillans addresses this:
The portion of the West Antarctic ice sheet that flows into the Ross Sea is thinning in some places and thickening in others. These changes are not caused by any current climatic change, but by the combination of a delayed response to the end of the last global glacial cycle and an internal instability. The near-future impact of the ice sheet on global sea level is largely due to processes internal to the movement of the ice sheet, and not so much to the threat of a possible greenhouse warming. Thus the near-term future of the ice sheet is already determined. However, too little of the ice sheet has been surveyed to predict its overall future behavior. [34]
Similarly, recent stories have periodically appeared concerning the potential receding of the Greenland ice cap. Two points may be made regarding current understanding here. First, there is considerable disagreement as to the current rate of net ice cap loss--or even if there is net loss versus net gain. Second, even with temperature increases far greater than the dubious predictions of the IPCC, models indicate that Greenland's ice cap would take 2,000 to 10,000 years to disappear.
Alley, R. B., and I. M. Whillans, 15 Nov. 1991, "Changes in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet", Science, 254:959-962.
For Emphasis
Similarly, recent stories have periodically appeared concerning the potential receding of the Greenland ice cap. Two points may be made regarding current understanding here. First, there is considerable disagreement as to the current rate of net ice cap loss--or even if there is net loss versus net gain. Second, even with temperature increases far greater than the dubious predictions of the IPCC, models indicate that Greenland's ice cap would take 2,000 to 10,000 years to disappear.
Jaden is not wrong and neither is X the truth is the evidence is ambiguous and as Ush said you don't act on ambiguity.
ARG! stop copy pastin into every post... Sum it up in a couple of lines and then provide a link....
Again... If we are damaging the enviroment (like you agreed) what damage are we actually responcable for???
If GW(be it naturaly or man made) continues would it not be a bad thing??? should we not try to limit the amount of crap we put into the air?
Originally posted by Hit_and_Miss
ARG! stop copy pastin into every post... Sum it up in a couple of lines and then provide a link....Again... If we are damaging the enviroment (like you agreed) what damage are we actually responcable for???
If GW(be it naturaly or man made) continues would it not be a bad thing??? should we not try to limit the amount of crap we put into the air?
facts are the point - opinion means little and please don't tell me not to produce evidence, I don't debate your way. I use evidence to support my opinion.
I never agreed we were causing global watming or evidence for absolute evidence for it existed, as Ush said you are arguing something different.
I'm not asking to not produce evidence.. But you don't post anything yourself... Just something Copied and pasted from a website... Thats why I said "put a link" I'm fed up with reading monster chunks of text just to find out the underlying point is rubbish....(not saying this is the case)
Again...
If GW(be it naturaly or man made) continues would it not be a bad thing??? should we not try to limit the amount of crap we put into the air?
Originally posted by Hit_and_Miss
I'm not asking to not produce evidence.. But you don't post anything yourself... Just something Copied and pasted from a website... Thats why I said "put a link" I'm fed up with reading monster chunks of text just to find out the underlying point is rubbish....(not saying this is the case)Again...
If GW(be it naturaly or man made) continues would it not be a bad thing??? should we not try to limit the amount of crap we put into the air?
That's called secondary sources, I could paste a pale imitation of the evidence or I could use the real thing. I find the way many of you children on here say thing like "it's a fact because I say so hilarious". At least X marks the spot uses some evidence although he holds the stuff he doesn't like back often.
Be fed up with reading or better yet don't read it at all and stick to your opinion based arguments.
Whirly... lets get something straight here...
I haven't made up my mind if GW is natural or man made...
the only belief I have is that we have been poluting the enviroment for along time now.. Be it the water/deforestation/coal fires
Combined with the fact that temps are rising around the globe (naturaly or man made) should we not do something to stop this? after all GW isn't a good thing...
Originally posted by Hit_and_Miss
Whirly... lets get something straight here...
I haven't made up my mind if GW is natural or man made...
the only belief I have is that we have been poluting the enviroment for along time now.. Be it the water/deforestation/coal fires
Combined with the fact that temps are rising around the globe (naturaly or man made) should we not do something to stop this? after all GW isn't a good thing...
The temperature rise may also only be seasonal, or short term again the evidence is spurious that it's happening at all. The cold snap in Greece and the thickening of the perma frost are merely two of many anomalous peices of evidence against. Global Warming evidence is often aimed at promoting something as fact that simply is not. Evidence is conflicted.
Today
Kiev, Jan 26: A relentless Arctic weather front wreaked more havoc across a wide swath of eastern Europe today, killing 53 people overnight in Ukraine alone and severely disrupting transport networks in half a dozen countries.
Intemperate weather has even covered Athens's Acropolis in snow and frozen stretches of the eastern Danube running between Bulgaria and Romania.
The week-long deep freeze, forecast to last through tomorrow, has claimed hundreds of lives from the Baltic nations and Russia in the north all the way down to turkey and Greece, both semi-paralyzed by uninterrupted snowfall.
The 24-hour toll in Ukraine brings to 130 the number of weather-related deaths there since temperatures plunged into the minus 20s and minus 30s degrees Celsius.
The cold snap has also been lethal in Russia, with well over 100 deaths in Moscow alone, as well as Poland, where 14 persons died overnight yesterday and 53 have succumbed since last week.
Originally posted by xmarksthespot
"Sunshine", the NASA images are of the recession of Arctic Ice, not Antarctic.
You're implication that the increase in Antarctic ice is equivalent to the loss in the Arctic isn't supported by the New Scientist article. Where did you derive the 45 billion figure? In case you don't know, Greenland is in the Northern Hemisphere.
i'm well aware of the geography of the world...you asked where the figure came from
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05140/507684.stm
and from the los angeles gazzete
so its not my "implication" is it?...no
the new scientist article does show that the ice cap has had a net gain of mass...given that there is a fixed volume of water in all its states on the planet then global warming = increase in sea level isnt really the massive problem that some scientists predict
if there is one issue that could be a problem is that if the ice caps are geographically smaller as in your picture then that means they reflect less sunlight back into space and thus their "cooling" effect might be reduced
Originally posted by Hit_and_Miss
So your going to address a poorly understood condition with poorly presented materials???neither side has a very strong case for if we are the cause or not to GW..
But is GW a good thing????
You miss the point H and M 🙂 here Jaden explainse it pretty well the evidence for global warming is incredibly spurious, the arguments against it are at least as compelling.
Originally posted by jaden101
i'm well aware of the geography of the world...you asked where the figure came fromhttp://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05140/507684.stm
and from the los angeles gazzete
so its not my "implication" is it?...no
the new scientist article does show that the ice cap has had a net gain of mass...given that there is a fixed volume of water in all its states on the planet then global warming = increase in sea level isnt really the massive problem that some scientists predict
if there is one issue that could be a problem is that if the ice caps are geographically smaller as in your picture then that means they reflect less sunlight back into space and thus their "cooling" effect might be reduced
nice post Jade 🙂 Got to admit both you and X have really shown that this debate has conflicting evidence. I would expect nothing less from two quality biologists.
How can anyone form an educated opinion on an unknown such as GW with unkown variables and unknown results unless of course you are just looking for an answer. Most scientists will just refer you back to the previous document stating their findings................which are unclear as in the case.
Maybe you should open a thread with something more to the affect of general pollution and the planet?
Originally posted by soleran30
How can anyone form an educated opinion on an unknown such as GW with unkown variables and unknown results unless of course you are just looking for an answer. Most scientists will just refer you back to the previous document stating their findings................which are unclear as in the case.
agreed but people like H and M try to have an opinion based on "what they have heard". They then try and insult you when you ask for proof a bit sad really 🙁.